Sydney Luminous Festival - Canon G10

Went out last night, armed with my Canon G10, with a couple of photo buddies to shoot the Sydney Luminous Festival again. The weather was a bit dodgy with intermittent rain. Had quite a few shots ruined because of water on the lens.

Projectors warming up with targeting marks to ensure alignment

I really wanted to see how good my Canon G10 was for night photography at long exposures. Overall, I am pretty happy with results but I thought that they were a little noisier and definitely not as sharp as my Nikon D700.

Museum of Contemporary Art 

Sydney Opera House

Unfortunately, the maximum exposure for the G10 is only 15 secs and no bulb, so it was not always possible to shoot at f8 to increase sharpness and dof. 

Click here for more of my Canon G10 shots from the Sydney Vivid/Luminous Festival.

Canon G10 - Soft Case (SC-DC60A)

Just received the leather case for my Canon G10. It's a freebie from Canon, part of a promotional offer if you purchased a G10, not sure when the offer runs out. It took forever to arrive, almost given up hope as I've been waiting for over 5 weeks.



It's a soft pseudo leather case, only 44% of the case is leather. It does not have the real leather smell. It's black on the outside and burgundy on the inside. The inside looks and feels like suede but its not. The cheapest I have seen it retail for is about $75 AUD.


The case consists of two halves, the top half attaches to the bottom half via three press studs, 2 smaller ones on each side and a large one on the bottom.

The bottom half attaches to the G10 via the tripod mount using the metal knob. The knob is also threaded so you can mount it on a tripod without having to take the G10 out of its case.


The case really compliments the retro look and feel of the G10. I don't think the case is robust enough to protect the G10 if I dropped it.

I like the look of the case, the fit is snug and now I don't have to worry about scratching the G10 body when I throw it in my bag.


It took less than a minute to get the G10 into the case. Okay ready to roll!


The Canon G10 is getting cheaper.

I bought mine for $619 AUD, from here or you can go to their store, Camera House, in Parramatta Westfields.

You can get them for the following prices:
$575 AUD - scroll down to the last page.
$599 AUD

Canon G10 - More Sample Shots

Here are more shots I took on my new G10. I am very impress with the G10's IQ.





Macro
The light was poor as it was heavily overcast. I had to borrow my friend's flash (580 EX II) to take these macro shots. The flash had a gary fong diffuser attached and I used -1 EV flash compensation.

L bracket for Canon G10 from Really Right Stuff

Just saw the Really Right Stuff (RRS) L-Plate for the Canon G10. Have to add this little beauty to my ever growing wish list. I already own the RRS-BH40 ballhead and RRS BMBD200-L-: L-Plate for my Nikon D200.

BG10-L L-Plate for the Canon G10

Back view

Side view

Front view

BMBD200-L-: L-Plate for Nikon D200 w/grip

BH-40 Pro II: Mid-sized ball with Pro II

This is the exact ballhead setup that I have, the quick release plate is bought separately. The build quality and craftsmanship is second to none. I have had the BH-40 for nearly 3 years and the BMBD200-L for just on 2 years. They have both performed flawlessly in that time.

I can highly recommend anything made by Really Right Stuff. The RRS staff that I have dealt with have been extremely patient and helpful.

In the market for a excellent ballhead or L-plate?
Really Right Stuff

Thoughts on My new Canon G10

I wanted a compact camera with great IQ and can shoot raw. I checked out reviews for both the Canon G10 and Nikon P6000. Nikon's decision to use some dodgy new raw format and coupled with the less than stellar performance of the P6000 gave me no choice.

Being a Nikon boy this wasn't an easy decision to cross over to the dark side and buy Canon. It's a shame that Nikon, once king of the compacts, cannot make something to compete against the G10. I don't understand how a company that can produce the D3 and D700 can miss the mark with the P6000?

Front View

I like the retro look and feel of the G10 and its black. I particularly like the 3 control dials on the top which makes it easier to access and change the iso, mode and compensation settings without having to fumble through the menus. However, on the minus side, it is rather bulky.

Top view

The menu is rather straight forward, fairly intuitive. I managed to use most of the G10 features without resorting to reading the manual. A no-no for techos:-)

The lcd screen is very very nice indeed, bright and sharp. Shame the histogram is not RGB but its still better than nothing.

Back view

I was disappointed that Adobe Lightroom 2.1 still has no support for the G10 but do for the P6000. I use Lightroom to process all my shots and only use Photoshop when I need to. Adobe just released Camera RAW 5.2, for CS4, on the 24/11/08 which supports the Canon G10. Lightroom support to follow soon, perhaps sometime in December.

I have no idea how to use Canon's DPP, its counter intuitive. I gave up and just converted the raw files to TIFF and then edit them in Photoshop. Since Adobe released Camera Raw 5.2, I use CS4 to do the raw conversion.

This is the first digital point and shoot I've ever owned. I am still getting to grips with taking shots via the lcd screen. It just doesn't feel right. Hopefully, I will get use to it.

I have to admit that it is much easier shooting macro, hand-held, using the lcd screen on the G10 than with my Nikon D200. I seem to get a higher percentage of "pin-sharp" macro shots on the G10. Perhaps this can be attributed to the G10's IS.

macro

macro

This is my first attempt at panoramic, pretty straight forward, the G10 allows you take up to 26 shots. Next time, I will make sure to use manual rather than aperture mode to ensure that the exposure is the same for each shot. I tried both Canon's software and Adobe CS4 to stitch the shots together, CS4 did a much better job IMO.

Panoramic - Campbell Cove, Sydney

Sample Shots






The low light performance was very disappointing anything above iso 400 is not great but I don't really care. So far I am very happy with the G10 and I am looking forward to taking many more photos with it. Highly recommended.

As part of Canon's Big Red promotion, if you purchase the G10 you get a genuine Canon powershot leather case. I sent in my details over 4 weeks ago and I am still waiting.

Reviews

Here some interesting links to more in-depth and technical reviews of the G10. Check out Bill Lockhart's review it has some really amazing shots from the G10.

Michael Reichmann
Thom Hogan
Bill Lockhart - Some really awesome shots
dpreview - Not so glowing review