Canon G10 Compact Digital Camera 14.7 Megapixels 5 x Zoom Black

Quite simply the best compact camera I have used. Very solidly made and could potentially hammer in nails. Has full auto mode or enough creative settings to satisfy the professional appetite for flexibility. Has hotshoe and built in flash the choice is your how much you need. Would suit a demanding novice or a more experienced photographer.

MY MOVE FROM THE G7 to the G10. I own and really like the Canon G7. I passed on purchasing the G9, not seeing much that would attract me over the G7. But as I read about the G10, I began to see enough new stuff to make it sound interesting to me. Little did I guess what a huge leap up this purchase was going to be. I'll try to focus here on items you may not have read about in the reviews below, or at least items that may not have been covered in any detail. Overall, the feel and build of the G10 is simply great. Nothing about it feels flimsy or cheap to me. It has a bigger grip on the right front where your fingers wrap around the camera and the camera is a delight to hold and use. The LCD is now 3" of course, and much sharper and crisper than my G7. The G10 still uses my SD and SD HC (SD High Capacity) cards and I am happy about that. I wanted to test the new "I-Contrast" feature I had been hearing about, so I sat my wife in the bay window with a fully sunlit window behind her. I took a series of photographs from several feet away, focusing (with face detect) on her face. With the test shots where I had "I-Contrast" turned off, her face was visible but pretty dark as were the interior walls around the window behind her. Not an unusable picture, but certainly not a good picture either. I was surprised they were as good as they were but I still wanted better than this. So I enabled "I-Contrast" and shot the same scene. The results were a very pleasant surprise. The outside scene through the window was still slightly overblown ... almost exactly as in the first series. But my wife's face and the interior walls were now much more properly exposed and the pictures were truly usable ... something most of us would be happy to have taken. It was clear that "I-Contrast" really does work and since it is easy (using the camera menu) to engage "I-Contrast" I will certainly be using that feature often in contrasty scenes where I want to avoid harsh black shadows. I was quite impressed with the quality of this new lens. I thought I had a sharp crisp lens on my G7 but the lens on my G10 is a definite step up. Or maybe it is the additional pixels ... whatever, the difference is remarkable and was totally unexpected. I was a bit concerned about the loss of Optical zoom range from the zoom range available with my G7. I never used digital zoom on the G7 because it was too easy to lose picture quality and I didn't want to risk that. But I had read about a new feature of the G10 where it if you set the digital zoom to "standard", the camera would combine Optical and Digital zoom and allow you to seamlessly use them together up to a point just shy of where picture degradation would begin. Then it would stop zooming. If you then tried to zoom some more, the G10 will allow that but you will then be digital zooming into the range where there is a risk of picture degradation. All very clever I thought, but did it actually work? I decided to test that. I sat the camera on a block wall and shot the street sign across the intersection (about 150 feet). As I expected, when I zoomed in the zoom ran seamlessly to what appeared to be maximum and stopped. I took the picture. Then I twisted the zoom button again and sure enough, the zoom continued zooming (into the possible degradation zone) to the true maximum zoom using not only all optical capability but ALL digital capability. I fired up my computer and loaded the first shot ... the "standard" zoom. Taken at 14.7 Mega Pixels, I was immediately stunned by the quality of the shot. It wasn't just good, it was simply flawless! There was absolutely nothing about that shot that I wanted to improve except, perhaps, it still didn't bring the street sign all that close. So, using my photo editor, I just kept zooming in on the street sign until it virtually filled my monitor ... and the image was STILL FLAWLESS! I simply couldn't believe my eyes. Color was perfect, edges of the lettering were crisp and absolutely sharp. There was nothing for me to improve in a photo editor. I was stunned. (I may have even laughed out loud). Even the leaves of the mesquite tree in my neighbor's yard which is some 20 feet behind the sign were all visible and definable. WOW! WOW! WOW! Then I loaded the next shot where I had zoomed the G10 out until it paused, then zoomed more to push the combination of Optical and Digital zoom to the absolute limit. To keep it short: It was about as good as I was used to getting from my G7 using Optical zoom only ... which is OK, but not truly sharp, crisp and the green color of the sign looked somewhat faded. Also the tree leaves in the background were no longer distinct ... Again this is not a picture you'd throw away by any means and one which could be improved with some work in Photoshop but even with that effort, it would be nothing near the quality I could get with the G10s method of combining Optical and just the right amount of Digital zoom. And the G10 gave it to me without any additional effort whatsoever. My future approach to photography of distant objects in the future was immediately obvious. I will use the G10's built in magic (as I did in the first zoom shot) and then simply crop and enlarge the crop to the size I want for flawless, effortless results. As I said, I skipped the G9 so I cannot compare the G9 and the G10, but I couldn't be happier with my decision to upgrade my G7 to the G10. The G10 clearly takes this type of photography to a new level with features, a great lens and picture quality. For several years, I actually had a $6,500 setup including the Canon Mark II and some "L" glass lenses. It was heavy, cumbersome and took pictures which, as expected, cried out for work in Photoshop. Professional cameras produce pictures that expect the photographer to work on them. While I enjoyed fiddling with the pictures from the Mark II, I eventually tired of that weight, bulk and switching lenses so I gave the camera to my son. Now, that I have this G10, I will never look back. I guess I will need Photoshop again if I try to take pictures in the dark with the G10, it does have a bit more noise at higher ISOs. And if you are a true pro, you will probably rant and rave about noise at higher ISOs I suppose. For the rest of us, the pictures up to ISO 400 are quite acceptable and if are really picky, noise removal is simple enough to accomplish with Photoshop or any other software capable of noise reduction. In real life, I guess I don't shoot much where I use ISOs beyond 400 anyway. I have owned cameras all my life and I have never owned a camera I liked more than this G10, or from which I got better pictures right out of the camera than this G10. This camera is Worth every penny to me.

The G10 is an amazing camera. I bought it two weeks ago based on Michael Reichman's (luminouslandscape website) and Thom Hogan's (bythom[...]) reviews. I am an advanced amateur/prosumer -- I sell fine art landscapes, and have been photographing for about 35 years. The G10 is heavy at about a pound, but I like the heft. It is quite compact (at least from my perspective) -- the lens fully retracts and it will fit in a large jacket pocket. I have a medium-large Zing pouch I put it in and carry in my backpack, or alternatively put the Zing pouch on my belt loop. I'm astonished at the image quality and functionality offered by the G10. I haven't shot any jpegs, only RAW (using DPP to process RAW; the RAW images will no doubt be more malleable with other software when they support the G10 -- DPP is fairly limited). In RAW, at ISO 80 on a tripod, I think the detail rendered by the G10 exceeds or at least equals the Canon 5D. It may have a weaker or virtually no AA filter. The lens on the G10 is fantastic. There is very little resolution fall off, even wide open, edge to edge and into the corners. In my mind, the closest equivalent to the G10 is a Fuji 645 medium format rangefinder (remember the small zoom range Fuji 645 compact?), but the G10 is better in almost every way. The G10 is far lighter and more compact, offers a great zoom range (and is sharp throughout the zoom range) and image stabilization, and has enough resolution to produce fine art quality prints, up to 18" or 24" in the long dimension without stitching. I think the G10 is opening up a whole new world of landscape, street photography possibilities, and what about the incredible macro versatility? There is a substantial drop off in image quality from ISO 200 to ISO 400 on the G10, but ISO 400 is still very very good (again shooting RAW), much better than the panasonic LX3 that I tried for a week or two at ISO 400. I must be crazy. I can't believe a compact with such a small sensor can render detail this well. I'm seeing the G10 as a whole new tool that will open up different possibilities and different ways of seeing (and have different limitations than a Canon DSLR). I haven't been this excited about a photographic tool since I purchased my Canon 5D over 3 years ago. The Canon G10 offers "automatic" settings that I haven't tried. For an advanced photographer it offers a wealth of manual controls and customization, which I'm still learning. One very nice touch is that the custom settings on the top dial (there are two) allow you to save the zoom settings and manual focus setting -- so I have one saved at a 35mm focal length equivalent and another at a 50mm equivalent. This allows quick, street shooting, similar to what one can do with a Leica rangefinder, though the G10 has a much different look given the virtually infinite depth of field due to the small sensor.

la transaction s'est bien déroulée Le problème c'est que une des pièces principales de l'appareil = le capteur était sale et c'est un appareil qui n'est pas nettoyable et ce défaut n'était pas signalé dans l'annonce

(Purchased on 01/05/2009) Received camera much later than when I ordered. Not a problem wasn't in hurry anyway. Once in hand camera seemed very solid. I had read all the reviews from amazon and elsewhere, and even considered getting the Nikon P6000 in its stead. One issues arose immediately, a light banding issue in the LCD. Whenever I pointed the camera in the direction of a light source (ie. a energy saving light bulb hanging from the ceiling and its reflection in a mirror) perfect solid bands of light would streak across the LCD screen emanating from the lights. I contacted Canon and they seemed baffled by this. They suggested that it might have been firmly jostled during shipping and affected the processor. If I sent it to them I was looking at a two week turn around, or I could just send it back to the shipper as defective, which I ultimately did. .....TO BE CONTINUED (Purchased on 01/16/2009) I received a another G10 because the first was thought defective. Now, this new camera had the same light banding issue, and this time it also had a few dead pixels on the LCD. I could not believe my luck. The dead pixels was a no brainer this camera was going back too. However, in all the reviews I had read, I had not come across one regarding the light banding issue. So, I sent this camera back. I did replace the order. I have since received yet another G10. I also purchased two 16gb SD cards a PQI and a Transcend. I had also purchased two extra batteries, so I was committed to make this work. [As a side note, each 16gb card can take up to 2450 shots on superfine mode @ 15MP, 3984 @ 9M, 6126 @ 5M, 9999 @ 2M and web size, 3267 @ WS, and 756 using RAW. If you set RAW+JPG you only get 636, this is the setting I use mostly.] So with three batteries [400 shots per battery] I am supposedly good for up to 1200 shots. Can't comment on video, because I have not really delved into it. (Purchased on 02/02/2009) Finally, received my third attempt at purchasing this camera. As I said before I am committed to making this work. Review after review insists that this camera is unparalleled in its class, and I am a Nikon leaning personality. Anywho, my third attempt. Camera in hand. LCD screen is perfect. No issues with either memory card. I point towards a light source, stare at the LCD. Light banding issue? YES. as it turns out it happens no matter what type of light I point towards. Although it shows in the LCD it does not translate to the actual pic. So, LCD- Yes, photo- No. Overall the camera seems to be a very decent choice. I bought it to take pictures you might take with a good DSLR but not have to carry one. Something to fit in the pocket. I am barely a photo enthusiast, but like to have quality and the ability to achieve more than my initial intentions. Who knows, might actually take this more seriously in the future as a hobby. Most of the shots I have taken are marco, and I have to say I am impressed. I do not regret the choice, for the most part I am satisfied with the G10. ** I'm told that all CCD cameras have this issue when pointed at a light source. However, my Sony HD camcorder does not, but then too that is has CMOS. Also my iPhone does not either. Only real knock about the camera besides, not the best thing for capturing moving objects. So I tend to use video mode for that.

Here is a no-nonsense review of an "advanced" POINT AND SHOOT. I've seen lots of back and forth arguments of good and bad and this and that. Canon states that this camera is for the "advanced amateur". (It's usually the Pros that complain the most.) Its a very sexy looking camera that has a lot of cool features that can make some beautiful images if you have a good understanding of photography. It can go full automatic for those of you who don't (yet). The camera feels like quality, from weight (13 oz.) to the clicks of the knobs, to the smoothness of the lens movements. The battery lasts a good 400 shots if you don't do the on camera slide shows or forget to shut it off (it has power saving feature as well). If you ask me, it's about as good as a $400 - $500 camera can get. The rest of this review is for the ones who are worried about the negative reviews still. It's not going to stand up to a DSLR but it will give you very high quality vacation, wedding guest, birthday and family event type pictures. I am told you can get a very acceptable 11 X 14 print from it. I use it to find interesting locations for pro shoots and shutter bugging or if I just want to give my shoulder a rest from carrying around a DSLR. If you shoot a lot of night scenes, this camera may NOT be for you (there aren't too many affordable DSLR's that can't pull this off either) you will see noise (red, green and blue colored digital grain). Here's why, in the simplest terms I can think of: Think of the sensor as a very smart solar panel (smart because it sees colors too). It generates electricity when light hits it telling the brain of the camera that there is a certain amount of light intensity there. If there is no light, you get blackness, no electricity. If you try to force detail into an area of a picture that is absent of light, by using a long shutter time, you get noise. It could be a stray signal from the camera's system or other heavily scientific stuff going on to cause these dots. AND IF YOUR SHOOTING BELOW A 1/4 OF SECOND, EVEN WITH A HIGH ISO, YOU WILL GET SOME DEGREE OF NOISE. It's the nature of of the digital format. Use a flash. Raw Format, although very impressive with it's "oops!" correction abilities, will not save every image. It should not be used as a crutch or a cheat. It still needs to be exposed within a reasonable exposure latitude or "in the ball park". OK. I'm down off my soap box. Great little camera. Bottom line.