Canon PowerShot G7

The Canon G7 has an Auto mode, accessible by the mode dial. It is automatic in almost every way, but allows users to adjust image size, compression, macro focus, the flash, and the self-timer. This is as simple as it gets. If users want to step it up a level, there is a Program mode that allows more access to menu options and exposure compensation. The Auto mode, however, is just as it should be: purely automatic. Also, the inclusion of face detection AE and AF will make portraits and 'people and backdrop' shots fully automated.

 

Movie Mode (7.25)

The Canon PowerShot G7’s movie mode takes great video in a variety of sizes. It has the standard options of 640 x 480 and 320 x 240 at 30 or 15 fps. In the standard size, Color Accent and Color Swap movie modes are available. The Color Accent mode highlights one color that users select by framing it in a box on the LCD, then dulling all other colors to black-and-white. Color Swap replaces one selectable color with another selectable color (More about these in the Picture Effects section). These aren’t very useful for shooting Uncle Rico’s football game, but could be used for creating home videos with plots involving little plastic people. There is also a compact 160 x 120 movie mode that records at 15 fps. Topping the list is the XGA movie mode. It has nice resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels, but its 15 fps frame rate is slow and makes everything look choppy.

The most disappointing aspect of the G7’s movie mode is that the optical zoom isn’t functional while recording. The digital zoom works, but makes subjects look horrible. Despite the dysfunctional zoom, the optical image stabilization still works wonderfully. It keeps subjects steady and takes the bounce out of video.

Users can access the ND filter and My Colors effects in the movie mode. The camera’s auto focus system works well in the movie mode, keeping subjects clearly in focus whether they’re moving side to side or toward or away from the camera.

The movie mode has a lot of audio options, although it is still monaural. Stereo audio is available on the more hybrid-oriented Canon PowerShot S3 IS The G7’s audio options include a wind filter. Users can adjust the sensitivity of the microphone too. The audio has a sampling rate of 44.100 kHz except for the compact mode’s 11.025 kHz rate. This audio isn’t as clear but emails faster.

The G7 can record movies up to an hour or 4 GB, whichever comes first. This will most likely be fine for G7 users; this isn’t exactly a hybrid model. The compact video size is the only exception: it stops shooting after 3 minutes.

Overall, the movie mode is a mixed bag. The optical zoom isn’t functional and movies don’t record longer than an hour. However, the picture looks good and the audio sounds great – so it should satisfy most point-and-shooters.

 

The PowerShot G7’s burst mode can shoot 2 fps at the highest resolution, which is quite good for being 10 megapixels. The drive isn’t incredibly lengthy but does better than most compact models with its 6-shot burst. There is also a continuous shooting auto focus burst mode that adjusts the focus before each and every shot. This snaps away at an 0.8 fps rate. Normally, the camera can take a frame about every second until the memory card fills up. So even at its slowest, the Canon PowerShot G7 isn’t that slow. The burst mode is activated with the bottom end of the multi-selector, which also activates the self timer. It can be set to delay for 2 or 10 seconds or to the custom setting. Users can tweak the custom setting in the recording menu, where the delay can be set to 2-30 seconds for 1-10 shots.

 

The playback mode is accessed via the designated rectangular button on the back of the camera. This makes it easy to get in and out of the playback mode easily when compared to cameras that access it via the mode dial. In the playback mode, the PowerShot G7 can display pictures individually or in index frames of nine.

Individual pictures can be magnified up to 10x and sound memos up to a minute can be added through the menu. Individual files can be deleted with the designated button. Files can also be easily erased in batches or organized by date, category, or folder. There is also an option to delete everything at once, of course.

Navigation through images and the playback menu is done with the multi-selector and rotary dial. Scrolling through lots of images is easy and painless with the rotary dial; it takes only one swipe of the thumb to move through a lot of pictures rather than repeatedly pushing the multi-selector. For those who prefer the multi-selector, there is a "jump" feature that still makes navigation easy as it jumps to every 10th or 100th image or to the first file by date or folder or to movie files. Pictures can automatically rotate if the orientation sensor is activated in the setup menu. Full shooting info can be displayed along with a histogram.

There is an image tagging feature called My Category that is similar to marking pictures as "favorites" on other manufacturers’ cameras. Users can perform simple editing tasks such as cropping and rotating pictures, and video splicing. The full set of My Colors picture effects is found in the playback mode except for the custom color option. There is a slide show available along with a sound recording mode from the playback menu.

 

The Canon PowerShot G7 has more scene modes than any other G-series model. It includes a host of scene modes that are found on A- and SD-series digital cameras. The G7 has 16 scene modes: Portrait, Landscape, Night Scene, Sports, Night Snapshot, Kids & Pets, Indoor, Foliage, Snow, Beach, Fireworks, Aquarium, Underwater, ISO 3200, Color Accent, and Color Swap. The Aquarium and ISO 3200 scene modes are brand new to Canon PowerShot digital cameras. The Color Accent and Color Swap modes used to be located in the My Colors effects menu but were relocated to the scene menu in 2006. Despite the new location, the modes are the same. Users can select colors by pushing the left and right arrows on the multi-selector while framing colors with the LCD’s preview. The Color Accent mode simply highlights one color and dulls the rest to black-and-white. The Color Swap mode doesn’t flip two colors for each other but rather replaces only one color (eg. It doesn’t make red turn white and white turn red; it only makes white turn red). This isn’t incredibly useful for serious photographers, but could be good for quick pranks (e.g. e-mail a photo of your friend’s discolored car with a comment on the new "paint job"). The 16 custom image presets can be found by rotating to the "SCN" portion of the mode dial, then scrolling around with the navigational dial. Text and an icon appear with each mode, but there is no help guide to explain them. This is probably just fine, as many cameras don’t explain scene modes well anyway (e.g. "Portrait: For taking portrait photos."). On the mode dial, there is a stitch assist icon. Once there, users can choose to line up images from left to right or right to left. The G7 shows a small overlay preview on the selected side so that users can precisely reframe the next image.