G3 : King of the 4 MegaPixel cameras?

Unbelievable, the 4-5 MegaPixel consumer market segment has only been around for the past year... maybe year and a half. It's simply unbelievable how fast the digital camera market has advanced in such a short period of time.

Not long ago, I purchased the Nikon CoolPix 4500. I thought that was the last camera I would need to buy for the next few years... then Canon announced the G3. That struck my curiousity a bit. Now having the G3 in my possession for a bit over a week, I can say that the G3 is my favorite camera in my collection for some of the minor things the G3 does better than the CoolPix 4500.

The Short Take

The G3 price tag is not for the weak of heart... but it really is a small price to pay for the flexibility it offers to those of you aspiring to be more than amateur photographers. The wealth of options and accessories give this camera advantages that few other digital cameras in the 4-5 MegaPixel range can compete against. I'll be honest here... my experience is mostly with Nikons and Canons. I've had little experience with Kodak, Olympus, and Sony's... and a bit more with the Fuji's and Minolta's (especially the F100). I'm not a pro photographer but I know a good piece of electronic equipment when I see and use one!

The wealth of features coupled with an excellent automated exposure system when you don't want to make any manual adjustments and a fairly easy to use navigation and interface bring the G3 to the top of the heap of digital cameras. The G3 even just edges out my Coolpix 4500 as well. However, the price of the camera will put a damper on those who are looking for more of a point-and-shoot camera instead of enthusiast's paradise.

If point-and-shoot on a budget is more of a priority, look at the Nikon CoolPix 4300, Canon S45 (to be released soon), and the Minolta F100... to name a few high quality but within budget 4 MegaPixel cameras.

Otherwise, there is alot to like about the G3... a whole lot!

Pros:

1) 4 MegaPixel Camera
2) 4x Optical Zoom
3) Excellent user interface
4) Multiple Manual Exposure Settings
5) Compact Flash Media support
6) Accessories
7) Extensive feature set
8) Large comfortable handgrip
9) 1.8 inch color LCD that swivels out
10) Canon quality
11) Hot Shoe for external flash units
12) DIGIC processor
13) Multilevel focus system but does not have the 9 AutoFocus system.
14) iSAPS (Intelligent Scene Analysis based on Photographic Space) for improved camera focus and white balancing
15) Improved Movie Mode recording
16) DPOF direct printing

Cons:

1) Price
2) Unable to utilize other battery types other than Lithium-Ion battery
3) Small included CompactFlash card included (32MB)
4) Weak built-in flash

Camera details

Digital cameras especially high end "prosumer" level cameras have too many features to cover in the scope of most reviews unless you like dissertations about cameras and products. "Prosumer" is a consumer grade camera (i.e. mass produced in large enough quantities) with many features found on professional level cameras. Just the labeling the G3 as a prosumer camera suggests how powerful it is supposed to be.

The G3 is a larger camera with dimensions of 4.7 x 2.7 x 3.0 inches and a weight of 17.3 oz. with the battery pack and Compact Flash card installed. Apparantly, this is smaller than the older G2 that this camera replaces. Compare that to the CoolPix 4500 which has dimenions of 5.1 x 2.9 x 2.0 inches with a weight of 13.2 oz. For comparison sake, the Canon PowerShot S40 is 4.4 x 2.3 x 1.7 inches and 11.4 oz.

In holding the G3, the design stays with a more traditional camera shape and size as compared to the CoolPix 4500. The design is orientated for right handed people because of the location of the large handgrip of the G3. The G3 has a good size and weight so it doesn't feel uncomfortable in use. For the most part, it can be used one handed when in automatic mode. The large handgrip makes it that much easier to hold the camera.

The front of the G3 houses the lens, optical viewfinder, flash, AF assist light, microphone hole, IR receiver for the remote, and a button. The lens in fully retracted into the camera when off but the lens is not automatically protected. Canon provides a plastic lens cap. There is a large rubberized hand grip on the right side of the camera. Before I forget, I said there was a button on the front of the camera. This button allows you to take off the lens barrel shroud so you can add lens attachments.

The left of the G3 houses the speaker, A/V jack, USB jack, and DC input jacks. The jacks are covered by a hard plastic door that stays connected to the camera. There is an eyelet for the neck strap as well.

The right of the G3 holds the door to the CompactFlash (CF) card slot. The slot accepts both type I and II slots. The eyelet for the camera strap is also here.

The top of the camera houses an LCD for status display, the hot shoe for external flash units, a Main Power dial, a mode dial, a zoom lever, shutter button, and self-time/wireless/continuous drive button.

The bottom of the camera houses the cover to the battery and an off-center tripod mount. The off-center tripod mount does make it slightly difficult to shoot shots that can be easily stitched together.

The back of the camera holds the 1.8inch color swiveling LCD, the optical viewfinder, a four way directional pad, and a multitude of buttons. Buttons include Manual Focus/Audio record, Function, macro and metering buttons, display button, menu button, set button, and a few more.

Shots and Colours and even Movies

The shots from the G3 are well detailed and maintained good color reproduction. Flesh tone, pastels, and earthy colors were especially good on the G3... even slightly better than the CoolPix 4300 and 4500 models. I would say that primary colors had a slight edge on the CoolPix 4300 and 4500. Of course, these observations are from my standpoint... if you can see samples (or better yet take some photos when at the camera store), you can judge for yourself which camera has more pleasing colour reproduction.

Detail quality of the picture are excellent as well. 8x10 prints are no problem with no loss of quality and details are preserved extremely well. I have not been able to test past 8.5x11 prints. I've talked about resolution in another section of this review.

The flash is so-so. I thought it was still weak for a camera in this catagory. The CoolPix 4500 had a slightly more powerful flash unit. The G3 flash is inadequate for distant shots. It is acceptable for mid-range shots. Thank goodness there is a hot shoe to add more powerful flash devices to your G3!

Movies can be recorded only in 320x240 and 160x120 resolution. You do not get the 640x480 mode found on the Canon PowerShot S230! Movies can be up to 180 secs in length at 15 fps. The DIGIC image processor delivers much cleaner looking movies than previous Canon cameras. Again, a high speed CF card is needed to achieve the 3 minute movie time... otherwise the limit is 30 seconds for 320x240 mode.

On shot taking, the G3 seemed fairly speedy for a digital camera. This I believe is partly due to the DIGIC signal processor in the camera. I felt that the camera was faster than the Canon PowerShot S230 and the CoolPix 4500 (to a smaller degree). The camera also has a Continuous Shoot mode if the regular process still seems too long for you.

Batteries

The G3 accepts the BP-511 rechargable lithium ion battery pack from Canon. I believe this is the same battery pack used in the G2 but I'm not entirely sure about that. I don't have a G2 in house and the only person I know with a G2 lives on the other end of the US in California.

The BP-511 holds a good amount of power. I got over 400 shots with the LCD on and way over 1200 shots with the LCD off (based off more than 20 downloads off a full or nearly full 256MB card to computer)! See... quality camera, quality battery!

Unfortunately, the camera is also the battery charger. The package only includes a AC adapter that plugs directly to the camera. An external battery charger is sold seperately.

User Interface

If you've had experience with any of Canon's other PowerShot cameras, the G3 is fairly easy to pick up. I personally felt that the user interface was cleaner and easier to use than the Nikon CoolPix 4300 and 4500 models. I was able to find options and settings much faster and easier than I did with the CoolPix. In short, the interface felt more intuitive than the CoolPix 4500.

Manual Settings

If you want modes other than Full Automatic and Movie mode, you have a selection of modes for full control of specific situations or control over particular aspects of the camera. The modes include Stitch-Assist, Night Scene, Landscape, Portrait, Program AE (Only shutter speed and aperture set, all other exposure others adjustable by user), Tv (Time Value/Shutter Priority allows user to select shutter speed), Av (Aperture Value/Aperture Priority allows user to select lens aperture value), Manual (all exposure controls selected by user), C1 and C2 (Custom modes set by the user and recalled when selected). These modes give a staggering amount of control over your photos provided that you know what you are doing.

You know what... you still have other controls over your photos. The external control buttons and the menu provide the rest of the options. You have full control over the White Balance setting... including Auto, Daylight, Clougy, Tungsten, Flourescent, Fluorescent H, Flash, and two White Control Custom settings. ISO is adjustable between 50, 100, 200, and 400. Exposure control goes from -2 to 2 in 1/3 step increments. Even the Flash has several modes of operation including Flash off, Flash on, Auto, Red-Eye, Slow Sync, as well as Flash Exposure Compensation! There is also Spot Metering and Center-Weighted Averaging. Don't forget the various Color modes and Macro modes as well.

Resolution

The camera takes up to 2272x1704 resolution shots (effective 3.87 MegaPixels i.e. 4 MegaPixels). You can select lower resolution sets of 1600x1200, 1024x768, and 640x480. The pictures can be saved as JPEG or RAW format (JPEG is the default). There are also several compression settings for the camera include Superfine, Fine, and Basic/Standard. The compression setting are for the JPEG file format. The RAW format cannot be compressed. RAW files at the maximum resolution are an average of 4 MB big.

Accessorize?

The nice thing about the G3 is the already mentioned hot shoe. You can add a variety of flash unit to the G3 to compensate for the weak built-in flash unit.

You can add external flash units to the G3 as well... at least the manual says so.

Not only do all the add on lens that worked on the G2 work on the G3, on top of that the G3 also supports additional lens due to a reworked lens adapter.

Problems?

A somewhat weak internal/built-in flash unit, small included CF card, the large size of the camera, and the high price for the camera are the only problems. However, if you're looking for a high quality camera, the price and the size of the G3 are more than acceptable.

I would definitely have liked to see a much more powerful internal flash unit but the hot shoe option gives you a bit more flexibility and makes up for the weak flash.

Overall, the problems of the G3 are relatively minor for what you get and are easily solved in a manner of ways.

Final Thoughts

The G3 has now become my favorite camera... although the G3 and the CoolPix 4500 feature and picture quality are both excellent, the easier to use user interface on the G3 was the edge in this battle. If you just want an easy to use point and shoot camera with 4 MP capabilities, I would tell you to look at the Nikon CoolPix 4300 since it is several hundred dollars cheaper than the G3. The older G2 is another consideration as well as the Minolta F100. I cannot remark on other 4MP cameras since I don't have experience with them. As far as pocketable cameras go, my current favorite is the Canon PowerShot S230.

If you need more camera reviews, check out Howard_Creech here at epinions or the following sites:

www.dpreview.com
www.imaging-resource.com