Cameras

The PowerShot G12 is the latest flagship digital compact camera in Canon’s long established PowerShot G-series. As well as maintaining the rugged, stylish build of its much-loved predecessors it has brought Canon’s HS System, 720p HD movie recording and Hybrid IS to the G-series to deliver premium image quality in both stills and movies.

Who is it for?

Canon’s PowerShot G12 is a camera that is sure to be popular with both professional and advanced amateur photographers due to its superb image quality, full manual control of settings, and RAW shooting capability. With a 10 Megapixel CCD and ISO capabilities up to 12,800 it's a superb tool for photographers looking to capture high resolution, high quality, and low light images.

The PowerShot G12 is suitable for professional photographers who are seeking a rugged secondary camera that’s flexible, reliable, offers full manual control and RAW shooting in an easy-to-carry body. It is also a powerful camera in its own right that can deliver outstanding quality from a body that’s small enough to take on every assignment.

Key features

• High-sensitivity 10 Megapixel CCD
• 28mm wide, 5x zoom lens, Hybrid IS
• HS System
• 7.0 cm (2.8") Vari-Angle LCD, Electronic Level, OVF
• ISO capabilities from 100-12,800, with expansion
• Front Dial, Full Manual control & Multi-Control Dial
• RAW shooting
• HD movies, HDMI
• High Dynamic Range mode
• Smart Auto mode
• Multi-Aspect Shooting
• Extensive accessory system, including FA-DC58B lens filter adapter

 

Please click here to take a tour around the PowerShot G12.

The PowerShot G12 incorporates Canon’s HS System – a powerful combination of a high-sensitivity 10.0 Megapixel CCD sensor and a high-performance DIGIC 4 processor that’s designed to provide outstanding image quality in all lighting conditions. The HS System allows you to shoot at higher ISOs with excellent image quality, even without using flash or a tripod.

In extreme low light the camera’s Low Light mode can extend the ISO range up to ISO 12,800, with the ability for users to control ISO and white balance to accurately capture the ambience of a dimly lit environment. For precise ISO control the dedicated ISO dial on the camera’s top plate lets you alter ISO settings in 1/3-stop increments.

The PowerShot G12’s optical Image Stabilizer allows you to shoot at shutter speeds approximately four stops slower than would normally necessary to achieve a sharp shot. The camera’s Hybrid IS comes into play for macro shots as the PowerShot G12 can focus as close as 1cm from a subject. Hybrid IS counteracts both unintentional shift and angular movement – two kinds of camera shake that become particularly pronounced as image magnification increases.

The camera’s 5x zoom lens extends down to 28mm (equivalent in 35mm format), making it perfect for capturing wideangle scenes, and zooms out to the equivalent of 140mm.

The PowerShot G12 has improved handling including a new Front Dial for swift, full manual control and a range of semi-automatic modes with convenient access to settings during shooting. Photographers can prioritise either the Front Dial or the rear Multi-Control Dial as the main way of controlling the camera, or they can use a combination of both.

Flexible shooting and playback is provided by the PowerShot G12’s 7.0cm (2.8”) high-resolution Vari-Angle PureColor II VA LCD screen. The rotating Vari-Angle design offers easy framing from a range of angles, such as when shooting at ground level or overhead. The camera’s optical viewfinder includes diopter adjustment so users can precisely match the viewfinder to their vision.

For capturing fast-moving action the PowerShot G12 has the ability to shoot at up to 4.2 frames per second.

The PowerShot G12 shoots uncompressed RAW images and includes Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (DPP) software in the box, providing the ability to edit images after capture and fit seamlessly into your workflow. To further aid the workflow Multi-Aspect shooting in 3:2, 4:3, 1:1, 16:9 and 4:5 formats allows photographers to shoot according to their subject and the intended use of the image, enabling them to choose which composition and result they want to capture as the image is taken, thus cutting down on post-processing.

The camera features 720p HD movie shooting (24fps) with stereo sound. ‘Miniature Effect’ is also available in movie mode – this adds a different dimension to video footage by shooting at a range of selectable slower frame rates for dramatic, compelling time-lapse-style videos that appear of model scale. An integrated HDMI port with CEC compatibility makes it simple for video and stills to be viewed on an HDTV.

The PowerShot G12’s High Dynamic Range (HDR) shooting mode allows for the capture of high contrast scenes. Whilst in HDR mode the PowerShot G12 takes three different exposures of the same scene before analysing and combining shots in-camera to create a single image. The resulting shot captures highlight and shadow detail closer to how the photographer sees it.

As part of i-Contrast processing, the PowerShot G12 allows control over the amount of Dynamic Range correction that is applied in the camera to suppress highlight blow out and shadow detail loss in the final result. To allow photographers to brighten only shadowed areas of an image, Shadow Correction is included to brighten darker areas and reveal hidden detail in shadow regions.

The PowerShot G12 incorporates a new Tracking AF mode for tracking subjects that are in motion, or to help achieve a creative composition. Also new is an Electronic Level function that uses information from the camera’s acceleration sensor and an on-screen indicator allows users to check if the camera is level, working in either horizontal or vertical orientations to ensure level shots of portrait or landscape scenes.

Easy, wireless content transfers are supported by Eye-Fi connected functions (in those countries that support Eye-Fi), allowing remote uploads to image sharing websites.

The PowerShot G12 is compatible with a new lens filter adapter – the FA-DC58B – that attaches directly to the lens barrel ring and moves along with the lens while zooming, preventing vignetting at the wideangle end of the zoom and providing filter coverage throughout the full optical zoom range of the lens.

• Optical IS

  Canon’s optical Image Stabilizer (IS) prevents image blur by dramatically reducing the effects of camera shake. In situations where image blur due to camera shake is more likely – such as in darker conditions or when shooting with the zoom extended – the optical Image Stabilizer can help images remain sharp through minute vibration gyros which detect camera movement caused by hand shake. These signals are processed by a single-chip IS controller, which discriminates between hand-shake and intentional camera movements. Signals are then sent to the IS unit, which moves one of the lens elements accordingly to re-align the light rays and cancel out the effects of camera shake – effectively giving photographers a four-stop shooting advantage.

• Hybrid IS

  Hybrid IS technology was first introduced in Canon’s highly acclaimed EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens. Hybrid IS corrects both angular (rotational movement) and shift shake (linear shake) that becomes more pronounced when shooting at close focusing distances. An angular velocity sensor detects the extent of angular camera shake, whilst an acceleration sensor detects the amount of shift shake. Hybrid IS moves the lens elements to compensate for both types of movement – dramatically enhancing the effectiveness of the optical Image Stabilizer during macro shooting.

• DIGIC 4

  The DIGIC 4 processor brings a lot of processing power to the camera – a single DIGIC 4 processor is 25% faster than the DIGIC III processor. The DIGIC 4 processor consumes very little electrical power thereby increasing the battery life of the camera and providing sufficient processing power to perform advanced image processing algorithms that deliver superb image detail and colour reproduction with accurate white balance.

  The DIGIC 4 processor is also responsible for high ISO noise processing. By having a more powerful, faster performing processor, more complex image processing can be achieved in the same time giving even better high ISO performance. This has allowed the camera to deliver full resolution shooting across the ISO range of 100-3200 (standard) for exceptional performance in all lighting conditions, with ISO 12,800 available via a Low Light mode setting.

• Canon HS System

  The PowerShot G12 includes Canon's HS System - a combination of a high-sensitivity 10.0 Megapixel CCD sensor and powerful DIGIC 4 processing, which delivers exceptional low light performance. The HS System enables the camera to support a maximum ISO of 3200 at full resolution and works to reduce the occurrence of noise at all ISO speeds for high quality images. Users can also set their own parameters in Auto ISO mode, with the ability to limit the maximum ISO speed they want to employ during shooting.