Effective use of a Canon G9 in closeup mode. The EXIF info contains all the camera particulars.

Pulled the RAW file into Adobe Camera Raw for the first edit. Modified saturation, vignette, fill light, and graduated filter to darken the top edge. Second edit increased fill light for the stem.

Part of my Labor Day was walking through Barnes and Noble with family, watching the grandkid’s excitement at every book they found. It was a relaxing time as I enjoyed a 6-year-old’s feverish search for the best books he could find for his reading level and hi solder sister’s rediscovery of books she’d found at six.

I never go to the bookstore without investigating two aspects of the publishing industry.

How many catch lights in the eyes of the models on the magazines published for women and what is the source and who is the photographer for the most recently published books? I can’t even enjoy a simple day at the bookstore with my family without exploring good photography and advanced techniques.

Later, when I went out for the daily photo shoot, the covers of books was on my mind as I watched two fishermen “drowning worms” in a familiar inlet on Hoover Reservoir.

I’s purposely carried only my Canon G9 to simplify my photo search with the limitations of a point and shoot camera. The restriction can be liberating although it takes a radical mindset to think that less is more.

I’ve often seen the tips of inverted rods with plastic lines passing through the final eyelet. This particular arrangement of color and background with light focused through the open space above a thin inlet at sunset seemed perfect for a book cover photo.

G9, 7.4mm, f3.5, macro focus, ISO200, -4/3 exposure, RAW, ACR, blacks increased, slight vignette.

Football Friday Night High School Football with a Canon G9 instead of a Nikon D300 - Photo by Gary Gardiner/SmallTown Stock

It was going to be a simple evening of high school football. Me and a couple of grandchildren at the season opener. I no longer shoot high school football, or most high school sports. There are plenty of photographers who love the low wages, the requirements for fast, expensive lenses, and dark stadiums.

I did take my Canon G9, the one with screws missing and, from what I’ve been told by too many camera technicians is impossible, a dust ball on the sensor.

I was taking it only for protection. My condom against disaster.

As luck would have it, disaster struck. It was a minor disaster. Still, it wasn’t  what was planned.

Before the game teams could take the field for pre-game ceremonies and final warmups, a very large and threatening storm front moved across the city prematurely darkening the skies and filling the early night air with lightning.

The crowd was wisely advised to go into the school until the storm passed. Like most news photographers I remained outside ready for lightning strikes or tornadic winds. My Palm Pre browser, viewing the mobile weather.com site,  showed me it would be some time before the game would start, if at all.

The problem was I was holding only the G9. It’s a fine camera but the camera’s higher ISO settings and poor shadow performance meant I’d not be too successful getting a lightning photo or emotional crowd shot. I alsodidn’t have a tripod, almost a necessity for a night lightning photo.

I had to prop the G9 on fence posts, light poles, brick corner posts, and the soccer goal. None were sturdy enough for long exposures, especially with my hands as the other steady anchor points.

I changed my work process to exclude lightning photos and concentrate on the roiling clouds as they moved over the stadium. Even then I was limited by the G9’s limited wide angle view the prevented deep verticals. The widest vertical I could get didn’t include a good compositional element with the stadium and the lights at the base.  I couldn’t back up any further. I was already shooting through a chain link fence at the edge of the parking lot.

I shot away, G9 at the ready, noisy, slow, too narrow a view, and missing screws.

Even then, the resulting photo wasn’t bad. I was just not happy that it could have been with a D300, 14-24, and a tripod.