Canon G11 Hands On (with some quick shots and a coupon for 10% off)

I’ve been searching for a small, portable camera for some time.  A frustratingly long time actually.  Not wanting a point-and-shoot (P&S) camera because they offer me no creative control and not wanting to carry around my DSLR because it can get quite bulky in some scenarios (like riding my bike around town), I was left with few options.  Actually, more like two options.

It was either going to be the Canon Powershot G11, Canon’s latest entry into their successful G-series of advanced P&S cameras, or the Panasonic DMC-GF1, Panasonic’s smallish DSLR-type camera packed into a smaller body.  Being honest, if not for the price difference, I think the GF1 would have been my preferred purchase, but, economics rule and the G11 was nearly half the price.  So goes the way of the world.

Danger ahead: ramblings about the camera in no cohesive order (but we’ve got pictures!)

Anyhow, I was luckly enough to play around with the G11 at a local Best Buy recently to see how it felt in my hands and it wasn’t too shabby.  Kinda big, but small enough for all that it could do.  I figured I could stuff the thing into a pouch while I was riding so it provided for easy access for quick shots.  The viewfinder leaves a lot to be desired for, but, even the competition is not-so-good in this area, so we’ll just have to live with it.  DOF control, practically non existant except for macro mode, but I was expecting that.  The articulating screen is great.

I came home and looked around online and trustly ole Amazon offered free shipping but said it would ship within 1-2 months.  No thanks.  I checked B&H but they charged shipping.  I considered Best Buy and having to pay taxes, and then I remembered I used to get those 10% off coupons in the mail and wondered where those went.  Hello and thank you Google.  Found a Best Buy 10% off coupon good until November 30th and that sealed the deal.  $449 plus tax, bringing it to around $480 after tax.  $20 cheaper than Amazon and $20+shipping cheaper than B&H.

So my wife and I have some errands to run and while we were out we stopped by Best Buy and I snatched one up.  The coupon I brought wouldn’t ring up but when they punched in the numbers it came up no problem.  Left the store and removed the camera from its packaging.  Play time.

(Some of the pictures have larger versions that I link to.  Some don’t.  All should have the EXIF data on their Flickr page under properties. Also, the first picture was a JPEG, the others were RAW processed through Canon’s proprietary software.  It’ll take a little bit of experimenting to find the best processing solution.)

The first thing I did was play around with the macro setting.  You literally can put something right up against the lens and take a picture of it.  Gotta be careful though that you pay attention and don’t literally push things up against your lens.  Good things don’t happen that way.  Anyways, I wanted to see how things looked via the minimum and maximum apertures, and that’s what we have above.  With the lens fully retracted (at a 28mm equivalent in full frame terms) your range is f2.8 and f8.  You can see the differences above, which is quite significant actually.

 

Link to the original.

Here I thought I would test the camera a little bit.  The lens is almost up against the straw here, but I could not get it in focus.  It kept wanting to focus on the cup behind it.  I had to use manual focus to get it to work but the camera’s AF was confused by the scenario.  Just something to keep in mind.

 

Link to the original version.

Here we are at Wal-Mart.  I’m just trying out different perspectives.

 

Link to the original version.

For this shot and the following shot,  I flipped out the articulating LCD and held the camera high pointing down low at some fruit and vegetable stands.

 

Link to the original version.

That’s all I’ve got for now.  Compelling stuff, I know……. Yeah, probably not.  Nonetheless, you pixel peepers out there will probably appreciate it. 

I need time to fully acclimate myself to the camera as I’m a Nikon guy and I’m unfamiliar with Canon’s menu system and terminology.  Probably won’t take long to figure it out, but, it should be fun.  I’m disappointed at the DOF but I knew that going in.  Everything else so far has been good.  I’ll take some more pictures and post some more thoughts here in the short term future.

Here is a link to the original size of the picture at the beginning of this article.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 16th, 2009 at 7:57 am. It is filed under Photography, Photos and tagged with 10% off, Best Buy, Canon, coupon, G11, GF1, hands on, macro, Panasonic, pictures, Powershot. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.