Digital Trends

A worthy successor to the G5

by Axel Wolf on Nov 6th, 2004 at 12:14 AM:

I think the G6 is a worthy successor to the G5 (and previous "G" family members for that matter). It delivers very good image quality right out of the box, it's reasonable fast and responsive, and it comes with a very decent bundle (hardware and software wise) although at about USD / EUR 600 it's not exactly a bargain.

What I liked

* Very good image quality right out of the box, almost no noise at ISO 50, default compression settings are practically artifact free, very good and natural color rendition
* Reasonable fast and responsive, much improved startup time compared to G5
* Good bundle (save the supplied measly 32 MB CF card)
* Excellent software support for Mac and PC
* Fast lens with a good zoom range
* Good build quality (except for some plasticky parts); improved hand grip
* Shoe for external flash
* RAW support with clever conversion command during review (although at the time of writing you can only use Canon's tools to deal with RAW images)
* Lots of goodies like: Orientation sensor, interval timer, remote control, voice annotation
* Lots of accessories available (again sometimes not exactly at bargain prices)

What I did not like

* Significant noise at ISO 400
* AF problems in Macro mode with some subjects
* Noticeable vignetting with the built-in flash in wide-angle position
* Noticeable chromatic aberrations under certain circumstances
* In camera sharpening, saturation, contrast can only be adjusted via a custom setting (but at least it's possible)
* No live histogram
* Still only USB 1.1; transfer a 512 MB card and prepare for a coffee break or get a dedicated card reader

Full review can be found at axelwolf.org