Canon PowerShot G1

Video Out
The G1 has a video-out port which supports the NTSC timing format on US and Japanese model televisions (the PAL standard is supported on European cameras). The video output can be used for reviewing previously recorded images or running slide shows from the camera. It also shows all three LCD menu screens, as well as the preview display from the LCD viewfinder. Combined with the very flexible controls of the wireless remote transmitter, the live video output display opens up interesting possibilities for portrait photography, such as using a video monitor as a remote viewfinder.

The output cable is a true AV cable, as it fans out into two RCA jacks, one for video, and one for audio. Plugged into any video monitor (or TV with direct video and audio inputs), the audio capabilities of the G1, combined with the wireless remote control, could make it an effective portable presentation device.


Power
The G1 is powered by an internal BP-511 rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack. The camera ships with one battery pack, as well as an AC adapter that doubles as an in-camera charger. A stand-alone charger is sold separately, as is a car AC adapter that plugs into any automobile cigarette lighter. A CR2016 lithium battery keeps the G1's internal clock going, and fits into a small compartment within the battery chamber.

Because the G1 relies on its LCD display for viewing and selecting some of its settings, it can be somewhat of a drain on the power supply. Fortunately, the camera has an automatic three-minute shutdown mode to help conserve battery power, and you can control power consumption by reducing the amount of information displayed on the LCD monitor, and keeping the autofocus mechanism in Single mode rather than Continuous mode.

This last function is the most interesting of Canon's software offerings. The RemoteCapture software interface displays a preview window with the same image as that seen on the camera's LCD monitor, along with thumbnail views of already captured images, the number of shots available, a histogram of the preview window, a listing of exposure settings, and a set of control buttons that enable you to release the shutter, rotate the image, view the image, and delete the capture. There's also a "Comments" feature that allows you to add short notations to the image file. Unfortunately, you can't change the exposure settings through the software interface, but you do have access to the self-timer and an interval shooting mode through the File menu. The Interval shooting mode is only available through the RemoteCapture software (not on the camera), and sets the camera to record a series of images at set intervals, creating the effect of time-lapse photography. Adobe Photoshop LE 5.0 provides more extensive image correction and enhancement capabilities, including a full menu of creative filters and image effects.

Like most recent Canon digicams, the G1 also supports a "RAW" file format, in which the data is taken straight from the CCD with no processing inside the camera. These RAW files can subsequently be processed on a personal computer using Canon's ZoomBrowser EX software, which lets you adjust white balance, brightness, color saturation, and sharpness post-exposure. This has several benefits. First, the RAW files are completely lossless, in that they contain all the information captured by the CCD. Relative to the more common uncompressed TIFF files though, they are quite a bit smaller, at only 2.7 megabytes instead of 9.0. (!) Finally, any modifications or tweaks you make on these files with ZoomBrowser begin with the full 10-bit data that the camera captured. This means that fewer image artifacts will result from your adjustments. Our one complaint about ZoomBrowserEX though, is how slow it is: It took a couple of minutes per image to export RAW images to TIFF format on our (admittedly now slightly elderly) 350 MHz Pentium III Windows machine. - I mean *minutes*? We don't know what the software could possibly be doing for that long, but we do appreciate the results you can obtain. It would be much preferable though, if we were able to set up the adjustment parameters for a number of images separately, then walk away while the machine converted all of them. The software will convert multiple images at once, but only one set of adjustment parameters may be applied to the whole batch.