EDC

Every-day carry: the collective name for a panoply of multi-functional gadgets meant to save you from the zombie apocalypse or to open beer bottles in the woods. But I find that my compact digital camera is becoming my EDC, even though it has neither a screwdriver nor scissors. The reason is that it combines good enough with small enough.

Great for opening things, rubbish for taking pictures.

There are many times I go out for reasons other than photography. If I am going out to take pictures I’ll take the right kit but often the pictures are a side effect rather than the reason. For example, I recently walked a chunk of the Pembrokeshire coastal path. The reason was to walk it and enjoy it, not to document it. But I took a camera (er… four) along for the walk. What I wanted as my main camera was one that was good enough, but not an anchor. My chosen EDC job lived happily in a pouch around my neck and could be used as the urge took me without shedding the rucksack to get a bigger camera out (then swap lenses, take a light reading… ). So I used it more often than the recluse in the rucksack.

It’s not particularly slim and tiny. That award goes to the Sony that is genuinely pocket sized. But where the Sony is small enough to carry all the time, this camera has just enough features to make it a viable alternative to the ‘big camera’. If I’m going out to take pictures, the big camera is the one to take. It has every feature and works with every lens I own. But if I am not sure that I might take pictures then I want something that could still do a reasonable job but will sit in the background until needed. It’s also useful to have a camera that can actually be carried every day. An SLR might be the perfect camera, but it’s a bit of a brick to carry everywhere on the off-chance I might need it.

I’m not the first to do this. Back when the world was young and I was but a lad, my best friend and I were keen amateur photographers. We each used to carry at least one camera body and three lenses everywhere we went. Then one day he turned up with an Olympus Trip. He used his legs to zoom and was very happy with the results. I resisted for a while and then ended-up with an Olympus XA, and I can still remember the freedom of a camera I could carry in a pocket.

So my every-day carry this so that I have a camera if I need one camera is a bit bigger than the XA but far more useful. There is a built-in ND filter (probably just a way of dropping the sensitivity of the sensor) so that I can do ICM when I feel like it. I can change the ISO and exposure and have more control than with something that is fully automatic. It saves raw files so that I can tweak the images later. Best of all, it fits in a coat pocket. It matches the idea of the EDC gadget, if you think of something like a Swiss Army Knife. You wouldn’t use one to put shelves up – there are proper tools for that – but it’s immediately available and mostly useful.

I won this for being best Scout on camp. I should explain that the pale streak is luminous paint and the red tape is reflective.

I suppose bridge cameras were meant to do this. The idea, I assume, was that they were better than a compact camera but smaller and less intimidating than an SLR. But they are not that much smaller than an SLR and have an awkward shape with a protruding lens. The intention of the original Barnack Leica cameras was that they were pocket sized, with a retracting lens. That concept still works, but not with a bridge camera.

Perhaps mirrorless cameras are the thing? They are very capable and the camera body is quite small. They do seem to eat batteries though and depending on the lens fitted they can be as big as a bridge camera. My compact camera has a retracting lens (so you could say it’s like a leica) which makes it easier to carry around. I guess that’s what compact means.

So I think I’m settled on my EDC. It’s an older model compact digital camera with a zoom lens. The prices were pretty reasonable on the usual online bazaar, but seem to have increased sharply recently. The zoom lens goes quite long, and it does have some image stabilisation. It doesn’t go really wide at the other end. This isn’t too bad most of the time but is a bit restrictive where I intended the camera to mainly be used: underwater. On the other hand, when I was looking for a better underwater camera one of these came along at the right price. The lens retracts back into the body, so the package is not too large to carry around casually. I also like that once I develop a good configuration of settings, I can save them as a profile.

If you don’t mind that the lens cover doesn’t shut properly, the price is much lower.

But, if you’ve been reading my chunterings you’ll know that I’ve already broken two of these cameras. One failed due to loose screws inside the camera, the other when I flooded it with water. I’ve got another two that work, as they were cheap enough at the time. That’s not a good recommendation, but they do get a hard life. And the camera was at a good balance point between price and features, which is also the measure of every-day use. There do seem to be a lot of “spares or repair” ones (broken, but let’s see if someone will buy it) on eBay though. That may be a warning.

Of course there are alternatives. For film I have my original Olympus XA, but that has a fixed focal length. Perhaps a better comparison is the Pentax Espio. This has a wide zoom, clever exposure and flash modes and does a good job. It’s actually bigger than the Canon though, and noisier in use. The XA wins here by being almost silent.

So while I appear to be extolling the virtues of the Canon G9, it’s more the concept I like than the specific camera. The Canon is one example of a set of well-packaged and useful cameras that are good enough for “serious” photography, and small enough to fit into the set of keys, wallet, phone when you go out. And a decent camera is much more useful than some combined fire lighter, bone saw and fish hook that usually passes for everyday necessity.