Very good image quality for a compact camera. Optical viewfinder. Manual controls. Articulating LCD.
The Canon PowerShot G12's images and features are excellent for a point-and-shoot camera, but at its size and price, you can get far better
Just a few years ago, the PowerShot G12's predecessors were the cat's meow—Canon's point-and-shoot G Series cameras looked and felt like digital SLRs, with manual controls and optical viewfinders packed into smaller-than-D-SLR bodies. Flash forward to 2011, and you'll find a handful of digital cameras that are nearly the same size and price as the 10-megapixel G12 ($499.99 list), but pack image sensors five to eight times larger, and take much better pictures. The G12 delivers image quality that competes with the best point and shooters. The thing is, though, these days, other cameras of this size and price can deliver D-SLR-quality images. If you want a small camera, you can get similar image quality for less with the Canon LP-E6 ($399.99, 4 stars). If you want higher-quality images, your $500 buys the much-more-talented, interchangeable-lens Sony CCD-TRV218E Charger($549, 4.5 stars). Simply put, in 2011, the Canon G12 just doesn't make as much sense as it once did.
At 3.0 by 4.41 by 1.9 inches, the G12 isn't pocketable. These days, there's only one reason a camera should be this bulky: a giant image sensor. And the G12 doesn't have one; its image sensor is the same size as the much-smaller Canon PowerShot S95—1/1.7-inch (43mm²). The $599.99 Casio NP-40 (3.5 stars, $599.99 ) and the Sony NEX-3 offer much larger sensors in similar-sized bodies—so you get better images. Also, these cameras are a lot faster.
The upside of the G12's big body is that it's got plenty of room, to accommodate a dial for almost every manual control. There are two dials on top of the camera dedicated to controlling exposure compensation and ISO sensitivity. On the G12's front, you'll find a horizontally mounted dial for your index finger, and on the back right there's one for your thumb—they control aperture and shutter speed. All of these controls make for a pleasant D-SLR-like shooting experience.
There's an optical viewfinder on the G12, which is tough to find on a point-and-shoot camera these days, though this one's a bit different. It's actually a second lens, with optical zoom, that moves back and forth in conjunction with the main lens. Optical viewfinders on most D-SLRs give you a view through the lens (the light through the lens is reflected up to the viewfinder), so what you see in the viewfinder is as big and as bright as the image you'll capture. This is not the case with the viewfinder on the G12, which is a small, low-quality lens. If you frame your shots with the viewfinder, the image you'll capture is slightly lower. If you prefer optical viewfinders to LCDs, resist the urge with the G12.
Fortunately, you have the high-res, articulating LCD on the back of the camera to frame shots. The 2.8-inch display packs in 461,000 dots, and can swing out and rotate 270 degrees so you can view it above your head or below your waist.
The G12 is Canon's most-expensive PowerShot, but its lens isn't high-end. It offers 5x optical zoom via a 28-140mm (35mm equivalent) range, with corresponding aperture of f/2.8-f/4.5. The Canon S95 has the same image sensor but a more desirable lens, its 28-105mm is able to open to f/2.0 in the wide-angle position. The brighter lens means the S95 can take in more light, so it produces better photos in low light without a flash. Coupled with the fact that the S95 is small enough to fit in your pocket, it's tough to see why, if you value image quality, you'd choose the G12 over the S95.
Performance
The G12 is quick, but it's no speed demon. The camera powers on and captures its first shot in an average of 2.4 seconds, and once on, it averages 0.6 second of shutter lag and 2.9 seconds of wait time between shots. The similarly priced Sony NEX-3 is, by comparison, blazing fast, powering up and shooting in an average of 2 seconds. Also, the NEX-3 showed only 0.1 second of shutter lag, and averaged 2.3 frames per second in our tests.
In the PC Labs we use the Imatest suite to objectively measure image quality, and the G12 scored very well for a point-and-shoot camera. In terms of sharpness, it delivered a center-weighted average of 2,049 lines per picture height. That's as sharp as point and shoots get (even better than the S95's 1,858), though the Sony NEX offered slightly better score of 2,248.
The G12's noise performance was also good. If Imatest measures over 1.5 percent noise, the image will likely be visibly grainy. The G12 can travel up to ISO 1600 without noisy images—excellent performance for a compact camera. ISO 3200 is also below 1.5 percent, but the images are reduced to a 2.5-megapixel resolution, thanks to in-camera software-based noise reduction. To compare, you can crank the NEX-3 up to ISO 3200 and stay below 1.5 percent noise with 14.2-megapixel images. Since the NEX-3 also has a larger sensor, the images at higher ISOs are sharper and offer a larger dynamic range.
Video is captured in high definition (720p30) as .MOV files that can be natively uploaded to YouTube and Facebook. Using optical zoom or refocusing while recording, as with most cameras, is not possible. Like with still image quality, video quality from Micro Four Thirds or other compact interchangeable lens cameras like the NEX-3, exceeds what you get with the G12. And with these cameras you can adjust the aperture, focus, and optical zoom while recording.
In true Canon style, connectivity options are plentiful on the G12. There is a standard mini-USB port for connecting to PCs, and a standard mini-HDMI for playback on HDTVs. There's also a hotshoe on top of the camera to add external flashes and other accessories.
Overall, the $500 PowerShot G12 isn't a bad performer—for a point-and-shoot camera. But it's bigger and more expensive than most compact cameras. Micro Four Thirds and Sony NEX cameras, which pack big sensors in same-size bodies for similar prices offer better images, better performance, and a better shooting experience. In fact, pictures from the G12 aren't even that much better than from some lower-end PowerShot models, like the S95.
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