Compact camera for intermediate and advanced users

Author's Rating:

Pros: Compact, good picture quality, full video recordings, long battery,  effective Image Stabilizer, dial for ISO

Cons: video has no zooming, high ISO pictures have noise

The Bottom Line: 

For intermediate and advanced users, esp those who want to double a camera as a camcorder. Don't buy if you need rotating LCD screen or zooming on video

Author's Review
I bought Canon Powershot G7 three years ago (and wrote a review about it), now it’s time for me to “invest” in a new camera and I chose the Canon Powershot G10. Due to the economic reason, this time I bought a “preowned” G10 from ebay for $350.
 
- Body:
With a sleek body, G10 weighs more than 1 lb, about 4x3 in and less than 2 in thick. I do like this size . It’s not too big nor too small although a bit heavy. Thanks to the retracted lens, the front the camera becomes flat and therefore the whole camera, when powered off, becomes a small rectangular prism. The camera fits in my hand nicely. Its black color makes it more “pro” (I don’t like silver color, it makes a camera look like a cheap plastic toy). Most of the body is made by metal, which makes the camera feel quite solid in my hand. The grip is much better than the one in G7. I had to shell out $25 for  a Franiec custom grip on G7 but I don’t think I need to do the same for G10.
- Picture:
G10 is not an entry-level camera, so I expect a top quality at consumer level. I tried different image sizes with different modes, including macro and portrait modes.
In good lighting, the picture quality is very good.  Pictures are crisp, chromatic aberration (the purple color fringing around contrast edges) does not show up much, colors are vivid and natural. However, compare with the older G7 the quality gap in good light is not big.
In odd conditions such as in a running car I think G10 excels, thanks to the Image stabilizer. I let my wife run the car while I took several pictures of the city. The results were much more than I expected: in Auto mode the pictures come out not blurry at all.
G10 also excels when when pictures with many human faces are taken: all faces are well focused, thanks to the Face Detection feature.
In low light, red-eye problem is minimum, thanks to AF assist and  Automatic Red-eye reduction features.
With G10 you can take pictures in raw format. I really don’t care about raw format, I believe if one goes for quality that far one should get an SLR camera, which is not much more expensive than a high-end compact one like G10.
In summary,  I’m very happy with the picture quality of G10. Compare with SLR pictures taken from my brother's camera, I think G10's are not far behind.

- Control:
G10 has 3 dials that I really like:
1. Picture mode dial: many cameras make you go through a menu to select a picture mode. Not so with G10: a dial with clearly marked modes such as Automatic, Arperure Priority, Speed Priority, Video Mode etc… you just turn the dial to the desired mode. Within each mode there are parameters that can be adjusted by the control dial described next.
2.The control dial: is at the back of the camera, used to change the settings of the mode that you pre-select. In addition to the 4-way control wheel, there is a dial on the outer rim. After selecting the item from the menu you can turn this dial to advance to the next value in the same way as pressing the advance arrow on the 4-way wheel.
3. ISO dial: unlike most cameras where you have to access the menu to change the ISO, G10 has a physical dial on which ISO numbers are clearly marked. You just turn the dial with your left finger to change the ISO value, same way as conventional cameras.

Other controls are also well place. The only complaint I have is the setting of image resolution. It’s difficult to find the way to set it and once it's found, it’s easy to forget because resolution selection is not intuitive.
G10 really excels in playback mode. Besides basic moves of pressing the four-way dial on the right or left to move forward and backward, you can use the wheel to quickly go from 1 image to another. In addition, you can do slideshow, voice captions, thumbnail view, and zoom & scroll(zoom in the image and move around it). In playback mode, pictures can be rotated, resized, and cropped. One feature I found interesting is i-Contrast function, used to light up dark areas of a picture.
- Lens/Zoom:
G10 has an all-glass lens. Its 5X zoom is a quite a disappointment since G9 and even G7 have 6x. I found the zoom pretty smooth and fast. A big plus is that the lens can retract inside the body, so you don’t need lens cap. The zoom doesn’t work in video mode while recording(explained in details below in video section) . The camera has 4x digital zoom. Normally digital zoom is not worth to mention because it degrades picture quality, but in G10 it’s a little different: you can trade image size for digital zoom. For example at low resolution 1600 x 1200 picture you can get a total of 14X zoom without no loss in quality.
One big plus about the lens: when you browse pictures in playback mode the camera is powered on but the lense does not protrude. This is important since most cameras die because of stuck lenses, lenses that cannot extend because the lens motor dies (I myself had 2 cameras that died this way). Some cameras force the lenses protruded even in playback mode. This wears out the lens motor pretty fast. Thanks God that G10 doesn’t have this problem.

- LCD screen and Optical Viewfinder:
G10 has a pretty big LCD screen of 3 inches, not something to praise since most other competitors and even older G-series cameras already have. However, the big enhancement here is the LCD resolution, which is much higher than the predecessors', making it a pleasure to look at. However, the screen cannot rotate. If you really like rotating screen, you need to go for G11.
While under normal light the LCD screen shows good image, under sunlight, like other cameras, it doesn’t.
About Optical view finder, I’m a fan of one. I find Optical Viewfinder conserves energy and really helps when taking pictures under sunlight, and most of all, is a life-saver when the battery runs out of juice.
The Optical viewfinder of G10 also has a diopter adjustment wheel, which allows eyeglass wearers to adjust the viewfinder to match their glasses.

- Battery:
G10 has a rechargeable lithium battery, a battery charger is included. I like the compactness of the battery charger. No cord, no walwart, just plugging right into the wall. It takes about 2 hr for a full charge. The battery charger helps since it allows you to use the camera while charging the battery. However, the battery is proprieatry and I don’t like proprietary batteries. It means I have to shell out extra money for a 2nd pack (Lithium Battery pack NB-7L, $30-40, beware of the $16 2-pack on ebay, the batteries won’t hold charge for long). otherwise, when the battery is depleted I can’t buy batteries from regular stores. It also means I can’t use AA-size rechargeable batteries that I already own.The G10 battery is a big improvement. The new type of battery used in G10(starting from G10 new type NB-7L is used) lasts much longer, I would venture to say more than 50% more juice, than any G-series predecessor.

- Flash:
Red-eye problem due to flash is well taken care of thanks to the Automatic Red-eye Removal feature. I’m very please with this feature since red-eye is a big problem on all cameras I had, including the G7. Flash range also good: pictures taken at 12 feet are excellent, no noise. The camera has a horseshoe to accommodate an external flash, which has quite a few to choose from(most are expensive, some are even bigger than the camera itself such as model 580EX2, $380 on ebay, which claimed to cover up to 90 feet).
One big feature of G10 is the ease of use of ISO thanks to the dial mentioned above. The ISO value can go as high as 1600. However, to my experience, any picture beyond ISO 400 is not good(I myself don’t even use anything beyond ISO 200). AF assist lamp is excellent, allowing the camera to be able to focus in very low light, and helps in reducing red eyes.

- Memory:
G10 uses a wide range of memory card types: SD, SDHC, MMC, MMCplus, and HC. To me any camera that use SD and SDHC is a big plus. SD memory is cheap (I’ve just bought 8G for $25 at Best Buy) and compact . Some memories are too fragile, others are too big (like the old CompactFlash that Canon uses). A disapointment is that no memory card is bundled with G10. However, this is not a big disappointment given the fact that Canon is always cheap on memory anyway. Even if Canon provides a memory it would be so small that you have to buy new one anyway(want proof? Canon provides only 32M for G7)

- Video: I’m always leery about using digital camera as video camcorder. However, with G10 I eventually put my Panasonic camcorder SW20 in the closet. G10 can capture full video (640x480 at 30 frames per second) for 50 minutes with 4G memory card. This is a big improvement since G7 can only record 30 mins and the real camcorder Panasonic SW20 can record 1 hr on 4G. What happens if you have 8G card? The LCD shows you can record 100 mins but there is a trick here: due to the 4G limitation of video file size you cannot record 100 minutes continuously. You have to record 50 mins, stop the recording and then start a new one for 50 mins, for a total of 100 mins. I consider this a minor drawback because you rarely record 100 minutes continuously.
The big drawback is that no zooming can be done on video recording. I don’t know why Canon didn’t include this feature. Other competitors, even the outdated  Sony DSC-M1 has zooming on recording mode. However, you can still adjust the zoom first, then press the recording button, the image is locked at the zoom level you set previously. Note that you cannot zoom optically but you can still zoom digitally.
G10 also has another mode that I don’t care about: smaller picture (320x240) for a longer time, more than 2.5 hr for a 4G card( who has a battery that last that long?).
Another plus point I need to tell: the Optical Image Stabilizer works real well on G10 on video mode. When Image Stabilizer is on the effect is very good, without noticeable loss in quality (my camcorder SW20 image stabilizer doesn’t help much, the old DV camcorder has a big quality loss when the Image stabilizer is on).

In short, apart from the zooming drawback I don’t think video quality of G10 is inferior to regular camcorders in the 640x480 mode. Note that G10 cannot record high definition video.

- Other features that I found interesting:
1. Face Detection technology: I tend to ignore this feature at first but now relaize it is an important one. This feature automatically regconizes up to 9 people faces and adjusts all the settings to yield best results. I haven’t tried that many faces but I did try a group of 5 people. On the LCD screen there is a rectangular frame showing that each human face is regconized. After the picture is taken it’s pretty amazing: all are well focused. In addition, G10 has a new feature called Face Select and Track, that allows you to select a particular face as the main object and track it.
2. Stitch-assist Panorama: I like to take panoramic pictures, so this feature interests me very much. This mode basically assists you in taking multiple overlapped images to construct a panoramic picture. In this mode the exposure and white balance are locked, so the images are even, yielding a better result when being stitched together. I’ve tried a couple of panoramic pictures on a tripod, the results were excellent.
3. Intelligence Contrast correction: after trying this a few times I really like it. Basically this features  brightens the dark areas of a photo (dark area problem frequently happens when you shoot a picture with flash).
4. Large selection of accessories: G-series in general and G10 in particular has a nice selection of accessories: external flash, underwater case, telephoto and wideangle lenses, external shoe cord, remote shutter release … you name it. And these are more and more afordable, especially if you buy from a third party. If you buy the lenses, please note that you have ot buy an adapter ring first (about $20), the lens doesn’t attach to the boby by itself, it needs an adapter.

In summary I’m happy with this camera, I do recommend it to intermediate and advanced users or folks on limited budget(as G11 is introduced, G10 price drops). However, as always, this camera is not for everyone:
- If the rotating LCD screen is a must to you, by any means nix this camera, consider the G11 instead.
- If you already have Powershot G7, do not buy G10. G10 is definitely better than G7 in many ways but still does not justify the extra money, I think.
- If you intend to double this camera as a camcorder, but zooming while recording and zoom power are absolutely necessary to you, then do not buy this camera, buy a real camcorder.