hiking

Digicam Winter & Nature Hike: Canon PowerShot SD750

This weekend, I made a thing.

It’s funny to see the recent digicam craze. Everything old eventually becomes new again, and sure enough, it’s the classic point-and-shoot camera’s time to shine.

So, after a big snowstorm this weekend, I hiked into the Kate Palmer Wildlife Sanctuary here in Jackson, Michigan, to take my trusty Canon PowerShot SD750 on a photo walk in the woods. I also shared a few classic and recent shots with the PowerShot – a camera I used for years, on many trips, from 2007 up until I bought my Canon Rebel T1i in 2010.

Bringing it out into the woods reminded me of a few things:

  • The files hold up decently, but man, my modern photography eyes are spoiled. There’s so much chromatic aberration, shadow noise, and corner softness with this 35-110mm lens.
  • It is nice to have a tiny, pocketable camera that you can carry anywhere. I used it quite a bit over the holidays because of the flash and the size.
  • “Unfussiness” should be a guiding light in more modern cameras. The Ricoh GR series comes close to this level of simplicity. Truly: point and shoot.

I can see the charm. These younger generations want something imperfect. Film is difficult and expensive, so classic digital is the practical (and affordable) way to go.

This PowerShot will stay with me until it’s dead. It’s still fun to bring it out once in a while and remind myself that, for a long time, this was the best I had.

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“Are You A Naturalist?”

He popped out of the woods right in front of me on the trail, all crazy-haired and bearded. He was an older man. Not homeless, but maybe. I didn’t even hear him approach, and that’s the danger when you hike alone. Any guy could pop out of the woods and ask for your credentials.

“Not anymore,” I said.

“Well something’s gnawing on the trees in the woods.” He pointed to a thick section of the forest. It’s no wonder I couldn’t see him before. “About knee high.”

He wouldn’t look me in the eye. No, he was somewhere else. Somewhere in those woods.

His hands gripped an iPod and a set of headphones. How long had he been in these woods? And how did he spot a gnawed tree, knee-high?

“Not rabbit, or deer. It’s too low to be a deer. Maybe woodchuck. I don’t know.”

I tried to seem interested. I even thought about taking his portrait, right there in the middle of the Barton Nature Area in Ann Arbor. It’d make for a great photo, this dude with his swollen lips and unwashed jacket.

“I’m trying to find a naturalist so I can drag them out in the woods to take a look,” he told me.  “But you don’t qualify.“

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