The Canon PowerShot G16: great at capturing fast-paced action

The ubiquity of smartphones and tablets has led to the decline of inexpensive cameras, commonly called “point-and-shoot”, because many consumers are satisfied with the capabilities of built-in cell phone cameras. But when a user starts to understand photography a little bit and first gets disappointed with the results after a tour, he has a desire to get a real machine that can shoot different events without misfires. To get a tangible increase in quality, the buyer should not be stingy and pay attention to advanced compact cameras such as Canon PowerShot G16.

Canon PowerShot G16. General View.

Technical Specifications

Sensor – BSI-CMOS, 7.74 × 5.58 mm, form factor 1/1.7″ resolution up to 12.1 million pixels. 4:3

Lens – rigidly mounted, variable FR, 28-140 mm, F1.8-2.8

Image stabilization – optical, 5-axis, built into the lens

Built-in optical viewfinder

Display – built-in, 7.5 cm diagonal, 920,000 dots

Focus – automatic by contrast and manual, 9 or 1 point, face detection, AF single/continuous, minimum distance of 1 cm

Shutter speed ranges – 1/4000 to 15 seconds

Shooting modes – P, A, S, M, fully automatic, 58 recognizable scenes, Hybrid Auto mode, HDR, smart shutter

Exposure metering – matrix, center-weighted, spot metering

Flash – built-in, range up to 7 meters, the short sync time of 1/4000 sec

Sensitivity: ISO 80 to 12800

Photo formats – RAW CR2 , RAW+JPG, JPG 2 levels of compression

Memory cards – SD, SDHC, SDXC, UHS-1 SD

Continuous shooting – 12.2 fps up to 5 frames , 9.3 fps up to 522 frames , 5.7 fps with AF

Interval video recording of stars – 15 fps

Up to Full HD movies 1920×1080@60fps . Final MP4 format H.264

Interfaces – miniUSB, miniHDMI, Wi-Fi

Powered by a 7.4V, 920mAh battery

Dimensions – 108.8×75.9×40.3 mm

Weight – 356 g with battery and memory card

Approximate retail price 21,800 Dollars.

The consumer, inexperienced in technology, very often “catches” on the outside of a techno novelty, without thinking about whether it uses a lot of advanced technology, whether the manufacturer has long been present in the market and therefore has extensive experience in creating a certain class of products. After all, even a prominent manufacturer may be “raw” new products, with which he has just started to enter a new market niche, and in such an experimental project innovation has not yet been sufficiently tested.

With a family of cameras Canon PowerShot G, the situation is quite different, because the history of its development over a decade, and the concept of this family, without a doubt, mature. Of course, some priorities have changed over the course of the family’s evolution, based on current market needs, but the basics have remained the same and the G family now includes compact cameras that boast an oversized sensor, fast prime lenses and advanced functions and settings.

The main advantages of the model Canon PowerShot G16

The evolution of a family of cameras Canon PowerShot G has led to the fact that the rather bulky and slow by today’s standards , they became a compact bundle of high technology. And with the last major design change moving from the G12 to the G15 , it seems the miniaturization was precisely the main trend. As a result, the camera lost the mobility of the LCD display while its resolution doubled , but became a little shorter and lost weight by 8 mm at once. The same body has been preserved in the latest model, the G16.

The company-manufacturer calls the Canon HS system, which includes a sensor with enlarged cells, collecting more light and a powerful image processor, the main means of achieving high image quality. In addition the sensor area is larger than that of a typical compact camera form factor 1/1.7″ instead of 1/2.3″ . This advanced element of the camera optical system is naturally complemented by a high-quality zoom lens with high aperture ratio.

What’s left to note is that for experienced photographers, the camera offers convenient basic settings, meaning they have all the ingredients for successful photography.

Construction and ergonomics

As mentioned above, in the latest redesign the camera body has become considerably thinner. Not only does it fit in the side pocket of a jacket or coat but also in the back pocket of a pair of jeans. Although the design and delivery of the camera suggests wearing the G16 on a neck strap, you can use a suitable wrist strap as well, because the camera weighs pretty little 356 grams . Actually, the author of the article did exactly that, as it noticeably reduced the space in the bag and allowed sticking the camera into the back pocket of the jeans if necessary without loss of comfort.

Canon PowerShot G16. Top view in working order.

The camera is housed in a lightweight, yet rugged, magnesium-alloy body. The two rubber-like material grips make for a comfortable and secure grip. The large one covers the entire protrusion on the front panel, and the small one is in the back, in the usual place under the thumb.

Hold the camera with the thumb and middle finger and use the power switch, zoom lever and shutter button. At this grip it is possible to wriggle and with the thumb to press the button of video capture activation. You can only do this consciously, because this little button is very deep into the body.

When you take a picture, you can use your thumb to turn the exposure compensation dial and your index finger to turn either the mode dial or the front panel click wheel. If you hold the camera with your left hand, it becomes convenient to work with numerous controls – the multiselector, the four buttons surrounding it, and the second small S button, which is recessed in the body for protection against accidental pressing, as well as the video recording button.

Canon PowerShot G16. Back view.

As with most compact cameras, the memory card compartment is integrated with the battery compartment. And all the few interfaces are concentrated on the right side under a single plastic cover. The zoom lens retracts fully into the body when not in use and is protected by an automatically closing shutter. The overall build quality of the camera is quite satisfying. The design feels sturdy and solid – a little high-tech brick.

Functional capabilities

The G16 has much in common with Canon’s flagship PowerShot G1 X Mark II model, and even surpasses it in some features. But let’s start talking about it one by one.

A quick glance at the mode dial on the upper body cap usually reveals the camera’s potential. Its presence alone says that the camera is not only for those who take all pictures in auto mode, but also for more experienced photographers who know what they want from the camera and how to set it up to the desired result. Or for those who are planning to familiarize themselves with the functions of the camera and use them deliberately. For experienced photographers, the Canon PowerShot G16 offers a disk with so-called creative modes P A S M and a button to save user settings.

Below the mode dial is the exposure compensation dial. In good hands it’s a very handy tool to control exposure. The presence of such a disk on the body in recent years has become a sign of advanced camera. Any enthusiast will also be pleased with the selection of functions that can be accessed with the buttons around the multi selector: ISO setting, exposure lock AEL , focus position selection and the main menu.

In the center of the multi selector itself is the FUNC button.The /SET button, which in the tradition of Canon cameras brings up a context menu with many settings. For another important photographic setting, the S-button has a reprogrammable function that can be assigned to any of 19 different functions. And if you want to use the Quick Video button, you can also program it to call up another function.

But back to the description of the mode dial. For beginners and those who picked up the camera for the first time, the smart auto mode, which recognizes the typical scenes by itself, will be helpful. And for those who already know the peculiarities of different typical scenes, there is a set of ready-made scene programs. The Canon PowerShot G16 gives you a wide range of experimental possibilities.

The photographer’s creative impulses are supported by a set of filters for adding various effects to photos right in the camera. You can “age” your pictures, emphasize their mood with monochrome toning or intensifying the original tones, change them beyond recognition with fish-eye, or turn them into a poster, create additional depth to the background or add mystery by softening the focus. Intelligent Shutter functions help you take self-portraits and group portraits with the photographer in mind.

Creative modes for shooting the starry sky are a special pride of the manufacturer. A separate program is used to shoot portraits against the background of the stars. The other two allow you to take clear pictures of fixed stars or the light trails they leave in the sky after slow shutter speeds. You can even create a short video of the rotating sky with a frame-by-frame video.

A few words about Canon’s proprietary automatic hybrid mode. Once it is activated e.g. in the morning when leaving the house a mini movie of 2-4 seconds will be recorded before each photo. You can then combine them into a video report about the whole shooting day.

The last icon on the mode dial is a reminder that the PowerShot G16 can record Full HD video at 60fps, something not even the flagship PowerShot G1 X Mark II can do.

Communications capabilities

Every modern camera today has wireless connectivity, and the Capop PowerShot G16 is no exception. Built-in Wi-Fi module gave its owner such additional features as remote shooting control, sending footage to other Canon cameras, mobile devices, desktop computers and printing devices, and Internet resources. The camera can also receive GPS coordinates through mobile devices, which are necessary for tying pictures to the place of shooting.

The capabilities of the camera’s built-in Wi-Fi module

Wi-Fi connection allows you to connect with external devices, either directly or via an external access point. To work with mobile devices, the camera requires the CameraWindow app to be pre-installed on them. It allows you to download images from the camera to your phone, and use it as a remote control when taking pictures.

For official camera owners, Canon offers the Image Gateway online service, including cloud storage and online albums. Once a user has registered his or her camera on the service site, a convenient function automatically synchronizes unsaved photos off-camera. And you can make a copy both in the online service and on your computer. To make this process as easy as possible, one of the buttons on the camera body can activate the Canon Image Gateway service.

Practical Shooting

The camera’s 5x zoom may not seem overpowering, but the optics in the PowerShot G16 are high quality and strong light. The range of focal lengths covers typical scenes from landscapes to portraits and reportage. Of course, the angle of coverage at the minimum zoom 28mm equivalent will not always be enough for architectural photography in the city, but if you can move further away, the problem disappears, in addition, you get pictures with less perspective distortion.

Day shots at minimum zoom. Good detail and sharpness over the entire image field. ISO 125, F4.0, 1/1250 sec, 28mm

Wide-angle landscape photography on an overcast day. Because of the large area of sky in the frame, a small positive exposure compensation was required to lighten the shadows. ISO 125, F8.0, 1/60 s, 0.33 EV, 28 mm

In the other extreme position of the zoom lens, the 140mm “televisor” will allow you to hunt quite successfully in the same city bustle for funny scenes and unusual characters, as well as “reach” for interesting architectural details and objects.

Day shots at maximum zoom. Exquisite detail right down to the texture of stone. ISO 125, F4.5, 1/250 s, 0.33 EV, 140 mm

Day shots at maximum zoom. Convincing reproduction of halftones and good detail. ISO 80, F4.0, 1/1250 s, 140 mm

I found the zoom to be very fast, going from one extreme position to the other in just a few seconds. No quicker, otherwise it would be hard to get the magnification you want.

Daytime capture of a fun moment at maximum zoom. ISO 80, F4.0, 1/500 s, 140 mm

Auto focus is fast and confident. Of course, like any contrast-type system, it is confused by surfaces and objects with a smoothly colored, non-contrasting surface. Nevertheless, it’s easy to believe the manufacturer’s claims that the autofocus speed has been significantly increased over the previous model.

The PowerShot G16 has significantly increased focusing speed and reduced reaction time lag .

With a little bit of skill, the camera lets you take a portrait right on the spot, and capture an interesting spontaneous moment without missing a shot.

A double portrait, thanks to the rapid response of the autofocus system. ISO 80, F2.8, 1/250 s, 140 mm

Portraits shot in muted backlight with positive exposure compensation. ISO 80, F4.0, 1/250 s, 1.0E V, 140 mm

The camera G16 has also proven itself in continuous shooting, which can continue until you release the shutter button or ran out of memory card space or captured more than 522 frames . Autofocus is able to hold on to the main subject even when there is interference in front of it. Conveniently, when playing back in-camera auto can highlight each series of shots and at a certain command show it separately, as many times as you want. It’s handy for taking a detailed look at some athletic movement, trick or unique moment.

Continuous burst shooting sample. ISO 160, F4.0, 1/400 s, 74 mm

What fans of manually manipulating the focus point lack is a large focus ring on the lens, such as in the flagship model Capop G1 X Mark II. The G16 uses the multi selector ring to focus manually.

Roughly set the distance helps the on-screen scale, which indicates the meter, and more accurate adjustment of the LCD screen provides a proprietary function Focus Peaking. It lights up the outlines of the objects in focus in one of the colors of your choice: yellow, blue or red. Double or quadruple the magnification with the side multi selector button.

Because the camera’s LCD is fixed, you have to look at the picture at a decent angle if you hold it well above or below eye level when you take pictures. And I must say that this kind of sighting was possible even in sunny weather, I..e. The screen is bright enough even at zero setting and has good viewing angles.

The landscape in the narrow space ahead was telephoto zoomed in over the heads of the tourists walking ahead. ISO 80, F4.0, 1/400s, 109mm

You can also use a simple optical tunnel viewfinder as a viewfinder. It has a zoom factor that works in conjunction with the zoom, as well as diopter adjustment, but it’s still not very handy. Although it can be very useful when you want to save on battery power, you can turn the LCD screen completely off with the DISP button, framing only through the viewfinder.

When shooting in low light, the proprietary Intelligent IS system makes a huge difference. Tested its effectiveness by taking a couple of series of shots at different shutter speeds and measuring the number of clear images.

I chose a focal length that was close to normal 50mm equivalent , and I set the shutter speed as the starting point, which is about 2 steps away from the so-called safe shutter speed.e. 1/15 s. At this setting, as you might expect, all the images came out sharp. The same result was obtained by doubling the shutter speed up to 1/8 second . In the next step 1/4 second , the percentage of sharp shots fell to 60%, and by another doubling of the shutter speed to 40%. I could not get a clear picture with a shutter speed of exactly 1 second.

Night scene demonstrating the Intelligent IS system in hand held shots at 1/2 s, 1/4 s, 1/8 s.

It’s worth noting that at a shutter speed of 1/8 second the camera gave consistently sharp shots, and the automatic system used a low ISO value 320 . So the picture quality was practically unaffected, neither by blurring nor by digital noise, and as a result we got decent pictures of the night landscape with good details when shooting without a tripod.

In cases where there is movement in the night scene, which is undesirable to blur, the scene program “Night Handheld Shooting” comes to the rescue. It picks up a shutter speed not slower than 1/50 second shorter if lighting conditions allow and takes a series of shots, then combines the information in the single frame. Even though this program uses high ISO settings, digital noise is effectively removed during processing.

Example of shooting with the “handheld night scene mode. ISO 1250, F2.0, 1/100sec, 35mm

Example of taking pictures in scene mode “Night Handheld Shooting. ISO 1600, F2.5, 1/80 s, -0.67 EV, 78 mm

Focusing on digital noise, we would like to stress that for a camera with a small sensor against DSLRs , using high ISO values is more critical, both at night and in the daytime.

Example of taking pictures indoors with a large negative exposure compensation. ISO 640, F5.6, 1/200 s, -1.67 EV, 103 mm

An example of shooting in a large room with mixed lighting daylight + artificial . ISO 800, F2.2, 1/60 s, 42 mm

Landscape photography on an overcast day that required a high sensitivity setting. Influence of digital noise on details is moderate. ISO 1000, F8.0, 1/160s, 67mm

Shooting indoors at maximum zoom and open aperture. Despite using high sensitivities, the level of detail is at an acceptable level. ISO 1600, F2.8, 1/250 s, 140 mm

The results of my night tests show that the pixel by pixel detail starts to get noticeably worse at about ISO 1600, and at ISO 3200 it is already seriously “washed out”, not counting the contrasting bright details on the dark background. Considering the quality on the whole, the picture still looks decent up to ISO 3200, and sometimes up to ISO 4000.

Samples of night shooting with a tripod, taken at different ISO settings: 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400, 12800.

In daytime shooting with moderate contrast lighting the situation is about the same: Fine details start to get washed out at ISO 1600, but the picture on the whole looks decent up to ISO 3200-6400 it depends on the scene .

Samples of a daylight shot taken at different ISO settings: 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400, 12800.

The specifics of a small sensor means that the fine details can be improved by not closing the aperture too much in landscape photography: at F3.It could be noticeably better at 2 than at F5.6 all other settings being equal . That’s because you have the depth of field for landscapes even at near-open apertures, but you can also shoot with a shorter shutter speed which reduces the chance of blur and capture more light with the sensor, reducing the effects of digital noise.

Continuing the theme of a small sensor, let’s add that it’s certainly much harder to get a shallow depth of field with the G16 compact’s optical system than with a DSLR. But if you pay enough attention to the background and frame the shot properly, you can get pictures with beautifully blurred backgrounds with this tiny camera. It will be mostly pictures taken from short distances.

Shooting in backlit conditions with the diaphragm open. Good detail in focus and beautifully blurred backgrounds. ISO 100, F2.8, 1/250 s, 140 mm

An example of nice bokeh with an open aperture. ISO 80, F2.8, 1/200 s, 84 mm

In terms of color reproduction, the test shoot was nothing but enjoyable. The colors are natural and just enough saturated but not too garish at the standard settings. Auto white balance does a good job of getting the colors right.

Still life taken indoors under mixed artificial light, focusing through glass. Color reproduction is convincing. ISO 800, F5.6, 1/60 s, 86 mm

To extend the dynamic range, the camera has the functions of autocorrection of DD affects the processing of light and autocorrection of shadows. But users should note that if they select the double recording JPG+RAW option in the settings, the above functions will be disabled. And when shooting high-contrast scenes, the lightest hues of the pictures recorded in JPG have a chance of not fitting into the dynamic range. However, a take saved in RAW format when processed in a converter usually solves the problem.

Wide angle day landscape photography. Scene contrast is too high: there is a loss of light. ISO 80, F4.0, 1/640 s, 28 mm

Wide-angle daytime landscape shots. As a result of RAW-file processing in Adobe Camera RAW converter the information in the light is restored. ISO 80, F4.0, 1/640s, 28mm

Conclusions

After testing under a variety of conditions, the Canon PowerShot G16 left a very positive impression. It proved itself well in the day and night time shooting, did not misfire when required instantly on the move to capture some interesting moment, well proven for high-speed burst shooting and movie recording.

With its high quality zoom lens, advanced image processor, and flexible manual controls, this camera can handle a lot of creative challenges in the hands of an experienced photographer.

A variety of automated features let the less-sophisticated user of photography do his or her thing. Wireless capabilities will allow you to quickly share your successes with friends on social networking sites, where the owner of Canon PowerShot G16 has all the chances to stand out with excellent photo quality.

Either way, it’s a serious contender for the everyday companion of creative types with high demands on image quality.