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For any photo gurus here in the GTA and surrounding areas, there is a photography show this weekend at the international centre on airport road: http://www.henrys.com/webapp/wcs/stores ... reId=10001

I'm gonna try to go on saturday.

I may see you yet because I am planning on going on Saturday too.

Here's to hoping Canon has demo G11 and S90 models.

BTW, RFD has links to print out free admission tickets.

So did either of you guys go? If so....how was it?

Spent the whole day today attending sessions. Most of them are excerpts from those Henrys training courses and they are selling an offer of 2 courses for the price of one ($80). May be useful or redundant info depending on what you know already. Some sessions they have guest speakers, either to sell their own stuff or they are sponsored by vendors (I attended the Sports Photography and Lighting Mastery sessions by Kristian Bogner; he's a sponsored Nikon guy). The show floor is like any other trade shows, there are booths from vendors and other groups with swags and stuff. Nikon, Canon, Panasonic, Fuji, Olympus, Casio, etc. all have booths there.

My personal product highlights: they have two functional S90 and G11 units on demo (not sure if they are final hardware+firmware). According to them Henrys just got the first G11 shipments this morning, $600 MSRP. The S90 is end of this month or beginning of Novemeber, $520 MSRP . At the Panasonic booth you can play with the GF1 and they have a couple of the new ZR1 P&S. My only priority is to try out the S90 so I got what I wanted. Unless the samples and DPReview come out bad this will finally be my upgrade that I have been waiting for years.

I'm gonna go this morning. Yesterday turned out to be a really busy day. I really just want to see what Sony is coming out with in terms of wide-angle lenses and at what zoom.

I need to get a new camera for my wife. She gave away the A580 to her little brother, so I'll hit the Canon booth too. She likes the SD890, SD990, and the SD780. I have some time to pick one up too, till mid-december.

I was at Best Buy on Friday & saw they had the new Sony Alpha's there and I must say I don't like them at all. They feel really cheap. They feel like one of the super zoom P&S cameras. The ones they had on display were the a230 and the a330. Even the LCD screen feels flimsy on the a330. I was afraid to pull it out for fear that it might break off. The plastic hinges didn't feel solid at all. I'm glad I got my a300 last year instead of having to choose from the craptastic offerings they have out right now.

lex-ington wrote:

I need to get a new camera for my wife. She gave away the A580 to her little brother, so I'll hit the Canon booth too. She likes the SD890, SD990, and the SD780. I have some time to pick one up too, till mid-december.

If she has no special requirements the SD1200 IS would be the cheapest to get. I would like to suggest to see if you can find the SD880 IS (it seems to have been discontinued I can't seem to find them anymore), the 28mm wide angle is well worth it IMO. In fact I have almost swore that I am never going to use anything higher than 30mm at wide again.

Remember though now that you are looking at the SD series, you are into ultracompact category which means prices are generally higher than the "vanilla" compact A series.

Flying Fox wrote:

lex-ington wrote:

I need to get a new camera for my wife. She gave away the A580 to her little brother, so I'll hit the Canon booth too. She likes the SD890, SD990, and the SD780. I have some time to pick one up too, till mid-december.

If she has no special requirements the SD1200 IS would be the cheapest to get. I would like to suggest to see if you can find the SD880 IS (it seems to have been discontinued I can't seem to find them anymore), the 28mm wide angle is well worth it IMO. In fact I have almost swore that I am never going to use anything higher than 30mm at wide again.

Remember though now that you are looking at the SD series, you are into ultracompact category which means prices are generally higher than the "vanilla" compact A series.

I'm gonna see what Canada Computers have left. I rather like the SD780. I know I started this discussion before and ou had recommended the SD880 for the 28mm angle. Back then I didn't have the money for it. This time I actually have some time to save up the money.

As for the a230 and the a330 - they are cheap. Once I saw that they are "dummying" the cameras for the basic user to get into SLR territory, I knew they were using cheap stuff and taking out the parts that make SLR's what they are. I'm sure the cameras still take good pictures, but the targeted audience will still never learn how to TAKE a picture. The ones at the show didn't feel good until you picked up the a500. Even the a550 feels funny. the a850 and the a900 felt great though.

Man, the G-series lenses are some heavy suckers. I did see some lenses that I really liked - in particular the 18mm-250mm lens was nice, but the Tamron 17-74 f/2.8 lens was sweet and cost $550 from a place called Amplis. Sigma was there but I didn't get to that booth. Canon just had too many people. I did take a look at the Sony WX1 P&S camera with the 220 degree panoramic sweep option . . . . .really nice . . . but at $400, pure madness.

I'll be going back next year though. Specifically for the software seminars, as I now see that I must learn Photoshop.

lex-ington wrote:

I'm gonna see what Canada Computers have left. I rather like the SD780. I know I started this discussion before and ou had recommended the SD880 for the 28mm angle. Back then I didn't have the money for it. This time I actually have some time to save up the money.

43 MP/cm² pixel density for the SD780 ouch. I would take the SD1200IS instead if I were you.

lex-ington wrote:

the targeted audience will still never learn how to TAKE a picture.

In the talks those are being referred to as "Uncle Harry" and "Uncle Fred".

lex-ington wrote:

Canon just had too many people.

I had to wait after 6:30pm (all the sessions are done) and then I got some quality time with the S90.

lex-ington wrote:

I did take a look at the Sony WX1 P&S camera with the 220 degree panoramic sweep option . . . . .really nice . . . but at $400, pure madness.

To me panoramic sweep is a gimmick. Handheld twilight mode is the real thing to try. It seems to work and the samples floating on the web look fantastic coming out of a ultracompact P&S. If you are already invested in Sony's system with a bunch of memory stick, definitely wait for the price to drop and get it. The size is pretty small but I do feel it is a bit more cheaply built as it is so light (may be good with the ladies though). Another issue is whether you wife would want to stick with so-called "Canon colour". I used a lot of Panny's and I like the features, but I can't ever quite get used to Panny colour. So while the WX1 may be good the wife may not like it.

lex-ington wrote:

I'll be going back next year though. Specifically for the software seminars, as I now see that I must learn Photoshop

I have been hearing that if you take relatively good RAW, Lightroom is simpler and better for the task? Of course if you need to paste someone's head (dude didn't show up for the picture) in a scene, then you pretty much need to learn PS.

taking out the parts that make SLR's what they are.

... The mirror?

Flying Fox wrote:

lex-ington wrote:

I'm gonna see what Canada Computers have left. I rather like the SD780. I know I started this discussion before and ou had recommended the SD880 for the 28mm angle. Back then I didn't have the money for it. This time I actually have some time to save up the money.

43 MP/cm² pixel density for the SD780 ouch. I would take the SD1200IS instead if I were you.

Speaking of the SD1200 IS, Dell.ca is selling it for $179 and the excellent Fuji F70EXR for $249. Of course if you can really wait til Boxing Week you should also get some excellent deals. Not to be stereotypical, a friend of mine bought the SD1200 IS for his wife to replace a some older Sony T (T = super slim with somewhat crappy folded optics) and they like the Canon way over the Sony.

* Deal lasts until the 23rd.

Time to pick up a new camera for the wife.

Yeah I know . . . . I did this last year about the same time. Ended up getting her the Canon A540, but she gave that to her brother.

What do you guys think about this one for the price? Fuji Finepix Wide-angle