4. March 2004
Nearly three years ago I bought a Canon PowerShot G1 digital camera. The price was pretty high - around $1500 (1000 Euro).
The G1 had at that time received very good reviews and was called a "prosumer" (professional/consumer) camera.
I wanted to enter digital photography and get a deeper knowledge of what digital photography is all about. The G1 specifically appealed to me not at least because of the swiveling LCD screen that can be turned in all directions - a concept later taken up by other manufactures as well.
Now three years later, I will like to make a status of how I've used this digital camera and maybe also why I haven't "upgraded" yet.
A few details
I will not dig into all the details and settings of the G1, but it was the first in a line of "PowerShot G" cameras from Canon (later came the G2, G3 and G5).
It's a 3.3 Mpix camera capable of ISO 50 to 400 and features a 7-21mm (32 - 105 35mm equiv.) f2.0 - f2.5 Canon lens.
Compared to other digicams of the time, this camera is a bit "clumsy" and it isn't very ergonomic to handle. However it did offer a pretty good image quality at the time and the speed and the quality of the LCD screen was also pretty "high-end".
In use
The camera doesn't seems especially rugged build, but it has turned out to function flawlessly in all three years. I have shot thousands of pictures with it.
The camera is a pain to use, because it's very slow. It's slow to turn on, to focus and to release. It isn't slower than the competitors and, in fact, it isn't very much slower than more modern versions or more modern digicams I've tried. But digicams are slow. You have to be lucky to capture some scene in action.
Capture in anything faster than ISO 50 and you'll end up with ugly noise. Not just like film grain, but multi-colored digital noise which isn't very nice to look at.
Maybe worst of all is, that colors are inaccurate.
One thing that really bothers me with the G1 (and this goes for any digicam), is that the small sensor makes it impossible to create a shallow depth of field, even with the lens wide open. While this might be good for some shots, I really prefer to be able to choose which elements are in focus and which are out of focus. For anything but macro shots this is impossible.
You could argue that a shallow depth of field is just a result of optical limitations, from which the digicams with small sensors suffers less, but I really like the creative possibilities given by a shallow depth of field. I like that f/4 produces a different result than f/8 - not so with the G1.
For "Fine Art"
The accompanying gallery shows that I have actually tried to use the G1 for "serious" work. Some of the shots where done in RAW mode others in just jpg.
I have to admit though, that I was never really satisfied with the prints that I produced from the camera. But, many people who saw the prints found them to be absolutely nice and clean...it is a matter of taste.
For web use
But, having said all of these less flattering things about the camera, I just realized that it has been quite a "workhorse" for me, during the last three years. It has been absolutely invaluable when making a website like this one. The vast majority of illustrations found on this site are taken with the G1. All the product pictures from Photokina 2002, and the detail pictures of cameras and equipment in the various reviews are all taken with the G1.
Making a site like this without a digital camera is impossible (well, it would have been very difficult and time consuming without).
In addition I've taken the camera with me on all holidays and it has in essence replaced the role of my Nikon F90x. It is, after all, a lot easier to carry around than the F90x and can make decent family shots.
Why not upgrade?
So, why haven't I upgraded the camera a long time ago?
Well, first of all digital cameras aren't cheap. Secondly, a real update from this camera would be to get a DSLR.
Of course the various digicams has improved over time, getting more pixels, getting longer or wider zooms and less noise, but it wouldn't be a real upgrade to just buy another and newer model. The 3.3Mpix resolution is good enough for web and decent for prints. The print quality isn't beating 35mm, but most of the prints I've seen so far from digicams aren't beating 35mm film.
OK, maybe one of those new 8MPix cameras can beat 35mm I wouldn't know, but from cameras with lower resolution, it seems to me that chromatic noise and chromatic aberration kills the quality, but again it might be a matter of taste wether you prefer the various "digital imperfections" to film grain or not ... a clear blue sky can really get very clear and noise free from a new digicam, I admit.
Conclusion
This isn't a historic review, but to quickly sum up my use of a digicam, the Canon G1, I am surprised how much I've used the camera, although I'm not particularly funned of it, it really has become a workhorse.
The one camera I use to take a picture - not "create" a picture - for anything from simple documentation to product shots for this site to family snap shots.
A digicam is nice to have handy ...
The G1 Gallery
Please enjoy my artistic efforts with the Canon G1.
Pictures are from the last 3 years.
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