G12: Halloween

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I couldn’t resist rigging up the G12 to grab a few Halloween shots. Because of low light (wouldn’t be Halloween otherwise, right?) the pictures would probably show a lot of noise and motion blur but that would be OK. Besides, these were just for fun.

Custom modes are great for saving the setup. I placed the G12 about 10 feet away from the candy hand-off spot, set the widest angle focal length and focused manually. The power saving function was turned off and the display was turned off. The camera was in Av mode at f5.6, ISO 800 and shooting RAW + JPEG. These settings were saved as custom mode C1.

The shot above is seriously cropped (using about 1/4 the full size) from the RAW image and then downrezzed to 800x600.  It was taken at ISO 800, f5.6 and 1 second exposure.  Noise reduction was applied in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR).

Actually, I messed up – or, better said – can make improvements next time with the experience gained. For starters, I should have used Auto ISO and set the maximum ISO at 3200. Sure, the images might be noisy but so what? By using f5.6, the depth of field is from 2.5 feet to infinity when the focus is set for 10 feet. But even at f2.8 the depth of field is from 4.1 feet to infinity! I should have set f2.8 for the low light and set focus at the hyperfocal distance of 7 feet to achieve focus from 3.5 feet to infinity.

Finally, I forgot that the slowest shutter speed for the G series in Av mode is 1 second. This has been a frequent complaint about G series cameras. Of course, no little goblin is going to remain in one place for more than a second anyway so the 1 second limit did not really cost me any pictures.

The G12 was triggered by the Yongnuo RF-602 wireless trigger. Normally used with flash, the RF-602 can also trigger the G12. When fitted to the G12 with the Yongnuo shutter connecting cord LS-02/C1, the RF-602 acts much the same as the Canon wired remote RS60-E3. In addition to its hotshoe connections, the RF-602 transmitter has a button that can be pressed to activate the receiver. It even has the “half pressed” shutter button function!

The G12 battery, an NB-7L clone, easily lasted the setup time plus roughly 75 minutes of being ON without the G12 power saving feature. Of course, the display was OFF. In fact, I’d used the G12 earlier that day for about 15 minutes and then viewed the results of the Halloween shoot for another 15 minutes later that night. I don’t remember how much battery power was left but nothing was blinking.

Too bad I didn’t get a great picture but wait ‘til next year!
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