The Powershot G3 is a must-have digital camera for hard-core photo enthusiasts who don't require more than 4 megapixels.
Canon's follow-up to the highly regarded PowerShot G2 upholds the camera's reputation as a flexible, feature-laden photo enthusiast's dream. We're disappointed that Canon chose to stick with the G2's 4-megapixel CCD instead of jumping on the 5-megapixel bandwagon, but the G3's photos look great and deliver enough resolution to crop in and still print at 8in. by 10in.
Canon has redesigned the G-series camera body and control layout with the G3, adding a command dial and quick access to custom modes. The camera's 410g weight -- excluding CompactFlash card and battery -- and protruding handhold give the grey-and-silver G3 a solid, comfortable feel. Its metal and plastic body is covered with buttons and dials that provide quick and easy access to almost every important feature, although novices may find them off-putting. Even advanced users will want to skim through the manual in order to discover when to use the control dial instead of the four-way navigation button, and for details on just what the button labelled with an asterisk does.
The G3's Function button pulls up most shooting-related settings on the LCD, such as light sensitivity (ISO), image size and resolution, flash compensation, bracketing and effects. The main menu system is reserved for changing more global options, such as self-timer delay and autofocus mode. We especially like the ability to switch to two customisable groups of settings from the mode dial and the under-your-thumb location of the white-balance selector.
Just like its G2 predecessor, the G3 has a 1.8in. LCD that flips out to the left and twists around 270 degrees or tucks into the camera back. That makes it easy to compose most pictures. There's also a separate status LCD on top of the camera to help you keep track of current settings.
To add lens converters, you remove the cover that encircles the lens barrel and replace it with an adapter that includes threads to enable add-on lens mounting. This adapter intrudes into the view through the optical viewfinder, which means you won't want to leave it on the camera full-time. We have one gripe about the lens cap: it pops off with little provocation.
Feature-crazed enthusiasts will be hard-pressed to find anything to complain about in the G3. With the exception of a real-time histogram display -- the histogram is available only during playback -- this camera delivers almost everything expected of its class, and then some. With a focal range of 35mm to 140mm (35mm camera equivalent) and the ability to focus as close as 5cm, you're covered for both landscapes and macro shots. If you need a broader range, the camera accepts lens converters, albeit proprietary ones, in conjunction with an optional lens adapter.
Shutter speed drops as low as 15 seconds, and Canon has significantly increased the fastest shutter speeds from what was possible with the G2, offering 1/1,250 at all apertures and 1/2,000 at f/4.0 and higher. You can opt for first- or second- curtain flash timings for night shooting, and there's even a flash-exposure lock. The hotshoe on top of the camera works with Canon's EX-series Speedlite external flash line.
The G3's shooting options alone can fill up an entire specification sheet. It has Stitch Assist and Movie modes; Portrait, Landscape and Night Scene modes; auto, Program AE, and aperture- and shutter-priority modes; Vivid, Neutral, Low-Sharpening, Sepia, Black-and-White and custom (user- definable combinations of contrast, sharpness, and saturation settings) effects settings; and exposure bracketing. There's even focus bracketing, an option we rarely see. In addition to automatic white balance, you get presets that include sunny, cloudy, tungsten, two types of fluorescent and flash, plus two menu slots in which to save manual white-balance settings.
Exposure assists include a built-in neutral-density filter for very bright scenes or for decreasing exposures to allow slow shutter speeds, exposure and flash compensation, and three metering options. You can even selectively tie the metering to the centre of the frame or the centre of the movable focus area.
You can save both JPEG and RAW files with the G3, and one of the helpful features making its debut in the camera is an option to select the file format after shooting an image. If you activate the feature, a message asking whether you'd like to save your image as a RAW file will appear each time that you take a shot in JPEG mode. You can shoot quite usable three- minute movies at either 320 by 240 or 160 by 120 resolution with mono audio, and the G3 allows basic in-camera editing as well. You can also use the audio recording to annotate images during playback. If you prefer time-lapse photography to 15fps video, the Intervalometer lets you schedule up to 100 shots taken at intervals ranging from one minute to an hour.
Zippy isn't the first word that springs to mind when discussing the G3's performance, but it's about average for its class and fast enough to allow you to catch most shots. It takes 4.5 seconds to go from off to ready-to-shoot, which entails extending the zoom lens and turning on the LCD.
Shot-to-shot times range from about a heartbeat for a 640 by 480 JPEG-compressed image to about 6.5 seconds in high- resolution CCD-RAW mode with flash. On average, when shooting both high-resolution JPEG and RAW files, shot-to- shot times run between 2 and 3 seconds -- quite competitive as far as the RAW files are concerned. Under relatively bright light, the autofocus takes about a fraction of a second to lock; under dimmer and low-contrast conditions, it takes a little longer.
We never got the continuous shooting rate as high as Canon's claimed 2.5fps; by dropping to 640 by 480 at maximum compression we attained only 2fps, and with most settings, the speed hovers around 1.5fps to 1.8fps. At maximum resolution and minimum compression, we could snap off only three consecutive frames before the buffer choked. But with smaller images, we captured 50 in a row, and the camera showed no signs of halting.
The optical viewfinder is small but reasonably distortion-free. Unfortunately, it doesn't show enough of the scene (83 percent) to be truly useful for composing, and the lens intrudes into view when zoomed out to a wide angle. In contrast, many competing models now use electronic viewfinders that provide more precisely framed -- if sometimes less sharp -- rendering. The LCD, on the other hand, offers a full 100 percent view and provides an adequately bright image under both sunny conditions and low light.
The included rechargeable Li-ion battery lasts a fairly long time, but it doesn't die gracefully. When we used the LCD but no flash, the battery ran for about 250 shots before blinking low. During heavy shooting using the LCD (but no flash), the battery ran for about two hours before blinking low. Unfortunately, the low-battery light really means a dead battery. We couldn't coax even one more photo out of the camera after the low-battery warning appeared.
Although it has a few minor weaknesses, the G3 takes great photos -- although they're only subtly better than those of the G2. Under most conditions, the automatic, preset and manual white-balance settings are dead-on, and images shot at ISO 50 and ISO 100 display some of the cleanest, most neutral greys we've seen. Canon claims to deliberately preserve the familiar orange-yellow cast of shots taken indoors using automatic white balance under tungsten lighting. Under a mixture of tungsten and fluorescent lighting, auto white balance yields an orangey-pink tone. We think you're better off using the manual white balance or presets for indoor shooting.
Photos taken with the G3 inhabit the sRGB colour space, which might bother users who need absolute colour-space control. Nevertheless, in our tests, unretouched prints from our Epson Stylus Photo 2200 printer matched the source very closely, most likely because the printer uses the sRGB space as well.
As long as you stick with ISO speeds of 200 or less, photographs appear sharp and extremely clean at both ends of the zoom range, as well as in macro mode. At higher speeds, the increased level of image noise makes images look slightly softer. Although usable, some of our ISO 400 shots appeared as if they'd been shot at ISO 800. We recommend setting the ISO speed manually to prevent surprises.
The combination of a broad dynamic range and great automatic metering delivers excellent exposures even in difficult lighting. For instance, a night-time shot we took of Grand Central Station and the Chrysler building in New York (1 second at f/8.0) held detail in the shadows while maintaining the definition of the lights. Fill flash worked equally well, evenly exposing the photo without blowing out the backlighting. Whites and bright spots against dark grey showed some barely perceptible purple fringing; though it was slight, we did notice that the fringing occurred a little more frequently than we had expected.
At its widest angle, the lens shows a moderate amount of barrel distortion, but you'll be fine as long as you don't shoot a lot of grids. We tried both the wide angle and telephoto conversion lenses; with the telephoto, you simply can't use the optical viewfinder and you have to zoom all the way out to avoid vignetting. As expected, we lost a stop's worth of exposure with each, and images looked slightly softer than those taken without the add-ons.
Canon PowerShot G3
Company: Canon Australia
Price: AU$1799
Distributor: Selected Resellers
Phone: 1800 021 167
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