Initial impressions of the G12 from an SLR user's perspective

So I am fortunate to have received a G12 for Christmas. Just to give a bit of background...I have been an XTi user for the last few years with some semi-decent glass.

I have always regarded the G series of cameras to be the cream of the crop point-and-shoots and even believed that they were near-substitutes for entry-level SLR's. How wrong I was. After playing with it for a few days, the G12 is still just a point-and-shoot. It's downright sluggish compared to the XTi. Without the grip of an SLR, it feels awkward holding a flat brick-shaped camera. Adding a 430EX or a 580EX feels very unbalanced and the 270EX just isn't the same thing. Suffice to say, I was a little disappointed.

But all is not bad. I can say that it is an impressive point-and-shoot. Love the vari-angle LCD. Love all the knobs and dials. Love the fact that my back doesn't hurt after a day of hauling it around. Image quality is very good and the ability to do post-processing to a RAW file is quite welcome.

I would just like to say to SLR users who are thinking about the G12 that this is not a substitute or replacement to an SLR. Although some may call it a backup to an SLR, I would not even go that far. SLR's are SLR's and G series cameras are point-and-shoots. The feel and experience of the two types of cameras is like night and day. If you can accept that, I think you will appreciate what the G12 has to offer.

Hallo, I am a professional photographer. Mainly I use EOS system through 5D2, 7D and 1D with some of finest L lenses in Canon lineup. I bought the G12 in order to take pictures in places where is not advisable or prohibited the use of DSRL (Kuwait is an example)
These some of my impression:

Ergonomic: Decent. like the front dial and rear dial and the selector. The viewfinder is and "add on" but no information at all on exposure. Only leds for focusing and flash or something like. The grip si good, but is easy to touch by mistake the rear dial while taking picture. It's perfect for small-hand, not so good for big hands. Manual use of camera with vari-angle screen is very good and practical, even more than "rebel" series that have only one dial.

Autofocus: It's very good. I like the beam that you can use to help focusing in dark conditions. I wonder WHY Canon don't put it also on DSRL camera, instead of the dreadful flashing of speedlight, with the user choice to disable or not un menu conficuration. It' a simple hi.power led, I don't understand. Nikon DSRL have. Very good macro performance, tracking is impressive and I found it much better than DSRL contrast AF especially for video purposes.

Lens: The 5x zoom is good, with nice color and contrast and also with a good sharpness "but": f2,8 is a bit too dark in my opinion at wide angle setting. Other brand start at f2, even the S95. I would prefer a 24-135 equivalent instead of 28-148. an 24-140mm f2-4,5 would be perfect. Like the "ND" in camera. Very useful as the closest aperture is f8. Add also contrast in some situation. The IS is excellent, I took night scene handheld at 200 ISO with 1/4sec: perfect. Very good IS performance.

Firmware: The firmware is a bit too complicated to compare with some of DSRL camera (or at least is different). It's very good, like the "my menu" as DSRL and the possibilty to C1 C2 custom function. Some "funny" scenes mode are "miniature" that looks like a tilt&shift picture, fisheye, HDR function. It has also some scene mode for underwater photography, useful if you buy the case for underwater. I found the flash settings a bit disorienting. Nice the possibility to have a manual setting of the flash with 3 different power levels (it has obviously also the 2nd curtain and slow syncro and TTL auto)

Image Quality: Considering the small sensor I think the camera deliver good image quality from a "DSLR user poin of view". I suggest not to go much further than 800 ISO in using this camera. Use of RAW is very good and in post porcessing you can have a good compromise. The Camera is very good for landscapes, travel, even reportage. Less for portraits. The DOF is not comparable with a FF Camera with an 2,8 or even wider lens, but in some cases, keeping the subject and the back in a good distance you can bring at home some decent portraits. The flash tends to overexpose in some cases, so I suggest to set it accordinly.

fpl1966 wrote in post #11545922
Manual use of camera with vari-angle screen is very good and practical, even more than "rebel" series that have only one dial.

I find it odd that it's easier to change basic functions (aperture, shutter speed, ISO) on a G12 (or S95) than on an entry-level DSLR

fpl1966 wrote in post #11545922
Autofocus: It's very good. I like the beam that you can use to help focusing in dark conditions. I wonder WHY Canon don't put it also on DSRL camera, instead of the dreadful flashing of speedlight, with the user choice to disable or not un menu conficuration. It' a simple hi.power led, I don't understand. Nikon DSRL have. Very good macro performance, tracking is impressive and I found it much better than DSRL contrast AF especially for video purposes.

Using flash as a focus assist beam in low light is one of the worst features on Canon DSLRs. They really should change.

fpl1966 wrote in post #11545922
Lens: The 5x zoom is good, with nice color and contrast and also with a good sharpness "but": f2,8 is a bit too dark in my opinion at wide angle setting. Other brand start at f2, even the S95. I would prefer a 24-135 equivalent instead of 28-148. an 24-140mm f2-4,5 would be perfect. Like the "ND" in camera. Very useful as the closest aperture is f8. Add also contrast in some situation. The IS is excellent, I took night scene handheld at 200 ISO with 1/4sec: perfect. Very good IS performance.

A 24-140mm f2-4,5 would be excellent, although it would require a larger lens. The Panasonic LX-5 does 24/2 and I hope Canon responds.

The ND is a very nice feature.

fpl1966 wrote in post #11545922
Firmware: The firmware is a bit too complicated to compare with some of DSRL camera (or at least is different).

It may just be that you're less familiar with it. What settings are you changing that you find too complicated?

fpl1966 wrote in post #11545922
Image Quality: Considering the small sensor I think the camera deliver good image quality from a "DSLR user poin of view". I suggest not to go much further than 800 ISO in using this camera.

Better image quality at higher ISOs is a major advantage of larger sensor cameras. Even 800 seems a bit high. G12 at 100 may be comparable to DSLR at 800 or 1600.

fpl1966 wrote in post #11545922
The Camera is very good for landscapes, travel, even reportage. Less for portraits. The DOF is not comparable with a FF Camera with an 2,8 or even wider lens, but in some cases, keeping the subject and the back in a good distance you can bring at home some decent portraits.

Compacts do best for shooting subjects that don't move much and are in good light. They win if you want lots of DOF, for example, landscapes and macro, and lose if you want narrow DOF, for example, portraits.

The smaller size and lighter weight are a major advantage

fpl1966 wrote in post #11545922
The flash tends to overexpose in some cases, so I suggest to set it accordinly.

I try to avoid on camera flash if at all possible, except for a touch of fill flash.

BTW, the Kuwait DSLR ban was a hoax. http://www.google.com/​search?q=kuwait+dslr+b​an

Thanks for the impressions. I think you present a good balanced view of the camera.

I'm an amateur photographer and learned photography using a Canonet GIII rangefinder, Olympus OM-1 and OM-2 SLRs, and a Rollie TLR.

Here are my thoughts (after about a week of use) on how the G12 handles:

Coming from my background, the G12 feels very familiar, as it is about the size of my old the rangefinder, only slightly smaller in width. The controls are laid out well and I don't find it awkward to handle at all.

I still tend to use, and think in terms of, aperture priority and shutter priority modes, and I like using the front rotary knob to quickly adjust the shutter or aperture in those modes.

The top mounted ISO and exposure compensation knobs are similar to what I was used to with the OM-1 and OM-2 and are especially nice. I like being able to quickly pick the "film speed" for each shot, without going back to the menu system.

I also like the rotating screen. If I flip out the screen and then rotate it 90 degrees to the plane of the sensor, I feel like I'm looking down into the screen of my old TLR which forces me to think about composition the way that I would when using a TLR.

All in all, I'd say the G12 has the feel of a modern and extremely capable range finder camera rather than having the feel of a high-powered SLR. Its handling and capabilities are certainly far beyond "point and shoot".

I mainly use my G11 (but a G12 would apply) when out walking the dog as I can fire it one-handed (I've built up the controls area at the back to prevent accidental button pressing!) but also to supplement my 7D in getting angles in which the 7D struggles (even with an anglefinder and Liveview). Also chuck it in the car when I'm not out on an assignment.

OK, so which ones are the G11 and which the 7D?
https://photography-on-the.net …p?p=11551056#po​st11551056

Will you please enlighten the ignorant.
I'm keen to see more of the capability of the G12/12 and those pics impress me.

Markulous wrote in post #11554246
OK, so which ones are the G11 and which the 7D?
https://photography-on-the.net …p?p=11551056#po​st11551056

Which ones are the G11 shots and which the 7d?

alxcoghe wrote in post #11555481
Which ones are the G11 shots and which the 7d?

Go on! Give them a guess!

But I will say that no one has got them right yet - no trickery involved, just straight shots (some are blends but from the same camera) and it certainly was never my intention to make it a challenge (I just wanted to see how each camera performed with the ND Fader!). I'll totally admit that an 800px image is not really a test (and pixel peeping @100% immediately gives the game away)

Markulous wrote in post #11556478
Go on! Give them a guess!

But I will say that no one has got them right yet - no trickery involved, just straight shots (some are blends but from the same camera) and it certainly was never my intention to make it a challenge (I just wanted to see how each camera performed with the ND Fader!). I'll totally admit that an 800px image is not really a test (and pixel peeping @100% immediately gives the game away)

An 800px image is probably as good a test as a normal sized print or normal sized web posting.

I'm always amused when people who insist that A is better than B can't tell the difference between A and B in a blind test. (I'm not directing this at anyone in particular - it's a general phenomenon.)

richarddd wrote in post #11557003
An 800px image is probably as good a test as a normal sized print or normal sized web posting.

I'm always amused when people who insist that A is better than B can't tell the difference between A and B in a blind test. (I'm not directing this at anyone in particular - it's a general phenomenon.)

Cheers, Richard!

Yeah, know what you mean - human nature from blind prejudice!

I agree with your pretext but I would like to take a guess. I'd pick #2 and #5 as coming from the 7D.

Thanks Bill, but only 1 out of 2 for you!

BTW, the classic comparison is http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/​kidding.shtml:

Looks like we're on target to agree with that then!

one could be drawn to the conclusion that in general use the 2 cameras give the same or similar results.
I'm sure that is not the case, but from where I sit looking on a 17" laptop screen with those images thats the case.
IMO they are ALL very impressive.