10 Cameras for Design Research
People getting into design research often wonder what gear they need. While there’s some interesting concepts for dedicated research hardware, a camera and a notebook are enough to do great things. You may not be tackling complex ethnographic study, or a granular time and motion analysis, but for gaining insight into real world context, getting out of your office and being with your users is fundamental and isn’t rocket science. Like many dedicated research consultants point out, being *good* at field work takes practice and dedication. But getting started just takes getting out the door and looking at the world in a different way. And sometimes, to capture that different way, you need a camera. But which one? As a photogeek, I follow camera hardware, play with new models in the store, and own a couple of my own. This roundup isn’t meant to be definitive (and like all things gear related, it will change in a month or three). But I hope you find it useful thinking about your own work and the kind of tools that will best suit you as you go out into the world and start to gain the insights to design things better.
While many researchers use camcorders to capture their work, video analysis is a huge time suck, and often yields similar insights as you’ll get with a camera, notebook, and sometimes an audio recorder. So for this summary, I’ve focused on cameras that are primarily still cameras, though most of them also do double duty and can capture short video segments.
With the multitude of choices and situations, there’s no such thing as the one best camera (though I have a favorite that I’ll share in a minute).
A camera for design research has to meet many needs (sometimes contradictory needs).
- Discreet: you will get a more authentic record of your observations when people are not overwhelmed by a huge camera. Discreet cameras lend themselves to more candid photos.
- Compact: A camera small enough to carry easily with you everywhere. Lugging kilos of pro photo gear may get beautiful quality images - but any camera will take a better photo than all that pro gear left in a hotel room because it’s so heavy.
- Image Quality: A picture of use in context is indeed worth a thousand words. It helps when the picture is sharp, has low noise, good contrast, and great color. Even more true if you will use the images to print large posters or other empathy tools for the team.
- Works in the Dark: A camera with high ISO, or light sensitivity, and a fast lens can get you usable pictures in dimly lit rooms, from clubs to night time streets or houses without lighting. Note that having a high ISO listed as an option doesn’t mean much. Look at sample images for actual performance. Lens speed is how fast a lens captures light, and lower numbers are better.
- Wide Angle Lens: A lens that can cover the whole scene in one or two frames. A wide angle lens gets the big picture.
- Telephoto Lens: A lens with a long reach can pull in the details of a scene, or capture an intimate moment from across a street.
- Cropability: Megapixels are often a marketing trick, but a high megapixel camera gives you more wiggle room to crop a detailed section of a picture while keeping image quality. Unfortunately, adding megapixels often decreases photo quality, so check sample shots before buying.
- Shoots Video: As mentioned above, a camera that can do double duty and shoot video significantly expands your options for data collection by just adding a few extra memory cards. Keep in mind that video takes a lot of time to analyze. A lot. Hours of video can mean days of analysis.
- Inexpensive: you should be concerned about your research topic, not whether or not thousands of dollars of gear will go missing. Gear anxiety sucks.
- Rugged: Speaking of gear anxiety, research cameras get dropped, sat on, and have to stand up to less than ideal conditions in rain, dust, & dirt. Weather sealing and metal bodies are your friends.
I’ve made a quick, fairly arbitrary pass as showing ten different options for cameras for design research and ethnography. The really important part is not which camera you choose. It’s that you choose, and then get out and *do* design research. Most links go to Amazon, because it’s convenient (I haven’t set up any affiliate payback, so please don’t feel obligated or encouraged to buy).
| Discreet | Compact | Img. Quality | Low Light | Wide | Tele. | Zoom | Video | Megapixels | Cost | |
| CELLPHONES | ||||||||||
| iPhone | ++++ | ++++ | - | + | 45mm?? | none | none | None | 2 | $199 with contract |
| ULTRAZOOM | ||||||||||
| Panasonic FZ28 | ++ | ++ | +++ | +++ | 27mm | 486mm | 18x | + | 10 | $270 |
| Canon SX1 (not yet released) | ++ | ++ | ++++ | ++++ | 28mm | 560mm | 20x | ++ | 10 | $799 |
| COMPACT RAW SHOOTER | ||||||||||
| Canon G10 | ++ | ++ | ++++ | ++++ | 28mm | 140mm | 5x | + | 14.7 | $460 |
| COMPACT SUPER ZOOM | ||||||||||
| Panasonic TZ5 | +++ | +++ | ++ | ++ | 28mm | 280mm | 10x | + | 9 | $242 |
| DIGITAL SLR | ||||||||||
| Nikon D300 w/ 18-200mm VR Lens | + | + | ++++++ | +++++ | 27mm | 300mm | 11x | None | 12 | $2200 |
| ULTRACOMPACT | ||||||||||
| Canon SD880 IS | ++++ | ++++ | ++ | + | 28mm | 112mm | 4x | + | 10 | $260 |
| Interesting Options | ||||||||||
| COMPACT WATERPROOF | ||||||||||
| Pentax Optio W60 | +++ | +++ | + | + | 28mm | 140mm | 5x | + | 10 | $230 |
| VIDEO ONLY | ||||||||||
| Flip Video Mino | ++++ | ++++ | - | ++ | 45mm?? | none | n/a | +++ | 0.3 | $179 |
| BUILT IN PRINTER | ||||||||||
| Tomy xiao TIP-521 with Zink Printer (Spring 2009 in N. America) | ++ | ++ | + | + | 45mm?? | none | none | ? | 5 | $320 |
- Cellphone - The camera you have with you takes a better picture than the camera you don’t. Sometimes, your iPhone will be all the camera you have, and it’s better than nothing. People are often somehow less threatened by cameraphones. Of course, if the actual camera itself is the focus of your phone purchase, then Nokia and Sony Ericsson both have better choices. But I own an iPhone as a mobile device first, and camera second.
- Ultrazoom - point and shoot, but with amazing reach from wide to tele. Nothing else in the industry can match that zoom range in such a compact package. If you’re wanting to take photos of street vendors from across the street, these are your cameras. The Panasonic Lumix FZ28 is the latest in a long line of Panasonic’s class leading ultrazooms. The upcoming Canon SX1 offers improved image quality and a longer zoom, but Panasonic can be counted on to counter with their own new release next year.
- Compact RAW Shooter - I’m not sure there’s a really good name for this category, which is compact camera for people who own SLRs. The G10 shoots RAW files, which allow more quality in postproduction processing of your images (but more work too). It also handles relatively well in low light shooting. For the best image quality short of an SLR, the G10 is the backup choice of many professional photographers. The G10 has a nice wide angle lens, but doesn’t have much zoom reach. As an all around camera, it’s going to produce great quality images.
- Compact Super Zoom - Panasonic pioneered the “travel zoom” camera, with 10x zoom lens in a package not much bigger than a typical 3x zoom. The current release, the TZ5, boasts a 28-280mm zoom lens, offering both wide and long zoom in a package that can easily slip into a pants pocket (provided you’re not into skintight pleather).
- Digital SLR - The king of image quality in this roundup. SLR’s feature bigger sensors for better image quality and better low light performance. They also have the ability to swap lenses, so you can have wide or tele capabilities on hand. Lenses can make as much difference to image quality as camera bodies, and can cost as much, too. Here I’ve called out the Nikon D300, which is Nikon’s semi-pro camera body. Further up the quality chain include the D700 or D3 in Nikonland, and the 5D Mk II in Canon’s line. A DSLR is overkill for someone starting out. If you already shoot with a DSLR for your own photography, then by all means consider using it for design research. But even if you’re comfortable handling the complexity and bulk of an SLR, keep in mind that it’s hard to be discreet with a soupcan size lens aimed at someone.
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Ultracompact - cameras are getting smaller and smaller. The limits are much more about ergonomics than components, and todays ultracompact cameras can slip easily into a shirt pocket. The Canon SD880 offers a 4x wide angle zoom and a fairly sturdy body. Other compacts include Pentax Optio M series, Casio Exilim, and Panasonic FX. For a dedicated, discreet camera, an ultracompact is the way to go.
I’ve called out some interesting choices that may be worth looking at in your particular situation.
- Compact Waterproof - The Pentax Optio W60 is interesting because it can stand up to dust, water, and cold better than the cameras we’ve already touched on. If you’re going to be on the beach, looking at resort or adventure travel, or other messy environments, the Pentax may be worth a look. Olympus also makes a similar ruggedized waterproof camera, but it takes their proprietary, slow, and relatively expensive memory format, so I’ll give the nod to the Pentax here.
- Video Only - maybe you want to focus on video, despite the added work of analyzing the clips. The Flip Video Mino is a super compact, high quality flash video recorder. It doesn’t have a zoom, but it’s easy to keep on hand and easily transfers files to a PC for editing or analysis. Depending on your budget, you could give Mino’s to participants for longer video diary studies or similar longitudinal research.
- Built in Printer - This is included as more of a novelty than a real recommendation, and is only being released in Japan this month, but I think it would be useful for storyboarding, affinity diagramming, or other visualization to be able to quickly choose pictures to print on demand. Of course, you can do this with a dedicated photo printer too, but I think these Xiaos would have been great when I was teaching design students about field research (we used polaroids).
So, there’s my round up of cameras, combining my photogeek and ux design worlds. And my favorite? The Panasonic TZ5, which is really very small and discreet but still offers an astounding zoom range for the package. Did I miss a significant camera, or kind of camera? What kind of gear do you use in your design research? I’ll turn comments on so you can let me know.
Discreet cameras don’t default to Flash On every time you power them up.
Many higher end cameras like the G10 and Nikon P6000 have user modes by which you can set multiple parameters like “no flash” ISO, shooting mode etc. That way whenever you use the camera for you “discreet” use, you set the camera on a User mode (generally two choices) and automatically your set for auto ISO and no flash if that’s what you desire.
Good point Steve, thanks. Are there any particular culprits on the list, or is that a good rule of thumb to keep in mind? (I checked on a Canon Elph last night, but not the 880, and it was fine.)
Thanks Jess! I might add one more criteria for myself which is ‘capture speed’ — the time it takes 1) to go from off to ready to shoot and 2) the time to shoot again. That’s important for me to capture the moment, and something I miss most from my film cameras of yore.
Personally, I love my Leica C-LUX 3. It’s small enough to fit in my pocket and takes pretty good pics. And it can record video on the occasion I need that.
@Victor Good point Victor. SLRs these days have great startup and shot-to-shot times, but point and shoots are still relatively sluggish.
@Todd - yeah, the Leica C-Lux 3 is sweet (5x wide angle zoom, slim camera). And, added bonus, I think the Panasonic FX37 is pretty much identical, but cheaper (Leica and Panasonic have a partnership on digital cameras).
Finally, something I should point to is http://www.dpreview.com which has detailed reviews that offer sample images and details on startup/shot-to-shot time, noise & image quality and a host of other details. It has been lagging the industry (so you won’t see the latest models as soon as you might like) but has the most consistent technical review process and writeups.
I’ve been really happy with my Lumix (Panasonic/Leica) DMC-FX9 over the past three years of field work. It’s unobtrusive, quiet, nice big view screen, plenty of megapixels and zoom, good in the dark (has stabilization technology), and doesn’t default to flash as the Canons always seemed to. Battery life far outreaches Canon as well.
I have a Canon 870, basically the same as the 880 you mention. It’s start-up and shut-down times actually are very good, far far better than mini cameras with extending lenses used to be. I also like the fact, per Steve’s comment, that it retains the settings from when it was shut off. It’s focusing and shutter lag all seem fast (and I’m generally a DSLR user)
I don’t do much field work anymore, but my thinking on what gear to take into the field has changed. I used to do all video, but the fact is that it often did not get watched that much again, and it was cumbersome to deal with. Small digicams that primarily shoot stills but which can also do video are a nicer solution in many situations. If you are asking probing questions where people’s facial expressions, tone of voice, pauses in the conversation etc are all key, then full time video is probably better. Or if you need to see on-fly action that cannot be plausibly repeated when you switch your digicam to video, then fulltime video is probably better. Otherwise a lighter weight approach is much easier and gets you 90% of the relevant data.
But the Flip camcorders have gotten pretty good and are very discrete and produce much smaller file sizes than traditional units. But in low light they are not great, and they don’t have wide angle lenses for working in cramped spaces.
But it’s always good to have an mp3 voice recorder as well (there’s an iPhone app that does a great job, don’t recall it’s name off the top of my head) so you can review verbatims later.
What a timely post! I’ve been researching compact cameras lately, as my Canon S50 has reached the end of its useful life. From what I’ve read, the Lumix DMC-LX3 seems like a winner among the current crop of small high-performance cameras. It has a fast lens (for a compact, at least) and relatively good performance at high ISO, so it should produce decent photos with available (low) lighting. It’s also much smaller/lighter than the G10, and has a similar price-point. The only downside seems to be availability: it’s been a major hit for Panasonic, and it’s backordered everywhere I’ve checked. (There is also a Leica-branded version of the LX3, but the Panasonic version seems slightly more ergonomic — and cheaper.)
Jorge,
Not sure if the LX3 is backordered because just from popularity, or because Panasonic is gearing up to introduce an LX4 in a couple weeks at PMA, a major industry trade show. That’s just speculation, but in a couple weeks we’ll know for sure.
Jess, wouldn’t surprise me if they announced a replacement for the LX3 soon. However, from what I’ve read it seems Panasonic underestimated the demand for the camera — especially the black model. (Check out the price difference between the black and silver LX3s in Amazon.)
In any case, I’m torn between the LX3 and the G10. I have a Canon SLR, and an S50 point-and-shoot, and am very comfortable using Canon UIs. My main concern is low-light performance; I’ve read the G10 produces crap results over ISO 400. You mention low-light handling as a plus for the G10, have you used one in these conditions? Is it acceptable?
Thanks for this analysis. I use 2 cameras one is an SLR with a ultra wide angle for tight spaces and a low F stop lens for low light. Then I have a Sony DSC H9. It works well because it has a swivel screen and I can shoot from the hip while making eye contact with the participant.