Canon G11 Digital Camera Review

The Canon G11 is a point & shoot camera that thinks it is an SLR. Although it has a fixed lens, this sophisticated camera has pretty much every other feature that an SLR would offer, including full manual controls and a huge amount of control over the process of capturing images. It captures 10 megapixel images and has a 5x zoom lens.

What this wide feature set does mean is that this is not a small camera: it is a large, chunky camera that is 1.9 inches thick, and is rather heavy at just over 13 ounces. It will fit into a coat pocket or bag, but it is not a camera that you can slide into a shirt pocket and forget about. On the back of the camera body is the 2.8-inch screen which is clear and bright. It is also articulated, so it can flip out and rotate around for shooting from an angle. It can even face front for shooting self portraits.

Performance (read in-depth performance coverage at DigitalCameraInfo.com)
We found that the G11 had extremely good performance in our tests. The camera captured images with very little distortion and with a good amount of detail; we saw little evidence of the softness that we often see in compact cameras at the edge of the frame. We also saw very low noise, even at higher ISO settings. The G11 has a maximum ISO level of 3200, much higher than most cameras. And the images it takes at this level are still usable, with only moderate noise.

One area where we saw less than perfect performance was color: in our tests on the accuracy of the colors that the camera captures, we found that it captured accurate color, but the images were a little undersaturated, which made them look somewhat dull. This is preferable to the colors being oversaturated, though; it is much easier to increase the saturation than it is to correct for oversaturation in an image editing program. This is also one of the few point and shoots that can capture RAW images, which contain the uncompressed info from the sensor, which provides the maximum image quality and editability. 

Comparisons (read in-depth comparison coverage at DigitalCameraInfo.com)

There are a number of similar cameras at around the same price as the G11. Canon's own S90 offers a similar set of features in a smaller package, but lacks the articulating screen and excellent low light performance of the G11. The Panasonic Lumix ZS3 has a longer zoom lens (12x, against the 5x of the G11) and had good performance, but again it doesn't provide as much manual control as the G11 and has a fixed screen.

For a more in-depth review, visit the Canon G11 Review at our partner DigitalCameraInfo.com