So the week I resigned from a pretty crummy job, while waiting for my paperwork to clear for my new job, the Regions Golf tourney came around again. I decided to forego carrying all my big gear and go with my travel Canon G3x with a 24-600mm zoom. Reason: Testing the practicality of this type of system will also reducing weight and not fiddling with multiple lenses.
Pros:
Weight savings: Wonderful, a lot less tired walking 18 holes in almost 90 degree sunshine.
Big zoom: goes up to 600mm
Silent: Great to shoot during the swing or anytime and not disturb. (Side note: images not as exciting without the ball flying… so less of a plus than you would think.)
Pivoting LCD: Great for all angle shots. Less strain on back to get down low. Shoot over heads. (Wish all cameras had this, but I understand the pros and cons as far as feasibility and things like waterproofing)
Image quality: More than enough for daytime golf shooting
Cons:
Slow: Since it uses the LCD screen as viewfinder… Battery drains quickly unless you constantly turn it off, but that leads to missed shots in the time it takes to turn on.
Slow: Auto focus just takes time and sometimes hunts and fades at that crucial moment
Slow: zoom is by a toggle/motordriven. Not the fastest to get from 24mm to 600mm. Can miss action
Did I mention slow: Frame rate ridiculous. Click: wait, wait, almost there, Click.
Bottom line: I wasn’t shooting for anything beyond a few pics for a website and my own fun, and I know that the camera I used is getting older and not purpose built for what I was doing… but sometimes the challenge can make it fun. This time it was just too frustrating… I would not do it again. I was able to work out the timing factor as the day went on, but after shooting with the Canon 1DX or the 7d II with their lighting fast reactions, this was just too painful. So I will endure the pain and always take the bigger gear, because at the end of the day I would rather be tired and have shots that make me smile rather than have more energy and be bummed by the shots that got away.
Nothing shocking and controversial here… just an interesting side experiment.