Single Coated

Or what is the same, the forgotten ones.

What am I talking about here, you wonder ? Well, nothing too fancy I'm afraid, but something that falls in the forgotten category most of the times.

I'm talking about those small digital cameras, introduced 3, 4 or 5 years ago that have been neglected and marked with the dreaded OBSOLETE word, in favor of newer ones and following the current technological crazyness that seems to flow everywhere around us, and in most cases even if they kept working perfectly.

Nowadays, they can be found for really cheap almost everywhere, as if they were a kind of disposal item. You can see by yourself, just throw the fishnet at ebay or other of the internet marketplaces.

This is the way I got the one I'm sort of reviewing today, the small yet very nice Canon PowerShot A20. A perfectly useable small and simple digital camera offering 2.1 MP, a good enough lens and that can maybe substract 20 euros from your pocket. Not a bad thingie for one third of what you spend filling your car gas tank.


In my case, I was just looking for a sort of simplified rangefinder that I could carry around and use for street snapshots just as I'd do with a p&s camera, but still offering me some kind of control over what I was doing.

The destiny of most of my shooting nowadays is the web, so I didn't really care of having 3, 4 or 5 megapixels because honestly, I didn't really think I was going to make big blow ups from what I'd get from it.

The truth is that I ended discovering that the small digital influenced a different kind of street shooting in me, what we could say, the 'indecisive moment' :) Due to the shutter and focus lags, action shots with it seems to be a matter of hit and miss, yet I had great fun using it in a way I'd never use a film camera, shooting blindly, not even looking at what I was shooting, shooting backwards, etc.


I've also used this camera as a sort of digital polaroid, not only for recording those kind of things that clearly benefit from graphical information (how a specific color cable configuration is set up, or how to cook this or that recipe!), but also to evaluate some photographs composition, colors, etc before taking them with real (and valuable!) film.

One of the most made questions nowadays in the consumer photography market is what digital point and shoot to buy. Ok, there's nothing like a new product with a warranty, but OTH, if you're just looking at a digital for fun, or for everyday carrying around without a specific target, for friends/party photos that will sure end only in the web, or for image recording uses, remember there's a crowd of nice small and cheap yet very well made digitals out there claiming for somebody to use them again, the forgotten ones.

From time to time I enjoy revisiting old shots, sometimes that ends with them being rescaned and building a new gallery. Some others they just remain there yet act as a powerful memory trigger, which can also be useful to make you see current things in a different way.

I consider myself mostly a B&W shooter, yet when I came up by these series of shots I made almost two years ago using slide film, dunno, they have been like a sort of cold water splash in my face, and one that I liked, btw.

After all, life is in color so, why don't give it a try from time to time ?

All shots taken in the Mercat de la Boqueria, in Barcelona, with a Canonet G-III 17 and Ektachrome 100VS slide film.

This is the title I gave to this shot. I took it one autumn morning on the street side of the uni, where I work, I used a humble Canonet G-III 17 (the renowned poor one's Leica) loaded with Neopan 400 film.

A friend of mine always told me how much he liked this shot. He suddenly passed away two weeks ago, so this entry is for him, just in case he can check it wherever he's now.

Fly high Robin !

Here you have some shots from the Correfoc in Teià, during the major fiesta on November 12th. Camera was a Voigtlander Bessa-T rangefinder with the Skopar 35/2.5 pancake lens, quite a fast and useful combo for fast shooting. Film was Tri-X exposed at 1600 and developed in Diafine.


Yes there was quite a bit of movement going around :)