USED Canon PowerShot G11 Digital Camera

A few days hands-on with a new camera have allowed me to form some opinions. Overall I am very impressed, the camera looks to be everything I wanted. Build quality appears to be up to the G-series standard. The wider lens gained with the G10 and carried over to the G11 is distinct improvement. Photo quality meets my high expectations, what else do you want to know?I am not writing this entry as a complete review, the digital photography websites will do a far more thorough job of that. But I do have some comments on the camera I wanted to put here. Much of my comparison is against the Powershot G9, as I never have never seriously used the G10.After using the Canon G9 for so long I have had no issue in learning the controls of the G11, most are located in the same places, the menus are mostly unchanged. This was true from the very first frame when I was using the camera in the dark. The only real difference is in the top wheels, where exposure compensation is now a direct control and not a rear thumbwheel action. Considering how often I use this function the top wheel is a very welcome improvement. ISO gain is below the main function wheel, something that has the benefit of being harder to actuate. I had a few instances on the G9 of finding I was using a high ISO when I wanted low ISO as this wheel had gotten accidentally changed.The camera is a bit larger than the G9, most of that seems to be front to back. The data sheet shows the camera to be 5mm (1/4") thicker than my G9, you feel that 5mm when gripping the camera. It takes a larger pocket to hold the G11. The camera just fit in the shirt pocket of the aloha shirt I was wearing when unpacking the camera, but barely, not certain I would call this a pocket camera.The return of the flip-out viewscreen is welcome, but with mixed feelings. The loss of 0.2" in screen size from the G9 is not an issue, despite some negative comments I have read on other sites. I enjoy the ability to compose a photo with the camera held over my head or close to the ground. This is something I loved about my old Nikon 995 and allows some great creative possibilities. I worry a bit about the robustness of the screen assembly, will I inadvertently damage the screen or the swivel mechanism?I do forget that the screen can be swung out. At least twice already I have found myself in an uncomfortable position trying to compose a frame before realizing I can just flip out the screen and stop straining my neck. Duh!The screen is just beautiful, nice color, bright and with very high resolution. Some difficulty seeing the screen in full sunlight unless you turn up the brightness all the way, annoying to do when the setting is buried in a menu. The screen also shows every little greasy fingerprint, it is nearly impossible to avoid putting a finger on the screen during handling.One price of the larger area taken up by the flip-out viewscreen is a smaller area for the rear panel controls. They are certainly more compact than the G9, I have had some issues with my fat thumb when using the wheel and rocker. I suspect these will go away as I become more practiced with the camera.I have now taken a fair number of photographs under a wide range of conditions. The low light performance is a dramatic improvement over the Canon G9. I had done specific testing with the G9 after I ran up against the G9 performance limitations in low light during normal use of the camera.To see what the G11 could do I set it up with a tripod to take photos under the light of the full Moon. To my surprise the camera did a respectable job of landscape photos lit only by moonlight. This is something I have done with a DSLR on several occasions, but did not expect to do with a compact. At ISO1600 and 3200 there is appreciable noise in the photos, but these speeds are by no means useless. The in-camera dark frame subtraction also works well, with no hot pixels apparent in close examination of the frames.Another pleasant surprise was the quality of the new lens. From the first images the lens has continually impressed me as better than the G9 lens for sharpness. I was surprised when closely examining the day's images, fine details in a seed head were perfectly sharp to the limit of the sensor resolution. The limiting resolution of the camera was indeed set by the sensor, not the lens, at least under the right conditions. Is this simply the lower resolution sensor? Is this a result of not pressing the performance past the resolving power of the lens? Or is the new lens design simply better than the G9?My only major complaint is one that many others have leveled against Canon... Why does this camera not have a decent video mode? I usually shoot still, but like to do a little video when the situation calls for it. The 1024x768 video and time lapse video modes of the G9 are missing. Why can they not add at least a 720p HD mode? There is likely no technical reason for this. Some internal Canon politics with the video camera division?The camera is indeed everything it has promised to be, with very few shortcomings. Beautiful pictures from a compact camera. I look forward to a long and productive relationship with this camera.

This is my 4th Canon and Im not sure why I keep buying them. The first 2mp one I had took the best pictures of everything I shot (except macro), the last one I had was the A650 12mp camera and it was the best overall but getting kind of beat up so I sprung for the G11. Dont believe the other reviewers, this camera takes horrible pictures. The battery life is also bad. I took it out the first full day on vacation with a newly charged battery and after a few hours of off and on shooting the battery died. This happened a few days in a row with different batteries. I was expecting better quality pictures even with the lower resolution but better processor but I was sadly mistaken. The A650 which Canon discontinued for some unknown reason pictures were sharper and took better low light pictures by far. I have not experimented with the non auto settings much except the low light setting which knocks the image size to 1824x1368 which is unacceptable to me. The camera feels solid and looks nice and has the swing away LCD, but that is really not as important as picture quality. I am very bummed out and wish I could get my money back.............. I still cannot believe the first Canon I ever had took excellent pictures of EVERYTHING!! Not sure what they were thinking of but somehow their RD decided to make higher mp cameras over the years with successively lower picture quality, which is a mystery to me. I am an amateur photographer and have won several awards for my pictures, all with point and shoot cameras......

THIS REVIEW IS FOR PURPOSES OF MARCO PHOTOGRAPHY, NAMELY INTRA AND EXTRA ORAL PHOTOGRAPHY for DENTISTRY / ORTHODONTICSI purchased this Canon G11 to replace my Canon G7 that I was using for intraoral/extraoral photography for dentistry and orthodontic composite photos. I was using The Canon G7 with DigitalDentalPro Attachments (Plastic Flash Diffuser, Adapter, and Olympus Macro Lens) for the Intraorals and Program/Portrait (P-mode) for the Extraorals for about 2 years now. I was getting decent looking photos. I was able to get OK depth of field, but the lighting wasn't good enough. It was either too light, too dark, couldn't get buccal corridors with enough light.I upgraded to the Canon G11 because my photos were not good enough to be asking patients for thousands of dollars. So I purchased the G11 PhotoMed Attachment in addition, which I used for 1 month. I was getting much better quality in terms of depth of field, but I was still having a problem with the lighting. With the Photomed Attachment, I was getting a more even balance of lighting with their mirrors and plastic diffuser on the lens, but NOT GOOD ENOUGH. I was still getting dark buccal corridors which I really didn't like. HOWEVER, The P-Mode (Portrait or Program) extraorals (Straight, Profile, and Smiling) were MUCH better than my Canon G7. It was the intraorals that I was not happy with.SO I purchased a LED Ring Light DigiSlave 3200 instead and I was able to solve my problem with Buccal Corridors. Digi-Slave L-Ring 3200, Powerful, Versatile LED Ring Light with Focusing Light, Removable Diffuser, Continuous or Flash for Digital Macro PhotographyI was able to get light all the way back to the molars. However, I was sacrificing a small amount of depth of field because I no longer used a macro lens. But I didn't need a macro lens because the G11 Macro Feature was great for orthodontic purposes.If you are looking to take Full Retracted Smile, Buccals, Occlusals and Extraoral Profiles (ORTHODONTICS and BEFORE/AFTER ANTERIOR CASES), then you should definitely buy the Canon G11 with LED Right Light DigiSlave L-Ring 3200 (+adapter).If you are looking to take 1:1 or 1:2 photos of 1-2 teeth, then you should probably get the PhotoMed G11 Attachment. The uneven lighting won't bother you since your field of view (ie: 15-25mm) is small.The price difference is $700 for the PhotoMed and about $225 for the LED Digislave Right Light, so I would save $475 and get the one with better lighting.EXTRAORAL SETTINGS: Set to Portrait/Program, Turn Flash on. Change the White Balance to Flourescent since I shoot in the office. The photos turn out even better than with the G7. The Key to this is to FOCUS (press 1/2 way down) while aiming the camera at the patient's chest or arm and then bring it up to the face. If you don't do this, then you will most likely focus on the wall and not on the face.INTRAORAL: Set to AV, F8, Custom White Balance to a Gray Color. Turn on Macro Mode and you're set. Zoom about 80% of the way on Optical Zoom only, not digital zoom. The G-Series's LCD screen is incredibly easier to take photos than the dSLR BIG camera body. Relatively same quality photos without the hassel.Please message me if you have any questions.