There’s a couple of reasons for this post. One is that I’ve
been asked several times now how I’ve been able to overcome certain
limitations when shooting with a compact camera… The second is because I
recently came across a great article that I wanted to share. I had actually
seen the article some time before but only recently found it again… the story
is about an award winning Magnum photographer who shoots only with compact
cameras… If you’re only interested in that part (and even if you’re not interested in compact cameras I definitely recommend this article) – skip to the end.

OK so back to the main topic, shooting under limitations. The first thing you need to accept is that shooting
with a compact camera is very different from shooting with a DSLR. Given the
right amount of time / equipment, I can’t think of a single situation where I’d
choose a compact camera over a DSLR. However, in real life we’re often
presented with less than ideal situations. Many times I won’t carry a big /
expensive / heavy DSLR with me but might be willing to take a compact. Or I
might not have an appropriate lens with me (or even own one in the first place),
yet find that the focal length is covered by my compact camera’s focal range.
Or I might just want to have a bit of fun and do something different. In any of
these cases, carrying a compact is a definitely a good thing I’m glad to own
and occasionally shoot with one.

OK with that said, it’s also nice to be actually able to take half decent pictures with a compact and
understanding its limitations is the key to being able to achieve
that. I’ll now go through what I consider to be the biggest issues and then talk about
how I overcome each one.

Auto focus and not shooting the subject

OK so this is the first thing I need to mention. It’s probably one
of the most noticeable things – that irrespective of how fast a compact’s
autofocus system is, it’s never quite fast enough. DSLR’s have a feeling of
being able to instantly respond to your needs whereas compacts are deathly slow
by comparison. Everyone who’s used a compact will know the feeling of wincing
after having missed a shot – and not nearly missing – but missing it truly and completely
because the AF system couldn’t lock in on the target and while the subject
raced by, the camera was left simply "hunting" back and forth.

OK so one of the important things to first understand about your compact is
what actually affects the AF system. The following will usually cause problems
for the camera’s AF:

- Low light
- Areas of similar tone or lacking in contrast
- Certain types of patterns
- Shooting at a long telephoto

So shooting a subject in bright light with a wide angle lens is usually pretty
reliable on all cameras. However, turn down the available light and / or shoot
at a long telephoto and you’ll often find the situation much more challenging. Add
to that a subject that is of a similar tone / colour to the background or has no
significantly discernible marks and “challenging” can quickly become
“impossible”. So what can you do to compensate? Well, when the AF system is at
its most troubled, I often will not even shoot the subject. Instead, what I do
is look for an area of high contrast near the subject and aim for that. You
see, the AF system works best when it has high contrast areas to focus on. So
what I do is aim for something in a similar plane of focus, recompose the frame back to the subject and then take the shot. It takes practice but can be a much faster way of getting an AF
lock.

So if you’re not shooting the subject what about out of focus shots? Well, this is the
one area where compacts have an advantage over DSLR’s. You see, because the
sensor size of a compact is so much smaller than a DSLR’s, you get a
multiplying effect which both increases the focal length but
also “compresses” the image. As a result, much more of the image (shot at
comparable 35mm equivalent focal lengths) is sharp. It’s one of the reasons why
web resized files from compacts tend to be quite large in size (compared to similar scenes from DSLR’s) – because so
much of the image is sharp. So while this effect is not great for certain types
of portraits where you actually want subject isolation (and nice blurry
backgrounds), it is good for approximate framing. With a compact you can
actually be quite far off in terms of focus yet still have a sharp subject – and
remembering this can make the difference between making a shot and not.
 

Getting round Shutter Lag 

So this is actually an extension of the previous issue.
Shutter lag, which can be very noticeable in compact cameras, is actually
caused by first having to wait for the AF, and then the time for the sensor to capture the
image. The latter actually happens quite quickly so the best way to speed your
camera up? Remove the most time-costly component which means you have to prefocus.

It’s not going to work for every subject or every scene –
this only works when you can anticipate what’s going to happen. In this
situation – prefocus the AF by pressing the shutter halfway, recompose and the
simply wait for whatever you anticipated, to happen. Using this technique, you
can get shots that are close to impossible using the camera to track the subject.
Two shots where I’ve done this in the past couple of weeks are:

By Lawrence Ripsher (click for larger version)

In this first image, it was actually the light I noticed on
the floor first. Stopping to see it, I then realized people were walking
through the light which was in creating interesting patterns on the floor. I
then prefocused on the area where people were walking and within a couple of
minutes a couple walking in perfect unison kindly obliged. All I had to do was
press the shutter and an instant capture resulted. 

By Lawrence Ripsher (click for larger version)

Similarly on this image, this was a shot which would have
been close to impossible to capture using subject focusing and tracking with a compact. I was watching
this little energized Jack Russell for about a minute, jumping in and out of
the water at that tennis ball. I noticed he was moving towards the edge first,
then taking a little run up and taking off. So I waited until he moved towards
the edge, focused on the point where he’d take off (ignoring him completely),
reframed and just waited for him to enter the frame. As soon as I saw him –
click – and voila, a mid leap action shot.

Now lets be very clear, both of these images are more for fun than what I’d call “serious”
photography, but they are demonstrative that you can easily exceed your camera’s
AF system by employing this little trick.

Emulating the Old Masters

A common technique by the old masters of street photography
was to set their focal length to a prefixed amount, stop down the aperture (e.g.
f/8 which is a smaller aperture & provides a greater depth of field) and
simply point and shoot. Well not "simply" point and shoot but you get the point. By not having to worry about manually focusing their
cameras, they were able to concentrate on composing and capturing the decisive moment.
Again, because of the large depth of field of compact cameras, this is also
possible – even with fairly “wide” apertures (e.g. f/2.8).
 

Horizontal or Vertical

Another thing to bear in mind is what kind of lines /
patterns your AF system is most likely to produce an accurate focus. Depending
on the type of sensors, you’re camera will better at detecting vertical or
horizontal lines. If it’s a cross type, it’ll be fine with either. You can tell
which you have in your camera by trying to focus on a scene of only horizontal
lines, followed by a scene of only vertical lines. If it struggles with neither
– you have a cross type. If it struggles with either – you need to remember this
when shooting. 

For example, on my recently purchased Olympus SP-550, I
discovered this weekend that it has a big problem focusing on horizontal lines
when in landscape mode. I was surprised but is this a disaster? Certainly not –
armed with this new info there is a simple way to get round this – rotate the
camera to portrait mode, focus on the subject, and rotate back to landscape. It
takes an extra half a second – but it’s a hell of a lot quicker than waiting
for the camera if it’s hunting.

Learn the limitations and then where possible, find ways to
compensate.
 

High ISO

The last point I think I’ll make is about noise and ISO. I
always use the lowest possible ISO when shooting a compact camera. With the exception
of the Fuji’s
which are famed for their great high ISO performance (and even then, it’s still
only relative), I’ll never use above ISO 400 if I ever have any hope of using
the image for anything other than the web. In most cases, I’ll hardly ever use
above ISO 200. Even the decision to use ISO 200 is a difficult one if I’m ever
expecting to print the image. The point is that I sacrifice just about
everything (exposure, shutter speed, blur) before I sacrifice ISO. I can live
with a little softness, blur and underexposure – but one thing I think really
looks horrible in the digital age is digital noise from a small sensor. And the
smearing techniques to rescue them aren’t much better.

For me, the advice is simple – shoot low ISO. 

Skipping to the end

So for those who made it this far, or for those who simply
skipped to the end, if you want to see how a compact is really handled in the
field and proof that the photographer is the key to a great image – go to this link
and read how Magnum photographer Alex Majoli produces works of art with his old
Olympus compacts.