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

Background - I used to own a 7.1 mega pixel Sony Point & Shoot for around an year, back in India. When I came to US i decided to buy a new camera. I wanted a high end Point & Shoot, as they are easy to carry and I thought SLRs would be tough to use. I had multiple choices at hand Sony T200, Canon 850, Canon Powershot S3 or Canon G9. Well I read a lot of reviews, went and checked out all these cameras at B&H Photo Video and finally i decided to buy G9. It was a little pricy when compared to all the other choices I had, but it offered tons of other features which none of them had. Usage - I have been using G9 for over 3 months now and believe me its worth every bit of money and more. First of all the colors that I get from Canon G9, i could not get such beautiful colors from my Sony Camera. The features provided by G9 gave a lot of control and creativity to my pictures. I always shoot my pictures in the Manual Mode now, and G9 makes it so easy to use. The wheel at the back controls a lot of features but mostly i use it for shutter speed and aperture. You can also control the ISO separately and it goes up to 3200. When you play around with these shutter speed, aperture and ISO you get to know that there is so much more to photography. You can freeze motion by using high shutter speed and bigger aperture or you can imply motion by using a shutter speed as low as 15 sec. There is a whole set of pre-adjusted modes available, but when you start using the manual mode and read a little bit about photography you will prefer the Manual Mode. Apart from shutter speed, aperture and ISO you can also use presets for White Balance, flash (both strength and timing) and manual focus. The 6X optical zoom is better than most of the cameras in its class except Canon Powershot S3. Some say that 12.1 mega pixel is an overkill, but never the less its very useful when you want to take pictures and edit them on your computer, most helpful when you want that wide angle look from your photo. Size - Canon G9 is a bit on the bulky side, its not one of those cameras which you can slip it in your jeans pocket. But i guess you can pack all the power in a smaller camera. It feels a little heavy, but then again you will get used to it and when you see your pictures on that 3 inch wide screen, you wont regret the size. The screen is very bright and beautiful. Pictures - I think i have used G9 for all sorts of pictures - I have taken Portraits, Landscapes, Kids, Slow Shutter speed, Fast Shutter Speed, Indoors, Outdoors and they all come out great. I don't use the presets much, but once i used the Snow preset and it did the job perfectly well for me. I have used the RAW pictures a few times and its really useful feature to have, if you would like to edit the pictures without loosing quality. I have also taken a lot of Movie shots and they also come out reasonably good, I don't expect much from it as its primarily for photography. One good thing is that you can zoom in and out while taking the video, which was absent in my Sony. Finally speaking you will be amazed to the pictures you take...when they start to look pretty professional. Other useful features include Color Ascent mode, where only one color gets highlighted in your picture and rest of the picture is B/W. You can use this to play around with your pictures and it gives excellent results. Battery Life - Well Battery lasts for only one day out i.e. around 200 photographs without flash. It also depends on the time you spent in viewing your pictures on the wide screen. But I would have loved it, if it lasted more. I guess you need to keep an extra battery with you. Memory - Only a meager 32 mb card comes with the camera. You definitely need a bigger card. Buy a 2GB or 4GB one, so that you can make full use of the 12.1 mega pixels. Recommendation - Well i think this is the best Point and Shoot camera available. It has acted as an inspiration to me and I have learnt a lot about photography after buying and using this camera. I just love the hobby now and probably in few months I would shift to SLRs as now I feel comfortable in using them. Hope this review was helpful to you. PS: Talk about inspiration - I did a blog post on Photography, if you get time do read it, here is the link - [..]

After working with this camera for a month I ended up sending it back to Amazon. I didn't want to have to buy a DSLR and a compact camera to get everything I used to get in one good workhorse. That is why I researched all sorts of cameras for several months before deciding on the G9. In theory it appeared to have all the qualities of both in one camera. I specifically wanted a camera that was physically small enough to become a permanent attachment for those spontaneous shots, one that could take candid shots without spooking people, extra optical zoom, high megapixels so I could print large-sized photos, one that would take spectacular macros. I also needed a camera to take good, clear, close-up photos of jewelry for online sales. I take hundreds of jewelry photos per week, and don't have time to color-correct them all in an editing program. Perhaps I got a lemon, I don't know, I'll try another G9 from a local camera shop before I completely jump ship on this one although at this point I'm pretty gun-shy about Canon. The white balance totally sucks when using the G9 in the studio under ECA lamp bulbs, even when setting the custom white balance using a grey card (or any other color card for that matter). Cyan colors in turquoise and other glue-green gems are interpreted as plain old blue, even in RAW mode. I have an old Sony DSC-S75 that records turquoise as true turquoise under ECA bulbs without any color-correcting needed. I have asked numerous people about this issue, one professional said my Sony was the exception and that most compact cameras have problems interpreting the cyan colors correctly under artificial light. Even directly speaking to the Canon support representative produced no comments or solutions to this issue, it was as if they never heard of this problem before. The battery life is unacceptably short. Apparently this is an issue with other Canon compacts as well from what I've read. I thought it was just because I had the camera on a lot trying to learn how to use the features, but even so the battery should last longer than a day. When I finally did have one of those great spontaneous photo moments, the battery died almost immediately and I had to use my trusty old Sony dinosaur instead. There is a blue cast to the live view screen, but I have noticed that when I download the photos, they all have a slight blue cast when viewed on my computer. Blue seems to be the G9's favorite color. Probably okay for average amateur shots, definitely not acceptable for professional product shots or award-winning photos (like my old Sony has done for me). Macros were okay but not likely to win ribbons. I had trouble getting the G9 to focus on what I wanted it to focus on, and I had tremendous trouble trying to get a sharp photo of earrings hanging on a display, it just would not get it all in focus no matter what settings I tried and, believe me, I tried all sorts of tricks. Back to the Old Sony once again. Apparently newer is not always better, especially with ECA lamps.

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!

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 ;) .

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.

I really like the quality of the camera, there are so many things I learnt with it. I have had a spectacular experience. Problem is you need to buy a battery pack for it to make it work for sometime. But for casual street photography, it's phenomenal.

Great point and shoot for the money, I bought one many years ago and damaged the lens. Parts are not available for it anymore, I have an underwater housing for the G9 and didn't want to throw it away.