Canon G11 Performance

Slow to average speed for a consumer camera.

About average startup and shutdown times here (a bit slower than the G10, though), but pretty fast buffer clearing with a fast card.

Mode switching times are about average, except for Play to Record which is a good bit slower than average. (You could easily miss a shot, if you'd been viewing images and needed to quickly switch to Record mode again, to catch some fast-breaking action.) Again, slower than the G10 except for displaying a recorded image (G10 has larger files).

Full AF shutter response in the default AF mode is about average at both wide-angle and telephoto, for digicams with zoom lenses matching the G11's, at 0.54s and 0.75s respectively. Enabling the flash increases lag to 0.81s, due to the preflash metering involved. "Prefocusing" the camera by half-pressing and holding down the shutter button before the final exposure results in a lag time of 0.072 second, which while quite fast, isn't quite as fast as some. Times for continuous and manual focus are also about average. The Canon G11's performance here is similar to the G10, with some times being slightly slower and some slightly faster.

Shot-to-shot cycle times are a bit on the slow side, and surprisingly, slightly slower than the G10, at about 2.29 seconds for large/fine JPEGs. We found this surprising, because the Canon G11 has fewer pixels to deal with than did the G10, but perhaps the G11's improved noise-reduction processing is the cause. When shooting RAW, cycle time slows to 2.80 seconds per frame, and for RAW + large/fine JPEG it stretches to 2.88 seconds. The camera does seem to capture frames indefinitely at these rates, though. (That is, given a fast enough memory card, it doesn't have to pause every few frames to wait for the card to catch up.) The Canon G11's continuous shooting modes were also slower than the G10, capturing large/fine JPEGs at about 1.11 frames per second vs the G10's 1.37 fps. This rate slows to 0.84 frames per second with RAW, and 0.79 frames per second with RAW + large/fine JPEG. Buffer sizes were good, though, at over 20 frames in any quality with a fast card. (Note that slow memory cards may force the camera to stop and wait for them after fewer frames.) The flash takes 4.5 seconds to recharge after a full-power shot, which is good, about twice as fast as was the case with the G10.

Connected to a computer or printer with USB 2.0, download speeds are very good. (A bit faster than the G10.)

Bottom line, the Canon G11 won't be a good choice for fast-paced action, especially if shooting RAW, but should handle typical non-speed-critical shooting situations fairly well. Oddly though, the G11 was slightly slower than the G10 in many respects, despite having smaller file sizes. As noted, this may be the result of its enhanced noise reduction processing, but we found it surprising all the same.

Battery
Excellent battery life for a lithium-ion design.

The Canon PowerShot G11 uses a custom rechargeable lithium-ion battery for power, and ships with a charger. Although battery life is excellent, especially when using the optical viewfinder instead of the LCD to frame, we recommend you pick up a spare battery and keep it freshly charged and on-hand for extended outings.

The table above shows the number of shots the camera is capable of (on a fully-charged rechargeable battery as appropriate), based on CIPA battery-life and/or manufacturer standard test conditions.

(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))

Storage
The Canon PowerShot G11 accepts SDHC/SD/MMC memory cards, and does not include any built-in memory or a starter card. Canon recommends using a card with Speed Class 4 or faster for capturing VGA movies.

We strongly recommend buying a large capacity SD/SDHC memory card at least a 2GB card, preferably a 4 or 8GB one, to give yourself extra space for extended outings, RAW files or video. (Check the shopping link above, cards are really cheap these days, so no reason to skimp.)