2009-2010 Camera Magazine Imaging Awards

2009 produced a bumper crop of new cameras and imaging hardware – with plenty of innovation, invention and ingenuity providing real advances – so picking this year’s winners involved plenty of discussion, debate and dummy-spitting, but we reckon we’ve come up with the cream of the crop.

What a year! Photokina 2008 provided a few tantalising hints about what might happen over the next 12 months, but the reality proved far more exciting. And the global financial crisis – which knocked so many other industries around quite badly – didn’t seem to deter either the camera makers or the camera buyers. The new products kept coming and we kept buying ’em.

Undoubtedly the most keenly awaited launch of the year was the Olympus E-P1 ‘Digital Pen’ which has given birth to a whole new class of camera and, over the next 12 months, we’ll see the concept applied to a variety of sensor formats. We’re still not sure what to call this type of camera, but the excitement generated by the E-P1 – and, subsequently, Panasonic’s GF1 – has really fired up the camera market and that’s good news for everybody.

The D-SLR sector continued to stratify so the choice of models is at least as extensive as it was at the height of 35mm’s popularity, if not more so. Now there are clear upgrade paths as your skills develop and affordable abilities or image quality. With fixed lens compacts like Ricoh’s GR Digital III, the new breed of interchangeable lens models aren’t going to have everything their own way.

So, with super-compact D-SLRs on one side, super-capable compacts on the other and the hybrids in the middle, the traditional usage boundaries are gone and it’s highly likely you can now have the camera that you need, want and like all rolled into one. If not, have one of each! We’d certainly have one of each of this year’s award winners which all faced extremely stiff competition in their respective categories and still came out ahead. They’re all outstanding products which embody important advances of one sort or another, or simply do things better than what’s gone before. Of course, every new product is designed to give its maker a jump on its rival by convincing you to part with your hardearned, but this will only happen if it offers real and tangible benefits or advantages. Get this bit right and the rest follows… including coveted product design awards.

Consumer Digital SLR

Canon EOS 500D

There was a host of seriously good cameras launched in this category during 2009, many of them more than capable of keeping the enthusiast shooter happy let alone beginners or first-timers. Of course, Canon pioneered this category with the EOS 300D – the greatgreat grand-daddy of the 500D – and the successive models, particularly the 400D, have set the standard for features and performance ever since.

The EOS 500D is another typically workmanlike Canon D-SLR… and another reason why the brand still has over 50 percent of the market despite the best efforts of its rivals. It’s nothing too flashy, nothing too complicated, nothing too self-indulgent… just a thoroughly competent and capable camera that you can pick up, start using immediately and be rewarded with great results. With its 50 years of SLR camera experience, you’d expect Canon to be able to get it pretty right, but the 500D is – like most of the current generation EOS models – about more than just being able to build a good product. It’s born out of Canon’s constant evaluation of consumer feedback which helps hone its D-SLRs into supremely cohesive and coherent instruments that work with you rather than against you. In fact, often they’re so smooth and efficient in their operation – which is really what separates the EOS 500D from its rivals – they integrate almost seamlessly into your creative process.

Of course, the 500D also has a 15 MP sensor, 14-bit A/D processing, sensitivity extending to ISO 12,800, Full HD video recording and a battery of advanced image processing functions such as vignetting correction… but it’s the way that it so effortlessly puts all this to work that really makes it a winner.

Enthusiast Digital SLR

Pentax K-7

Venturing into the upper reaches of the D-SLR market presents a lot of challenges if you’re not Canon or Nikon. This duo have dictated terms here for so long – indeed back into the days of 35mm – it’s very hard to get noticed no matter how good you are; just ask Leica or Contax or Minolta or Olympus. Pentax knows exactly what it’s good at, but every so often it likes to rise to the challenge and show off a bit.

The K-7 is Pentax’s tilt at a class dominated by the EOS 50D and Nikon D300 and it’s very much a case of ‘anything-you-can-dowe- can-do-better’. Pentax doesn’t do this sort of camera very often, but when it does, it’s usually something pretty special… the LX was, for example, back in the 1980s. Of course, Pentax can’t resist doing its more-forless thing so the K-7 is more highly featured than its rivals and costs less… quite a bit less, in fact. However, you still get an all-metal bodyshell fully sealed and with a proper pentaprism-type viewfinder, a 1/8000 second shutter and a large, high-res LCD monitor screen. All the features that are considered essential on a current generation D-SLR are here – live view with full AF, face detection, HDV recording and dynamic range expansion processing – plus a very long list of new items such as a three-shot HDR mode, a sensor levelling facility, composition correction via manual sensor shift, colour tone enhancement (essentially the opposite of AWB correction), a huge selection of filter effects and automatic lens aberration correction with the latest generation optics. That’s just touching the surface because in every area it seems Pentax has gone just that little bit further in terms of adjustability and capabilities. It makes the K-7 a hugely powerful imaging tool, but most commendably, all the control is retained incamera which is exactly how it should be.

Professional Digital SLR

Canon EOS 5D Mark II

OK, so Canon doesn’t really classify the EOS 5D Mark II as a professional camera, but it actually fits the criteria in all the essential areas so pros have been buying it in almost as great a number as keen amateurs. Of course, it helped that it was a later generation camera than the Mark III pro models – and hence offered some significant performance benefits, especially in the area of its high ISO capabilities – selling for a lot less money. The recent arrival of the EOS-1D Mark IV will redress this for the real ‘power’ users such as sports photographers, but for many pros the EOS 5D Mark II will remain the perfect combination of performance, portability and price. As it happens, its predecessor was equally popular with working photographers so we have no problems promoting the Mark II to the D-SLR big league in these awards… it’s easily up to the challenge which is exactly why it’s a winner. As far as the period of eligibility was concerned, it was the best performing D-SLR on the market bar none and we suspect it’ll still hold up pretty well against the EOS-1D Mark IV and the rival Nikon D3S. Remember that when the EOS 5D Mark II arrived, the Nikon D3 was the undisputed king of low-light performance in D-SLRs and the D700 made this performance available at an enthusiastlevel price. Canon needed an answer and the 5D Mark II was an emphatic one, convincingly putting an end to the assertion that you could have either high resolution or high sensitivity, but not both. Nikon made the same point with the D3X, but this camera costs nearly three times as much as the EOS 5D Mark II. What’s more, when we compared the imaging performance at the all-important ISO 6400 setting, the Canon’s files looked much more like those of the 12 MP D3 in terms of colour, contrast, noise levels and dynamic range than those of the 24.5 MP D3X, but with the latter’s same higher level of crisp, clean detailing.

Post that critical Version 1.1.0 firmware update, it became the most capable of the HDV-enabled D-SLRs… something that’s reflected in the fact that so many pros – in both the still and movie sectors – are actually using the facility to make ‘real’ productions (i.e. they’re not just playing around with it). The D-SLR world never stands still, but it’s going to be quite a while before the Canon EOS 5D Mark II loses its appeal such is its still-to-besurpassed balance of ability and accessibility.

Consumer Digital Compact Camera

Ricoh CX2

We’d pretty much ear-marked the CX1 as the outstanding design in this very hotlycontested category, but then along came the CX2 to pip it at the post. Of course, everything that made the CX1 a potential winner is carried over into the CX2, but Ricoh had six months to make some important revisions and updates which just helped the new camera pull even further ahead of the baying pack.

The big deal with the CX1 – and now the CX2 – is that Ricoh has made a conscious effort to pull back from ‘chasing the megapixels’ and instead concentrate on delivering improvements to imaging performance. It was a brave move at the time, but now everybody is doing it as the realisation that there’s a finite limit to pixel counts finally sets in. So the CX2 has a larger sensor (in compact camera terms) which is a CMOS for speed and pegged at 10 MP (9.29 MP effective) for pixel size. It’s mated with a number of clever technologies, including ‘Pixel Output Interpolation’ to enhance the dynamic range. It also has a proper dualshot HDR shooting mode (which works thanks to the CMOS) plus an innovative multipoint measurement for white balance. The CX2’s longer zoom, faster shooting speed and AF upgrades are the icing on an already very tasty cake.

And to continue the baking analogies, the proof of the CX2 pudding is very much in its image quality – great colour, superb detailing and the best low noise characteristics that are available without spending a whole lot more. Need we say more?

Enthusiast Digital Compact Camera

Ricoh GR Digital III

If it was a vintage year for the camera industry as a whole, it was a particularly good year for Ricoh which really confirmed its position in the market as the purveyor of compact cameras for the discerning photographer. It started with the CX1, gained momentum with the GR Digital III and finished with the CX2 (and, by the way, there’s more to come).

Quite a few camera makers have had a go a building the ideal ‘enthusiast’s compact’ and this year’s efforts including the Canon PowerShot G11, Sigma’s DP2 and the very commendable Panasonic Lumix LX3. But Ricoh topped ’em all with the GRD III because not only does this camera have the goods – starting with a super-fast f1.9 prime lens – it actually has the air of a higher-end camera and you don’t get that by just sticking a few extra features into a basic model. The GRD III both looks and feels like it means business, and it does as it has D-SLR levels of controllability – including a full set of ‘PASM’ modes – and a number of Ricoh’s latest features for enhancing imaging performance (such as the multi-point white balance). Often a winning product is about more than just features and specifications or even design, and this is particularly true of the GRD III which is very much the complete package in all these areas, but also has a vital extra element that turns it from being merely a good camera into being a great camera. The secret ingredient? Enthusiasm. It’s the enthusiasts within Ricoh who have very much driven the whole GRseries idea from the 35mm models to today, and you can actually feel it in the GR Digital III. It’s the winning difference.

Digital Video Camcorder

JVC Everio GZ-X900

Now that compact cameras and even D-SLRs are invading the traditional territory of the video camcorder, manufacturers like JVC are hitting back with ‘crossover’ products of their own. So the GZ-X900 is a highdefinition video camcorder, but it’s also a with a number of clever technologies, including ‘Pixel Output Interpolation’ to enhance the dynamic range. It also has a proper dualshot HDR shooting mode (which works thanks to the CMOS) plus an innovative multipoint measurement for white balance. The CX2’s longer zoom, faster shooting speed and AF upgrades are the icing on an already very tasty cake. And to continue the baking analogies, the proof of the CX2 pudding is very much in its image quality – great colour, superb detailing and the best low noise characteristics that are available without spending a whole lot more. Need we say more? nine megapixels still camera… so there. Even high-def consumer camcorders don’t have very high resolution sensors so they rely on interpolation when it comes to stills, but the GZ-X900 packs a 10.3 megapixels CMOS so its JPEGs boast a real 9.0 MP… and it shows in the image quality. Video footage is recorded in the AVCHD format and at the Full HD resolution of 1920x1080 pixels and at 50 fps which means stunning footage on screen, and it’s interlaced so matches a 1000 lines of TV resolution (a first for a non-professional camcorder). However, you can also switch to a 1920x1080/50p (progressive) output if that’s what your monitor requires. Being a camcorder, high shooting speeds are a breeze – you can have 9.0 MP at 15 fps or 5.3 MP at 50 fps… try matching that with a still camera. And how about movies shot at 500 fps for ultra slow-mo playback.

Despite its big screen capabilities, the GZX900 is still pocket-sized, but with a big 7.1 cm monitor and, up front, a 5x optical zoom made by none other than Konica Minolta. Given its vast reserves of resolution, a digital zoom takes you up to 8x without any discernible loss of image quality. With the HDV-enabled compacts firmly in its sights, JVC has given the X900 plenty of still camera type features (including a big set of scene modes) so, unlike all camcorders to date, it actually is a viable alternative… and one with superior movie-making capabilities too!

Digital Photo Printer

Epson Stylus Pro 3880

What do you do when you already make the world’s best inkjet photo printer? You make it better, that’s what. The Stylus Pro 3800 shook up the inkjet printing world by making the A2 format so much more accessible with a printer that didn’t take up a huge amount of space and was actually quite affordable. Many more photographers stepped up a print size thanks to the 3800 which, as far as professionals were concerned, also had the potential to earn its keep via the production of saleable prints. All this is still true of the 3880, but it takes print quality to a new level via Epson’s latest generation inkset and print head technology. The UltraChrome K3 with Vivid Magenta’ inks deliver a wider colour gamut, particularly in the red and blue areas of the spectrum. The eight-channel ‘MicroPiezo AMC’ print head delivers a maximum resolution of 2880x1440 pixels and outputs ink droplets as small as 3.5 picolitres. Epson’s ‘AccuPhoto HD2 Image Technology’ precisely controls the placement of each droplet to help optimise ink usage and ensure smoother colour gradations while also significantly reducing metamerism. That’s the techspeak, but the result is truly superblooking prints which, importantly, seem almost effortless to produce. Epson is very much inkjet printing’s answer to ‘You press the button, we do the rest’ with the built-in paper profiles proving exceptionally reliable, minimising any wastage of time and materials. And Epson is doing its level best to improve the economy which, at the A2 format, is starting to look very good indeed, especially if you’re making prints for commercial sale.

Yet again, the Stylus Pro 3880 tempts us to think we’re reached inkjet printing’s apogee, but probably only until Epson comes up with its next generation.

Digital Lens

Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 EX DG HSM

There’s two elements to Sigma’s success at designing and building accessory lenses – one is coming up with its own innovative designs and the other is matching the best the camera brands can come up with and then going just a little bit further. The HSMequipped 24-70mm f2.8 fits into this second category. This focal range and aperture speed have quickly become the standard for users of Canon, Nikon and Sony D-SLRs with 35mmsized sensors so it’s a ‘premier league’ lens… something each camera maker is particularly proud of in terms of a performance matched to the capabilities of the bigger sensor. Then along comes Sigma and does it better… and for quite a lot less money too.

The price difference compared to Nikon’s brilliant AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8G ED is close to $1000, but the thing is… Sigma’s lens is just as good. As we noted when we tested it back in the July/August issue, EX-series 24- 70mm f2.8 zoom is further evidence, should it still be necessary, that Sigma needs to be taken very seriously indeed at the top-end of the SLR lens market. Now it’s equipped with the HSM drive, it autofocuses speedily and silently, and it’s built to the standards you’d expect of a pro-level lens, but it’s the optical performance that makes this lens a winner. It’s superbly well corrected for both distortion and chromatic aberrations, but it’s also beautifully sharp and nicely contrasty so it really does help you make the most of 20+ MP sensors.

Pricing isn’t everything in these awards, but when you can still have the best and save very substantially in the process, it really is the clincher.

Innovative Imaging Product

Olympus Pen E-P1

Down the track, we may well have to have a separate awards category for the E-P1 and its ilk, but this year it’s enough to recognise the fine job Olympus did in pioneering an entirely new class of camera. And the very neat tie-in with another equally pioneering design – the Pen F half-frame 35mm SLR which also started something big back in 1963. A pat on the back is also deserved for acknowledging a piece of heritage in an era when only the latest and greatest seems to matter.

What’s so wonderful about the E-P1 is that it’s arguably the most digital of digital cameras – in fact, it’s only possible as a digital camera – yet it’s clothed in a very classic-looking bodyshell that has more than a hint of the Pen F in its styling. In one hit, Olympus has appealed to both the traditionalists and the technophiles plus there’s the sheer overall appeal of a compact but fully-featured camera with the flexibility of interchangeable lenses. And we know that the traditionalists are interested because there’s suddenly a whole host of adaptors which enable classic lenses to be fitted to the E-P1. Under the skin, of course, it’s essentially an E-620 so you get full D-SLR functionality in a camera system that’s significantly smaller and lighter… the answer to many photographers’ prayers. It’s inevitable that we’ll see this concept further refined both in the Micro Four Thirds format and with other sensor sizes, but the Olympus E-P1 was first and consequently its place in history is assured.