Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(180)
4 star:		(61)
3 star:		(21)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

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.

If you're a photographer who cares about image quality, and can't always lug around a DSLR, buy this camera. You will have no regrets.

I've had its predecessor, the G7, for about a year. It has been my normal always-in-the-bag camera. The G7 was limited at ISO 400; the G9 isn't. My normal workflow with the G9 is to use CS3 to import RAW images (fixing chromatic abberation on the way into CS3 in 16-bit mode), and then to use Noise Ninja to clean up image noise. With this workflow, ISO 400 and ISO 800 are completely usable. (You can also play with some other settings in Adobe Camera Raw, like Recovery.)

And for everyone: you really should never, ever use a built-in strobe on a camera. The G9 (like the G7) has a hot shoe. Use it!

Canon fixed a bunch of the G7's problems in the G9, the most glaring of which is the G9 now has a battery meter! (I can't tell you how much that lapse bugged me.) The new LCD monitor is much, much bigger -- and gorgeous. And best of all, the camera body is the exact same size and shape, and fits in my underwater housing. (Update: not all the buttons work. The most glaring problem is possibly the zoom can't be changed, and that you can't change to macro mode underwater. I'll probably get the new housing, but the existing one is functional.)

Nits: the new cover for the USB connector is a downgrade, but one that I can put up with. The lens is unchanged, and has a fair bit of barrel distortion at its widest angle. You can clean up the barrel distortion somewhat in CS3, but straight horizontal lines become slightly wavy. I'm being hyper-picky here, but please know that you're not replacing a DSLR with a prime wide angle lens. You're just buying a small camera that you can take anywhere.

Buy it. Shoot lots of pictures with it. Be happy!

I had the opportunity to get my hands on the G9 a week ago and have used it exclusively for the past week.

Based on my personal observations (And I loved the G7):

I see practically no differences in Image Quality at all. I thought the G7 was superb, and I find the G9 to be superb.

The 12 MP is practically indifferent from the 10 MP on the G7. Sure it gives you slightly more pixel to play with for cropping and printing, but negligibly so.

The design is virtually the same -- the screen is a bit larger, but for all practical purposes it looks and feels the same. I don't see any difference in "brightness" on the screen -- it looked great on the G7 and it looks great on the G9.

THere is a slight contour change on the front with a barely noticable front grip molding -- maybe 1/16 inch more than the original. I honestly can't feel a difference although some users have.

It does have RAW - a feature I don't need nor do I plan to use. But its nice that it is there for those who want it.

The ISO and noise appears to be the same -- the G9 excels at night neon shots - just like the G7. I see no difference in noise between the two cameras.

The shutter lag is exactly the same as the G7 - I don't see any difference like some reviewers have mentioned... it seems exactly the same.

Some say that the optical view finder works better - that it is clearer with less parallax. I have never used an optical view finder on a point-and-shoot in my life, so I can't compare this feature. I will add that here, though, since others have found it a useful improvement.

I also don't see any difference in battery life -- maybe its more problematic if you use RAW, but I've gotten the same 450 plus shots out of the battery, just like the G9.

The design of the lens and the connections are the same, so I expect those of us who carry it around in our pockets are going to have the same dust problems we had with the G7.

Finally in similarities -- the camera feels the same and weighs the same. It responds the same when you start it up, and it makes just as much noise as the original. The trademark Canon grinding lens noise is intact.

in differences: that old 2GB card that used to get 800 shots at 10 MP now gets 600 shots at 12 MP.

The autofocus seems slower on the G9.

Macro shots do not focus as quickly or as well on the G9. There are some shots that I routinely was able to quickly use macro for on the G7, that now require quite a bit of futzing to get sharp and focused in the G9. I suppose that is one of the changes because of the larger sensor, but I don't know. I actually thought there might be something wrong with the camera, but looking at another G9 at a different camera shop (so it wasn't the lot number) I was able to reproduce the same difficulty focusing with Macro as on my personal G9, so it's apparently a camera thing.

The long and the short of it -- I don't think it is worth the Upgrade if you have a G7 unless you really really want the RAW. For all other practical purposes, it's the same on a day-to-day usage level.

If you are new to the Canon Powershot G line, then skip the G7 and purchase the G9 -- it is like "G7 SuperCharged" -- while in general the two are identical. THe G9 is actually less expensive than the G7 as well.

I have been shooting with manual focus, manual exposure SLR systems since I was twelve years old. That's almost thirty years using kit like the Olympus OM-1 (my first love, too bad it was stolen!), Pentax MX, numerous lenses, professional flash equipment like Vivitar 283 and Sunpak 383. My cousin asked me to shoot her wedding, so I thought maybe the time had finally come to switch to digital.

Okay, so maybe I'm old school, and maybe I have some unrealistic expectations for modern equipment, but every time I looked at the digital SLR offerings, I was disappointed. Even the Nikons (well, the affordable ones like the D70 and D80) were polycarbonate bodies with plastic lenses. Not professional-grade. Do you have to pay thousands of dollars to get a metal-bodied SLR today? Something built to withstand a 5 fps motor drive, like in the old days? Well, I looked at the Pentax K10D -- metal body, reasonably affordable, fully compatible with all my lenses -- but I just had this vague sense of dissatisfaction. These fragile contraptions are big, clunky, dare I say dorky compared to an old film SLR. Hey, and don't let any dust get on the sensor. Sheesh, talk about wearing kid gloves.

Then a friend told me about the Canon G9. Whoa, paradigm shift here, folks. I hadn't considered a non-SLR, but I sure am glad I did. This thing has pro-grade features: aperture and shutter priority modes as well as full manual exposure, manual focus, RAW capability, decent optical zoom range, spot metering, a hot shoe that works with all my existing flash gear, and many other things that usually only make it into SLR's.

For example, with most P&S cameras, shutter lag is a huge problem. Good portraits demand instant shutter response. The G9's shutter is almost instantaneous SO LONG AS you half-press to lock the focus, and compose with the optical viewfinder (i.e, turn the LCD off). I am getting great portraits of my kids using this technique, and it does feel a bit like using an old Leica rangefinder. Never understood why anyone would give up an SLR; now I get it. Quiet, easily concealed, doesn't announce "I AM A PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER!" or otherwise make you look or feel like a dork. The optical viewfinder zooms pretty closely with the lens, and parallax has not been a problem. I wear eyeglasses and the viewfinder works just fine with them; in fact, better than with my MX. When using the viewfinder, the LCD just displays important camera information: shutter speed, aperture, exposure compensation, stuff like that. I've found it's pretty easy to glance down at the LCD to check those things, then return to composing in the viewfinder.

For those moments when I really need to see exactly what's in the frame, I switch to composing with the LCD. This is handy to set the manual exposure, too. I shot some pics of my kids in front of the fireplace and in front of the Christmas tree, with available light, and I just dialed down the shutter speed in manual mode until the exposure looked right in the LCD. And what an LCD -- again, it's SLR-grade.

Overall, the build quality is phenomenal for this price. It feels solid. Others have compared it to a tank, or a swiss watch, or a Leica. It is very enjoyable to hold and use. Taking pictures is fun again!

Video capability is a bonus, too, that you won't find on SLR's. I'm not a big video shooter, but I have two young kids and there'll be times when I want it. Back when I was looking at SLR's, I always figured I'd need to purchase a separate (cheap) video camera, maybe a Pure Digital Flip model. Not anymore.

The G9 is not perfect. Some shortcomings can be overcome or compensated for, while others simply can't. I am disappointed with the noise above ISO 200. Autofocus is not as fast as an SLR. Wide-angle zoom isn't as wide as I'd really like. The retractable lens looks a bit fragile to me. I recommend the Lensmate lens adapter for when you think you might bump into things. It's anodized aluminum, so it's rugged; unfortunately, it really sticks out into the optical viewfinder, cutting off about half the view. Well, that's when you go with the LCD, I guess. Works of man fall short of perfection, and all gear has strengths and limitations. Learn them and use them, or work around them as best you can. There are lighting conditions that NO digital handles well, and for those, I'm happy to continue shooting film.

But for everything else, I'm really happy with the portability, control, responsiveness, and quality of the G9. All things considered, especially that it's less than half the price of a D80 or "serious" DSLR, it is a great camera.

I really love the G9. This is the perfect camera for street photography. It takes much sharper pictures than the typical point and shoot and it is much easier for me to carry around than my Canon XT. (I keep it in my messenger bag when I walk around the city.)

The 2 downsides:
1) Noise. The pictures are definitely noisy indoors, no matter how much light. However, it's not any worse than your typical P&S. (It is worse than DSLR for sure though)

2) Poor quality control. SHAME ON CANON. I'm on my fourth unit. All of them have been defective:

a) Green cast on LCD edges when the LCD is black.
b) Tilted/crooked LCD screen
c) 4 bad pixels (two red and two white)
d) Green case on LCD TOP AND BOTTOM

I've given up on getting a good unit and am keeping the last one. Of all the potential defects I've seen, the green cast on the LCD is the least bothersome (since you can only see it on dark images; in most normal cases you can't really detect it). Much rather have a bad screen than bad pixels.

I don't think I've really seen non-defective units of the G9....maybe at B&H at the store (where I bought mine), but now I think the lighting in the store just made it difficult to detect the defect (since when I looked at mine at the store, it was really hard to see the defect in the store lighting for some reason).


Again, I'm REALLY disappointed in Canon's quality control. They made a great camera, but not a single one I've seen is defect free. This is the only reason why I'm giving it 3 stars instead of 4 or 5. This also gives me great hesitancy to buy other more expensive Canon products. ($500 for the G9 is not chump change, but I can live with bad qualtiy for good design. If I spent $1,500 on a Canon 40D and had a bad screen or hot pixels I would totally go nuts.)

In addition, in reading many online forums on this issue, it seems that no one has gotten Canon to even acknowledge the LCD defective screen exists.

Finally, I give Amazon 5 stars for their customer service. Much better hassle free returns with Amazon than at one of the local big New York camera shops (they are good at making recommendations, but returns? forget about it).

I've had my G9 for a few weeks now and am very pleased. Image quality is top-notch for a non-SLR and the ability to shoot in RAW format is inidspensible. I've also used the G7 quite a bit previously and thought people might be interested in a comparison between the two.

In short, if you already have a G7 and don't need RAW support, you won't see any huge advantage to the G9. However, anyone worried that the G9 will have greater noise issues due to the greater megapixel count will be reassured to know that, even at high ISO, the G9 seems to take slightly better pictures than the G7. Of course both are still pretty noisy at high ISO compared to a dSLR or even Fuji's Finepix f-series, but for overall picture quality and features I'd still go with the Canon unless high ISO shots are your primary focus.

Users of the G7 will find a few menus reorganized, which is mildly inconvenient. The shortcut button makes it easier to set custom white balance modes but you can no longer use it to switch image stabilization on or off; you'll have to go through the menu for that. On the other hand the new screen is easier on the eyes, and despite the increased size the battery life is about the same.

As others have mentioned, the one serious disadvantage to using this camera *now*, if you like working with RAW, is inconsistent support for the new RAW file format of the G9. It works reasonably well with the latest camera raw driver for Photoshop CS3, and I have no problem working with it in Adobe Lightroom, but it's not yet supported by iPhoto and the default exposure settings sometimes seem to be misinterpreted by other apps, so photos require more tweaking to "develop'. If you have a previous version of Photoshop or another program you can use the free Adobe DNG converter to convert the files, but this is an inelegant solution. Software updates will undoubtedly resolve these problems, but it's disappointing that Canon chose to introduce yet another proprietary format.

I am a professional landscape photographer and I wanted a small point & shoot to have handy to grab pictures of my family as well as keep in the car at all times. The G9 delivers on all counts. I was waiting for Canon to release a point & shoot that could capture in RAW format, and when I heard about the G9 and after hearing lots of great things about the G7, I knew this would be the camera for me. The G9 is built like a tank for a point & shoot, captures beautiful images and is easy enough for my wife to use! My only beef is that the images get quite noisy at ISO's above 200, but that's the nature of the small sensor in a point & shoot. In most cases, it delivers very clean images. I like the manual dials on the top that allow me to very quickly choose the shooting mode and ISO. This is also a great camera to shoot in scenarios when you want to be a little more inconspicuous - great for street shooting. Overall, I am very happy with the G9.

Theres really not much difference between the new 12.1 megapixel Canon PowerShot G9 and the 10 megapixel PowerShot G7 it replaces. They pretty much look alike. They both are optically stabilized the same way. They have the same zoom lens (35mm equivalent), hotshoe and an optical viewfinder that's about the same. The G9 has a slightly bigger 3-inch wide view LCD. But I find them pretty much the same.

I do love the fact that this camera responds quickly and it's built really tough. These days, that's a major asset.

It does seem to have quite a bit of distortion at the widest angle when you zoom it way out as far as it will go. And the lens sort of gets in front of the viewfinder. It rather interferes with it to a small degree. Also there is no optical zoom during movie capture.

This is a good camera that's similar to a true dSLR. And the fact it is ruggedly built adds to its desirability.

The fact the zoom is stabilized is important. I wouldn't consider buying a camera that didn't offer this. Also, my macro shots are terrific. Another good feature with this camera.

This is truly a camera for a real photographer. It includes a dedicated ISO dial, multi-control dial and customizable shortcut button.

Highly recommended.

i would highly recommend heading over to luminous landscape and reviewing the travel article about a trip one of these took to japan in the hands of an expert, Nick Devlin. i think it very realistically sums up the capabilities of this camera far more accurately than a lot of the sourness you read here.

I've owned and used several canon S and G series cameras in this range. Before the advent of affordable DSLR cameras my assessment would be different than it is now, much more harsh perhaps. Many of us vacillated to these from film SLR's because they were the only show, but the world has changed. DSLR's were out of reach as they were crazy expensive, so cameras like this, at the upper end of the PS scale (dubbed "prosumer"), had some big shoes to fill and were labored with high expectations. All of this history is crammed in 5 or 6 short years; the velocity of change has been incredible. Today is no different than it was then, this is not a do all, end all camera and I don't think Canon means it to be. One main distinction is that the ranks have thinned and many of its features can only be found in a rangefinder camera if you go all the up the food chain the Leica M8. It is not a beginner's camera, unless that person wishes to learn about the fine points of photography. A DSLR is quite simply a better deal and can be had for about the same money as the G9, but the price you pay is bulk.

This is an advanced piece and it fills some very specific purposes, but it is not for everyone. I get the impression from many that they expect it to be a viable replacement for an SLR and it is not.The G9 will produce excellent results, easily approaching what can be got out of an SLR in many situations, but it can take a lot more work to get those results and the images may have some noise or contrast issues in extreme cases.

It does have a major flaw in viewfinder coverage and parallax, but it is clearly left on there as a bail out. In case of low battery or for some discrete times or in high contrast conditions it can make the difference between getting the shot and missing out. You can use it, but it requires some creativity and practice. This is not unique to this camera, but common to the breed. It seems worse since there is such a huge focal length range to cover, but these optical VF's on all brands of cameras have always been marginal at best. One thing I do miss, though, is the swivel LCD. That was always a gas to use, but it also made the G (G2/3/5/6) cameras bigger and fatter than the S's (S30/30/45/50/60/70/80). Once I could afford an SLR, all I owned was the S's. Now I think Canon has kind of blended both lines into one, and I can live with what the G9 is fine; kind of an S series on steroids.

The LCD might look a little cool in color temp, but saying it's got a blue cast and suggesting that it's not usable sounds like looking for something to complain about. I didn't buy and don't use the G9 as an image viewer, but as a tool to make them. All the LCD is meant for is basic shot framing and exposure review. Canon have done a splendid job in the live and shot review settings (live histogram, all the image details you could want) making this large LCD a great tool. No blue cast is evident in the final images (jpeg or raw), so what difference does a cool LCD make? If lighting is an issue and if the user is trying to control the output, the only real way (with any camera) to insure the final color balance is to shoot raw anyhow, so again, I just don't see an issue here, at least not where I'm sitting. I also own the SD850, and side by side I just don't see anything to carp about with either.

I travel extensively and bring the G9 everywhere as I can't always carry my DSLR gear. I have found that I "need" one of these to satisfy my addiction. There is simply nothing else on the market that can offer the features and produce the results in such a compact package at such an affordable price (sometimes at any price). This one shows that Canon still sees this a viable niche to fill, and the G9 is the best of them I've used, all things considered. If Canon would design in a legitimate viewfinder, and if the lens could pick up a stop or 2 in speed and go wider on the short end, I think more serious photographers would own one. There would be no choice, unless you had the cabbage to carry the Leica. You just have to learn to compensate for the parallax, or frame more often with the LCD as things stand now, or go without. I think it's a shame if anyone ignores the G9 who is serious about making top quality images and needs the portability. In the correct hands it produces astonishing results.

I have bought and returned 3 PowerShot G9 cameras because of stuck pixels.

I really like the features and size of the G9, but I cannot accept it if has stuck pixels.

The first G9 I bought had two stuck pixels in every shot I took: One bright red one near the center and one faint green one about 3/4ths to the right. The stuck pixels were present in the image files. This was a major defect.

The second G9 I bought had a bright blue stuck pixel on the LCD screen whenever the shot was previewed through the LCD viewfinder, but no stuck pixels in review mode (when the LCD was viewing pictures but not taking them), and no stuck pixels on uploaded pictures. This one was strange -- a distracting blue dot on your LCD viewfinder which isn't a permanent LCD display defect but always appears in camera mode. I suspect a software bug or something with the lenses/mirrors which only affects the LCD viewfinder.

The third G9 I bought had a faint green pixel stuck on the LCD. I have not fully tested the extent of this stuck pixel (LCD, CCD, etc.) yet, because I will be returning the G9.

I bought these three G9s from different venues (stores), and all had these problems. But since they were all right after the G9 was first released, it's possible they all came from the same bad manufacturing lot.

Great camera, great features, great size, so long as you don't get stuck pixels.

I've reluctantly switched to a S5 IS. I'd rather have 8 megapixels which work, than 12 megapixels which are a crap-shoot.

More megapixels is not always better, and Canon seems to have spread the pixels too far in the G9.

Caveat emptor.