 "It's just "OK"" | 2009-11-16 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2KGLX6VZTG2P5 |
With all the hype of being the ultimate backup camera to your SLR, I believe at the end it's just a little more than any of the other Canon's point and shoot. In matter of fact take away the added special features, the picture quality is just on par w/ any of the PowerShot SD series. Perhaps a notch down even, I noticed in a lot of "other than bright light" conditions, skin tones are almost pastel.
As the flagship of the PowerShot cameras, just "ok" is rather disappointing. The swivel, raw, hotshoe, manual controls, high ISO are all pluses, but at the end it comes down to picture quality. |
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 "Excellent Camera" | 2009-11-08 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2XI279LUCFZE1 |
This review of the Canon G 11 reflects my own tests and opinions.
I used a Canon Eos 40-D for years. Two years ago I bought the G-9 and last week the G-11.
My hobby covers all kinds of pictures. As a member of the Middle Georgia Camera Club I enjoy having my pictures selected as winners in local competitions.
For my kind of work a side by side test of the 40-D and the G-9 revealed no essential difference in picture quality for the work I do so I have used the G-9 almost exclusively for the last two years.
I find that in a photograph taken outside of a house (brick & white siding) with the G-11, I could make a competition 11 X 14 print from ¼ of the image. The comparison on inside pictures in lower light leave the G-9 in the dust. Results are fantastic.
The 40-D high speed shooting is, on occasion, very useful. I only wish Canon had NOT made the lens on the G-11 wider but LONGER! Stitching is so easy we don't need the wide angle. |
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 "great camera. significant upgrade from previous models" | 2009-11-08 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1VUARKZIP4A0S |
This is a fairly significant upgrade. Lower Megapixels (finally!)...better image quality, easy to use; especially if you have previously owned Canon cameras
I could go on and on...but others have already done so. Worth $500. Get one. Great 2nd camera to take around when you don't want to lug around the heavy flagship digital SLR. I am looking forward to using this on the ski slopes and doing outdoor sports...much more practically to shoot with this than the SLR.
The only two negatives
1) Canon should have included HD for video instead of SD. Oh well...can't have everything. Next upgrade.
2) threads!!! but I suspect this is because they don't want you to ditch your SLR. Threads on the G series would probably cannabalize their profits....like cellphones and netbooks vs. laptops and desktops. |
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| "Well I'm spoiled" | 2009-11-05 |
| - Reviewed By dale@yogananda-srf.org |
Let me start by saying that my main camera is a 5D mkII and I love it. I bought this as a always have with me kind of camera. I think it takes pretty good photos sometimes, but you have to get a lot of settings right for that to happen. I have taken some really good macro shots of flowers but most of the landscape shots are not keepers.
I like the zoom range.
But the problems I have with it are:
Noise, unless you use ISO 400 or lower. Auto ISO gave some really bad noise.
When I pick up or hold the camera, my thumb, and I have small hands, is on top of about 4 buttons, which are easily pressed. Which you then have to reset.
The only problem I have with the features is that there are really a lot of them and they don't work if you take RAW shots. I realize that's because with RAW you've got it all right there. But that means that if I'm shooting in a difficult environment, I have to make all the settings myself. Not always easy to get the best shot. |
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| "Everything I Wanted" | 2009-11-01 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3EYB08WJL66UY |
A few days hands-on with a new camera have allowed me to form some opinions. Overall I am very impressed, the camera looks to be everything I wanted. Build quality appears to be up to the G-series standard. The wider lens gained with the G10 and carried over to the G11 is distinct improvement. Photo quality meets my high expectations, what else do you want to know?
I am not writing this entry as a complete review, the digital photography websites will do a far more thorough job of that. But I do have some comments on the camera I wanted to put here. Much of my comparison is against the Powershot G9, as I never have never seriously used the G10.
After using the Canon G9 for so long I have had no issue in learning the controls of the G11, most are located in the same places, the menus are mostly unchanged. This was true from the very first frame when I was using the camera in the dark. The only real difference is in the top wheels, where exposure compensation is now a direct control and not a rear thumbwheel action. Considering how often I use this function the top wheel is a very welcome improvement. ISO gain is below the main function wheel, something that has the benefit of being harder to actuate. I had a few instances on the G9 of finding I was using a high ISO when I wanted low ISO as this wheel had gotten accidentally changed.
The camera is a bit larger than the G9, most of that seems to be front to back. The data sheet shows the camera to be 5mm (1/4") thicker than my G9, you feel that 5mm when gripping the camera. It takes a larger pocket to hold the G11. The camera just fit in the shirt pocket of the aloha shirt I was wearing when unpacking the camera, but barely, not certain I would call this a pocket camera.
The return of the flip-out viewscreen is welcome, but with mixed feelings. The loss of 0.2" in screen size from the G9 is not an issue, despite some negative comments I have read on other sites. I enjoy the ability to compose a photo with the camera held over my head or close to the ground. This is something I loved about my old Nikon 995 and allows some great creative possibilities. I worry a bit about the robustness of the screen assembly, will I inadvertently damage the screen or the swivel mechanism?
I do forget that the screen can be swung out. At least twice already I have found myself in an uncomfortable position trying to compose a frame before realizing I can just flip out the screen and stop straining my neck. Duh!
The screen is just beautiful, nice color, bright and with very high resolution. Some difficulty seeing the screen in full sunlight unless you turn up the brightness all the way, annoying to do when the setting is buried in a menu. The screen also shows every little greasy fingerprint, it is nearly impossible to avoid putting a finger on the screen during handling.
One price of the larger area taken up by the flip-out viewscreen is a smaller area for the rear panel controls. They are certainly more compact than the G9, I have had some issues with my fat thumb when using the wheel and rocker. I suspect these will go away as I become more practiced with the camera.
I have now taken a fair number of photographs under a wide range of conditions. The low light performance is a dramatic improvement over the Canon G9. I had done specific testing with the G9 after I ran up against the G9 performance limitations in low light during normal use of the camera.
To see what the G11 could do I set it up with a tripod to take photos under the light of the full Moon. To my surprise the camera did a respectable job of landscape photos lit only by moonlight. This is something I have done with a DSLR on several occasions, but did not expect to do with a compact. At ISO1600 and 3200 there is appreciable noise in the photos, but these speeds are by no means useless. The in-camera dark frame subtraction also works well, with no hot pixels apparent in close examination of the frames.
Another pleasant surprise was the quality of the new lens. From the first images the lens has continually impressed me as better than the G9 lens for sharpness. I was surprised when closely examining the day's images, fine details in a seed head were perfectly sharp to the limit of the sensor resolution. The limiting resolution of the camera was indeed set by the sensor, not the lens, at least under the right conditions. Is this simply the lower resolution sensor? Is this a result of not pressing the performance past the resolving power of the lens? Or is the new lens design simply better than the G9?
My only major complaint is one that many others have leveled against Canon... Why does this camera not have a decent video mode? I usually shoot still, but like to do a little video when the situation calls for it. The 1024x768 video and time lapse video modes of the G9 are missing. Why can they not add at least a 720p HD mode? There is likely no technical reason for this. Some internal Canon politics with the video camera division?
The camera is indeed everything it has promised to be, with very few shortcomings. Beautiful pictures from a compact camera. I look forward to a long and productive relationship with this camera. |
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| "Canon G11 verson Canon G10..." | 2009-10-26 |
| - Reviewed By nicjaytee |
Unfortunately, I purchased a Canon G10 just before the release of the G11 and for reasons explained below I've now bought a G11... which gives me the unusual and unexpected "privilege" of being able to compare the two side-by-side.
So what was so wrong with the G10 that I bought a G11? Not much, other than its noise levels at higher ISO settings. Is this a serious problem? Well, if like me, you want a camera that's a portable alternative to your DSLR and which operates very close to your DSLR's performance, then it probably is. How much so? Here's two examples that made me invest in the G11. The first was when using the G10 on a bright blue sky day to shoot sports events using its "Sports" program - the camera, correctly, chose shutter speeds of 1/1250 and, as a result, set ISO ratings at around 400 but, noise was evident at 50% magnification and very marked at 100% magnification. The second was when "snap-shotting" my children indoors in reasonably good late afternoon light without a flash - on the "Auto" program the ISO was, again correctly, bumped up to over 200 and, again, noise was evident at 100% magnification - so much so, that I was forced to manually set ISO to under 200 with the resulting problems of moving subjects and slower shutter speeds.
You could say that I'm being overly "picky" here, but I don't think so... while these noise levels are perfectly acceptable in cheaper point & shoot cameras, they're really not acceptable in a camera priced at this level and, more importantly, they mean that it can't be used with confidence as a point & shoot alternative to my DSLR which was one of the main reasons for buying it. Sure you can overcome some of the ISO issues by using the camera's huge number of manual over-ride options but you shouldn't have to.
The problem, of course, is the mega-pixel count in the G10 which, while good for "marketing" purposes, is just too high for a camera this small and which therefore precipitates additional noise at even relatively modest ISO levels. Set the camera to under ISO 200 and you get the resolution advantage of 14.7 million mega-pixels but your shooting options are reduced; let the camera do the work and, in anything other than "normal" situations, noise could become a serious issue.
Time to assess how my newly acquired 10 megapixel G11 performs in similar situations... the answer?... brilliantly. My test shot comparisons between the two show noticeably reduced noise levels for the G11 at anything over ISO 200, with noise down to a level that, while not quite as good as my DSLR, is as close as you'd expect or hope for from this type of camera. And, while there's a slight resolution loss compared to the G10, it's so tiny that it's unnoticeable other than in a slow ISO rated shot (i.e. 80 or 100) blown-up to extremely high magnification levels but... am I really going to use the G11 rather than my DSLR for huge prints or professional quality studio or field work? Unlikely. Also, there seems to be a marginally better "feel" to the G11's shots at below ISO 200 which could well be the result of its claimed improvements in image processing or just my own perception. Whatever, the bottom line is that the G11 produces the same or better quality photos than the G10 in virtually all "real life" situations that I'm likely to use it for and, equally importantly, allows me to use it with the confidence that its end results will be extremely close to those that my DSLR would have produced if I'd had it with me.
Other than that, the two cameras are pretty much identical: the G11's fold out screen can be argued either way (it has obvious advantages in certain situations but it makes the camera feel a bit bulkier and reduces the size of the screen's viewing area), there are a couple more menu options in the G11 which most people will never use, the G10's on/off button is slightly easier to use, the rotating dial on the rear of the G10 feels a little more solid, and the G11 has additional "low light" and "quick shot" programs on the main dial, which are of limited practical value. In other words, unless you really do need a fold out screen, nothing worth writing home about.
Oh, and the price... the G11 is, at present, about £100 more than the G10 in the UK, which is a pretty big difference. Is a £100 price hike worth it for improved performance in certain situations? Well, that's your decision: the G10 is a perfectly acceptable and usable camera once you know its limitations but, if you don't want these limitations, or if you just want the confidence that the camera will perform at close to DSLR levels in virtually all situations you throw at it, then the G11 is definitely worth the extra money. Anyone want to buy a G10?... it'll be on eBay soon. |
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