G12 Review

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The good folks at DPreview have published their long awaited review of the G12.  Although titled a "Quick Review" because of similarities between the G12 and G11, this is still quite a comprehensive review.  Even so, DPreview recommends reading the G11 tests and review as well. 

I was very surprised to read that the sensor is the same as the sensor in the G11; in fact, I doubt this is the case because the (Sony supplied) G11 sensor was widely reported to be incapable of supplying data at the rate necessary for HD video.  Perhaps the G12 sensor is a slight variation of the G11 sensor.  Also noted is that Nikon's P7000 uses the same sensor.

Well worth reading.
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G Series Resolution

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In a previous post, I showed that my G12 has less noise at high ISO than does my G9. DxOMark shows this comparison more scientifically and in more detail. Some credit for this improvement in noise should go to the reduction in pixel density and, I assume, some credit goes to noise reduction software (in-camera in this case). I'd also like to think that some credit would go to true improvements in sensor technology. Whatever the real case, the first explanation is usually that an increase in megapixels means an increase in noise.

The ultimate in noise performance would be, I suppose, a single but very large pixel; however, that design would not be very useful to photographers. We can feel intuitively that there must be an advantage to having many pixels. That advantage is resolution.

Dpreview includes resolution testing as part of its intensive camera reviews and reports. I've summarized the Dpreview resolution test results for the G series cameras below.

In the above comparisons, “Resolution” is the horizontal “Absolute Resolution”in lines per picture height as measured and reported by Dpreview. Dpreview includes a vertical resolution in their test reports but as that number is similar to the horizontal resolution, I've omitted it in favor of brevity. Remember that G series sensors have been essentially (but not exactly) the same physical size. The G12 has not been tested by Dpreview at this date.

Interestingly and as expected, G series resolution has generally increased with pixel count but there also appears to be an effect of time, or more likely, improved technology. The 10MP G11 has better resolution that does the 10MP G7 and even better resolution that my 12MP G9. I expect that the resolution of the G12 is likely to be about the same as the G11.
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G11 Review at DPReview

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The long awaited review of the Canon G11 is now available at DPReview. I took this as a very positive review; however, judging by some comments in the discussion forum, others were disappointed. Meanwhile, I still have my G9 and am learning the 7D.
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7D Review

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DPreview has posted its review of the Canon 7D. I'm glad I got mine!
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G11 Positive Thoughts

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As it became apparent that August 19 was really THE DAY for the G11 announcement, the rumors could be taken a bit more seriously; however, the most accurate rumor was certainly a disappointment. I was disappointed not only because I’d made my own prediction and now had to account for it but because the G11 did not appear to be the exciting upgrade to my G9 that I’d wanted. I decided there would be no G11 in my future.

Now that the smoke has cleared (well, actually the discussion forums, such as the Powershot forum at DPReview are really heating up), the G11 really does have some features and potentials that interest me. Here’s my personal list – in some kind of meaningful order – as gleaned from the published specs and the G11 manual.

1. Wide angle lens (28mme). Not as wide as I wanted (24mme) but an improvement over the 35mme of my G9.

2. Articulated display – a “real” G series to many people. I liked that feature on my old G3.

3. Wired remote. Although I use the Franiec cable release on my G9, I like the idea of the wired remote – and I already have one!

4. Improved dynamic range and higher usable ISO. Although data and comparisons are not available at this time, I have no doubt that the G11 will have less noise and increased dynamic range than the G9 and, for that matter, the G10.

5. Intelligent contrast correction. This in-camera processing option might help to save some post processing for those occasions when I don’t post process from RAW mode.

6. Decreased shutter lag. Actually this is just implied and is probably only for Quick Shot Mode.

I’m curious about these features but wouldn’t buy the G11 just to get them:
- Quick shot mode
- Registering commonly used menus

Whereas my first impression of the G11 was “Not for me” now I’m on the fence and trying to make up my mind. I’ve gone so far as to put my name on a waiting list but frankly am happy that the G11 is not available for ordering at this time.
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Recent G10 Reviews and Articles

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The Canon G10 has been getting a lot of press lately. Here’s a reading list.

My own “review” – well, I only handled a G10 in a retail store – seems like a good camera to me.

The latest G10 review is at Digital Photography Review. This is a somewhat controversial review for many G10 owners and would-be owners because the G10 received “only” a Recommended rating.

DxO Labs has established a database of digital sensor quality measurements. The Canon G9 and G10 sensors are included in their database. This is a very technical presentation and discussion of digital sensor performance.

Another controversial report is posted at the Luminous Landscape by Michael Reichmann wherein he compares prints from the G10 to a $40,000 Hasselblad system. The G10 came out very well! Previously, Michael had compared a G10 to the Nikon P6000 with some references to the Panasonic LX-3.

Thom Hogan also compared the G10, P6000 and LX-3. Thom uses and writes about Nikon equipment but liked the G10.

Ken Tanaka changed his mind about the G10 and decided to get one after all.

Edward Taylor’s first impressions of the G10 was one of the early reviews.

Amin posted his own comparisons of the G10 and LX-3 at high ISO.

Adobe has updated Camera Raw to support the G10 raw format; however, the updated Camera Raw (Version 5.2) works only with the latest release of Photoshop (CS4).
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G9: Noise in the Garden

Any self-respecting Pixel Peeper will take one look at this 100% crop and cry out “Noise!”. (You’ll probably have to click on the image to see a larger version and get the full effect.) On learning that the image is from the Canon G9, the Peeker will further exclaim, “I knew it. Small pixels are noisy. The G9 has too many pixels on a small sensor and therefore each pixel must be very small. No wonder the image is noisy; I predicted it.”

All of the above (explanation, that is) seems to be true. The Canon G9 does pack a lot (12,000,000) of pixels onto a small sensor. Therefore, those pixels are small and, all other things being equal, smaller pixels produce more noise. I’m not a camera designer, a chip designer or even an electronics engineer but I’ve come to accept these facts as being in accord with the “Laws of Nature” and, even more convincingly, Internet Lore.

Besides, the detailed tests and reviews of the G9 are published and it produces noisy images. No doubt about it: G9 images are noisy and the noise gets worse as the ISO setting increases. The full scene from which the noisy crop was taken is shown below (but reduced in size to 1024x768, high quality jpg compression).



Two of the main reasons that I bought the G9 were that I wanted higher resolution and a usable higher ISO than I could get from my Canon G3. The G3 was limited to 4MP and ISO400; however, the ISO400 was not particularly usable. My hope was that the G9 would have good quality at ISO400.

I’ve seen the reviews and read the comments in the discussion forums: G9 = Noise. I took a few shots at high ISO and peeked at the pixels. Yes, even my own G9 is noisy. Now, could I find a way to work with or around that noise?

Of course, I had to generate some images and conduct my own tests. Here’s the set up and procedure:
- found a scene with both bright and dark areas
- G9 on tripod
- Set for RAW + jpg (hoping to get improvements in Photoshop)
- Set Av mode
- Set 2 sec shutter delay (wish the G9 had a remote)
- Pictures at ISO 80, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600

The above pictures were taken at ISO1600 and are direct from the in-camera jpg. Surprised? The second lesson learned is that the high ISO images can be very usable so long as the image is small. What good is a small image? Well, uh, the Internet...

The first lesson learned (see, the paragraph above has the second …) is that testing cameras is not at all straightforward. For example, what is the correct exposure for all these varying ISO speeds? I decided to use Av mode but that decision also means that the test results vary with the G9’s judgement of exposure. (Shutter speeds selected by the Av mode did not exactly track ISO.) Is the in-camera jpg that is embedded in the RAW file the same as a jpg made without RAW? (Seems to be.) How should the data be presented?

Entire scenes are shown in this post as 1024x768 pixels. The in-camera jpg images are presented as-is and 100% with no post processing whatsoever except for cropping to emphasize the noise.

The ISO 80 crop from in-camera jpg

The ISO 800 crop from in-camera jpg



The ISO 1600 crop from in-camera jpg is the first picture show in this post.

I’ve already admitted to peeking at a few pixels myself. I didn’t care for the higher ISO images from the in-camera jpg. In fact, I didn’t particularly like the ISO 80 image from in-camera jpg – not that it was noisy, it just doesn’t look good to me. Time to break out Photoshop CS3 and process those RAW files.

Interestingly, Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) did not automatically change the exposure of the RAW files. Of course, I did tinker with the settings myself. I wanted to minimize noise and get a picture more to my liking as well.

In the G9 review on Digital Photography Review, I was impressed by the noise reduction of an ISO 400 image with ACR 4.3 (and by noting that ACR 4.3 is being Beta tested; the current version is 4.2 and it only approximately fits the G9). The ACR settings really caught my eye: luminance at 0 and chroma at maximum. I’d have never thought to use these extremes but it seemed to help the DPReview images. Of course, I don’t have the 4.3 Beta but I tried both extremes and the middle settings for luminance and chroma noise reduction in ACR 4.2. To my eye, there was no effect; perhaps this will change in version 4.3.

I use Photokit Sharpener from Pixel Genius for sharpening. PK Sharpener uses a three step process: 1) capture sharpening, 2) creative sharpening and 3) output sharpening. Capture sharpening is user selected according to camera resolution and user taste, creative sharpening is entirely user taste and output sharpening varies with file size, output device (screen, printer, etc.) and user taste.

The most recent versions of Photoshop include sharpening in ACR. The ACR sharpening parameters are on the Detail screen along with the noise reduction parameters. I’ve been wanting to try ACR sharpening as a sort of “capture” sharpening. Strangely enough, to me anyway, when ACR sharpening is used, the luminance and chroma settings come into play. I suppose ACR is designed this way but, if so, it was not obvious to me. After much trial-and-error, it seemed to me that settings of 50, 0.5, 20, 80, 50, 50 for the ACR Details page reduced noise nicely but not entirely. (You’ll have to check the Details page to see what I mean by these numbers.)

I still used PK Sharpener for capture sharpening (incorporated into the trial and error above).

Now for more noise reduction using Neat Image. I made my own profiles using the Neat Image calibration targets and applied Neat Image at 35% strength. Pretty simple and took me a lot less time and experimenting.

By this point, the noise level had dropped quite a bit. I finished up the post processing by tweaking levels, curves and saturation. Here’s the 100% illustrative crop from the ISO 800 image:

Notice that the noise, even pixel peeked, is not too bad. On top of that, the details look better to me. And here’s the final, full image from the ISO 800 RAW file after post processing.


I even like this one more than the ISO 80 image from the in-camera jpg but that’s a matter of taste. I will say that the colors, especially the fence, are more accurate (if somewhat saturated). It made a nice print.

So, I think my G9 has very good potential at ISO 400 and even 800 under the right conditions and when processed from RAW. The requirement to process from RAW is not a problem to me; much of that processing can be done semi-automatically using Photoshop Actions.

But, sad to admit, I gave up on the ISO 1600 file. Although it could be improved, I haven’t got it quite right – yet.

DPReview Tests the G9

Digital Photography Review has today posted an extensive review and report on the Canon G9. They also made comparisons to their previous tests of the Canon G7.