G11 and S90 at Best Buy

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Our local Best Buy store has the G11 and S90 cameras on display and in stock. For that matter, they also have the 7D (but not the 15-85mm lens that I was hoping for). It’s interesting how frenetic demand is quickly turning into routine shopping and purchasing.

Side by side, the S90 is impressively smaller than the G11. I couldn’t help but think “If the G11 sensor can fit into this smaller camera, then a larger sensor could fit into the G11.” This extensively debated topic and wish will continue and those “laws of nature” explaining why a larger sensor cannot be squeezed into a G series camera will probably be revoked.

In my hand, the G11 felt strangely familiar and, at the same time, different. I still think, as I did for the G10, that the stacked control dials are awkward and the exposure compensation dial is misplaced. In my brief hands-on, the G11 did not feel quite as comfortable as my customized G9. Realistically though, this feeling was based more on familiarity than ergonomics.

The articulated LCD was very nice and I did not find the slightly smaller display to be significant. The G11 menus are somewhat different from my G9. Most noticeably, the bottom row of text (displayed on the LCD) is an elaboration of the menu item. For example, if “Mute ON” is selected as the menu item, then the bottom row of text reads “Turns off camera sounds”. Nice touch. To accomplish this, the menu uses five rows of text per screen for the menu items while the sixth row is dedicated to the explanation. (My G9 also has six rows but all contain menu items.)

When extended, the lens seemed a little larger in diameter than on my G9 but that could have been my imagination. Looking through the viewfinder, a bit of the lens intrudes but disappears on zooming in a small amount.

I’m sure that the G11 will be a good seller for Canon but suspect that the S90 will turn out to be even more profitable.
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