Canon PowerShot G9 12.1MP Digital Camera with 6x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom

Let me start off by saying; "I know that many die-hard camera enthusiasts have mixed feelings about the G9." I've read all the reviews and more. I for one, do not. My point-of-view is positive and optimistic. And, I'll tell you exactly why I feel this way about the G9. First, if you're going to compare this camera to a DSLR, then you're absolutely foolish. There is no comparison, and it's absolutely ridiculous to even try. Why? Well the sensor size being one factor, and then the incredible lenses that are available on a DSLR. At this point, you either understand where I'm going with this, or you don't understand digital camera design. The best way to describe a G9 is to compare it to a Crossover SUV. It's not an SUV and it's not an automobile. Well, the G9 is not a DSLR, but it's also not just a plain point-and-shoot camera. For what it's worth, Canon did a great job taking the best from both sides and blending them to create what I consider the best compact camera available for the enthusiast digital camera photographer. For the size and money, you will NOT find anything better, more equipped, and more capable. I've been taking digital pictures since 1997, and I've yet to find something as well balanced in this form factor. It just doesn't exist. The competition has a lot of trade-offs, and sometimes they are not worth it. I've owned quite a few in the past, and I'm sold on this one. DSLR cameras are great, but they are not reasonable when it comes to everyday use. They are too large and not practical. Unless you're a professional. If you want something to take pictures of kids, take on vacation, use it for artistic flair; then the G9 does extremely well in this area. One of the most common complaints with the G9 (as wells as other compact cameras), is noise at high ISO levels. Well, that's a common trait that is shared with practically ever compact camera that uses a non-DSLR CCD sensor period! As far as I know, there are only two CCD sensors in this class; the one that SONY manufactures, and the one that FUJI manufacturers. The SONY CCD is most common in every camera. So if all compact cameras use the same CCD, wouldn't they all share the same common issues? The answer is "Yes." However, if a compact camera has more manual flexibility and control, then it can better manage the trade-offs with the small CCD. And the G9 has that ability. So far, I'm seeing pretty sharp and accurate pictures between ISO 80 and 200. Even at ISO 400; compared to the competition, it's much better. Try doing that with a SONY camera - good LUCK! SONY cameras have a tendency to over-process the pictures and the contrast is FLAT. The pictures do not look real. The G9, takes very life-like pictures in comparison. The colors are accurate and the focus is always sharp, The DIGIC III does not over process the picture to the point where is looks dull at maximum magnification. Overall, this is a camera that is definitely worth the money. This will not disappoint. It's built like a tank and has SO MANY options and flexibility. If your serious about digital and want something small enough to carry around, then this is your best bet.

I was very happy when I first received the camera, it was great. For almost a month. then one day I turned the camera on, the lens extended to the maximum position, and got stuck. the display said lens error, so I tired cycling power, and even removed the battery, but nothing changed. Not wanting to have to send it back, I thought since I could hear a motor turn after the camera was powered up, that I might be able to fix it if something was loose. Wrong. There is a ring around the lens, and the user manual said that if you press the ring release button, you could rotate the ring and change lenses. This didn't work so well, the lens became loose, so I had to send it back to Canon. I sent it to their repair facility, and they sent me a letter saying since the lens was broken, they would have to charge me $120. I agreed to that, since I shouldn't have attempted to fix it myself, but then a week or so later they called me up at 7am to tell me they couldn't fix it at all. They said when they looked further, the noticed that there was damage from liquid. I told them this was not possible, as the camera was never exposed to liquids while it was in my possession. One of their reps said something about corrosion, but I don't think I owned it long enough for it to be corroded by anything I would have done anyway. So I am out the $500 I paid for it, and I will never buy another Canon product again. It's their word against mine, and I know the camera was never exposed to liquids while I owned it, so they are calling me a liar. My only recourse, as I told them, is to tell everybody I know they can't be trusted. So here I am, telling even people I don't know, don't trust Canon. I am sure that most of you will be happy with your Canon product, but for the small percentage who aren't as lucky, it seems like they don't have to honor their warranty.

I've owned the G7 for about 1 month now and I've really learned to appreciate all its advanced features - but recently I received my G9 and I will be returning the G7. What I like about the G9 over the G7: 1. Bigger screen (3.0" vs 2.5") - with no apparent decrease in battery life. 2. Picture quality is better. I have done many parallel tests using the exact settings on both cameras (with the exception of the 12 vs 10 MP of course) and the results have been clearly more favorable towards the G9 in terms of light metering and sharpness. The G9 has a new metering system as well as a more advanced focusing system too. 3. RAW option is great. Even though most pics will be taken using JPEG (to conserve memory space), you know it when you've got a great landscape with just the perfect lighting conditions that you know may result in a printable pic, in which case you will want to have a raw copy for processing it to the highest potential. 4. Timelapse photo functionality is a very nice to have option which the g7 lacks 5. The physical handling of the camera is better, the front has more grip. 6. Some other design aesthetics have also gone into the g9 which I prefer. 7. Noise levels are exactly the same as in the G7. I tested both up to 400 ISO (I would not use anything higher that that) many times and the speculations found on the internet forums that the higher number of pixels would result in more noise is simply incorrect - at least in my ability to see it in my tests. * the only thing I dislike in the g9 over the g7 is that new usb connection door mechanism. It feels like it may one day break even with proper use. The "slide out" door (like the battery door) mechanism was so much better in terms of use and possible durability. If I were a G7 owner (and you could not return it because you've had it longer than 30 days) I would not upgrade as the g7 is a superb camera - but if you were looking to buy a new camera the g9 is a better choice over the g7. The g9 is the perfect camera alternative to a bulky SLR - without the loss of total photographic control or quality. Highly recommended.

I bought this camera as a smaller, more compact solution to my DSLR's when traveling out and about with our newborn child, a diaper bag camera so to speak. I had bought the Canon S3 IS ealier and while it was a good camera it was still to big to fit in my pocket and had no ability for external flash if I wanted. I decided to go with the G9 and so far I'm pretty happy. First the feel of the camera is very solid and well built and you defintely get the feeling that this is a nice camera. It is relatively small(campared to the canon S3-S5) and can squeeze into my pocket if it where the only thing in that pocket. Image quality is exceptional at 200 ISO and very managable at 400 ISO, anything above that you will need to have some decent noise reduction software to make the picture relatively usable, that goes for any Point & Shoot though and the G9 actually has better quality than the S3 at comparable ISO's. The G9 has all the auto shooting settings you could want and the capablity for creative & manual controls. The button layout I find very nice and I simply love that the ISO has it's own dial on top of the camera for quick changing when needed, no more fiddling in some menue to change the ISO, I wish my DSLR had that feature. The screen is very large and takes up most of the back of the camera and it is nice and vibrant, too bad it doesn't swivel out like the canon S series, though that would probaly make the camera bulkier. The shutter delay(time from when you push the shutter button to when the camera actually fires) is low and the camera is actually pretty fast with minimal lag especially if you have already focused on what you are shooting. As for focusing it seems to work well with very little search time to lock on to your suject. I really like how you can move the focus point anywhere you want on the screen allowing you a bit more compositonal control while maintaing what you want in focus, this was a pleasant surprise. The focal lenghts of the lens are nice from a wide end all the way to the telephoto end covering just about everything you need and the Image Stabilization feature really helps in low light to avoid from motion blur. The G9 also has a macro function that allows for a nice close shot if you are into flowers, insects or any other thing you may want to fill the frame with and I was very impressed with its performance. As for the onboard flash I must preface that I do not like onboard flash for any camera and I try to avoid having to use it unless I do not have a choice. There is no exception to this flash as it seems harsh and causes red eye frequently even with the redeye reduction on. The nice thing about the G9 is that it has an onboard redeye reduction editing funtion where you review the photo and remove the redeye there on the spot instead of at home on the computer or at your photo printing kiosk, that option is pretty cool I must say. The savior for the onboard flash is an external flash and the G9 has a hotshoe mount so you can attach a canon speedlite. This allows you to diffuse or bounce the flash making for a much nicer picture in my opinion and is one of the main reasons why I got rid of the canon S3 and bought the G9. Though I find it a bit silly you have a camera for the fact of it being small and compact and then have to carry an additional flash, so I rarely do as I might as well take my DSLR. The G9 has a movie mode so you can record video and they are of decent quality and I am please with them. You have to switch the dial to movie mode on top of the camera which is no big deal though on the S3 & S5 there was a quick movie button that I wish this had so you could just start filming with the push of a button regardless of what shooting mode you were in at the time. Battery life is about 200 or so shots, give or take, which I find pretty low, so you will need an additional battery. I could go on about more features and the such but I think I covered the pros and cons that realy caugh my attention. Pros: Somewhat Compact Build Quality Image quality- up to 400 ISO Large LCD viewer ISO Dial Button Layout Lots of shooting options especially creative and manual conrols Macro capablities Hotshoe Mount for external flash Ability to move focus point anywhere on the LCD screen Redeye reduction with in camrea editing Movie capabiltities Cons Image quality -800 and above Onboard flash Battery life Price So to close I would recommend this if you are looking for a Point & Shoot as it has almost all the bells and whistles you could desire in a camera and it performs well.

Canon PowerShot G9 12.1MP Digital Camera with 6x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom I bought this camera a year ago and have had very good results. It's reliable, takes mostly excellent pictures and is fully customizable - kind of a mini DSLR. You can't change lenses without purchasing additional adapters, but then I wanted a small, light, transportable camera without having to lug around extra lenses. I also wanted video capabilities. I have only a few complaints: 1. Wide angle is sorely lacking...could use a wider lense. 2. There is a lot of chromatic aberration (purple and red fringing) especially in back lit shots inside (around windows in daytime). I have learned to Photoshop them out to a certain extent, but that is something I hope they've fixed in subsequent models. 3. It has a bit of a problem focusing on monochromatic things like black dogs, clouds or large areas of the same color especially at long distances. 4. Either I haven't learned how to do flash photography or this flash is too strong for a lot of inside shots. It washes out faces unless you are a good distance away from the subject. Get up close and this gets worse. I have a plant that blooms only at night. The flowers are white and very large (dinner plate size). The flash severely washes out the inside of the flower and turning it off results in an extremely yellow color cast. I have been unable thus far to eliminate this dark of a color cast in Photoshop. I've learned more about the "Megapixel myth" since my purchase and it seems to apply here. 12.1MP is too much to cram into a CCD - this doesn't result in better resolution than my old Fujifilm at 6MP or my husband's 6MP, $1500 Nikon D70S (the only reason I bought the Canon was to replace the broken Fujifilm). It's a hard concept to grasp, but I learned the hard way that a high MP count does NOT make better pictures. Bright sunny days outside are this camera's forte. I have taken many excellent (in my opinion) shots of the mountains where I live and other scenery. I've gotten some good portrait shots inside (not all - better ones outside) and some good stop action of birds with the continuous mode. The video does an excellent job even at night. I took several videos of the Bellagio Fountains in Vegas that turned out great, except I couldn't get all of it in due to the wide angle problem (I was right on the rail closest to them). Using the digital zoom produces a more "fuzzy" shot when hand held. It would be best to use a tripod for these. All in all, I love this camera. Unless it breaks, I won't be replacing it anytime soon. Although quite expensive compared to other point and shoots, you get many of the features of a DSLR without the weight and size.

I started long time ago with several film manual 35 mm SLRs and point-and-shoots. Then came a digital era, and I purchased several generations of Minolta DiMAGE pocket cameras. For my downhill skiing trips I wanted a rugged, dependable miniature and intelligent cameras with viewfinder, minimum of controls and ability to shoot movie clips. Back then DiMAGE cameras met my all expectations. I used them at home, daily at work and during vacations. Unfortunately Minolta folded before producing a compact camera with image stabilization. IS is very important for low light shooting from hands. During my September trip to the picturesque Greek Santorini island my DiMAGE X50 had to struggle on it's own with both strong and low lighting of day and night. There thoughts of a better camera with manual controls came to my mind, views were so precious! I carefully studied reviews of DSLRs, looked at them - O boy, they are bulky, and they do not shoot movies! Super-zooms with fixed lenses were not smaller either. Thoughts of falling again during skiing on such camera didn't make me happy - I had few of them. Suddenly I stumbled upon Canon G9 review - it was what I wanted: relatively compact, flat, almost no protruding parts, small Lithium battery, compact but effective optical image stabilization, F2.8 35 mm 6x zoom lens , amazing 3" LCD + viewfinder, ergonomic manual controls, black, takes movies and have newest 12 MP image sensor. I immediately ordered it on Amazon because of better price and assortment of options available; I wanted a decent camera case with it as well. UPS ground parcel came shortly; camera was safely packed and started to work right away. I used camera only for a month so far at home and outside. Quality of the pictures with stunning details exceeded my expectations. Skin tones in portrait shooting came out so good! DiGIC III processor was able to adjust even to strong back light conditions. During night shooting I saw IS kicked in: pictures came out sharp and colorful. I took Halloween pictures in a dimmed light using built in camera flash and got praises from my friends on the web photo album; velvety fabrics came out beautifully. I shot several short movies at standard resolution at 30 fps - they came out crisp and well balanced with good sound from the built-in microphone. I'm wondering: does G9 sensor provides pixel binning for a movie resolution, or is a better sensor? My Minoltas with rise of sensor pixel count would capture exceedingly darker and blockier movies. G9's black paint makes it to look larger and heavier, but it feels just right in hands and don't strain my shoulder on a strap. Lens on power up/down telescopes in and out fast, and hides behind the lens protector - no lens cap needed. Shooting lags for portraits was imperceivable. LCD image is so good, even with sun beaming behind - I didn't glance into viewfinder yet. Shutter release is a feather like comparing to Minolta's; at first I was struggling to find "half way" for the focus check. So far, I charged battery only twice during a month. Soon I will take G9 for a first skiing trip, details to follow. Overall impression about the G9 camera is excellent, it even exceeded my expectations!

I have been using this camera for 5 months, and it has exceeded my expectations. The automatic modes (Auto and P) take such wonderful photos, that it's rarely necessary to use the special settings. Like on an SLR, it's easy to adjust the aperture/shutterspeed on the fly to change the depth of field. The special "scenes" settings provide for very useful common settings such as pets/kids, indoors, beach, snow, and lots more. It's easy to control the built in flash, however the manual focus is such a nuisance to use that I never use it. The camera takes great movies, but I was surprised to find that zooming while filming a movie only adjusted digital zoom, not the optical zoom. To adjust the optical zoom, you must first zoom, then begin filming. The nearly HD movie mode works well but suffers from a limit of 15 fps, so I rarely use it, preferring the 640x480 mode at 30 fps, which gives better results. The camera feels really good in your hands, and all the controls are well placed and easy to understand. The LCD screen is super quality and bright enough to see on a beach. The viewfinder is, however, handy in some situations, but I must note that the lens is visible though the viewfinder. I have owned a lot of canon point and shoot cameras and this one is simply the best. It out performs the PowerShot SD series by so much as to put it much closer to SLR quality than point and shoot quality cameras, even though it is much closer in size to the PowerShot SD line. I can highly recommend this camera.

1. Background info: I am not a Canon user (but I have nothing against Canon products), I've shot with film for many years (Contax), and digitally for the past 4+ years (Sony 828, Sony V3, Sony R1). 2. I was very interested in the G9 when it was recently announced because of the great reputation of the Canon G series and most importantly--> the return of the RAW format in the G9. Furthermore, everything on paper completely outshined my ancient Sony V3; a very good camera but very very slow... and with limited zoom range etc... 3. Thus it was very dissapointing when I had to return the Canon G9 after several days of testing. Here were my impressions of the camera. a. Build Quality: Good b. Size: Good; actually smaller than my V3. c. Performance: excellent--> RAW write times were impressively fast (for a point and shoot). d. LCD: completely terrible. This is supposed to be the state of the art LCD (3 inch), but there was an overt cool /bluish color cast. I tried every suggested variable (via Canon Tech and various on the forums), I went to a local camera store to try another G9 (same problem), and my observations were also confirmed via numerous folks on the web. Some suggested that I just ignore the color cast and just use the LCD for framing and for checking basic exposure--initially a resonable argument but then when you logically think about it--> why should anyone put up with an overt color cast (and also an overly contrasty) image on the LCD, in a supposed top of the line point and shoot camera, from an industry leader like Canon? It just doesn't make sense. I mean, a $200.00 cheap 5 MP camera has better color rendition on the LCD than this G9. e. Even with the above LCD issues, I was still going to keep it if it weren't for the only "ok" image results. I did some basic testing comparing the G9 vs Sony V3 (real old camera)--> all shot in RAW, all shot via Tripod, all shot using calibrated gray card etc... Bottomline, the G9 images were good and I'm sure that people will be able to get nice shots from this camera--> but when / if you actually compare it to something like the Sony V3 (which again is an old camera)--> the Sony consistently just produces more sharper images. 4. Thus each person will have to decide what's important to them in regards to their photographic needs / wants / goals etc... For me, it's always image quality and thus I had to return the G9. All around a decent camera that could and should have been a lot better. For now, I'll continue using the Sony V3 and episodically be frustrated with the slow performance, but at least the image quality will be excellent.

Good pics

This is a great little camera with all the big camera features. Too bad that Canon stopped producing them. If you can get your hands on a really good quality one (like I did from this seller), you will not be disappointed. You can not compare a real camera to a phone. Phones are just a toy. This is a real camera that also fits in your pocket ;) .

そしてとっても頑丈です。オールドデジカメ愛好者にとってこれほど頼もしいマシンは他にあるだろうか。だいじに使っていきたい。

So far so good. I was a little concerned about getting a secondhand camera, but so far so good. I ordered this because I already have a PowerShot G9, but needing repairs. This helps me to not have to learn a whole new camera. I still love this camera, after quite a few years.

A good camera if you are going from phone photography to camera for the first time, with decent photo quality and has everything included (SD card, battery charger, camera case, etc.). I love it!