My point and shoot is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ27 upto 10mp a very good little camera. I also have Canon 1100d and an astro-modded Canon 1000d for use on the telescope.

Cheers
Ron

I have had a Canon G11 compact for a number of years now. About 2 years ago I went to a talk by Andy York photograher for BRM magazine and was amazed to hear that he used a Canon G12 exclusively for layout photograhy.

When he came to photograph my layout for the magazine in December last year we dicussed the reasons for using the G12. Manual features almost as good as a DSLR, Very good sensor and lens, being able to get it into places that were impossible with a DSLR and finally being able to use CHDK (Canon Hackers Developers Kit) software.

What is CHDK you may ask? It is software that sits on your SD card that fools the camera into thinking it has had a firmware update and releases many built in features that Canon do not normally allow access to. For instance if you want to stack photos, ie take the same shot with the focus at different points and then use software to blend then all together, on most cameras you would manually have to adjust the focus each time and it is almost impossible to do this without moving the camera and ruining the sequence. CHDK allows you to set the camera to take a shot and refocus at various intervals, taking another shot each time say for example every 2cm until you decide to stop it. There are many other features it unlocks although many may not be useful to us as modellers. It doesn't do anything adverse to your camera because as soon as it is switched off and the card removed the camera returns to its normal settings. If you do not want to use CHDK then you have the option not to or you can use another SD card without the software on it.

CHDK is however only available for Canon cameras, and only their compact ranges

Aha! thought I, that is useful. I have a G11. I will download it for mine. It seems that the G11 is one of the only cameras in the Canon range of compacts that hasn't had the software fully developed for it and I couldn't get it to work. So I contacted Andy and asked him what camera in the range he would buy now if his G12 went Kaputt. He said he had looked at the specs of the more recent Canon offerings and whilst the current G16 and G7 were good cameras the overall package of the G12 was still the best for layout photography in his opinion and if he had to replace his G12 he would look for another one secondhand.

I've recently been fortunate enough to source a mint G12 secondhand with the intention of using CHDK but I've hit a snag in that I use a Mac and unpacking the downloaded files are proving problematic (it's a Mac thing). I just need to find a friendly Windows user to do the download and I'll be giving it a go.

If you are a Canon owner google "CHDK for Dummies" to find out more

Thought you might be interested 

I have been very impressed by Andy York's results from that little camera and his mini-tripod with flexible legs that goes with it.  

I asked him a few pertinent question last month at the RMweb event at which point he shared much the same with me as posted above, not least the ability to readily stack images and obtain a full-depth sharp-focus publication-quality image which is otherwise virtually impossible to obtain.

The comments about compacts getting in where DSLRs cannot are also very relevant to modelling work.  The phone and the compact will both sit on the track or get up close at other locations on the layout whereas the two SLRs (film and digital) both require either the downwards view as if from a low-flying aircraft and / or to be mounted a tripod well away from the layout and zoomed in for a decent shot.

My early photos- Kylesku-  were mainly done on my late entry basic Kodak C613, which could give some good results even with its lack of manual controls, with a bit of adjustment to exposure and the light setting, but since then have moved on to Canon cameras- including the G12, which is a great piece of kit, but has hardly been touched since the start of the new layout build. I actually dug it out with a view to using it a few weeks ago but realised I'd forgotten most of how it works, so a refresher course is called for …. Day to day photos are handled by two out of date Powershots- bench photos by an A590, which is a tiny piece of work and layout work by an A650, which is again a good bit smaller than the G12 and can get into places the bigger one cant.

Both these have manual controls, and most pics are taken on AV and the macro setting- the A 650 has a pre exposure setting, which I find very helpful in getting a decent balance between foreground and the sky, which can be overexposed if not careful. Both these were picked up on Ebay for a fraction of the new price- if you are not too fussy about the latest model, then ex shop stock or good S/H can be found at reasonable prices with a bit of patience.