Canon Powershot G10 review

The G10 targets an audience who cannot be fooled about the manufacturing quality. And the G10 has what it takes, with a 'monolithic' aspect which is reassuring and an exemplary quality of finishing. The G10 offers an excellent grip with a little bump on the handle, which allows a good clutch without being too bulky. The G10 benefits from nearly 10 years of Canon G beforehand, and now the ergonomic concept is well-achieved. 

 

Indeed, the G10 ergonomy is nearly professional. There are no more menus to define the settings which were so important by professionals, such as exposure correction or ISO sensitivity (which has now become a parameter as basic as opening and speed). The G10 displays a selection ring to choose the ISO sensitivity manually: one can change sensitivity in the blink of an eye, for each picture if necessary. And as we will see it, this is really handy because the G10 is not a champion of high ISO settings. The ring to correct exposure operates in the same way, it is manual and will thereofre be used more often than if buttons have to be used.

 

To stay with professional settings, the G10 has buttons to directly choose the method of exposure metering or the autofocus collimator. One could think it is a dSLR – actually, at the moment, the boundaries between compact sameras/dSLRs are getting thinner and thinner. The ring to select the shooting mode displays its changes on the screen, in the form of a wheel. It is the same display as on the new IXUS, and is very legible.

 

The big 3-inch screen takes all the back surface. Is has a good definition with 460 000 pixels. It is also very luminous: with such a screen, only very few photographers will continue to shoot via the small optical viewfinder – which Canon has kept anyway. The latter is as small as it is little luminous, and is really unpleasant to use. So the screen is nice, even though a revolving screen would have been great. Lacking of space, surely, Canon has fixed ths screen on the G10 body, but really a revolving screen is extremely handy and helps being creative.

 

The trigger is softer than on most compact cameras – especially Canon’s. We were surprised to find a progressice trigger, a long clearance and a softness that up to now was mostly found on a Leica M. The trigger is surrounded by the zooming ring.

 

Let’s talk about this lense by the way. For us, its 5x amplitude is ideal as it covers a large angle of 28mm (with a maximum opening of F/2,8) and the position quite telephoto with 140mm. On our review pictures, the fine details are perfectly restituted, the pics are luminous and with good contrast. The JPG development is actually quite "bright", for a nice immediate impression. The only downside is the opening, not very generous, by F/2.0 compared to older Gs from the 90’s! The Canon IS optical stabilization is still efficient, and will be of great help if you consider the G10’s little weakness in high ISO settings.

 

That is obvious; thanks to the quality of its manufacturing and its ergonomy, the G10 will curely be a best-seller. The DIGIC IV processor also ensures a quick focusing; the G10 also offers face detection and scene modes just like any other compact camera, and can however be upgraded with Canon accessories, like an external flash Canon Speedlight. But what about its image quality?
 

On the camera the pictures show excellent fine details: the 14.7-megapixel sensor is playing its role. It will be easy to crop pictures without loosing much detail, and the excellente optical quality of the lens ensures an optimum image quality on this little 1/1,7" sensor, filled with about 15 megapixels. The colors are bright, sharpness is well-managed, everything is fine up to 200 ISO. Indeed we have all gotten used now to shoot nice pictures at 800, 1 600 or 3 200 ISO with a dSLR, especially a full frame. But Canon has chosen definition over sensitivity on the Powershot G10. The camera we tested was said to be a pre-manufacturing one, so we cannot have definite conclusions nor publish pics with high ISO settings.

 

Anyway, to sum up: the G10 is not a champ at 800 ISO and more, but thanks to its DIGIC IV processor, Canon limits the damage as the sensor is made of 14.7 megapixels. And at the end of the day, this high resolution tend to dilute the noise grains, to finally offer impressions that are cleaner than the screen display at 100%. The way to solve this lack of sensitivity is to choose the RAW format.

The Canon G10 is nearly the twin of the dSLR Canon EOS, they have the same logic of use and Speedlight flash. The Canon G10 is a very well-achieved concept of a camera for addicted amateurs. Its large definition is eventually more an asset than a handicap, especially with this beautiful 28-140mm stabilized lens. Using the RAW format is a real advantage to reach the G10 target. The main handicap of the G10 will be its expensive price, which puts is in direct competition with early-range dSLRs – while the latter offer better image quality and are more user-friendly, but are not compact.