The much-anticipated Canon PowerShot G6 brings 7-megapixel resolution, a 2" LCD screen, and a slick new body design to Canon's popular G-Series camera line.
The PowerShot G6 is the latest revision of Canon's venerable G-series of digital cameras. This latest camera packs a whopping 7.1 Megapixels into a sleek new design. While most of the G5's features remain, there are a few new things worth mentioning about the G6, including:
- 7.1 effective Megapixel CCD (versus 5.0 on the G5)
- Redesigned, more compact body
- Larger, 2 inch LCD display (versus 1.8" on the G5)
- New VGA movie mode
- 9-point AiAF in automatic shooting modes and all-around faster autofocus
- More powerful battery
The PowerShot G6 has a very good bundle. Inside the box, you'll find:
- The 7.1 effective Megapixel Canon PowerShot G6 camera
- 32MB CompactFlash card
- BP-511A lithium-ion battery
- Battery charger
- Wireless remote control
- Lens cap w/retaining strap
- Neck strap
- USB cable
- A/V cable
- CD-ROM featuring Canon Digital Camera Solutions, ArcSoft Camera Suite, and drivers
- Camera manual + software manual (both printed)
Canon includes a 32MB CompactFlash card with the camera, which seems a little small for a camera with this resolution. So you'll want to buy a larger card, and I recommend 256MB at the very minimum. The included card is marked as "high speed", and from my own experiences I think it would be considered 8X. The G6 can use Type I or Type II cards, including the Microdrive, and it supports the FAT32 format for cards larger than 2GB.
The G6 uses a higher capacity version of the BP-511 battery that was used by the G5 -- this one's known as the BP-511A. Where the old battery had 8.1 Wh of energy, the new battery has a whopping 10.3 Wh. Canon estimates that you can take about 300 photos using the CIPA battery life standard, or spend over 6 hours in playback mode.
My usual complaints about proprietary batteries apply here. They're expensive ($50 a pop), and you can't put in a set of alkalines to get you through the rest of the day like you could with an AA-based camera.
Image quality
With Canon being one of the leading names in today's industry, it should come as no surprise that the images delivered by the new Canon G6 are truly superb. Once again Canon have succeeded in making a good camera even better. Images taken with the by now familiar f2.0-3.0, 7.2 - 28.8mm (35-140mm eq.) Canon zoom lens are bright, sharp and properly exposed with nicely saturated colours without being over the top. Pictures taken with flash indoors show an even illumination of the subject, and if you feel the light is still too harsh you can power the flash down for a slight fill-in effect. The camera delivers very smooth images with very little noise at ISO 50 or 100 and even at ISO 400 noise is not really an issue, as images remain perfectly useable.
Distortion is kept at bay with only a little barrel distortion at the wide end of the lens that gradually disappears once you zoom in towards the tele setting. The latter shows virtually no pin cushioning at all. There is no vignetting or light loss at the edges of the image and Canon has done a good job of keeping purple fringing levels down. The automatic white balance worked well enough although sometimes it did not quite manage to suppress the "green" colour cast of fluorescent lighting. We would advise you to switch to one of the two fluorescent settings under this kind of lighting. Overall we were very pleased with the image quality of this new Canon. We are sure that if you decide to travel light and leave your bulky dSLR equipment at home for once, images taken by the Canon G6 can easily keep up with what you are used to.
Conclusion
The Canon Powershot G6 is a truly excellent camera. Image quality is great, handling is superb and it is full of powerful features that will be appreciated by advanced and professional photographers alike. The 7-megapixel images provide more than enough resolution to make superb A3 sized prints with nicely saturated colours and excellent detail.
博文
没有评论:
发表评论