A First look at Canon's PowerShot G11

The Same 10Mp Sensor in Two Distinct Flavors
Text & Photos by Allan Weitz


Canon PowerShot G11

Ever since the introduction of the original 3.3Mp PowerShot G1 way back in the year 2000, most every succeeding G-series digicam has boasted an ever-increasing pixel count. The G10 capped them all at 14.7Mp. With the introduction of the Canon PowerShot G11, Canon's engineers have taken a step backwards in a sense by turning to a new 10Mp imaging sensor, which contains about a third fewer – albeit larger - pixels than its predecessor, the G10. So the $64 question is- 'How does this drastic dose of pixel-shrinkage affect image quality?' The answer is 'quite well, and thank you for asking'.

It's no big secret the higher-resolution sensors found in many digicams fall short of their lower-res siblings and predecessors. You can subdivide an imaging sensor just so far before the benefits of higher pixel-counts start compromising the dynamic range of the image in the form of blown highlights, murky shadows, and blotchy tonal transitions. Based on comparisons between a G10 and an early production model of the G11, Canon's engineers seem to have taken a good change of course.

As for overall image quality, the image files produced by our test G11 were equal to - and in some circumstances better than - image files produce by the G10. This is noteworthy considering the files produced by the G11 are considerably smaller (about 28.6Mb) compared to the files produced by the G10 (about 41.8Mb). (So much for the more-is-better school of thought… eh Kemosabe?)







The G11 strongly resembles its predecessor, the G10, and thankfully retains the G10's 'real camera' analog control dials for switching exposure modes, ISO sensitivity, and exposure compensation. The biggest exterior difference is the G11's 2.7", 461,000-dot swivel-mounted LCD. If you've used a swivel-LCD in the past, you'd note its absence when trying to shoot from difficult angles with the G10. Not so with the G11. The cost of this convenience is about 9/10th of a millimeter of additional padding on the camera's profile, but such is life. The swivel feature also allows you to face the LCD inward to protect the LCD surface when it's not in use.

Like the G10, the G11 sports an honest-to-gosh optical viewfinder which, peephole-ish as it may be, is a welcome alternative to the camera's LCD when shooting under brighter lighting conditions.

The lens, the same 6.1~30.5/f2.8-4.5 5x (28~140mm equivalent) zoom lens used on the G10, does a fine job capturing sharp stills (JPEG and/or RAW) and video despite a bit of pin-cushion distortion common to most zoom lenses in this genre of cameras, most noticeably at the wide end of the zoom range.

One of the niceties of the G-series PowerShot cameras has been the hot-shoe, which enables the use of all of Canon's Speedlite flashes and compatible third-party flashes. The hot-shoe also facilitates the use of optical and radio transmitters for triggering studio strobes. And if you plan on using the G11 in studio environments, you'll be pleased to know the G11 has a top flash sync of 1/2000th compared to the G10's already-fast top sync speed of 1/500th.

Other improvements found in the G11 include an HDMI output port for playing back still and video on your TV or computer monitor, higher low-light sensitivity, and a Dual Anti-Noise System, that along with the G11's DIGIC 4 image processor, allows for noticeably better low-light imaging at ISO levels up to 3200 (ditto for the PowerShot S90). While image files from most cameras in the point-and-shoot arena start falling apart once you get to around ISO 400 (regardless of manufacturer's claims), the images produced by both the G11 and S90 in the ISO 400-800 range proved to be impressive with reasonable noise levels, and even at 1600 and 3200, both the G11 and S90 produced very usable image files.


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