Canon PowerShot G5 Review: Digital Photography Review

Record mode display (Auto / Scene modes)

Here is an example of automatic exposure or one of the scene exposure modes. In Auto and Scene modes you are locked to the center AF area. Half-press the shutter release to focus / meter the scene, a readout of the proposed exposure (shutter speed, aperture) will be displayed on the screen just before the shot is taken (as below).

Record mode display (P, Tv, Av, M, C)

Here, an example of information overlay in Program Auto Exposure mode (P). FUNC settings are shown down the left of the frame (in the exact same place they are with the FUNC menu displayed), other settings along the top and bottom of the frame.

In this case: FUNC: ISO 200, Super-Fine quality, Large size. Others: +0.3 EV compen. Single Drive, Flash canceled, Macro, Evaluative metering, Normal Orientation, Program AE mode, 389 shots remaining.


Here we have already half-pressed the shutter release and are ready to shoot. Notice the exposure (1/125 sec, F4.0) is now displayed and that the selected AF frame has turned green to indicate a good focus (it would turn yellow if the AF couldn't lock).	After shooting a review is displayed briefly, note that we have chosen the detailed display mode (with histogram). During this review you can press the AE Lock (erase) to erase the image or the MF (microphone) button to record a voice annotation (up to 60 seconds). Press the FUNC button to save as RAW instead of JPEG.

Switching to spot metering adds [ ] brackets to the current spot meter area, you can choose for this area to follow the AF area or be locked into the center of the frame.

Example of Shutter Priority (Tv) mode, the selected shutter speed is displayed and aperture will be calculated on a half-press of the shutter release.	Example of Aperture Priority (Av) mode, the selected aperture is displayed and shutter speed will be calculated on a half-press of the shutter release.

Example of Manual Exposure (M) mode, note that when you half-press the shutter release the camera will indicate the difference between the metered exposure and your selected exposure.	One of the two new Custom modes. In this case settings were saved from Program AE mode (enter menu and choose Save Settings) which are then automatically recalled when you turn the mode dial to the C position. This includes zoom position, aperture and manual focus location (if selected).

Example of movie clip record mode, the number of seconds remaining (>999 in this example) simply refers to the total space, an individual clip is limited to 3 minutes (with a high speed CF card).	Press the DISPLAY button in any of the creative modes to toggle between the normal full information display, a simple display (see above, just AF area) or LCD monitor off.

Here you can see the new overlaid FUNC menu. As you move down the menu options the settings for that option are shown at the bottom of the screen, use the left and right arrows to change. Note that when you cancel the FUNC menu any non-default settings icons remain on the screen.	Here is an example of how the changing of an option in the FUNC menu is immediately reflected in the live view 'behind' the menu.

AF Frame

Press the SET button and you can move the AF area freely around the center three quarters of the frame to any one of over 300 locations.

Manual Focus

An example of manual focus, unfortunately for some reason the magnification loupe doesn't work for video output (which we used to capture this image). Normally a loupe appears at the current AF point about twice the size of the AF frame to show more clearly where the focus point is. Note the ruler indicating the focus distance can be switched between metric or imperial measurements.

Playback display


Switching to play mode immediately displays the last image taken. Depending on the previously chosen display mode you'll either see this (clean image, no info overlaid)	Press DISPLAY to increase the information displayed: folder / filename, frame number, image quality / size, date / time.

Press DISPLAY again to switch to the histogram / highlight mode. Here we can see far more exposure information as well as an exposure histogram.	Here we can see an example of the blinking highlights feature which appears in this view mode (deliberately overexposed image).


In Jump mode you can skip through 10 images at a time without switching to thumbnail view mode. You can also use JUMP mode in thumbnail view to jump a page of 9 images at a time.	Thumbnail view, 3 x 3 images displayed, you can use the 4-way controller to move the selector rectangle between images. Note that because of the orientation sensor images which were taken in the portrait orientation are displayed in the same orientation.

The G5 has a ten steps of playback magnification from 2x to 10x. The good thing about the G5's magnify mode is that it is very fast, both in zooming and scrolling. Kudos Canon.

As noted above the orientation sensor means portrait images are displayed correctly.	And if they aren't correctly orientated (you had the orientation sensor switched off or took a shot at 45 degrees) you can always rotate images from an option in the play menu.