Home > Consumer Reviews > Canon PowerShot G10 14.7MP Digital Camera - 5x Optical Zoom, 3 inch PureColor LCD II Viewfinder - Black

I'll keep this brief as plenty of people have given chapter and verse on the technology and features and so on.

Came to the G10 from a Nikon DSLR (D40) and a long line of analogue SLRs before that. The D40 is a fine camera but I wanted something that was more portable without being completely lightweight. I've had it for a month or two now, and have used it fairly extensively. Here's what I've found:

Pros
Portability is great: drops down to an inch or so deep, easy to slip into a bag if a bit hefty for a pocket. Still offers plenty of grip and weight for steady pictures though.
Useability is very good, particularly the analogue switches which allow you to quickly and intuitively control ISO, shooting mode, exposure compensation and various menu functions. Reminds me of a Nikon F-series analogue SLR; ergonomically one of the best cameras I've owned, with all the important stuff up front and to hand, and plenty of extras in the background.
Excellent, bright screen *and* a viewfinder - essential for low or bright light situations. I've switched regularly between both. Yes, the viewfinder only gives you 70% of the eventual picture but compensating for that with post-process cropping hasn't been any problem.
Quality of the pictures is tremendous. Received wisdom seems to be that 14 megs is too many for a camera sensor of this size - what do I know - but it seems to provide fantastic potential for optical zoom - either when taking the picture (which gives you up to x20 effective zoom, though the quality is pretty ropey at the far end) or cropping in very close later..
Loads of features, which I feel I've only begun to explore.
Nice retro looks. Nice in the hand too. Really feels like an old school rangefinder. A joy to use, in fact.

Cons
It's not an SLR. It doesn't offer that real through-the-lens framing which any photographer loves, and that's the big tradeoff against size and convenience. But that's not a fault of the camera itself.
Response is good for a digital but again it's not an SLR so forget about action shots because - hey - they've gone!
It's pretty pricey - I'd find it hard to describe as good value, particularly once you've added on a good fast memory card (I was talked into the Sandisk Extreme lll SD 16GB 30MBPS) though it offers far mor storage than I'm ever likely to need between uploads, and a case (the Canon Digital Camera Soft Case SC-DC60A for the PowerShot G10 Digital Camera is also great, and highly recommended - though again, pricey).

Conclusion: it's a great compromise camera. Buy it if the size of an SLR gets you down but you still want features and flexibility - but don't expect SLR usability. Or if you're flush and you want a second camera for carrying every day - for what the industry seems to have decided to call 'decisive moment shots'.

I was expecting the perfect camera based on all the fantastic reviews here on Amazon. As of writing this review, 17 out of 25 have given it 5 stars, 7 have given it 4 or 3, and 1 person has given it 2 stars. My previous digital camera was a Canon Powershot S400 (4 megapixel) camera that I got over 5 years ago. It was an excellent camera. I decided to stick with Canon because I loved the S400 so much (and my previous film SLR camera was a Canon too). So I got the G10: a 14.7 megapixel camera marketed as a midway between a point and shoot and a Digital SLR. It has a solid black body design and button layouts reminiscent of the old style of SLR. There is a whole heap of functionality built within this camera.

Image quality is what matters and I'm disappointed with this camera. The problems I have with it are:

1. Pixel noise. As others have mentioned, noise becomes apparent at ISO's 400 and above. However, when you actually analyse the picture taken at lower ISO's, noise is still evident. If you are going to use a camera outdoors during the day or if you are using this for regular prints or photos for the web, then this is not a problem. If you are using this camera for indoors, poorly lit situations, and want high quality images that you can blow up to maximum size then it does become a problem. Using ISO 800 and above is useless in this camera.

2. Focus. The camera reviews here state that the images produced by this camera are super sharp. I didn't find this was the case. When I viewed images at actual size (100%) in Photoshop, I noticed the image to be soft. The sharpness that I would expect is not there. I tested using a tripod, light box and ISO 80 setting, but still notice that the image is soft. I compared images at 100% with images taken with my S400 camera and the S400 was sharper. Once again, for regular prints or photos for the web, you won't notice a sharpness problem. Its when you blow images up to larger size that you may find an issue.

3. Bright lights are not handled very well by the camera. You will notice that areas of brightness (lights) are really blown out in the image.

4. There is already a recall on this camera to resolve fine lines in images issue and a firmware update to fix a hue issue (check Canon website for details).

5. What you see through the range finder and what you see on the LCD screen are two very different things. The rangefinder view is very cropped.

I can only give it a two stars. It is overpriced and doesn't live up to the image quality that I would expect from Canon.

Outside at low ISO this thing takes images as well as my Dslr. Zoom is good, start-up time is quick. 3" screen is highly detailed and crisp. Loads of manual controls should you wish to use them.
Indoors above ISO 200 the noise is ridiculous. If you want to use this camera indoors and want good images, buy a Speedlite or equivalent flashgun so you can keep the ISO right down.
Oh, and if you have large hands this may not be the camera for you (buy a dslr instead).
Nice camera, but could be better.

The camera is great but I have had dead pixels in all three cameras I have received. The dead pixels are in the sensor (not the screen), which makes all pictures have a little white spot corresponding to the dead pixel of the sensor.
Appart from that it is an amazing machine, with a vast array of tools and possibilities to help you compose nice pictures.

This camera is just lovely, really love the stitch function to get those panoramas..the start up time is super quick as is the reaction time. although it's not too fast with the face recognition.. I was expecting to be able to point and shoot with the sun infront and get the flash to work every time with the face recognition but I'm new to this camera, maybe there's something I could be doing to improve the function. It worked sometimes but quite a few shadow face shots too. LOve the wide angle and LOVE the amount of time it stays charged up! Took 800 photos and films and messed around with it loads before it needed charging and even then it hadn't run out of juice completely even after 2 weeks of every day use! I'm not easily pleased with gadgets but I wouldn't be without this camera it's on the way to being perfect and I get the feeling that it's the technology that's not 100% there yet with things like face rec rather than the camera not being good enough. I can't imagine anyone not loving this cam it's a great piece of kit.