Does the Canon G12 tend to Overexpose by Its Own Metering?

Thank you for the replies. They are leaving in 3 days so I have to give her my best advice. Another kind person replied on the Flickr forum for G12 users that many Canon digitals tend to over expose a "little" but he like me with my other cameras rarely compensates below -.3 He also suggested I try the center weighted metering for this camera, while he leaves his EOS models on evaluative metering. Sun is finally out today where I live and just ran a few more bracketed tests with the exposure compensation. To save from typing it all again I have copied below what I replied to him a bit ago.

"Thank you very much for your reply. I'm on west coast USA and just came in from some more tests around 7:30AM with finally the sun out but at low angle and with pretty lighting breaking through the trees.

I saw your suggestion to use center weighted vs evaluative meter, so went back to the PDF of the manual that my son had sent me yesterday to see how to access those choices. It was in fact on evaluative so I changed it to center weighted. Still on 80 ISO.

But wow! Still reaching the very same conclusion with 2 different sets of photos bracketed with something white with detail in the frames. The first was several pots of flowers in front of my porch with some white petunias getting some of the low sun next to several other types and deeper colors of flowers getting more filtered light.

0 compensation no prayer. -1/3 no prayer. -2/3 no prayer. -1 the white vincas also in the filtered light now had their detail but the petunias still blown but getting better. -1.3 the white petunias finally have their detail and rest of flowers a little dark but a lovely pic could be made in post even from the Jpeg, let alone the RAW.

2 sets in the street with wide angle and partial 1/2 zoom with sun coming through the trees in spots on the street, plenty bright overall and a white car in the frame on the left facing me with the hood in the low angle sunlight. No prayer for any detail in the hood or a white picket fence until I got to -1 and at -1.3 I have the detail in the whites good and bright spots in the scene. Nice photograph even with Jpeg possibly needing just a bump in overall brightness.

This seems crazy to me seeing as you mention your cameras and my cameras all tend to do well at -1/3 to -2/3 in BRIGHT sun. I have to guess that on this Whitney climb where most will be above treeline in high altitude sunlight that I am going to tell her to shoot at -1.7.

The charge on her battery is almost gone. Hoping I have juice left to test -1.7 on full mid day sunlit scene today. Don't think there is anything else to change. The center weighted is acting just like the evaluative metering, where yesterday in freaking shade with the flowers I needed to be at -1.3 to get the detail in the white ones."