The Canon PowerShot G1
Last Updated 2 Sep 01
Copyright 2001 by Stephen Vermeulen
Introduction
This page contains some user comments on the G1. I got my G1 in December
of 2000, in the first 2 months of owning it I have probably shot about
1500 pictures, most have been indoors with flash, mainly of my kids playing.
Automatic White Balance
For the most part this behaves pretty well. However, with the built-in
flash I have observed a couple of issues:
-
its somewhat under powered, typically you need to brighten the photos before
printing them
-
it has a bit of a blue-ish cast which tends to result in grey-ish flesh
tones, again you need to do a bit of colour correction before printing
the photos
-
sometimes the AWB misbehaves and changes its mind mid way through a sequence
of pictures. When reviewing my collection I found these
two photos that demonstrate this problem perfectly. Both were shot
with flash (you can see that from the highlights in the photos and from
the EXIF info in the pictures) and were only 8 seconds appart, yet the
two pictures look remarkably different straight out of the camera.
The first two colour issues I have been able to correct pretty well by
using PhotoGenetics. I have made a couple of genotypes and typically I
only have to apply one or two of these (and choose the one I like best)
to correct a new photo rather than having to create a new genotype each
time.
The Rechargable Lithium Battery Pack
The G1 comes with a rechargable lithium battery pack. This is a nice unit
and it really lasts a long time, I've shot up to at least 300 photos on
one charge, and I use the flash and LCD display as view finder a lot, plus
I am using a IBM 1Gig microdrive for picture storage. SO I think this battery
is plenty big enough for this camera. However, I do have one complaint,
the low battery warning is just too late. I find it goes off when the battery
has only got only a few pictures of life left in it. Oh, for the Sony Info-Lithium
system! I guess the solution to this problem is going to be to recharge
the battery more often and to get a spare.
The Speedlite 420EX
Because of the problems with the internal flash, and because of my past
experiences with using bounce flash on a 35mm film camera I decided to
purchase the 420EX. This is an excellent flash, it has pretty much eliminated
the need to do any colour correction, except perhaps when the ambient room
light is quite bright, and thus, contributes significantly to the exposure.
The bounce capabilities are very good and the flash is powerful enough
to illuminate a typical living room to a good even brightness giving a
very pleasing natural lighting effect. I have also done some macro photography
with it as the light source (bouncing it off a wall or the ceiling) to
good effect. The last three orchid
photos on this page were taken with bounce illumination. This unit
eats batteries, but that's what NiMH rechargables are for. I have take
up to about 110 photos off a single set of 4 fully charged NiMH batteries,
which probably is not too bad.
Focusing
This site has a
good write up on the issue of focusing with the G1 and has some useful
tips.
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