The G10 arrived Thursday afternoon, to my great excitement.  (One of the perks of living relatively close to NYC – one-day shipping from B&H!)  Already I’ve managed to put 200 shots on it, mostly around the apartment and at the Sock Hop my girlfriend and I attend last night.

What’s the good word?  Quite a bit, really.

The new lens is much wider (24mm instead of 35mm) and it really makes a difference.  Granted, there’s less zoom than either the G9 or my old SX100, but since I tend to work wide instead of tele, this doesn’t bother me much.

Noise is still an issue at ISO 400 and above, which is to be expected on a small sensor.  But even so, it’s not terrible at ISO 400, and even ISO 800 is usable with some noise-reduction software applied in post-processing.  At lower ISOs with good light, the quality is great.

The built-in digital ND filter is still there, which I consider a stroke of genius, since mounting regular filters to the G10 can be done, but is a bit of a pain.  It’s great for waterfall and flowing stream shots, as well capturing movement on windy days.

The overall feel is great; solid body, good amount of weight, and the now fully rubberized grip (which is also larger) makes holding it much easier.

The dials all move between settings with a very solid, very satisfying click – you’ll never end up stuck between settings with them.

Finally, it may sound silly, but I like the strap that comes with it – it’s like a mini-DSLR strap, instead of the usual wrist band.  It’s comfortable and functional.

The new DIGIC 4 processor is fast.  Coupled with my Kingston 50X SD card, there’s no lag.  (Although 2GB of memory only gets me 94 RAW images – which is why I have an 8GB SDHC on order!)

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Things I’m not so crazy about – there are a couple.

The new battery is annoying, because it’s a new format.  The G9 used the same battery as the 400D – which for me meant that I could swap between them.  Now I have a third unique battery type and a third charger.  Which means extra money to buy a backup, and extra space taken up in my bag.  Come on Canon, pick a battery and stick with it!

The dials – I’m not crazy about that new setup, either.  Stacking the mode dial atop the ISO makes them a bit awkward.  And I don’t know why EV compensation needed its own dial, when every other Canon has a button or menu setting to change it – which works just fine.

My primary complaint is the setting-switch button, and the settings assigned to it.  On every other Canon, this button moves between the aperture and shutter speed settings when in Manual mode (in Av or Tv it moves between the selectable option and the EV control).  This was a good thing, because there was no cycling through options when it came to adjusting the exposure.  Now they’ve moved the metering selection from it’s old place in the side menu and added it after the aperture & shutter speed, which means that to adjust manual settings you have to cycle through all three!  Whatever genius engineered this “feature” needs to have his head examined!

I cannot even begin to imagine why they did this.  Metering is not an option that most people change repetedly on-the-fly.  There’s plenty of room for it in the side menu (accessed by pressing the SET button in shooting mode) where it used to reside, or even in the main menu.  It belongs in a menu, not in the active controls!  This is one of those changes that really annoys me, because I cannot for the life of me figure out why they did it.  I know I’ll learn to just press the selection button an extra time, but that doesn’t change the fact that it somewhat sours me on what is otherwise an excellent camera.

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As you might have guessed by now, I’m no stranger to the Powershot G-series; in January of 2008 I purchased a G9.  Unfortunately, I only kept it for about six months.  My reasons for selling it were twofold; first, I was able to trade it almost penny for penny for a refurbished 400D that became by backup DSLR; second, I had some general dissatisfaction with the G9 itself.

Let me be very clear here – my dissatisfaction with the G9 was mostly my own fault.  When I bought it I was wowed by its features and immediately began using it as I would a DSLR, and was dismayed by the results.  When I bought it, the G9 was as close to a DSLR as any point & shoot, and was advertised as such.

Close, but NOT the same as.  And this is where I messed up.  I was used to my 30D, which produced very nice, low-noise images.  The G9 showed noise at anything ISO 200 or higher, especially in some of the dim conditions I tend to end up in.  Faced with mounting frustration over it’s limitations and the deal on the 400D, the G9 was history.

And now I’m the happy owner of its successor.  Why did I go down this road again?  Because now I know better.  I won’t be making the same mistakes again, I won’t be trying to use it like a DSLR and expecting the same results in conditions that it just can’t handle.