Canon PowerShot G7

Reviewed December 2006

Characteristics

Equipped with a 1/1.8-inch CCD composed of 10.4 million pixels of which 10 million are effective, the G7 is able to capture a maximum image size of 3648 x 2376 pixels. A total of 6 image sizes are available on the G7:

Images can be saved using any of 3 JPEG compression levels:

• Super Fine, the highest image quality with JPEG.
• Fine: a slightly more compressed format.
• Normal: the most compressed image format.

Regrettably, the RAW format that was offered on the G6, however, is not offered on this model.

CCD sensitivity, selected with a dial on the top left side of the camera, covers a range that starts at 80 ISO extending to 100, 200, 400, 800, and 1600 ISO. In addition, sensitivity can be set to Auto, which lets the camera decide the appropriate sensitivity from or to HI, which lets the camera set the sensitivity from a range beyond those available in the Auto ISO range.

A 6X zoom lens with an image stabilizer (IS) is used with the G7. The zoom has a focal length of 7.4 to 44.48 mm, comparable to a 35 to 210 mm on a 35 mm camera. Apertures start at f2.8 at the wide angle end and f4.8 at the telephoto end, closing down to f8.

The shutter speed range of the G7 covers from 15 seconds to 1/2500 second but varies according to the shooting mode is use. Noise reduction is automatically applied to images captured at 1.3 second or longer. The G7 continues the Neutral Density Filter of previous G cameras. Activated in the menu, the ND filter drops the light getting to the CCD by 1/8 of its actual level, the equivalent of 3 stops, and which allows capturing images when the lens' smallest aperture of f8 is still too bright, or when reducing the shutter speed is critical to the image, such as is needed to blur flowing water in daylight.

The Neutral Density Filter is one of the options selected in the Function menu, displayed when the FUNC./SET button at the centre of the 4-direction control is pressed:

• White Balance: Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Fluorescent H, Flash, Underwater, or Custom (adjusted under ambient light).
• My Colours: controls the way the image is recorded.
  • Off: default.
  • Vivid: emphasizes colour saturation and contrast.
  • Neutral: tones down colour saturation and contrast.
  • Sepia.
  • Black and White.
  • Positive Film: intensifies colours, much like some slide films.
  • Lighter Skin Tone: lightens skin tones.
  • Darker Skin Tones: darkens skin tones.
  • Vivid Blue: emphasizes blue tones.
  • Vivid Green: emphasizes green tones.
  • Vivid Red: emphasizes red tones.
  • Custom Colour offers the possibility of freely changing contrast, colour saturation and sharpness.

• Bracket: provides two auto bracket types:
  • Exposure [AEB] which captures 3 exposures that can be bracketed by ±2 EV in 0.3 EV increments.
  • Focus, which only applies to Manual focus. Focus bracketing captures one image at the Manual Focus setting, one in front of the focus point, and one behind the focus point. Farther and nearer focus can be set to any one of 3 distances: large, medium, or small.

• Flash Compensation (available with P, Tv, Av and Stitch Assist modes): allows adjusting the flash output over ± 2 EV in 1/3 EV increments. In the M mode, or when the Flash Adjust option of the REC menu is set to Manual in Av or Tv modes, the Flash Output can be controlled manually and set to 1/3 power, 2/3 power or Full power.
• Metering Mode: Evaluative, Centre-Weighted or Spot using either the centre of the frame, or the AF point.
• ND Filter: On or Off. (See above.)
• Compression selects the JPEG compression: Super fine, Fine, Normal (see above).
• Recorded Pixels to select the image size: L, M1, M2, M3, S or Widescreen (see above).
• Frame Rate (Movie mode only): 15 or 30 frames per second.
• Recording Pixels (Movie Mode only, except 1024 mode) serves to set the movie frame size: 640 x 480 or 320 x 240.

The Recording Menu of the G7 contains the remaining camera settings that are not accessed through the Function menu, or by buttons or dials on the outside of the camera. The options accessible in the Recording menu vary according to the shooting mode in use, or the Movie mode. The REC menu, identified by a camera icon and a red tab, contains two other tabs: Setup, which controls basic camera configuration options, and which is covered in the Interface and Software section of this review; and the My Camera menu, which is described further below. These two sections are common to the Capture and Playback mode.

The REC. menu provides the following options:

• Digital Zoom: controls the digital zoom. When the digital zoom is used, the image is interpolated to the image size currently in use. The options available are: 1.4X, 2.3X, or Standard, which when combined with the optical zoom is equivalent to 24X.
• Flash Sync: can be set to 1st curtain (the flash fires at the beginning of the exposure), or 2nd curtain (the flash fires just before the end of the exposure).
• Slow Synchro: On or Off. Turns on the slow synch flash mode.
• Red-eye: On or Off. Uses the AF assist lamp to reduce the red-eye effect before a flash photo is taken.
• Flash Adjust: (only shown when the camera is set to Tv, or AV) controls whether the power of the flash (internal or external) will be controlled manually, or be adjusted through flash compensation. FE Lock is not available when the Flash Adjust setting is set to Manual.
• Safety FE: (only shown when the camera is set to P, Tv, or AV): On or Off. When set to On, the camera automatically adjusts the shutter speed or aperture to avoid overexposing when the flash is used.
• Self-timer serves to set the way the Custom self-timer operates.

• Spot AE Point: Centre or AF Point. When set to Centre, the spot metering always takes place at the centre of the frame. When set to AF Point, the spot metering is performed wherever the AF point is.
• ND Filter: turns On or Off the Neutral Density Filter.
• Safety Shift (Only available when the camera is set to Tv or Av): On or Off. When active Safety Shift automatically overrides incorrect settings made by the user so the exposure is correct.
• MF-Point Zoom: On or Off. Decides if the focus point is magnified on the LCD monitor when manual focusing is in use.

• AF Mode:
  • Single: focuses when the shutter release is pressed halfway, and locks the focus position.
  • Continuous: focuses when the shutter release is pressed halfway, and continues adjusting the focus until the shutter release is depressed fully.
• AF-assist Beam: On or Off. Controls whether or not the AF assist light will automatically come on in low light.
• Review: Sets the time during which images are displayed on the screen immediately after capture, Off, 2 to 10 seconds in 1 second increments; or Hold, which leaves the image on screen until a button is touched on the camera.
• Save Original: On or Off. Decides whether or not the original image will be saved as well when shooting using Colour Accent or Colour Swap.
• Auto Category: On or Off. Decides whether or not images are automatically classified into categories during shooting.
• IS Mode: serves to choose the Image Stabilization mode:
  • Continuous: constantly stabilizes the image, including when previewing on the monitor.
  • Shoot Only: most effective mode, stabilizes the image at the moment of capture.
  • Panning: only stabilizes the image to prevent up/down movement, but not side to side movement. Intended for images that are captured by moving the camera to follow a subject moving across the frame.
  • Off: turns off stabilization, intended for shots where the camera is already stable, such as when it is mounted on a tripod.
• Converter: lets the camera know that a lens converter is attached: None; WC-DC58B; TC-DC58C.
• Custom Display Settings: allows selecting the items superimposed on the display image for 2 different display modes, each selected by cycling through the display modes with the DISPLAY button. A Viewfinder mode is included — as would be useful with an EVF, but it cannot be accessed.
• Set Shortcut Button serves to assign a shortcut to the button: Resolution, Compression, White Balance, My Colours, Light Metering, Neutral Density Filter, Digital Teleconverter (digital zoom), IS (stabilizer) Mode, AF Lock, Create Folder, Display Off.
• Save Settings: saves the current camera settings to either C1 (Custom mode 1) or C2 (Custom mode 2). These preferences can then be reinstated when the Mode Dial is turned to C1 or C2 (ISO Speed, set by a dial, cannot be saved).

As noted earlier, set to the Playback mode, the menu of the G7 contains 4 tabs. The first tab is the Playback options:

• Slide Show offers 7 options:
  • All Images: plays back all images on the memory card.
  • Date: plays images from a specific date.
  • My Category: plays back images from a selected category.
  • Folder: plays back images from a selected folder.
  • Movies: plays movie files only.
  • Stills: plays back still images only
  • Custom 1-3: allows creating up to 3 slide shows.
• My Category: allows organizing images into categories (see the Ergonomics section of the review).

• Erase erases images stored on the card except those that are marked as protected. Images can be selected one at a time, by date, by category, by folder, or all at once.
• Protect: makes images read-only so they cannot be erased accidentally. Images can be selected one at a time, by date, by category, by folder, or all at once.
• My Colours: serves to add an effect to an already captured image (Vivid, Neutral, Sepia, B&W, Positive Film, Lighter Skin Tone, Darker Skin Tone, Vivid Blue, Vivid Green, Vivid Red.

• Sound Recorder: allows recording sound only — effectively turning the G7 into a digital sound recorder — for up to 2 hours at a time, depending on the space available on the memory card. Sound can be captured at 11.025 kHz, 22.050 kHz, or 44.100 kHz, with the greater value generating a higher quality sound file, and a larger file size.
• Rotate: serves to rotate an image 90°, or 270° so they can be viewed the right way up. An Auto-Rotate function can be enabled in the Setup menu. (See the Interface and Software section of the review.)
• Transfer Order: which also uses DPOF tags, is used to decide which images will be automatically transferred to a computer when the camera is connected via USB.
• Transition: serves to select a transition effect between images/movies in a slide show. Three effects or none are available.

In addition, when a movie is selected for playback, an option allows editing (cutting, splicing, re-saving as a new movie, or overwriting the original).

The second tab of the menu is for Printing:

• Print: starts the printing process when the camera is connected directly to a PictBridge, Direct Print, or Bubble Jet Direct compatible printer.

• Select Image & Quantity: serves to select images one at a time, and the number of copies to be made of each image.
• Select By Date: serves to select images to be printed according to the shooting date.
• Select by Category: serves to select images to be printed by category (images must have been previously sorted).
• Select By Folder: serves to select images to be printed by folder (images must have been previously sorted).

• Select All Images: selects all images on the memory card.
• Clear All Selections: clears all selections.
• Print Settings: decides the type of print to make (Standard, Index, or both), whether or not the date should be superimposed on the image, or the File name, or the DPOF data cleared.

The third tab of the playback menu is once again an access to the Setup options for the G7. This part of the menu is covered in the Interface and Software section of the review.

The My Camera menu is accessed through the third tab of the Rec. mode menu and the Fourth tab of the Playback menu. A standard on all Canon compact digital cameras, the menu contains options to select the start-up image and customize the sounds produced by the camera.

The first option, Theme, allows setting an overall sound and image theme. The G7 provides three built-in themes which contain a start-up image and matching sounds for four activities: start-up sound, operation sound, self-timer sound, shutter sound, and any of these can be mixed and matched with others.

Moreover, while the camera is connected to a computer, any of these three themes can be replaced by any others from the more than 40 themes that are part of the software included with the camera.

Unlike previous models which used CompactFlash cards Type I and II, the Powershot G7 uses SD (Secure Digital) memory cards. The card slot is located next to the battery, underneath the camera, and shares the same cover door. Canon provides only a 32 MB Canon brand SD card with the G7, which for a 10-megapixel camera is quite limiting. The acquisition of a higher capacity SD memory card has to be considered an absolute necessity when the camera is purchased. The chart below shows image and movie capacity with both the 32 MB card supplied with the camera, and an optional 1 GB card:

The external connections of the G7 are located at the top of the camera's left side, covered by a solid hinged door.

The upper connection is the A/V (Audio/ Video) jack, which allows the G7 to be connected to a television using the cable included in the kit. The output signal can be set to NTSC or PAL in the Setup menu.

The lower connection is for USB (2.0 Hi-Speed) port, which allows the camera to be connected to a computer or a printer.

The PowerShot G7 is powered by a Lithium ion battery (NB-LH2). The battery is held in place with a spring-loaded clip that prevents it from sliding out when the memory card is accessed. In North America, a battery charger (CB-2LW) that plugs directly on a wall outlet is included to recharge the Lithium-ion battery. A full charge takes approximately 90 minutes. The G7 can also be powered from household current using the optional AC Adapter, ACK-DC20.