Canon G3 Review
by Josh Root; created June, 2003
Canon has had a lot of success with their "G" digital camera line. The G1 and
G2 appealed to both snapshot shooters who just wanted good photos without having
to think about "photography," and serious photographers who like to have control
over every part of the photographic process but didn't want the bulk of a digital
SLR. The cameras even found their way into some pro editorial shooter's bags as a
backup camera to their big Canons or Nikons. And for many others, the "G" series
was a good way to dip a toe into the digital waters, without having to spend the
money that moving to a digital SLR system requires.
The G3 is obviously the third generate of this camera. As with the G2, Canon
made some minor (major?) changes and improvements.
A few of this camera's main features (according to Canon):
- 4 mega pixel CCD
- 35-140mm (35mm equiv.) f/2-3 lens
- Flexible AF/AE points
- Intelligent Orientation sensor for proper image orientation
- Full range of manual controls
Storage
Canon has decided to continue using the
Compact Flash/Microdrive storage medium for it's pro and prosumer cameras. I am a
big supporter of this decision. Per megabyte, CF/MD are usually the best value in
storage media. Plus, with the new 2 and 4GB CF cards coming out, it is possible
to store a whole trip's worth of photos on one card, even if you are a voracious
shooter. Compact flash and microdrives seem to work equally well in the G3,
though microdrives do seem to eat up the battery a bit faster. Battery life is
far more dependent on things like flash and LCD usage. The JPEG and Canon's RAW
formats are your only file type choices. But with more and more Photoshop
plug-ins and 3rd part Raw conversion software programs coming out, there really
is no reason to miss having a TIFF option.
Power
Included with the G3 is Canon's standard BP-511 1100mAh Li-on
battery. Though I haven't done any specific tests, it easily lasts through a day
of heavy shooting. It will last a couple hundred shots longer if you use the
viewfinder instead of the LCD for shooting. It's the same battery that has
powered the G series, the D30/60, some of Canon's small DV camcorders, and the
new 10D. Good move on Canon's part. Many photographers are likely to have more
than one of those cameras, and it's nice to be able to carry just one charger for
all your batteries. Not to mention that you can use the same batteries in more
than one camera. And as an added bonus, there are plenty of generic BP-511
batteries out there for as low as $10-15. Keep in mind though; Canon is likely to
void your warranty if it finds that a non-canon battery caused any problems.
However, I have used them in various Canon cameras, and they seem to work fine.
They don't seem to have as long of a working life; I've had generic batteries die
after less than 75 charges.
Lens, autofocus, and exposure
The lens is optically equal to that on the G2 (as far as I can tell). This is
a good thing in my mind because I have always been pleased with the G2's lens.
It's nice and sharp and seems to have good color saturation. No, you aren't going
to get any nice blurry backgrounds for your portrait shots. But that has more to
do with that fact that the lens is actually a 7.2mm-28.8mm lens and depth of
field has nothing to do with format size -- a fact of life when dealing with
digital cameras with built in lenses. Ah the joys of the properties of
optics.
One big change is in the way the wide and telephoto lenses attach to the
camera. Instead of an extender tube adapter that screwes onto the ring
surrounding the lens, the G3 has a bayonet system. This makes for quicker
changeovers. But I don't see the advantage because I just tend to leave the G2's
adapter on my camera all the time. The end of the adapter is sized so that it fit
the G2's lens cap (49mm), so it's a no-brainer to leave it on all the time. The
threaded end of the G3's adapter (58mm) is much larger than the lens cap (52mm),
so I have to take the adapter off every time I want to use the accessory lenses.
The advantage to this is that Canon's wide lens now is a true 24mm (35mm equiv.)
instead of the 28mm it had always been. I don't know about you, but I've never
thought of 28mm as being particularly wide. Wide for me STARTS at 24mm.
As with the G2, Lensmate does make nice metal versions of the Canon
bayonet adapter. Interestingly enough, they make them in 52mm and 58mm sizes. The
thinking is that the 52mm version will let you use cheaper filters, third party
accessory lenses, and the standard lens cap. And the 58mm version will let you
have a metal version of the Canon adapter (which is plastic).
I am pleased with both the wide and tele lenses, though I have to admit I
haven't used them very much. The 24mm of the wide lens is great, but in order to
achieve a FOV that wide, Canon had to make the lens huge. It unbalances the
camera and is a little disconcerting to have shoved in your subject's faces.
The G3 also offers a 3.6x digital zoom ("14x combined zoom!" The Canon press
people shout). But, as usual, I suggest you turn off this feature. Digital zooms
are crappy at best and horrible at worst. Besides, if it's really that important
to you, you can do the exact same thing with Photoshop, and with better
quality.
The G3's AF is fine for all general purposes. I tend to be a little annoyed at
fixed lens camera's AF speed because I'm so used to the AF speed of my dSLRs.
But, to be fair, the AF speed of the G3 is above average. You can move the focal
point all around the picture area which means a fairly limitless choice of AF
points. I have no idea how this is any more useful than having, say, nine points
spread across the frame. But some might find it to be a great advantage. One area
where it might make a difference is that you could tie metering to the AF point,
and meter off something particular in the scene. If you were doing tripod work,
this might let you do a psuedo "zone system."
One area where I am pretty annoyed with the G3's AF is Macro focus.
The "G" series macro is usually very easy to activate: just press the little
button on the back with the flower icon, and focus. I have no idea why it gave me
such trouble. My G2 works in macro mode just fine. But often with the G3, I have
a really hard time getting the camera to focus. Once it did lock focus and the
photos were quite sharp, but I was still often annoyed because of this
problem.
As with the G2, I find the manual focus option of the G3 to be mostly useless.
I just can't get the hang of squinting to see a tiny grainy enlarged area of the
image on the LCD while I struggle to focus it. I'm glad that they thought to
offer it, but I'll hardly ever use it. Focus bracketing is another function I
never made much use of. But I think if I were doing macro tripod work, I might
use it more frequently. To my mind, a one-millimeter difference in focal distance
can change the whole composition of a macro photo.
The G3 has 8 exposure modes (nine if you count the movie mode):
- Auto: Camera does absolutely everything, including decide when to use the
flash. This is the utmost idiot-proof camera setting. I almost never use it.
- "P" Program: Camera chooses the shutter and f-stop, you get to set the flash,
ISO, white balance, and any custom function you'd like. I frequently use this
setting if I'm just shooting snapshots. The G3 is pretty good about getting its
exposures right on the first try. So I generally found that you didn't have to
worry too much under average snapshot conditions. This is also the setting I use
if I'm handing the camera to someone else to use.
- "Tv" (Shutter Priority): the same as Program, except that you choose the
shutter speed and the camera chooses the aperture. Very useful for shooting fast
action, or for intentionally creating motion blur.
- "Av" (Aperture Priority): the opposite of "Tv" mode, you pick the f-stop and
the camera picks the shutter speed. I never use this setting on the G3, or on any
non-SLR digital camera. Its main use is to create or reduce depth of field, to
make a background blurry for a portrait, for example. But with the HUGE depth of
field that fixed lens digital cameras have, you can't really do it very well, and
the G3 is no different in this regard.
- Manual: Just like it says, you've got control over everything. I absolutely
require this in any camera, digital or otherwise, above a simple point and shoot.
The G3's meter is very good, no doubt, but there will always be situations where
you can't get it to do what you want. Hence the need for a manual setting.
- Custom 1 ∓ 2: Nice if you have more than one person who regularly uses
the camera, or if you frequently shoot in situations that require completely
different shooting setups. The Custom exposure settings let you change between
two different set of exposure, WB, etc modes with the twist of a dial. If you
don't need it, this will be just one of those extra useless functions that you
never use. But if you have a use for it, this could be a lifesaver.
And finally the four different Scene modes:
- "Portrait" tries to create a small depth of field, useless in my mind (see
"Av" above).
- "Landscape" which tries to create a large depth of field, you might as well
use it if the camera's meter gives you the exposure you like. Though I suggest
using a tripod as this will result in a slow shutter speed.
- "Night Portrait" uses a long shutter speed to properly expose night scenes,
but also fires the flash right as the shutter closes to light the foreground. It
is very good for something like, taking a night portrait in front of the Eiffel
Tower. I actually use this setting a lot. A Tripod is a must, unless you are
trying for a streaky crazy exposure, which can actually look pretty cool.
The G3 does have a movie mode, and I'll just mention it enough to say that it
works as well as you would expect it to. You can record a movie for as long as
you have space on your memory card to do so. The quality isn't even close to mini
DV (or even VHS), but I've used it to make funny little clips for friends and
posted them on the web. Don't look for this to replace even the cheapest
camcorder though.
The G3's white balance doesn't need much said about it. To my eye, it works
very well, as well as any camera in its class and better than quite a few. It has
nine different settings (Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent 1,
Florescent 2, Electronic flash, and two different Custom settings). The two
different custom settings are probably the coolest WB feature that the G3 has.
It's something that must seem heaven sent for people who have to regularly shoot
in various places that require a custom white balance reading/setting.
The G3 has a couple other "exposure modifiers" as well. The
obligatory exposure and flash compensation are there. As well as "Vivid" and
"Neutral" settings, which give shots the look of a very saturated film like
Velvia and a less saturated film like Astia respectively. "Low Sharpening" mode
can be great for those who must have control over every aspect of their image in
post processing. "Sepia" and "Black and White" are useless. Sure they look fine,
but you can do both so much better in Photoshop. Then again, I must admit to
using the B∓W mode on occasion. Sometimes it's just nice to shoot in
B∓W. In addition, you can pick three different settings of Contrast,
Sharpness, and Saturation.
Appearance and Handling
While it's not radically different from the G2, the G3 has some noticeable
differences in its body shape and button layout. Most all of which I feel are
improvements.
The first thing you will notice when you pick up the G3 is that the hand grip
on the front of the camera feels much bigger and more solid. This is only
partially true. More accurately, Canon kept the size of the grip roughly the
same, but made the rest of the camera body slimmer. So the grip has more to hold
on to. The grip also gets an index finger dial that controls things like
selecting shutter speeds and apertures in any of the shooting modes that give you
that option. This is the best selection control that I have yet seen on a
prosumer digital camera. It's far better than most every other camera's
(including the G2) shutter choice method of using buttons on the back of the
camera. It's faster and easier than pervious methods, and is a good step towards
making the G3 feel more like the EOS SLR line.
A few of the buttons have been moved around (for example, the Manual
Focus button is by the eyepiece instead of on the side by the strap lug), but
other than that, the back of the camera looks much the same as the G2. There are
a couple important differences though. One is that access to the WB and exposure
compensation functions have been moved to the "up" and "down" of the direction
pad. This is much better than having to hit the "function" button a couple of
times to get to them, as you did on the G2, especially the WB function, which is
one that I use often when shooting.
Speaking of the "function" button, instead of having to hit it over and over
again to get to each of it's "functions," you now just have to hit it once and
then use the direction pad to access the ISO speed, visual effects, bracketing,
flash exposure compensation, and file type (and JPEG quality) settings. I am
especially pleased that the ISO speed setting was put here instead of being stuck
way down in the shooting menu. I switch ISO all the time, so it's nice to be able
to do it easily. Speaking of that, I found myself wishing that the G3 had an 800
ISO option. The noise level at 400 ISO isn't so bad as to make the thought of 800
out of the question. The ISO 400 setting is great, but for low light work, 800
with the f/2.0 lens would have really been great.
Like the back of the camera, the top plate of the G3 looks much like
the G2's. The one big difference is that the on/off switch has been redesigned.
I'm not sure how much I like it, as it seems too easy to accidentally turn it on.
I prefer the G2's switch where you had to physically click-click the switch to
turn it on or switch to playback. However, the new switch allows the G3 to be
switched back to shooting mode from playback mode just by touching the shutter
button. I found this to be a great function; I was often annoyed by the time I
had to wait with the G2 if I was reviewing images and suddenly saw a scene I
wanted to photograph.
The one other change that I didn't like is the removal of the safety latch on
the battery compartment. Instead of having to hold the latch and also pull the
door over as on the G2, you now just have to slide the door over. It seems like
it would pop open too easily, but it really didn't happen often at all. So I
guess I'm just paranoid. Aside from all this, the G3 just seems to respond faster
to pressing the "function", "menu", "display", etc buttons. On the G2, I always
feel like there was a delay between pressing the buttons and when they would take
effect. With the G3, this is no longer a problem.
Conclusion
Things I liked:
- Bigger handgrip
- Shutter/aperture finger dial
- Easier ISO access
- Easier White Balance access
- Fast switching between playback and shooting modes
- Continues the overall high quality of the "G" line
Things I didn't like:
- Giant size of Wide-Angle accessory lens
- Regular lens cap won't fit on lens adapter
- Problems with Macro focus
- No increase in Mpix from G2
All in all I really like the G3. It's a great camera in many ways, definitely
at the top of its class. Would I suggest looking at one if I was advising someone
on a digital camera purchase? Yes I would. Would I suggest that someone upgrade
from the G2 to the G3? Probably not. There just isn't enough difference between
the two, and the G2 is a fine camera in its own right. I would say wait and see
what the G4 has to offer, or make the jump to a dSLR. But what do I know? I'm
just one guy.
Portfolio
[Editor's Note: The huge versions are all 2272 x 1704 pixels and are direct
from the camera; no modifications whatsoever. The medium versions -- available by
clicking on the thumbnails -- were processed with Photoshop 7: reduced in size
from the huge versions, 50% Unsharp masked, and then resaved.]
Huge, direct from camera version, 2272 x 1704 pixels,
2.7MB
Huge, direct from camera version, 2272 x 1704 pixels,
1.7MB
Huge, direct from camera version, 2272 x 1704 pixels,
1.5MB
Huge, direct from camera version, 2272 x 1704 pixels, 2MB
Huge, direct from camera version, 2272 x 1704 pixels,
2.2MB
Huge, direct from camera version, 2272 x 1704 pixels,
1.8MB
Huge, direct from camera version, 2272 x 1704 pixels,
1.9MB
My background
I'm the digital editor here on photo.net. Home is the Northwest corner of the
USA (Washington state currently). I'm 27 and make my living as a
photographer/filmer for the BMX industry. I have been shooting photos for close
to 15 years now and have been shooting 98% digitally for over two years. I
currently shoot with various Canon digital cameras, a Leica IIIf, and a Barbie
Polaroid iZone camera. The best photographic advice anyone ever gave me was
"Remember son, the Seattle Mariners rule and the New York Yankees are the devil.
And you know how much we hate the devil. The Cubbies just need a little
love."
josh@photo.net
Text and pictures copyright 2003 Josh Root
Add a comment
