[UPDATE: For a full review of the camera, please visit the Canon PowerShot G11 Review on MidwesternMac.com]
After a few weeks of phone calls, store visits, etc., I've finally found a Canon PowerShot G11. And none too soon, as I'm leaving for Rome in less than three days, and really wanted to get this camera as a 'pocket' camera for walking the streets of Rome!
I was almost taken in by the Canon PowerShot SD780IS (one of the IXUS models... and the svelte black one, not the crazy colored ones) due to it's infinitesimally small size (it's about the size of a deck of cards... maybe smaller), but once I found a Best Buy with a G11 in stock (found online), I immediately called the store and ran over to pick it up. Another worthy candidate (if small size is what matters most, and you don't mind losing a lot of the physical buttons and flash hot shoe, is the PowerShot S90. However, I'm a fan of the super-tough body/controls on the G series, and had an older S40 flake out on me a few years back.
The two main reasons I'm spending twice as much for the G11 are: the much larger image sensor/RAW capability, and the plethora of physical buttons. This camera feels much more like my favorite film SLR of all time, the Minolta X-700! It has ISO and EV selection dials on top, tons of switches and buttons to control everything, and has a nice flash hot shoe to boot (no pun intended)! If I like the camera while in Rome, I might just keep it on as a backup body to my D90 while shooting weddings, events, and the like. We'll have to see how it performs in high-ISO situations, to be sure.
I'm charging the G11's battery right now, and will start taking it through its paces this afternoon... then the rest of the month in Rome!
I was planning on bringing my D90 with my 20-40mm zoom lens, but I wanted something less obtrusive, and, more practically, less heavy (I walked the streets of NY, DC and Chicago over the past few months lugging the D90 + 2 lenses, and that's not a very happy proposition!).
A review will soon be posted on Midwestern Mac's website, and I will be posting some pictures (hopefully in the 'Pictures' section on this website!) over the next weeks. More to come!
Comments
I recently purchased this camera and wanted to post my impressions of the camera from the perspective of an average camera user. I bought the G11 for my husband, who wanted an easy-to-use camera with an optical viewfinder and a swing-out LCD that was viewable in bright light.