Gadgetory

the canon powershot g12 was a good enthusiasts compact and the g15 is a respectable follow-up to that model it's a little faster with a somewhat redesigned body and it's got a similar feature set plus roughly the same photo quality although at a slightly higher resolution large but with a shallow grip it's a little lighter than its predecessor but still feels solid and substantial most of the weight loss comes from surgery Canon cut off the articulated LCD that's too bad because the moveable LCD is one of the main reasons to opt for a camera this size over a more compact version that plus the optical viewfinder in the hotshoe Canon also moved some stuff around on the body like switching to a pop-up flash moving the ISO dial to a button on the back and stacking the mode dial and exposure compensation dial in an interesting offset design the controls are pretty easy to access and operate though I still think the placement of the front dials awkward and the record buttons too hard to feel and press while JPEG photos don't really stand up to a pixel peeping level of scrutiny beyond ISO 200 you can get more mileage out of RAW files as high as ISO 1600 even for prints and especially if you're not planning to view them at a hundred percent the camera does have a not uncommon tendency to blow out highlights but the color and other aspects of the exposure fare pretty well the best part of the camera though is the lens it's fast the maximum aperture tops out at a nice F 2.8 at the longest focal length and is fairly sharp in the center though somewhat subject to distortion at the sides even at a 50 millimeter equivalent angle of view Canon improved the autofocus performance for the g15 making it a lot faster for shooting in good light in dim light it hasn't changed much and it's still a bit slow going from shop to shop while it doesn't offer best-in-class photo quality like the more expensive Sony rx100 it does have the viewfinder and shoe that the sony lacks and it remains an all-around good option for advanced photographers who like jacket pocket portable I'm already grinning and this is the canon powershot diamond