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Canon G11 - the first real test

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Rich
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Gibbens
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Canon recently released the G11, an upgrade to its G series camera. For those not familiar with the G series, it is Canon's high end, flagship compact camera designed for advanced amateurs. The series has been quite successful for Canon and is often the compact choice for professional photographers when they don't want to carry a dslr.

I haven't had a compact camera for 1.5 years (the wife got mine when I got a dslr). I've been carrying the dslr on the bike, but I worry that dual sporting will result in its premature death. So after reading all the great reviews I picked up a Canon G11 about a month ago to use during my riding adventures. This past week I finally gave it an extended test during three days of riding in the Lincoln National Forest around Cloudcroft, NM.

Here are some of the shots I got. Even though the G11 can shoot RAW, I took all these as JPGs with a little post processing in Adobe Photoshop Elements 7.

Shot using manual settings and a 15 second exposure.
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Same settings, without the light show
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It has a pretty good dynamic range. I don't think it has as much as a dslr, but it's still good, IMO.
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Canon actually lowered the megapixels from 14.7 in the G10 to 10.0 with the G11. They did this to reduce noise and by all accounts this has been a good move. This shot was heavily cropped and is still very clean. The bright light helped keep the ISO down (shot at 80), but still an impressive performance IMO.
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The auto white balance worked well. Snow in the sunshine came out as white, not grey.
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The in-camera JPG processing is quite nice. I tweaked the exposure of this pic to get more of the mountains, but the shots right out of the camera were all easily usable.
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The blues of early evening mixed with a full moon
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Though the sensor is larger than a typical compact camera, the depth of field is still quite large. It's f/2.8 wide open but don't buy this camera thinking you will get a limited depth of field like you would with a f/2.8 lens on a dslr. The sensor is still too small for narrow depth of field work.
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The G11 is too large to fit into a shirt pocket, but it does fit in the breast pocket of my riding jacket, making it easy to carry with me while riding.

In summary, my initial test of the G11 shows it to meet my needs as my camera of choice while dual sport riding. While I prefer the dslr, for those times and occasions when I don't want to carry the dslr, the G11 seems like it will get the job done very well indeed.


If you would care to see more pics with the G11, here's the link to all 101 pics from the New Mexico recon.
 
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I've always thought the direction of cramming the most megapixels into the small sensor was marketing driven and actually detrimental to image quality. I'm happy to see Canon bucking the trend. I used to think G2 was the pinnacle of the G-line and never considered upgrading. Looks like G11 may actually be worth it.
 
Thanks for this write up. I have been seriously thinking of this camera for some time now. Still not sure though.

The next time you, I, and the G11 are all in the same location, you are free to play with the G11 to your heart's content.
 
Richard
Thanks for the review. I have been looking at the Canon for a smaller more advanced camera. One question for you is its wide angle and focus. I use a wide angle a a lot and shoot really close in. How does the Canon work for this? How close does it focus at a wide angle and what is the wide angle focal length?

Thanks
Mark
 
I have the G9 and love it. When the G10 came out I thought better but not better enough. Now the G11 and I'm GREEN with envy.
I may have to step up.
Dang.:mrgreen:
TexTom
 
At its widest it is 28mm (35mm equivalent) and f2.8. Not quite wide enough for dedicated landscape shooters I think, but still decently wide. Shooting panoramas is so much easier today with digital that if you need wider then perhaps panoramas might be a reasonable compromise.

Its minimum focus distance is 50cm (1.6ft) in normal and 1cm (.4in) in macro.
 
Richard, I do have one question for you. Does the G11 do any sort of higher-res video, or is it strictly a snap shot camera.

Oh yeah, and I also love the pics. Very, very nice indeed! And I'm also a little bit jealous of the ride location...:giveup:
 
You are posting NM pics without even telling me you made it back alive?

Nice pics though. Can't wait to play with the camera sometime.
 
Very nice, I too had a G2 that I loved. Traded it for a D70. Thanks for the review, and the nice shots of what looks like a very good time.
 
Richard, I do have one question for you. Does the G11 do any sort of higher-res video, or is it strictly a snap shot camera.

Oh yeah, and I also love the pics. Very, very nice indeed! And I'm also a little bit jealous of the ride location...:giveup:

Yeah... what I was thinking too...

I looked at this camera really hard over last few weeks, but I decided that I cared for high res video enough to look somewhere else. I ended up getting Panasonic DMC-FZ35K just a few days ago. It's still in the mail. Does 720p video with stereo Dolby sound.

I know Panny falls under "super zoom" category (with 18x optical zoom!) but it also has 27-486mm lens and is F2.8 - 4.4. I can't wait to get it!
 
You will probably love the Panasonic DMC-FZ35K. I had the predecessor, the DMC-28K, for a while. It was a very nice camera.
 
..... I ended up getting Panasonic DMC-FZ35K just a few days ago. It's still in the mail. Does 720p video with stereo Dolby sound.

I know Panny falls under "super zoom" category (with 18x optical zoom!) but it also has 27-486mm lens and is F2.8 - 4.4. I can't wait to get it!
The Canon counterparts to that, the PowerShot IS series, are also super zoom/hybrids and excellent cameras. But neither of them compact enough to fit into a jacket pocket. There's always a trade-off and compromise.

Too bad Canon didn't incorporate better vid features in the G11. I would have considered it a top candidate if it had.
 
Excellent! I'm with VRoss, I'm amazed that Canon actually bucked the trend and went with a smaller number of low noise pixels, rather than cramming on a largely detrimental number of marketing driven pixels that eat hard drives for lunch. What a great move. Your night shots seem to prove that. I love our G9.
 
I've got the G9 and have it on me more than any other camera I own. Actually, I have more published work taken by the G9 than anything else. My Aunt has a G11, and she loves it. I've got an older Canon camcorder (ZR85), and my G9 takes better video. I assume the same holds true for the G11. Most of my YouTube videos are from my G9.

I wish Canon would get with the program and cease the megapixel race in their dSLRs. The 5DMK2 is an excellent camera, but could be even better if they'd stuck to 12MP instead of nearly doubling. That's off-topic though I guess.
 
I wish Canon would get with the program and cease the megapixel race in their dSLRs. The 5DMK2 is an excellent camera, but could be even better if they'd stuck to 12MP instead of nearly doubling. That's off-topic though I guess.
You have to wait for the public to stop thinking more is better when most people don't ever even utilize greater than 3mp. All they do is fill up their cards faster so they can have larger pics of their dog on their computer that they'll never print, and if they do it'll be a 4x6.

Once the public figures this out, then it'll happen. As long as they buy into the marketing hype that more is better and keep dropping money on those cameras, the manufacturers will continue cranking them out.
 
Agreed. The latest sensors are awesome with the near-gapless microlens layout. Excellent light gathering, more effective photosite use, etc. If the original 5D had the same processor and sensor tech as the 7D has it would be simply amazing.

I had to crop in on a portrait I took of a couple before their wedding. They wanted a 24x36" print framed at the entrance to their reception. The 5D's 12MP, even cropped, were entirely sufficient - without any upsampling - for that print. The quality was excellent, even up close.

Oh how I'd love Canon to release a full-frame body in the 12-15MP range, with the gapless microlens sensors, and the video features (mostly just the dedicated record button, and menus) of the 7D. I would buy it immediately.
 
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