By Leonard Goh
11/11/2008
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/digitalcameras/0,39005881,44044566p,00.htm

One of the highlights of Canon's offerings at Photokina in Germany was the update to its pro-level compact shooter, the PowerShot G9. When its successor, the PowerShot G10, was announced, it looked set to take on challenger Panasonic's Lumix DMC-LX3. However, through our few days of testing, we found that Canon behaved very differently (in a good way) from its rival and has a good suite of features to satisfy professionals for their everyday snaps.

A noteworthy mention would be the 28mm wide-angle optics which is coupled in the 5x optical lens. This is a first for a Canon G-series camera and shows that the company is taking this wide-angle rivalry (started by Panasonic) very seriously.

Other than that, the G10 has just minor upgrades to the sensor's resolution and a new image processor. That said, we expect this shooter to top the charts soon and give its rivals some tough competition.

Design

The PowerShot G10 could possibly be one of the heftiest pro-level point-and-shoots on the market right now. Putting it beside its predecessor and the Lumix revealed that the Canon has expanded its waistline and put on some weight. But all these are justifiable if we consider that the shooter houses a 5x optical zoom lens, whose massive glass protrudes out when the camera is powered up.

Taking cues from the G9, the G10 is styled in similar fashion. Clad in a matt-black chassis, the shooter spells serious business and does appears intimidating when put beside the Lumix which looks more docile and free-spirited.

The handgrip is furnished with textured rubber for a more reassuring grip and, while this is an improvement over the G9, we would have liked the G10 better if it had come with a thumbrest.

The most significant changes made to the new shooter would be found on the top deck. The previous iteration had two dials--one for ISO and the other to switch between different shooting modes. The G10 features an extra dial for changing exposure compensation quickly. The mode dial is stacked on top of the ISO plate and the ridged sides allow us to quickly manipulate the settings without fumbling.

What hasn't changed is the back panel. The rear control layout on the G10 is similar to the G9's and photographers used to Canon's icons and symbols will find this familiar.

Since handling both the G10 and its predecessor would be almost similar, we decided to compare the G10 with the LX3 instead. For the Lumix, the mode dial was smooth to turn but had ample resistance so we would not switch to the wrong mode if turning it too fast. The dial was easily accessible by the thumb, too. The other controls were spread out beside the LCD and could be easily manipulated. For the G10, we liked the scroll wheel which was used to adjust the various settings and we preferred this over the four-way joystick found on the LX3. However, we found the mode dials to be slightly stiff and it hurt our thumb when we tried to operate it with one hand. We also found the grip of the G10 to be more comfortable than the Lumix. But these are personal preferences, so your best bet would be to try out the cameras in stores.

Features

One of the notable upgrades for the G10 would be in the optics. For the first time in a G-series shooter, Canon has incorporated a 28mm wide-angle lens coupled with 5x optical zoom. While this may be nothing to shout about, it shows that the company is listening to consumers' needs. However, Panasonic is already ahead in this race with the LX3's 24mm ultra-wide-angle lens. Those in the know will also notice that the telephoto range of the G10 has been compromised down to 140mm from the G9's 210mm.

Apart from the optics, the rest of the upgrades are pretty minor. The sensor's resolution has been increased from 12.1 to 14.7 megapixels. LCD-wise, the G10's display remains at 3 inches, but can now show 460k dots instead of the 230k resolution found on the G9.

Other features that the G10 shares with its predecessor are an optical image stabilizer, face detection and user-adjustable focusing points. The array of shooting modes and customizable settings are similar to what you can get on both the G9 and the LX3.

If you're a Canon dSLR user, you should be familiar with Picture Style which is an option to apply different settings such as color tone, saturation, sharpness and contrast to your image in-camera (when supported). There is also the Digital Photo Professional (DPP) software that comes with the snapper. The G10's RAW files can be opened in DPP, and for the first time in a Canon compact shooter, you can apply customized Picture Style settings during post-processing.

All of Canon's latest cameras boast the new DIGIC 4 image-processing engine, and this replaces the aged DIGIC III. The company told CNET Asia the new chip has faster autofocus operation, reproduces even more stunning colors, extended dynamic range and better image quality. We find out how the new engine performs later in this review.

The supplied rechargeable lithium-ion battery's capacity had been increased as well, from the G9's 720mAH to the new 1,050mAH. The battery could have been beefed-up to back up the more power-intensive image processor, or to handle the larger image files generated when taking pictures.

There is no internal memory in the G10, and storage support is only for SD/SDHC cards. We advise using an SDHC card because the transfer rate is faster and allows you to capture more shots before the buffer fills up.

Performance

The G10 took about 1 second to power up, which was faster than the LX3 which took 2.2 seconds. If you're looking for a shooter that reacts as fast as you do, the Canon may do a good job. Compared with the G9, the G10 was only a wee bit faster but the difference was noticeable.

Shutter lag time measured slightly over 0.1 second, and if you are not fussy, this timing is almost on par with the G10's competitors.

Time-to-first-shot clocked about 2 seconds under ample lighting, and about 4 seconds when the environment was dimly lit.

The continuous shooting mode chugged along at 2 frames-per-second (fps) and this speed was maintained for about 20 shots before it slowed down slightly.

Autofocus was snappy and generally accurate except for the few times when we adjusted the placement of the focusing frame and didn't return it to default position.

The G10 managed a good job in exposing our pictures for both highlights and shadows. However, for backlit subjects, the shooter tended to expose for the background more, though we easily solved this problem by switching to spot-metering mode. There is an iContrast option where the snapper will process the image in-camera to give more natural-looking shots by balancing the contrast of the photograph. This worked well and we left it at Auto for part of our review.

Comparing the optics of the LX3 with the G10, we found the 24mm ultra-wide-angle lens on the Panasonic to display more visible distortion on the sides of the image, but that is understandable due to the physics of the lens. For the G10, we were quite surprised to see almost no visible traces of distortion at 28mm.

Image Quality

Canon's cameras has a reputation of delivering quality images, but will the G10 be able to do that with 14.7 megapixels packed into a small sensor? Our tests revealed that the image quality was outstanding, but there were areas for improvement.

Photographs taken with ISO 80 to ISO 400 were very much usable, with slow incremental digital artifacts that were remnants from the work of the noise-reducing algorithm. We found pictures snapped at ISO 100 to be the most pleasant and natural-looking. At ISO 80, the image was a bit soft, and from ISO 200, we detected some grittiness in the picture. For higher ISO shots, we would recommend using ISO 400 and ISO 800 as we found photographs taken at any setting beyond that to have very poor reproduction of details.

Now for the million-dollar question: How does the G10's image quality compare with the LX3? Personally, we prefer the LX3's image quality even though it has a softer feel compared with the G10's. At default settings, the Canon did capture sharper shots but we found it to be a bit too over-processed (or digitized) for our liking. However, if you like tack sharp pictures, the Canon would probably suit you better.

White balance and flash output were accurate, and shutterbugs may be glad to know there is a flash exposure compensation to extend your creativity with an onboard strobe.

Conclusion

G10 or LX3? That is probably the question on most photographers' mind. Although these two shooters are competing in the same pro-level point-and-shoot category, we found them to cater to different photographers. The Canon will probably appeal to those who need a tough, can-do-everything shooter, while the Lumix is targeted at those who wants something more compact and to experiment with varying aspect ratios. However, given that both snappers offer almost similar specifications, the deal breaker lie with the resolution and optics. If you need to print larger pictures, go for the G10. But if you prefer wider-angle lenses, the LX3 is more suitable.

The PowerShot G10 is on sale in Asia now at S$869.