Canon PowerShot G11

Viewfinder (1.50)

The viewfinder of the G11 is an old-school rangefinder type; rather than use the camera lens, you see an image created from a separate set of lenses in the camera body. This is both a good and a bad thing. On the upside, it does not use any battery power, works well in all lighting conditions and has a certain retro charm. On the downside is the fact that the image you see in it is not the same as what the camera sees because the position of the lens is different. This is especially true with macro shots and other closeups; the framing of the viewfinder for objects close to the lens will be very different between the viewfinder and the camera sensor. The viewfinder is also rather awkward to use, as you have to get close to the to use it, and you end up squashing your nose against the screen. At the widest zoom setting, you can also see the top edge of the lens in the frame, which is very distracting. It doesn’t appear in the captured images.

Display (7.30)

The LCD of the G11 is a 2.8-inch model with about 460k pixels. It is located on a pivot that allows it to flip out and rotate about 270 degrees. This means that you can store it flat against the body, rotate it to lie flat like a normal LCD screen or angle it for shooting from above or below. Although the screen is not as big as some we’ve seen, it is bright and clear and does a good job of showing both the preview of photos to be taken and to play back photos.

Flash (5.75)

The flash of the G11 is built into the body of the camera and is located just above and to the right of the lens. We found that it was a pretty powerful flash that could illuminate objects up to about 9 to 11 feet distant, but the proximity of the lens to the flash does mean that it produces quite a lot of red eye. This can be partly ameliorated by the use of the red-eye reduction light and a pre-flash mode, but it is still present in many images.

If the built in flash isn’t up to the task, the G11 does include a flash shoe that allows a larger, more powerful external flash to be used: the HF-DC1. This $130 flash unit works with a range of Canon PowerShot models, or you can use any flashgun with a standard shoe.

Lens (5.75)

The lens of the G11 is made by Canon themselves and has a focal length of 6.1 to 30.5mm, which represents a zoom length of 5X. That’s equivalent to a zoom length of 28 to 140mm on a 35mm film camera.

That’s a decent zoom range for a point and shoot camera, and it is good to see that the wide end of the zoom range starts at 28mm, which means you can get in large groups of people or landscapes. However, the telephoto end is a little shorter than some, so you can’t get as close in on the action as some. In the examples below, cameras with longer zooms can get right in to see what is showing at the theater. The G11 can’t quite manage that.

Although the lens is fixed, there is an adapter available that lengthens the focal length of the lens. The $40 LA-DC58K conversion lens adapter allows you to connect a telephoto converter, the $150 TC-DC58D. This increases the focal length of the lens by 1.4×.

Zoom Ratio Examples
6.1 mm	10.8 mm	30.5 mm

Battery (6.00)

The G11 gets its juice from an NB-7L Li-ion battery that holds about 7.8 Wh of charge. This battery has to be removed from the camera to be charged, and Canon will charge you $70 for a spare.

Memory (3.00)

The G11 stashes its images on SD or SDHC memory cards. Canon did not specify the largest size of SDHC card that is supported, but the G11 should be fine with even the 32GB cards that are now available. You may need this support for larger cards, as the RAW images that this camera can shoot are rather large: typically between 11 and 15MB. If you shoot in the RAW+JPEG mode, that means that you’ll be able to fit just around 113 images onto a 2GB card.

Jacks, Ports & Plugs (5.50)

There are just two ports on the G11: a mini HDMI port for connecting to a HDTV, a remote port and one that performs multiple functions. This bottom port doubles as an analog A/V output and a USB connection. The cable to allow this port to be connected to a standard definition analog TV is included, as is a USB cable. We are also pleased to see that Canon has managed to pull this off while keeping it compatible with standard USB cables; you can use any USB cable with a mini-A USB plug. This means that if you loose the included one, you won’t have to spend a fortune to buy a replacement.