• Canon EOS-1D Mark IV
• Canon EOS 7D
• Canon PowerShot G11
• Nikon D3S
• Nikon D3000S
• Nikon D3000

Snag it on Software Update, of course. [Apple

This is from the 7th of the month, when our guest blogger and surf gear experimenter Laird Hamilton was out. From his blog, he said a few newcomers were getting thrown up on to the rocks with their jetskis and boards. The waves were 25 foot, as rated in Hawaiian terms, which means 50 feet tall on the face.

These videos were shot using a Canon 5D Mark II, a 70-300mm USM lens and a Zoom H4n & Redhead windscreen. Slow motion was done in Premier CS4, but I can imagine how much better this'll would have looked if the 5D's 60FPS firmware was used. [vimeo via nick bilton]

*They turned out to be overhyped a bit, but the waves were big enough to hold the Eddie Aikau contest in Waimea Bay, which has only been held 7 times in 25 years.

According to a friend of the photographer:

Amazingly, the Rebel survived the fall and my friend is still using it to this very day. It has a crack in the plastic body and the kit lens is a little jerky when zooming, but functional. I'd like to know if there is a similar story or something close to this but I doubt. It might be a world record indeed (for the height of a camera drop which survived).

Photos show that the camera is remarkably intact—the viewfinder is still functional, both the camera body and lens are pretty much fine. Not that we recommend you heave your DSLR out of a low-flying plane, but it's nice to know that if you do, there's a chance it'll be just fine. [FredMiranda via Canon Rumors via Crunchgear]

Best for lowlight

Canon PowerShot S90 ($400)

The camera of the moment, the popular PowerShot S90 is a small but perfectly formed compact for the keen photographer. Concentrating on image quality rather than simply joining in the megapixel race (just like Sony's TX1 / WX1 models), the S90 offers DSLR-like results in a pocketable device, making it the perfect second camera for any self-respecting DSLR owner. A sensible resolution of 10 megapixels and fast zoom lens make the S90 an excellent choice when the lighting drops. This is one camera that you carry everywhere and still achieve breath-taking photos that will look great on your wall. [Review]

Best bang for your buck

Samsung HZ15W ($250)

Samsung can always be relied upon to deliver more for less, and the HZ15W is certainly no different. The HZ15W can't quite match every feature that its main rivals offer, but it does cost a lot less than them. With an amazingly versatile 10x zoom lens, high-definition video and a wealth of beginner-friendly modes, this well-designed camera is simple to use yet offers enough features and quality to satisfy more experienced photographers. The HZ15W could well be the only camera that you ever need. [Review]

Best video/still crossover

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7 ($400)

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7 is not only one of the best video compacts on the market, it's also one of the best cameras full stop. Support for the AVCHD Lite format almost doubles the recording time, albeit at the expense of editing ease. The dedicated Record button, stereo microphone, wind cut function and audio sampling at 48kHz combine to make the TZ7 a star performer for moving images. It's also a fantastic stills camera too, with an incredibly versatile 12x zoom and top-notch image quality - a great do-it-all, carry-everywhere device. [Review]

Best super slim model

Sony TX1 ($300)

Sony has long ruled the roost in the "it's so slim you can barely see it" category, and the desirable TX1 continues that tradition. Combining a sturdy yet stylish metal body, clever sliding front plate and impressive folded lens optics in a frame that's just 14.1mm thick, the TX1 still manages to pack in a 4x zoom lens and 3-inch touch-sensitive rear screen. You also get the added bonus of Sony's impressive "Exmor R" back-illuminated CMOS image sensor, which greatly improves low-light performance. Available in a variety of attractive colors to match your personality, the TX1 is guaranteed to look as good as you. [Review]

Best wet and rugged

Pentax Optio W80 ($210)

Ed note: Brian Lam reviewed most every rugged camera under the sun last summer, and his favorite all around performer went to the Pentax W80, a Jack-of-all-trades rugged cam featuring a 5x internal zoom lens. Its picture quality doesn't compete with the best point and shoots, and the W80 can only be dropped from around 3 feet, but it can go underwater up to 16 feet and function in temperatures down to 14 degrees. [Review]

There are obviously a lot of other great cameras this year for every budget and level of experience. See all of Photography Blog's camera reviews here (http://www.photographyblog.com/reviews/).

Mark Goldstein is the Editor of Photography Blog. Photography Blog has been independently reviewing cameras and reporting photography news since 2003.

Flip MinoHD

Don't be confused by imposters: the ultracompact Flip camcorder is still the hot girl that everyone either wants to have or wants to be. At $230, the second-generation MinoHD is more expensive than all those Flip clones, but you get what you pay for. It's sleek and stylish—especially when you can design your own—and has decent video quality (for a tiny, trendy camcorder). Most importantly, it's so easy to use that your granny could make herself the next YouTube star. [Review]

Note: Gizmodo actually preferred Flip's Ultra HD, but only because it's substantially cheaper than the MinoHD. More on that in our mini cam Battlemodo.

JVC Everio GZ-HM200

The JVC Everio GZ-HM200 doesn't exactly roll off the tip of your tongue, but for just $580, it might roll its way into your heart. It can't quite compete with the big dogs in our testing labs, but its digital image stabilization is surprisingly effective and the color accuracy left us slack-jawed. The HM200 is also small, easy to use, and has decent options if you want a little control over your video. And we just love having two SDHC memory card slots. [Review]

Canon Vixia HF20

The Canon Vixia HF20 is all about getting the complete package. It lacks the huge lens and high resolution of its big brothers, but it does have the sexy interface and powerful performance we've come to expect from a Canon camcorder. At $800, you're definitely paying for that clear, sharp video and fantastic design. The HF20 is for people that want to save a little cash, but still want to own the cool toys. [Review]

Panasonic HDC-TM300

If you're spending over a grand on a consumer camcorder, it's pretty hard to go wrong. But this year's Panasonics are the crème de la crème. They've got great auto features, are stuffed full of manual controls, and are smoking hot performers in low light. The TM300 (Panasonic's 32GB flash memory model) feels like it was personally sculpted for your hand—and at $1300, it won't break the bank. [Review]

There are obviously a lot of other great camcorders this year—for every budget and level of experience. Read all of CamcorderInfo's picks for the 2009 Select Awards here.

Kaitlyn Chantry is the editor-in-chief of CamcorderInfo.com. She has reported on and reviewed everything from video games to coffee cups. CamcorderInfo has been using scientific lab testing and comparative analysis to provide consumers with comprehensive, unbiased camcorder reviews since 1997.

The technology has been available for years, and the DSLR market has been veering toward the general public ever since that cursed D was appended to it, so it's almost surprising that it's taking this long for touchscreens to infiltrate. But not really: DSLRs are proudly retro, built around mirror box and lens designs that date back decades, and covered in buttons to the point that, to an amateur, they are totally unapproachable. That said, the standard Canon and Nikon button layouts do work pretty well, and there are a lot of parameters you've got to deal with, so, well, here we are, staring down a Canon patent application for a basic touchscreen interface, in 2009:

Here's how it works, as interpreted by the Photography Bay:

1. Sliding your finger across the panel in a vertical direction changes aperture values.

2. Sliding your finger across the panel in a horizontal direction changes shutter speed.

Other features contemplated by the patent that may be enabled by touch entry through the LCD include the following settings:

Focus detection area
Exposure correction value
Flash adjustment correction value
Photometry mode (i.e., metering mode)
Drive mode
ISO value
Auto focus mode
White balance mode
Exposure correction value

In other words, the touchscreen would do everything your current 1970s aviation panel of a DSLR backside would, without the buttons.

In practice, I think a DSLR touchscreen would need to be supplementary. Given that a lot of DSLR adjustment is done with the photographer's eye in the viewfinder, the tactile feedback provided by buttons will be hard to replace; while it might make settings menus a bit easier to navigate, having a touchscreen won't do much good when you're trying to adjust aperture on the fly, or pull down your exposure time after a light flickers on. However wonderfully or horrifically it's executed, though, a touchscreen DSLR from a major manufacturer will happen, and probably soon. [Photography Bay]

Using my then-new SLR in 2005 and 2006, I photographed everything from my new son to otherworldly canyons we visited in Utah. The only problem: the photos were taken only in JPEG format.

JPEG is fine as far as it goes, and indeed for most folks it will suffice. But having rediscovered my enjoyment of photography in the digital era, I wish I'd used the raw image format that comes with SLRs and higher-end compact cameras.

My initial regret was from the realization that raw photos, although taking up about three times the storage space as a JPEG and requiring manual processing, offer higher quality and more flexibility. But what I've come to understand since then is a second advantage of raw: because processing software improves over time, raw photos in effect can get better with age.

For that reason, I've begun recommending friends who show some enthusiasm for photography that they should think about shooting important events in raw format alongside JPEG. You don't have to mess with the raw files today, but if it's an important event like a wedding, you might want them for later.

I've included below some samples of a noisy image shot in near-darkness at ISO 25,600 from my SLR. They may not convince you that shooting raw is a miracle cure for photo quality, but they do illustrate some differences with the camera's JPEG and that the raw-processing software isn't standing still.

Raw? What's that mean anyway?
But first, a little background. What exactly are raw images?

A digital camera's image sensor is a grid of pixels that captures light from a scene. Cameras can interpret this image, processing it in various ways to produce a JPEG. A raw file, though, is the unprocessed data from the image sensor. However, there's no raw standard; each digital camera has its own, usually proprietary, raw format, though they're sometimes related.

Although cameras can produce JPEGs, a subset of the image-editing industry serves those who shoot raw. Options include Adobe Systems' Photoshop and Photoshop Lightroom, Apple's Aperture, DxO Labs' Optics Pro, Phase One's Capture One, and a handful of others.

The variety of proprietary formats means these applications must be constantly updated for the newest cameras. All SLRs can produce raw images, as can a variety of higher-end compact cameras such as Panasonic's LX3 and GF1, Canon's S90 and G11, and Olympus' E-P1 and E-P2.

Raw files vary from JPEG in several ways. Here are some of the nitty-gritty details.

Let's start at the individual pixel. Each one you see on a computer screen has a mixture of three colors of light: red, green, and blue. But with most cameras' image sensors, each pixel captures only one of those colors. A process called demosaicing converts this checkerboard-like arrangement of colors, called a Bayer pattern, so each pixel in the final image gets all three colors instead of just one.

Another difference is in white balance. Unlike film cameras of yore, digital cameras can make a snap judgment whether a shot is being taken under yellowish incandescent light, under white sunlight, or in bluish shade, then try to correct the image so white looks white. This processing change is baked into a JPEG image, but it's just a recommendation in a raw shot.

Finally, each color in a JPEG pixel is stored with an 8-bit value, providing 256 steps between, the darkest and lightest green, red, or blue. With raw, most cameras today record 12 or 14 bits per color, providing 8,192 or 16,384 levels, respectively.

What does raw get you?
The big drawbacks of raw images are that the files are larger and that you can't share them easily until you've edited them with some kind of software. But here are some of the first advantages I found shooting raw.

Some professionals with lots of experience and time to set up shots get everything right. For the rest of us, shots often are overexposed or underexposed. One of the main advantages of shooting raw is better flexibility to correct such problems—in part because of that better color depth than JPEG affords.

"Shooting in raw is usually more forgiving than just shooting jpeg files, so should you make a mistake when capturing an image you have a better opportunity with a RAW file to go back and correct any mistakes," said Richard Pelkowski, product manager of digital SLRs for Olympus Imaging America. "We typically encourage our Olympus consumers to shoot in both raw plus JPEG mode so they immediately have both a JPEG file you can easily share and use instantly and a more forgiving raw file that you can go back to later for post processing."

Take the example of Jonathan Machen, an artist I know in Boulder, Colo., who embraced raw as he moved from point-and-shoot cameras to an SLR.

"While I strive to understand my camera completely and hope to take images that approximate the balance of light that my eye sees, it's not always possible, especially in fast-moving family situations. I love to take pictures of the kids in unusual lighting and compositional situations, but it can be a distracting combination trying to watch them and trying to take a good picture," he said. Case in point: at dinner in a restaurant recently, a kid-friendly lap dog appeared, but Machen's camera was set wrong.

"I got the shot, but the image was almost black," he said. "Later, editing the raw file, I brought it back to a place that brought a smile to my face as well as that of my wife."

Even if you don't make mistakes, raw images offer more flexibility in editing to bring out details otherwise lost in murky shadows or bright highlights. This is the particular ability I wish I had for shots of my newborn son held under bright heat lamps and of a twisty narrow canyon in both sun and shade.

Adjustable white balance is another nicety. On many occasions I've fixed the colors of conference speakers whose faces were turned to yellow putty by stage lights or of a friend's darling daughter whose position in the shade made her look like an ice queen in the making.

Computers also get more power to compensate for lens shortcomings or reduce the sensor noise that speckles images, said Cyrille de la Chesnais, director of sales and marketing for photography at the Paris-based DxO Labs. "Optical corrections and noise removal are much more precise and effective on raw files than on JPEG files," he said.

Many cameras let you adjust noise reduction levels when you take the photo—but again, with a JPEG, your choice is baked permanently into the image.

Moore's Law and the subtler promise of raw
Here's where I hadn't appreciated raw's advantages: computers get faster.

Demosaicing is a complicated process that benefits from more computing horsepower, and unlike many computing tasks, it happens to be one that can easily benefit from multicore processors.

When you take a photo with your camera, it uses a relatively feeble image-processing chip to produce the JPEG. It's remarkable to me how well those chips can perform the task, but even with the best quality on the market today, your camera will only have one chance to make that JPEG.

But if you're converting a raw image with software, you not only get more computing horsepower than a camera offers, you get algorithms that are updated.

"You can revisit this digital negative and reprocess it as technology improves," said Tom Hogarty, Adobe's product manager for Lightroom.

Hogarty likens the situation to what he saw looking at prints in a museum by the famed landscape photographer Ansel Adams. "You could tell the earlier prints didn't stand out. They didn't have same kind of depth that the later prints did. The printing technology and chemicals were getting better," Hogarty said. "Imagine if all you had was original print and you couldn't improve it going forward."

DxO Optics Pro 6, released in November, and the beta version of Lightroom 3, introduced in October, both are designed to extract a better image from the raw data. De la Chesnais said DxO Optics Pro improves noise reduction so that one F-stop's worth of noise can be fixed. That means that if you previously were happy shooting photos at ISO 800, you could push your camera to ISO 1600 for better low-light performance, for example.

Noise reduction is a complicated problem. In addition to getting rid of the color and brightness variations from pixel to pixel, lower-frequency noise patterns often lead to blotches of red or blue that span many pixels. Good noise reduction preserves original colors and fine details and doesn't give the image a smeary watercolor-painting look up close.

Another software matter: software can take its best guess what sort of editing settings to apply. In my experience, that's a good starting point if not always a good final result, but I expect improvements here, too, just as cameras are generally getting better at automatically gauging the right exposure, focus, and other settings.

Is raw for everyone?
No, but I think it's for more people than use it today.

If you're just uploading photos of your smiling friends to Facebook, chances are the core value of the image easily transcends a little pesky noise or skewed colors. Robert Balousek, from the San Francisco Bay Area, shoots raw—but mostly because Adobe Lightroom corrects some defective pixels in his SLR image sensor.

"Auto-fix is a gamble," he said. "I don't apply it to all photos, just ones that I would like to use but are a little off. Sometimes it does what I want, but more often than not I tweak a few knobs until it looks how I expect. I don't claim to be an expert, I just know what seems right to me."

If you're a bit more serious, though raw could be worth sampling. Give it a serious thought if you're an experimental students, a tourist who wants to compile memories in a photo book, a photo enthusiast sharing shots on Flickr, or a parent printing poster-size prints of your children.

I believe software will ease today's manual pains of handling raw photos. Aperture and Lightroom have made it easier to process large numbers of shots, though there's plenty of work to be done. Automatic adjustments will steadily improve, and perhaps Windows will get the better built-in support Mac OS X has so people looking at a folder full of raw files see thumbnail images rather than a list of filenames with generic icons.

It's true raw shots take up more space on your flash card, hard drive, and backups. But storage is cheap these days with 1.5 terabyte hard drives costing less than $100 and 8GB SD memory cards costing about $20. Today's large image files will look gradually more ordinary as storage technology gets roomier.

Standardization could help
One big change that could help raw catch on is standardization of the file formats. Today's profusion of formats ensures that operating systems or editing software have a hard time keeping up. The most promising avenue here is Adobe's Digital Negative format, which the company controlled for years but more has submitted to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as a proposed standard.

DNG has been improved to address a number of earlier shortcomings, for example by adding profiles that can mirror camera tonal settings such as neutral, landscape, or portrait. Another more recent example are "opcodes" that can register lens settings used to so software can automatically correct optical problems such as vignetting or barrel distortion. DNG already could gracefully accommodate metadata such as copyright notices or editing instructions, and it for those worried about how well a specific raw format is converted into a generic format, the DNG can house the original raw file, too.

Pentax is the most prominent company to build DNG support into its cameras, but SLR leaders Nikon and Canon still don't. Hogarty hopes the standardization process will improve its prospects.

"I believe the gating factor in camera manufacturer adoption is the fact it is a format controlled by Adobe," Hogarty said. "Clearly it's not available in the majority of cameras shipped in the world today. That's why we're pursuing the ISO standard, so other companies can feel comfortable with the standard format."

Ultimately, Hogarty believes raw usage will spread more widely

"If you look at images shot by the mainstream market, they need the most latitude in editing and correction capabilities. They're not as passionate about getting the perfect image," Hogarty said. "I think they'd be able to take that raw product to a finished product that would make them happier."

I suspect it'll be a long time before raw processing is simple enough that mainstream snapshooters will embrace raw. But the trajectory is clear: the technology is improving.

So if you care about your shots and have a camera that'll do it, set it to shoot raw+JPEG next time you're photographing something important. You may not want to mess with the raw shots today, but why curtail your options if you don't have to?

This story originally appeared on CNET

Baby's First DSLR: Nikon D3000

The D3000 is cheap. We're talking a full kit (i.e., it comes with a lens) for just $460, making it the cheapest DSLR kit around. But what really makes it stand out for beginners is a built-in tutorial system that explains how to get certain kinds of shots—like shallow depth of field—in plain English.

Amateur Hour: Canon T1i

The next step up is Canon's T1i. What we like is that it packs a bigger boy's image sensor—it's got the same 15-megapixel sensor as the pricier mid-range 50D—and 1080p video into a camera that's $720 with kit lens. Also, for the money, it edges out Nikon's D5000 on a few points, namely superior video handling and Live View.

Bigger Britches: Nikon D90

Nikon's D90 was the first ever DSLR to shoot 720p video with manual controls, but that's only part of the reason we like it. It's got the awesome image sensor from the semi-pro D300, in a package that's just over $1000. And at that price, it's $100 cheaper than Canon's competing 50D, which has the same image sensor as the cheaper T1i above, but none of the video benefits of either camera.

The Budding Auteur: Canon 7D

The only camera on this list that's more expensive than its competition—the D300s—the 7D overwhelms with DSLR video that's superior to every camera but Canon's very pro 1D Mark IV (which costs $5000). It shoots in 1080p, with full manual controls, and it's amazing what it can do in low light. Besides that, Canon's somehow cheated physics with an 18-megapixel sensor that doesn't explode with noise at high ISO settings, all while cramming a whole bunch of new features, and an actually good autofocus system. It's $1900 with a kit lens.

Beyond here, honestly, you should already have a pretty idea of what you're gonna buy without our help. And if you've got your own opinions about what's best in every price range, let's hear 'em in the comments.

BTW, if you hate the gallery format as much as the Grinch hated Christmas, click here.

Crumpler Industry Disgrace neckstrap Fancy cameras, especially German ones, are heavy. Fancy lenses bolted to fancy cameras? It's like lugging around a (fancy) dump truck. Normal camera straps are thin and cut into your neck. Crumpler's Industry Disgrace neckstrap is fat, super padded and breathable. And, they come in patterns. $30-$40. [Link]

Lensbaby optics Crazy lenses for DSLRs, like tilt-shifts and fisheyes, can be ridiculously expensive, way too expensive for a starving artiste who must save their pennies for vintage boots. Enter Lens Baby, which produces cheap, quick and dirty single-effect lenses and adapters for DSLRs. While their quality isn't exactly bulletproof, they do deliver the special effect shots Flickr whores crave. The core lenses do variations on the whole small area of focus, lots of blurriness surrounding it, while the optics system lets you swap out inserts for different effects, like fisheye or pinhole. $95-$300. [Link]

A 50mm prime lens Back in the day, a 50mm prime lens is what photogs cut their teeth on. No zoom, no wide-angle, no image stabilization to fiddle with. Just sharp focus. Meaning it's pure composition on the photographer's part. If you're buying for a DSLR that's not full-frame—basically anything other than Canon 5D Mark II or D700—you're gonna wanna grab a 35mm lens (with the crop factor, it becomes about 50mm, give or take). They get pricier as they get faster, but you can score a cheap 50mm for about a hundred bucks, and a cheap(ish) 35mm for between $200 and $300. $90-$320 [Nikon 50mm, Canon 50mm, Nikon 35mm, Canon 35mm]

Joby GorillaPod A cheap tripod that'll fit in a hipster messenger bag, for long exposure shots. $30-$50 [Link]

Crumpler camera bags Most camera bags aren't very befitting of actually cool photographers. They're boring. Corporate. Ugly. Crumpler's 5 Million Home holds a DSLR, an extra lens and flash and is sunny sky blue. Stepping up a model, the 8 Million Dollar Home has more space for more stuff, if needed. $80-$170. [Link, Link]

Diana F+ CMYK lomo camera Real artsy photographers shoot with cheap lomo film cameras to produce vintage-y lo-fi photos, with crazy saturation, exposures and optical effects, perfect for Vice Magazine. Don't think, just shoot. And the super bright CMYK paint job? You know what it is. $105 [Link]

Leica M9: The ultimate photographer gift. Picking up a Leica camera instantly turns anybody into a Photographer. While holding a Leica, it is impossible not to shoot perfect, artsy photos. Even if you try. The M9 is the latest, most exquisite piece of German photographic craftsmanship yet, with an 18-megapixel, full-frame sensor that delivers the most amazing photos of all time. $7000 and worth every penny. [Link]

Superzoom Cameras: They're not DSLRs, they're not pocketable point-and-shoots, and they're definitely not artsy. They're for tourists, and for the money, you could easily get a way better cheap DSLR or vintage film camera.

All Giz Wants is our annual round-up of favorite gift ideas, including amazing attainable objects and a few far-out fantasies. We'll be popping guides catered to different interests several times per day for the next week, so keep checking back.

Maximum PC's how-to uses 3D picture synchronization software called StereoData Maker, a nonvolatile firmware update based on the Canon Hack Development Kit (CHDK).

You'll then need to build a mounting rig, and use a small enclosure (such as an Altoids tin) to make a simple USB switch remote. Free software called StereoPhoto Maker is used for post-processing. And yeah, you'll still need a pair of red/cyan glasses. Still, it looks like fun. Full instructions at: [Maximum PC]

The camera quality is sort of a mixed bag for the bloody independent film. High resolution coupled with gorgeous depth of field tricks emulate Hollywood (or at least, TV-level) production. But, while you can call me old fashioned, blood and guts only look better in low-fi. Best of luck to the group finishing the film. These dailies from week one have some nice moments. [Thanks Super Greene!]

The hybrid IS system works best at long ranges, delivering all four stops of stabilization Canon claims, though it ironically—given we're talking about a macro lens here—falls short at close-ups. But more than that, "this is one of the very finest lenses we've seen - optically it's superb, and operationally it works very well too, with fast and positive autofocus, and one of the most effective image stabilization systems currently available." In other words, it kills the current non-L F2.8 100mm Macro.

It'll be interesting to see this new system migrate over to other, non-macro lenses. Check the full review there: [DP Review]

What's New and Dandy

What makes it my favorite Canon so far is actually everything that's completely new to Canon—DP Review has a nice summary here, in pictures. But in short, while this might sound weird, it shoots more like a Nikon than any Canon DSLR I've used. This is primarily because of the new 19-point autofocus system and the color metering system that goes with it. You're able to select AF zones—clusters of AF points—while in the past with Canon you've been limited to a full AF blast or picking out a single point. The system is also more customizable, so it can be locked with different default focus points depending on whether you're holding the camera horizontally and vertically orientations. Against Nikon's D300s, Canon's new AF system mostly kept up, and definitely performs better than autofocus on the 5D Mark II.

The new viewfinder now provides 100 percent coverage, unlike previous Canons in this range, and it uses a new polymer LCD network for the graphical overlay to display AF points, grids and other displays, so it's more flexible and feels more fluid. (It also just looks swankier, and again, more Nikon-like.) Your other viewfinder (when you're shooting video, anyway), the LCD screen, is a 3-inch, 920k dot display like the 5D Mark II and it's still excellent, with a wide viewing angle, nice color and the right amount of crispness.

Sensor and Image Quality

Truthfully, I've been mildly surprised at the quality of photos that've come out of the 7D, which uses an absolutely stuffed 18-megapixel, APS-C sized sensor. (So, there is a 1.6x crop factor.) For comparison, the D300s has a 12MP sensor that's the same physical size (Update: For nitpickers, yes, Nikon's DX format is marginally larger than Canon's APS-C sensor, with the D300s's sensor coming in at 23.6 x 15.8 mm to the 7D's 22.3 x 14.9 mm.) The the D3 only goes for 12 megapixels on its bigger full-frame (35mm-equivalent) sensor. The 5D Mark II has a 21MP full-frame sensor. And typically, the more pixels you try to cram on a sensor of a given size, the more the image quality degrades, especially when it comes to low light, high ISO shots.

I was expecting a noisefest, or at best, seriously noticeable noise reduction employed by the camera's software. It is clear that Canon's using incredibly sophisticated noise reduction algorithms with the dual Digic IV processors onboard, though the effects are less drastic than I expected. It's most apparent, actually, when you directly compare photos taken with the D300s. Looking at photos taken with the 7D and D300s at 100 percent crops, the D300s's images are noisier, but they also preserve more detail. For web-sized images, the 7D's images look better, with less noise and more smoothness.

I've got two sample galleries—an array of sample shots, and then another directly comparing the 7D with the D300s in low light situations, using identical settings for photos. 100 percent zooms follow photos in both galleries. Or you can download full size photos from Flickr here and here.

Video

You can get sense of Canon and Nikon's philosophical differences with the difference in their buttons for video: Canon makes a distinction between Live View and video mode, while Nikon is ready to start shooting video as soon you tap the live view button on the D300s. Creating video is a separate, dedicated event for Canon, in other words, and there is a semi-serious video camera that happens to be built into a DSLR. Nikon's D300s, on the other hand, is a DSLR that happens to shoot video.

With video, the 7D simply has the upper hand—video is very much a legitimized use of this camera, not a secondary one like the D300s. (As expected from a company with an entire wing dedicated to camcorders for pros and consumers.) Not only does it have full manual controls, I find that it's slightly easier to use that the D300s while shooting video—not to mention the whole shooting in a real video codec at 1080p, yadda yadda. Three clips here: A melange of video above, and then by two videos, one from the 7D, one of the D300s, that mirror each other. Both were shot at ISO 6400, and you should be able to catch them at full res if you click over to Vimeo.

Build and Controls

The 7D is heavy, heavier than the 5D, but it's also slightly sturdier, with a build quality and weatherproofing that that's slightly in between the 5D and Canon's definitely pro 1D. It feels about the same in your hand, though. And it's roughly comparable to the D300s.

Controls aren't radically different from other Canon DSLRs of this caliber—that is, it's what you'd mostly expect from a DSLR that sits in between the lower end 50D and the higher end 5DMkII, though it's a bit closer to the latter. While the menu system feels completely unchanged—leaving more advanced features, like the orientation autofocus a bit inscrutable—a few things are new on the outside: The power switch is up on the top left, under the mode dial; there's a dedicated button for switching to RAW/JPEG; a quick action button; and a new toggle switch for Live View and video, which you engage by pressing a start button in the center.

You Already Know If You're Going to Buy This

The real question for Canon users who want something more than the lower end 50D is whether they go for the 7D, at $1700, or full bore to full-frame with the $2700 5D Mark II. The 7D has a 1.6x crop factor which is useful for sports, a better autofocusing system, shoots faster, is slightly more rugged, and is $1000 cheaper. The 5D is full frame—which I suspect is the real consideration for folks—and takes slightly better photos at higher resolutions.

Obviously, if you're locked into Nikon, with thousands of dollars in lenses, you're not going to jump to Canon, or vice versa. But Canon's dedication to DSLR video is proving formidable in carving out a new kind of market that Nikon might have some trouble competing in, since they're a dedicated still camera company, not a video company, too, like Canon. Really, both the D300s and 7D deliver for the money, though I think the 7D delivers more, since it's packed full of newer technology and for the people who want it, the video component is truly killer. Either way, it's proof that competition is good—it clearly wouldn't exist without the D300, and the D400 will be that much better because of it.

New 19-point autofocus and metering systems plus the new viewfinder rock

Excellent 1080p video with full manual controls

Not full-frame, which might put off some people

I'd like a secondary SD card slot, like the D300s

Noise reduction can get pretty aggressive at higher ISO speeds, obscuring detail

BTW, here are some Giz posts shot w/ the 7D:
• Motorola Droid Impressions
• Motorola Droid Review
• Blood Energy Potion Review
• BlackBerry Storm 2 Review
• S90 Review

First Place
8 Bigmacs. Two SB-800 speedlights and on-camera flash (nikon CLS kicks ass) Nikon D80 I think at 1/125 f/5.6. Fast enough to shoot hand-held before it would tip over. The macs are skewered with two wooden kebab skewers to a piece of plasticine (unfortunately visible). Some photoshop curves and black and white mixing. -Zach Slootsky

Second Place
The Coburg Cafe's monster burger. Regular sized burger on top for size reference; 1 lb. hamburger, ham, bacon, swiss & american, on an 8" bun w/all the fixins' -Trask Blueribbon [Ed note: remember to tell us your camera/settings!]

Third Place
This photo was taken at my son's school cafeteria. We had lunch together. It was abysmal. Jello was good though. I snapped this photo with my Verizon HTC Touch. Basic settings. My technique was to hold back the vomit before I barfed on my phone. -Robbie Amburgey

Thanks for the entries, and look for a more classic Shooting Challenge topic next Monday—something more along the lines of photography for photography's sake. (Not that I don't love watching you poison yourselves in the name of art.)

Sex and Brains

It's got the same spacious image sensor as the G11—1/1.7" as opposed to 1/2.5" like most point-and-shoots. But instead of being built into a Panzer tank, it's in the body of a hot German model. It's an actual point-and-shoot: It fits in the pocket of your skinny jeans, but delivers, for the most part, the same wow image quality.

I wish it was slightly more square with sharper angles for an even more classic aesthetic, but it's still pretty classy looking. The texture, which makes for half of the appeal, makes it a little slippery. The control ring around the lens is like the perfect scarf that ties it altogether. And despite being a bantam-weight shooter, it feels more solid than most cameras its size.

Lord of the Ring

What makes the camera really work is that control ring wrapped around the lens. By default, when you turn it, it adjusts the main setting for each mode—aperture in aperture priority, shutter speed in shutter priority, you get the idea. Using the ring function button on top of the camera, you can set the ring to adjust almost whatever parameter you want though, like white balance, ISO, exposure, even specific zoom intervals.

Truthfully, using the dial never feels completely seamless, because of way you're forced to hold the camera. As a result of its pint size, there's no completely natural hand or finger posture for spinning the ring. But, the control it manages to put at your fingertips is remarkable: In manual mode, I had aperture mapped to the main ring, exposure set to the control ring on the back (which, like the G11, is a little too small to have a settings dpad stuffed in the center of it) and ISO speed mapped to the shortcut button. The only real issue with that setup is that the ISO setting interface lags behind your input occasionally, so you sometimes overshoot the ISO speed you wanted.

Just a Little More Hardware Talk

There's no viewfinder, so you're stuck using the screen exclusively. The LCD is a little bigger than the G11's, at 3 inches, though it uses the same number of pixels and obviously doesn't swivel out. It too is easily viewable in sunlight, though I found a more of a difference, exposure-wise, between what I thought I shot according to the display and what I later saw on my computer, than I noticed with the G11. Also, there's no flash hot shoe, like you get with the G11.

The battery's small, obviously, so your picture taking is capped at a little over 200 shots, according to Canon. My days of shooting didn't contradict that, for better or for worse—I'd get to half battery after around 100 shots and a couple video clips.

Finally, the Photos (and Video)

Since it's the same 10-megapixel image sensor as the G11, yes, you do get just about the same fantastic image quality, solid low-light performance (noise doesn't start really kicking in til ISO 800, and even that's totally usable for most stuff) and ability to shoot in RAW. The main difference is in the lens. The S90 has a faster lens that'll shoot at F/2 wide open, meaning you rely less on that high ISO—up to 3200—to compensate for the lack of light. The oh-so-small price for this incredibly fast lens is that you lose a bit of zoom, since it goes out to 105mm, vs. the G11's 140mm, but who cares? I can't reiterate how big of a deal a lens like this is on this kind of point-and-shoot. That said, I seemed to get photos that were a touch less sharp than what I got on the G11.

Here's a gallery of some stuff I shot, which you can compare to G11 sample photos and ISO tests (spoiler, they look great):

The video's still 640x480, and still quite good too:

Buy If You Need a Tiny-But-Great Camera

I know, it's $430, way more than most point-and-shoots cost in this day and age. But the amount of picture power this literally slips into your pocket is almost unbelievable: Outstanding low-light performance for a camera this size; a speedy lens; full control rings, plural; and yep, RAW. It's the soul of what makes the $500 behemoth G11 great, packaged in a true point-and-shoot. You lose some power and some pro tools, like the swivel screen, a (shitty) viewfinder, faster burst shooting, hot shoe, some zoom and a custom mode or two, but you're also shedding a ton of bulk, meaning you'll actually take it everywhere. And the best camera's always the one you have with you—for me, that's this camera, which just happens to be an excellent one all by itself.

G11's awesome image sensor plus a fastfastfast lens means awesome photos

Looks like a serious little camera (it is)

Did I mention I love this camera?

Control ring can feel awkward

More battery life and 720p video would be nice

[Canon]

Hurlbut is shooting a project based on Navy SEALs, and the trailer (of sorts; it's mostly an awful lot of bikini'd ladies) is shot with a mix of digital and film photography, using the digital Canon 5D MKII and Sony 950 as well as the Arri 235 film camera. He created kind of a contest to see who could pick out the digital shots from the film in the trailer (most is digital, shot with the 5D MKII)—it's way harder than you'd think, not least because the dude is clearly an expert. His wide-angle shots of a yacht and closeups of bikini-clad ladies may look like the intro to a Puff Daddy music video (sing it with me: BEEN AROUND THE WORLD AND AYAYAY) but it is shockingly gorgeous and I'm hard-pressed to be able to tell the difference between digital and film. Check out the video here, and enter his contest here. [Shane Hurlbut via Vincent LaForet]

The G11 is Canon's top-of-the-line point-and-shoot. It occupies a sorta strange spot, towering over the average point-and-shoot in basically every metric—image quality, size, weight and price—but sits just below entry-level DSLRs and more recently, micro four thirds cameras.

So, there are two ways to look at the G11: It's an amazing street camera. More discreet than a DSLR, but more powerful than a run-of-the-mill point-and-shoot. You can't stuff it in your jeans pocket, but that's fine, because you want to sling it over your shoulder anyways. The other way is that you can buy a more versatile entry-level DSLR that's not much larger for around the same price, especially if you step back a generation or so.

It's all about your priorities.

H-h-h-h-hardware

Everything about this camera is just—solid. The full-metal jacket makes it feel indestructible, while the shape evokes the classic cameras you feel like you're supposed to be taking photos with. It's thick, remarkably so, in part because of the flip-out swivel LCD screen. And it's definitely more along the lines of a rangefinder-style camera than a typical point-and-shoot.

The real magic of this camera lies in the dedicated control dials. You'll fine three on top—exposure compensation, ISO speed, and shooting mode. They feel cramped and tiny, at first, but the snap they make as as you rotate them is surprisingly deep and satisfying. Having these settings at your fingers at all times is so much of why the G11 feels like a camera that's a step above point-and-shoots, a tool for creating photographs.

The back dial is the most frustrating part of controlling the camera—a ring surrounds a four-way d-pad with a button in the center. Ultimately, you wind up pressing buttons on the d-pad when you're trying to rotate the dial to adjust shutter speed or aperture, or simply pressing the wrong button because it's so small. The menu system, otherwise, is a pretty standard Canon setup, which looks a lot like the G10's—it's not dead simple, but it's not overly complicated either, and a couple minutes of fiddling will reveal all of its secrets.

The viewfinder is utterly depressing. I want to use it, badly. It just feels intrinsically wrong to hold a camera of this caliber out in front of me to shoot, not up to my eyeball. Meanwhile, the G11's viewfinder is so small, and the coverage is so bad (you can see the lens through it!), that it's nigh useless, like trying to compose through a pinhole.

One of the shooting modes, quickshot, sounds like a good idea on paper, but is ruined by this viewfinder. The camera constantly adjusts parameters while waiting for you to take the photo, so you can fire off instantly without worrying about missing the shot. Unfortunately, you have to use the minuscule viewfinder in quickshot, and I wound up botching far more photos than I did nailing them.

So, you're pretty trapped to using the decent flip-out swivel LCD display. Honestly, I probably would've preferred the static-but-larger 3-inch version on the G10, to the 2.8-inch, 461,000-dot display on the G11.

The LCD is really bright, though, and perfectly usable in direct sunlight, with a wide viewing angle to boot. But the video feed is not quite crisp enough on it to use it for manual focusing—in this mode, a zoomed in box appears in the center of the display as you spin the back dial to bring it into focus. The experience of focusing becomes a bad iPhone game.

Can we talk about the photos please?

With the G11, Canon pulled the bold maneuver of cutting megapixels—to 10, from 14 on the G10—in order to get better quality and low-light performance. It was the right move. Low-light images are definitely improved, and more detail is preserved up through ISO 800. Shots at ISO 1600 are definitely usable at web resolutions, which is pretty impressive for a compact camera. You should stay away from the special "low light" shooting mode, though, which cuts the size of pictures in half to try to extract every ounce of light possible—it produced uniformly bad pictures.

The G11 has a wide-angle zoom lens with the same basic specs as the G10, starting at 28mm and going up to 140mm, which is versatile enough to shoot just about anything you'd want. I'm not sure, however, if it corrects some of the problems at the wide-end with the macro mode, though, since I didn't have a G10 to compare it with.

The runthrough of the ISO range goes a couple ways—on programmed auto, letting the camera figure out what to make of the ISO setting I picked, and then another set where I dictated shutter speed, so you can see how much you gain (or lose, depending on your point of view) as you ratchet up the ISO setting.

Like past G series cameras, you can shoot in RAW, but if you do, you're stuck with using Canon's software to process it for the time being. In the full sample gallery above, I've marked the handful shot in RAW.

In a world where phones and gadgets the size of a jumbo pack of Juicy Fruit shoot 720p, the fact that video's limited to 640x480 resolution on such a stacked camera gets a big frowny face. But, the video the G11 produces at that resolution is generally excellent (just compare to the video-shootin' iPod nano). That's because it's packed with data—the bitrate averages around 10Mbps, which is more than the Flip Mino HD, at 9Mbps for 720p video. That's why it looks so vibrant compared to a lot of the 720p video out there. Sure, 720p out of this would be nice, but I'd take VGA video that looks great over HD video that looks like crap.

Okay, but do I buy it?

I like this camera a lot. It's what I'd reach for whenever I wouldn't feel like tugging along a honkin' DSLR, and I'd feel like I wasn't sacrificing too much. The real question, I think, it how it stacks up against Panasonic's Lumix LX3, which is in the same demographic—a lauded $500 point-and-shoot—and outgunned the G10 in many respects (though the G10 tried to cram 14 megapixels onto the same-sized sensor the G11 only squeezes 10 megapixels onto). The slightly cheaper S90 offers the same sensor as the G11 as well, and inside of a pocketable body—though you lose perks like the dedicated control dials and a viewfinder, as far as that's a perk on the G11.

If you do buy the G11, you won't regret it—you'll be too busy taking pictures.

Photographs are top-notch for a compact camera

Solid low-light performance

Built to smash into people's spaces and live to smash again

It's huge

The viewfinder is basically useless

[Canon]