Canon PowerShot G9

Pros: I love Canon's features. I found it very easy to program settings to my liking. The camera is easy to use. Day, night, macro settings are easy to use and make a difference when appropriate. The view finder is large.

Cons: This was my second higher end point and shoot camera from Canon. There are two very serious flaws, 1) picture quality is inconsistent. I felt I had to take 5 pictures to get one good one. 2) The motor on the lens died in one years time.

Summary: My first Canon was a PowerShot S series. It took beautiful pictures that I was able to enlarge 20"x24" with beautiful clarity. I think that it was an 8 megapixal camera. I bought a G9 after the motor on the lens died. This happened after ~2 years of use. It cost $150 to fix, so I figured it would make more sense just to put that money towards a newer model, the G9. The problem was, the pictures from this camera were not as clear and perfect as the ones taken with the PowerShot. It had more megapixals, and according to the specs trumped the PowerShot on every level. The big difference was when I uploaded the pictures. They just did not have the same quality, and that is why you spend money and research cameras in the first place. You want to take a picture that your will make your friends wonder if it was professionally taken. You are not going to get that with this camera. Something is off. I am on this sight again bc my G9 died. The motor on the lens. I wonder wha tthe shelf life is for this with Canon. It died twice. The first time it was covered under the warranty, which was no easy task to take advantage of, and this last time was out of warranty. So in other words the lens died in less then one year the first time, and two years the second time. Because of these issues I will probably steer clear of a Canon this time. Which is dissapointing bc I am comfortable with the controls. Regardless what camera I go with an extended warranty will be purchased.