Canon PowerShot G5

WHAT'S HOT: Sometimes, small changes are best: Canon's G5, for example, is not much different from its predecessor, the G3, but it does improve on the G3 in one essential way: Canon upped the megapixel count from 4 to 5. The only other obvious change is a switch in body color from silver to black--the conventional wisdom being that black looks more professional. Subtler changes include the addition of a second custom white-balance setting (useful if you shoot under rapidly changing lighting conditions), and new controls for making simple edits to your movies within the camera.

The G5 retains the G3's swing-out LCD (an innovation when it first appeared on the G1), and it keeps the G3's extensive creative settings and plethora of dedicated control buttons. The layout is well-organized, with manual focus, exposure value, and white balance settings all just one push away. Both cameras share overall specs--the same 4X zoom, fast f2 lens, shutter speed range, and rather hefty weight. The G5's minimum aperture is one stop higher than the G3 (f8 versus f7.2).

Ranking image quality among 4- and 5-megapixel cameras is getting harder to do--nearly all of the well-known brands we've tested recently produced finely detailed, high-quality images. In close scoring, the G5 trailed the Olympus C-5050 and the Nikon Coolpix 5400, but still rated as Very good. Images of our test chart had almost no color interference patterns (commonly found in most digital cameras) and minimal moire (disruptive patterns often seen with fine, converging lines). Our test shots had crisp focus and pleasing color shading, though a couple of them were somewhat off in color and exposure; for example, the skin tone of our mannequin model was more tan than in real life, and our still-life was about a stop underexposed. The G5 reproduced the blue sky of our outdoor shot nicely, but lost some of the details in the shadows that competing cameras retained. The G5 held up well in our battery tests, lasting for 438 shots on one charge of its rechargeable lithium ion battery.

WHAT'S NOT: Our quibbles with the G3 apply equally to the G5--in particular, an oddity in the viewfinder design. With the zoom set at wide angle, the lens barrel blocks the lower left corner of the image within the G5's optical viewfinder. The lens also casts a shadow in wide-angle shots with flash. The camera's two completely separate sets of control menus are confusing at first; but once you get familiar with the camera, the Function menu lets you change exposure settings relatively quickly.

WHAT ELSE: Like the earlier G series models, the G5 has well-labeled control buttons that, in combination with the Function menus, make the G5 somewhat faster to use than competing models from Olympus and Nikon. The buttons are well-placed and sized for all sizes of hands, and the camera's dials work smoothly. Start up time is relatively slow, however: about 4 seconds. Fortunately, the delay between the red-eye reduction preflash and the main flash is minimal, so your subjects are less likely to drop out of their pose at the wrong time; on the other hand, you have to go to the menus to turn the feature on and off.

ArcSoft's Camera Suite 2.0, a competent image and video editing package, is included with the G5. The camera takes all of the same accessories as the G3, including an external flash and wide-angle and telephoto converter lenses.

UPSHOT: An upgrade to 5 megapixels keeps this powerful, flexible camera up to snuff with competing models from Nikon and Olympus.