Canon G12 10 MP Digital Camera with 5x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.8 Inch Vari-Angle LCD

Getting ready for a long international vacation, I took my trusty Nikon D70 to the camera store for a cleaning. The guy at the camera shop said 1: you can't really clean these, they're disposable, and 2: this camera had enough clicks on it that it wouldn't be reliable. So much for supporting local camera shops... as soon as I got it home the card stopped responding reliably, and there's no easy way to tell if the card is bad, or the camera is making the card go bad...So, long story not so long, I asked a professional photographer friend of mine what I should do - spend $900 or $1300 for a new Nikon that supports all my lenses? He said, sure, and also get a Canon G12. More reliable, equivalent photo quality, great zoom range, and about 1/8 the size, when you factor in lenses. And of course 1/2- 1/4 the cost. Knowing that the best travel photos are the impromptu quick shots, I decided to hold off on replacing the Nikon and just take the Canon - what a great decision! The photos are fabulous, the battery life is amazing, even with lots of flashes, and the ability to quickly and accurately set manual or program settings is actually easier than on the Nikon! I shot mostly with Aperature Priority, and some with shutter Priority, but I could also set it for full auto in about 1/2 second, hand the camera to somebody else, and be in a great shot. Being able to flip the screen around lets you take pictures of yourself and family easily, and the screen has lots of different options for settings and playback that makes it great to look at. I got lots of compliments on the camera and the photos. My only wish is that I could get a little bit wider angle shots - I'm an architect and take lots of wide angle interior and exterior pictures of buildings, but it wouldn't have been worth travelling with the big camera just for those times when I wanted the extra view width. I'd probably agree with other reviewers that the viewfinder isn't very useful. There isn't any information in there, so it ends up only helping with the basic shot composition, which the screen does just as well...Great camera!

I got this camera to use in addition to a Canon SD450 which I already have. The SD450 almost always takes excellent pictures outdoors, but has very little you can change to control the picture the camera takes. For example, when indoors, with the camera set to auto, sometimes it will take good pictures and sometimes it won't. In an area with fluorescent lighting the pictures have a distinctly different color tone, and there is basically no way to do anything to change that until after you import the pictures and try to touch them up with photo editing software. The SD450 is great if you just want to put it in your pocket in case you happen to see something you want to take a picture of, because it is very small. I wanted the G12 to take better quality pictures of friends and family, especially at family functions like reunions and holiday gatherings. The G12 also has a better lense and more zoom. It is listed as having 5X Optical Zoom, and the camera actually has the capacity to zoom in to 10X with (I presume) an interpolated zoom for the 6x to 10X portion. I was especially interested in this camera's ability to take pictures in RAW format and the ability to take 720 HD video. When I import the original pictures, I save them in a folder I name with the date or other identifier and the word "Originals" and at the same time make another folder with the same first name and "Reduced" to put the modified pictures into. This way, if I happen to delete or ruin a picture accidentally while trying to improve it, I can always restore a copy from the original file and start over. I then use the excellent photo program that is included to reduce the size of a copy of all the pictures I decide to keep. (I was expecting yet another copy of the latest version of Adobe Photoshop Elements, but this camera comes with a much better Photo software package.) The SD450 seems to take a lot of pictures that have red eye, but so far I have not had that problem with the G12. This camera takes excellent pictures just by leaving it on full automatic. I am still learning how to use this camera, but so far, with just the auto settings I am very happy with the picture quality. The software has an excellent batch processing ability where you can select the pictures you want to change and it processes them all at once very quickly. This is very helpful if you send pictures to friends and family by e-mail. Canon also provides online storage of the pictures if you want, so you can just send people a invitation to the web site and they can go to the site by invitation only and look at, print or save any pictures they want.So far I am very impressed with the battery life. I charged it fully upon arrival and have used the camera several times, once almost all day and have not had to recharge the battery even once. It is getting low and I will fully charge it again after discharging it fully.Finally, I would like to say that Amazon was very helpful in getting the camera to me very quickly. I wanted to use it at an family reunion, but I actually waited too long to place the order. Somehow Amazon came through and I got the camera the day before the reunion. Thanks, Amazon!