Welcome to the Family

For those that are new to my (strange) world of looking at the technicalities of photography, this post may be of some value, as I'm going to reiterate an old message.

Namely: buy secondhand, at least for your second or B camera.

For me, I have three three lines in my camera family:

• First, my main (A) camera, a 5D3, running Magic Lantern
• Second, my IR converted EOSM, once again running ML (not shown below)
  
• Third, my collection of Canon cameras running CHDK

In this post I'm going to focus mainly on the CHDK family, that is:

• S95
• G7X
• G5X
• G1X
• EOS M3 (with interchangeable lenses)
  

This happy family looks like this, next to the 5D3 with its Sigma 150-500mm lens:

Straight away, I think you can see why I've explored the CHDK enhanced Canon P&S and EOS M3 cameras: size, weight and (2nd hand) cheapness. 

The 5D3 above is over a 7lb beast!

As for weight in your wallet, you can get a secondhand Canon G5X for around £300, or the older, larger sensor, G1X at less than £200. All bargains, if you are looking for a B camera with some unique capabilities, like perfect automatic focus and exposure bracketing, via my 'Get Brackets' CHDK Lua script.

As an example, this (test) image, taken for this post, shows the power of the G5X, with its minimum 50mm focus distance. This focus bracketed image, consisting of 12 focus brackets up to a third of the hyperfocal, ie from 50mm, and two additional focus brackets for the far field. One at the hyperfocal and an infinity shot at 4 times the hyperfocal. All captured automatically via the in-camera Get Brackets script.

So, I repeat the message, irrespective of what A camera you have, eg Nikon, Sony or Canon etc, if you want to capture some unusual, deep focus, images, and have some fun, think about buying a secondhand Canon P&S camera. For example, a G7X, or a G5X or a G1X: all self contained and all waiting to benefit from my 'Get Brackets' script.