Canon PowerShot G1

Canon is one of the biggest names in traditional photography, and over the past few years it's brought its expertise to the digital camera arena with more than a little success.

Here at PC Pro alone, its cameras have twice won awards for image quality - the PowerShot 600 in our first digital camera Labs (see Labs, issue 38, p116) and the PowerShot Pro70 (see Labs, issue 63, p116). Over the last few months, however, while other manufacturers have been indulging in megapixel mania and bringing out cameras with resolutions topping 4.7 million pixels, Canon has remained strangely quiet.

In particular, the company has left the 'prosumer' section of its range to gather dust, and in our recent digital camera Labs (see issue 75, p92) it was obvious that the PowerShot Pro70 was badly in need of an update. Only now, more than two years after the launch of the Pro70, has Canon come up with a substitute, launching the G1 as its new sub-£1,000 flagship camera.

Has it been worth the wait, though? On paper, the G1's credentials seem up to scratch. A 3.34 million pixel CCD for 2,048 x 1,536 images, a 3x zoom lens equivalent to a 34-102mm lens on a standard 35mm camera, and TTL (through the lens) focus are exactly the sort of advanced features we'd expect from a camera in this price bracket.

First impressions of the camera are positive. The G1 retains the same solid feel of the Pro70 with its cool, anodised aluminium body. It loses the bulky shape of the Pro70 though, but still gives you an enormous amount of control over your shots without having to access an on-screen menu. Exposure, flash and macro mode selection along with white balance adjustment can all be accessed instantly using the controls on the top and rear of the G1. The G1 keeps the hot shoe external flash connector, and it comes with an infrared remote control to boot.

The only downside to the shape change is that the G1 isn't the most comfortable camera to hold - that accolade goes to Nikon's CoolPix 990 (see Labs, issue 75, p92).

Another great feature inherited from the Pro70, and one that no other camera in its class can boast, is a fold-out LCD screen. Fold it away and the screen is protected from knocks and scrapes, as well as greasy fingers and your nose as you squint through the optical viewfinder. Fold it out and you can hold the camera at a more comfortable height or change the angle of a shot without having to squat or stand on tiptoes.

As far as the quality of the screen goes, the G1's is up there with the best. Performance is good across the spectrum of lighting conditions and, if saving battery life isn't an issue, you can use this camera anywhere.

In terms of shooting modes and controls, the G1 is well equipped. As you'd expect from a camera in this class, aperture priority and shutter, program, manual and fully automatic modes come as standard, although the labels on the mode dial are a little confusing. The G1 has other, more innovative tricks up its sleeve too, including a Photo Stitch mode that helps you create effective panoramic photos, and a Movie mode than can capture up to one minute, 20 seconds of footage at 320 x 240 on a 16Mb CompactFlash card. There's also a whole raft of extra preset options that allow you to set the camera up for specific shooting conditions, including night scene, landscape and pan focus modes.

But what does this all mean for image quality? It's a well-worn truism in the arena of digital photography to say that resolution isn't everything. It's got to be matched with quality optics and good compression algorithms to make it truly useful. After all, it's no good being able to shoot 2,048 x 1,536 images if you can only fit a couple into 16Mb of memory. Fortunately the G1 managed to excel in all these departments. Detail capture, both in normal and macro modes, was very impressive. Images captured at top resolution and Super Fine JPEG mode weren't quite as crisp as those produced by the Nikon CoolPix 990, but colour reproduction, reflections and detail capture in dark areas were every bit as good.