Connections

A rubber door on the right side of the camera conceals the now standard Canon digital I/O connector to be used with the supplied USB cable and the DC in socket for connection to the supplied AC adapter/charger. The A/V out connector for some reason isn't afforded the same protection as its siblings and lingers beside this compartment.

One major concern with this arrangement is how long the rubber door and its little rubber hinge will last, bear in mind that unless you buy the external battery charger you have to open this door and insert the power cable each time you want to charge the battery (and that of course could be daily).

TWAIN drivers are supplied for both Windows and iMac, the Windows drivers seemed to work perfectly under Windows 98 but I couldn't get it to connect to the camera (although the camera was detected and the TWAIN module worked fine from the local hard disk).

Tripod Mount

On the base of the camera is a metal tripod mount, unfortunately not positioned in line with the lens but at least far enough away from the battery compartment to make it possible to change the battery with the camera on a tripod, although you're more likely to just tether it to the supplied AC adapter if you're shooting in the studio. That's a pretty excellent serial number...

Remote Control

Supplied with the camera is this handy Infrared remote control, with a 5 m range (from the front) it can be used to remotely fire the shutter release, control the zoom and other menu options or as a control for playback (say of a slideshow on a TV screen) with thumbnail, zoom and DISPLAY buttons also available. I'm glad to see Canon considering this a standard item, it must be relatively inexpensive for them to include this capability.

Internal Flash / Focus Assist Lamp

The flash built into the G1 is rated as 0.7 to 4.5 m at Wide and 0.7 - 3.6 m at Tele which is quite a bit more than comparable digital cameras. Below the flash is the Focus Assist Lamp which serves a double purpose, firstly it fires a beam of patterned white light in low light situations which helps the auto focus system to get a lock. Secondly when the flash an anti-red-eye are enabled it remains lit for as long as you half-press the shutter release to reduce the size of the subjects pupils and thus reduce the chance of redeye.

Interesting note: The internal flash on the G1 can be used in continuous mode, something which I heard of at Photokina but was pretty skeptical about until I tried it.. And it really does work, the flash is able to fire about one shot per second and thus it's possible to capture about one frame per second with the flash in continuous mode.

Flash Hot-shoe

One advantage the G1 holds over most of the competition (at least without buying expensive or ungainly external brackets) is a full TTL hot-shoe built onto the top of the camera. This allows for full compatibility with a range of Canon Speedlite: 220EX, 380EX, 420EX and 550EX and also non-TTL use of other flash / studio systems. Indeed at the recent Photokina 2000 Canon were demonstrating the G1 hooked up to a studio flash system.

Wrist / Shoulder Strap

When I first saw the hand strap for the G1 (at Photokina), I was, "ok, what's the story here?". It's long.. very long, and at first you've no idea why. But then a strange logic takes over and you realise it can be used as a wrist strap (slide the plastic toggle to the top) or as a shoulder strap. It's one of those weird bits of design logic which you're convinced shouldn't work... but it does.

Supplied In the Box

The contents of the retail box are: (may vary by region)

• Canon PowerShot G1 Digital Camera
• BP-511 Lithium-Ion battery
• CA-560 AC adapter/charger (110-240V)
• 16 MB CompactFlash card
• WL-D100 IR Remote Control
• Lens cap & string
• Long hand strap / carrying strap
• USB cable
• AV cable
• Canon Solutions CD-ROM
  • USB / TWAIN driver
  • Remote Capture
  • Photo Stitch
  • Zoom Browser
• User Manual

Canon Accessories

CompactFlash: FC-8M, 16M, 32M, 64M, 128M / IBM Microdrive	Additional Batteries: BP-511	Case: SC-PS400
Lens adapter (58mm): LA-DC58	Wide-Angle Lens: MC-DC28 (0.8x)	Close-up Lens: 250D
Tele Converter Lens: TC-DC58 (1.8x)	Flash Units: 220EX, 380EX, 420EX, 550EX (420EX shown)