My first day of of photographing the awesome beauty of Slovenia meant hiking up a steep trail before sunrise on a very cold morning.  And yes, the 25-pound backpack and tripod worked on my legs.  If I had known then how well the Canon Powershot G10 could capture that wonderful morning light, no doubt the 25-pound backpack would have stayed in the car.

Michael Reichmann has just posted a wonderfully interesting article about the Canon Powershot G10.

See:  http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/kidding.shtml

Reichmann’s observations are enlightening.

He reports that the Canon G10 images he has made are comparable with images made by medium format cameras costing $15,000 or more!

I was a bit surprised by the number of visitors who read my initial review of the Canon Powershot G10, and I especially appreciate all the comments and questions that visitors have made.

Ralph Says Hi to the G10

Let me sum up some of the goods and bads of the camera thus far.

Noise

As with the G9, the G10 displays unacceptable amounts of noise in images shot at ISO 400.  In fact, I would not likely shoot at higher than ISO 100 when using the camera. (With the caveat that it is possible to shoot at ISO 400 and use some magic in photoshop to reduce noise to acceptable levels.)

(Note, my final review is here along with lots of shots from my recent trip to Slovenia and Scotland.)

As an avid user of the Canon Powershot G9, a camera that I said was the perfect travel camera, I had high hopes for the Canon Powershot G10.  See my detailed review of the G9 here.

When the G10 was announced, I was especially pleased that Canon had changed the lens to 28-140mm instead of the 35mm-210mm on the G9.  I found the 35mm limit of the G9 very restrive when doing landscape photography.  Although, I must admit, I did make some fantastic images with the G9.  Like this one:

Click on Image to See a Larger Version

Others liked the image too, it won Elements of Human Kind Image of the Week at Nature Scapes Net.

So, I bought the Canon Powershot G10 when it became available locally.  My first camera had a hot pixel and I had to return it for exchange, the one I have now is fine.  Please note that I buy cameras that I review, unfortunately Canon and Nikon don’t send me stuff to test like they do with the better known camera review sites.  And, please note that I do not bore you with totally technical stuff.  If you want that kind of information about the Canon Powershot G10, you can read the press release at Canon here.

With camera in hand and tripod set up, I took my first photograph with the G10 yesterday morning.

Click on Image to See a Larger Version

Unfortunately for me, a RAW plugin is not yet available for use with Adobe Photoshop, so I had to use Canon’s DPP software to process the shot.  Thus, my normal workflow was totally different, and the subtle things I can do with Lightroom and Adobe RAW processing are missing from the shots you see here.

I bought a Canon Powershot G10 yesterday and took some photos with it this morning.  I am impressed with the quality of the images, it is as good or better than the Canon Powershot G9.

To see a larger version of this photograph, click on the image.

One great advantage to the Canon G10 is the 28mm wide angle lens, far superior to the 35mm lens on the Canon Powershot G9.  Those of us who want to use the camera for landscapes will find this especially pleasing.  And, given that the quality of the images I have processed so far is equal to the quality of those from the Powershot G9, I think it is a winner.  Some have said that boosting the megapixels of the sensor would result in poorer quality images.  So far I don’t see that.

So, why would I write about coffee since this blog is about photography?

Simple,  at 0400 hours, when all others in the world are asleep, or should be, I am awake, sorta, and all I can think about is going to the john and then finding my coffee.

Just last week while on a trip to North Carolina I found it necessary to have the oil changed in my van. Getting your oil changed is often a boring experience, especially when waiting in an automobile service center.  I detest TV and usually look around for something to read.  In this instance there wasn’t much available.  After skimming through the magazines available, I found one on building and architecture.  At least the photos were well done.