Canon PowerShot G16 review

Canon PowerShot G16 at a glance:

• 12.1-million-pixel, 1/1.7in CMOS sensor
• Digic 6 processor
• ISO 80-12,800
• Wi-Fi built-in
• 3in, 921,000-dot LCD screen
• Optical viewfinder
• Canon 28-140mm f/1.8-2.8 lens
• Street price around £530, less second-hand

Canon PowerShot G16 review – Introduction

The Canon PowerShot G16 replaces the G15, and has a similar specification to the Nikon Coolpix P7800, which I tested previously. The Canon Powershot G16 is one of Canon’s last compact cameras, in the G series range, that uses a smaller than 1inch sensor, and started with the Canon Powershot G1, in 2000.

Canon’s G and Nikon’s P-series cameras have been in direct competition for many years, with both seeing numerous changes with each new addition. The Canon G series has a rich heritage, with the first camera appearing in 2000, and continuing on with compact cameras with a 1inch sensor, such as the Canon Powershot G7X Mark III.

With recent models, Canon decided to remove the 2.8in, 461,000-dot, vari-angle LCD screen of the PowerShot G11 and G12, and replace it with a 3in fixed monitor with double the resolution. It is this screen that is used on the new PowerShot G16, although the camera has a few new features, including Wi-Fi and a new processor that enables a high frame rate, among other advantages.

As I explained in the Nikon test, the 1/1.7in sensor used in both the Canon PowerShot G16 and the Nikon Coolpix P7800 was, several years ago, considered very large, especially when compared to the standard 1/2.3in consumer-compact-camera sensor size of the time. Recently, though, new premium compacts with 1/1.3in, 2/3in, APS-C and 1in sensors have been released, making the market more competitive than ever.

Canon PowerShot G16 – Key features

• Pop-up flash – A small pop-up flash is featured on the Canon PowerShot G16, housed inside the camera body. This has good coverage and adds a sufficient amount of light when required.
• Filter thread – An adapter mount is featured at the base of the lens to allow accessories such as teleconverters, macro converts and macro ring lights to be fitted.
• Movie record button – By default this button is used to record movies, although this can reassigned in the menu to suit the user.
• Dioptre adjuster – A dioptre adjuster allows the optical viewfinder to be adjusted to the user’s eyesight.
• Battery – The G16 features a NB-10L Li-Ion battery with a life of approximately 360 shots.

Canon PowerShot G16 review – Features

Inside the Canon PowerShot G16 is a 12.1-million-pixel, 1/1.7in (7.6×5.7mm) CMOS sensor, which features the HS System. This is Canon’s back-illumination architecture, which is claimed to lower noise levels by up to 60% at all ISO speeds, and is used in many of the company’s compact-camera range.

The G16 can capture images in both JPEG and raw formats, which are then processed using the same Digic 6 processor that we first saw on Canon’s PowerShot SX70. The addition of this processor takes the G16 a step in the right direction, giving it the ability to capture JPEGs at a speed of 12fps for the first five frames and a continuous speed of 9.3fps thereafter, which can be sustained until the memory card is completely full. This is a significant improvement over the PowerShot G15, which would shoot at 10fps in a somewhat limited high-speed burst mode and only 2.1fps when in one of the PASM modes.

A respectable sensitivity range of ISO 80-12,800 is available on the G16. When coupled with the fast 28-140mm f/1.8-2.8 lens, this means there’s great potential for low-light shooting. The zoom range is also large enough to suit most photographers’ needs. Finally, the lens has built-in stabilisation in the form of Canon’s Intelligent IS.

For the first time in a G-series camera we see the inclusion of Wi-Fi. This works by simply scanning for the camera’s own Wi-Fi network using a smartphone or tablet and then connecting the two. Once the connection is established, images can be accessed using the Canon CW app, which is available free on both Android and iOS. Images can be uploaded directly to the web via your device or simply previewed. However, unlike Sony’s similar app, wireless shooting is not possible although location tagging is supported. The latter allows users to record the GPS data from a smart device to the images, which is a very useful feature for photographers who wish to travel and keep a record of photographic locations.

At the launch event, Canon expressed great interest in making astrophotography more accessible to amateur and enthusiast photographers. For this reason, a star mode has been included, with three different user-selectable options. These are star nightscape, star trails and star time-lapse movie mode. The star nightscape mode is an automatic setting that judges the exposure in-camera. Star trails allows the user to see the image being built on screen and stop the camera when they feel the exposure is done, much like the live bulb feature on Olympus’s OM-D cameras. Time-lapse movie mode shoots a movie of the stars as they appear to cross the sky.

Another couple of additions to the various scene modes and creative styles are HDR and background defocus. The HDR mode is intended to increase the dynamic range of the camera for high-contrast scenes, by taking three exposures and processing them in-camera. Canon claims that intelligent masking technology enables these shots to be taken without requiring a tripod. Background defocus mode also relies on in-camera processing to achieve a DSLR-like shallow depth of field.

Canon PowerShot G16 review – Flash

Simple pop-up flash units can produce some good results, but they have their limitations. Often the resulting images can look quite flat or there is simply not enough flash coverage to light the subject evenly. However, the Canon PowerShot G16 features a hotshoe that is compatible with the same flashes as used on the range of Canon EOS DSLRs. For many Canon users, this is very useful as full E-TTL flash works with EX-series Speedlites, Macro Twin Lite MT-24EX, Macro Ring Lite MR-14EX, Canon High Powered Flash HF-DC1 and HF DC2.

I simply attached a Canon Speedlite 580 EX II to the hotshoe and was able to shoot with the flash pointed upwards with the bounce card up to achieve nice lighting on the subject. In addition, I was able to use a wireless Phottix Strato II Transceiver mounted to the hotshoe alongside two receivers attached to two 580 EX II flashguns. I triggered these wirelessly to create wonderful lighting on my subject and really bring the image to life.

Canon PowerShot G16 review – Build and handling

The G16’s matt-black body is made of magnesium alloy, so it feels very solid and well constructed. The lens protrudes by around 1cm, while a rubberised hand grip is only slightly raised and doesn’t jut out as much as the lens. This helps the camera to be more pocketable. With a length and breadth measuring 108.8×75.9mm, the camera body is slightly smaller than a wallet, although its depth of 40.3mm makes it perhaps somewhat thicker. A jeans pocket would be a squeeze but not impossible, although I think it is better suited to a large coat pocket. The supplied strap is also very useful when using the camera a lot during a day’s shooting.

One of the most significant differences between the G16 and the Nikon’s Coolpix P7800 is the way in which they handle. The P7800 has menu systems and physical buttons very similar to those found on the Nikon DSLR line-up. In use, it feels like a DSLR squeezed into the body of a compact camera.

The G16 is almost the exact opposite, featuring the same menu style as much of the Canon PowerShot compact-camera line-up. However, I think this is to the benefit of the G16, giving the camera a far more user-friendly experience. The function menu, which controls most of the shooting-related settings, is open to a lot of customisation, allowing specific items to be placed higher, lower, added or removed. It can therefore be tailored to an individual’s needs. Also, like many of Canon’s other compacts, the G16 carries My Menu, which allows users to register commonly used menu settings for quick access.

The G16 feels very good in the hand. The small rubberised grip at the front has ample space for the user’s shooting fingers, and there’s a comfortable grip on the rear for the thumb. This thumb grip is slightly raised to the right and features a movie-record button and a custom function-button sunk into it. At first glance I thought the position of the buttons could be problematic and prone to accidental pushing while operating the camera. However, my fears proved unfounded and it was actually very handy to have them there. This was especially true of the function button, which I assigned to My Colours so I could switch between black & white and colour modes with minimal effort.

A D-pad, which doubles as a scroll wheel, handles most of the menu controls and value adjustments. Another scroll wheel above the thumb grip changes shutter speed, aperture and white balance correction. Around the D-pad are four other buttons that have different uses when in playback or shooting mode. For example, the ISO button doubles as ‘delete’ in playback and the button to change the focus point position when shooting also acts as a Wi-Fi button in playback. I found the buttons were all laid out well with everything easily accessible.

Canon PowerShot G16 review – Metering

For most of the time that I was shooting with the G16, I used evaluative metering, which works reasonably well in most situations. When using it to shoot high-contrast scenes that surpass the dynamic range capabilities of the sensor, the G16 primarily meters for midtones. As a consequence, information in the highlight areas is often completely lost, while shadow areas lose little or no detail. Generally, though, the resulting images are very well exposed in the more challenging situations. However, for those who prefer to retain more highlight detail, there’s a designated exposure-compensation dial just above the thumb grip that can be adjusted by ±3EV in stepped increments of 0.3EV.

Centreweighted averaging and spot metering are also available. Inside the menu is an option to change to spot AE or centre AE, which will determine whether the AF point will be linked to the metering system. I find that linking the focus point is useful for shooting portraits or other subjects against a bright light source.

Canon PowerShot G16 review – Dynamic range

As mentioned in Metering, the camera often loses highlights in high-contrast scenes. This is largely due to the G16’s small 1/1.7in sensor. When compared to other sensors of the same size, the dynamic range is good, but there is only so far a sensor of this size can go.

By shooting images in raw format and underexposing the image by 1EV, I was able to retain far more detail in highlight areas but this was at the expense of some shadow detail. Thankfully, much of the information remained in the shadow areas so I was able to brighten these in Adobe Lightroom/Camera Raw. However, this did inevitably introduce some luminance noise, especially at higher ISO sensitivities, which resulted in less detail in the shadow areas.

The HDR scene mode can be used to extend the dynamic range in-camera. Also, Canon has a ‘shadow-correct’ option in the function menu that can be used to lighten areas of dense shadow in-camera.

Canon PowerShot G16 review – Autofocus

When it was tested in AP 10 November 2012, the Canon PowerShot G15 scored an impressive 8/10 for autofocus. Now, Canon claims it has made the G16’s AF up to 50% faster. In addition, the new camera features x2/x4 selectable focus peaking for manual focusing.

When shooting in PASM there are three AF systems available on the G16. These are FlexiZone, Face AiAF and tracking AF. FlexiZone allows users to define a custom focus point across 29 horizontal focus points and 17 vertical focus points, making a total of 493 different areas on which to focus. Each focus point can be made bigger or smaller by tapping the menu button when selecting its position. I used this option most frequently as it is the fastest, and using the designated button located to the bottom left of the D-pad allows the position to be changed quickly.

Face AiAF is made up of nine large focus points that quickly find focus in optimum conditions. However, in low light this AF mode is slower than FlexiZone AF. As its name suggests, the main point of this focus mode is to detect and track faces, so it’s good when shooting portraits or groups of people. Lastly, tracking AF is used by putting the tracking target into the centre of the frame and then holding the shutter half way to continuously track the subject.

Overall, I was impressed with the speed of the AF. For instance, in bright sunny conditions I found that the focusing took a fraction of a second to snap into focus and didn’t slow dramatically even in low light. Using FlexiZone in a dimly lit room with the lens fully zoomed, focus was achieved in less than 1sec with the help of the AF assist beam.

Canon PowerShot G16 review – Noise, resolution and sensitivity

Images from ISO 80-400 only show luminance noise when zoomed in at 100%. Most of the noise in raw images is in midtone areas. In-camera noise reduction takes good care of JPEGs, leaving them with a good level of detail and almost noise-free.

When viewing the JPEGs taken at ISO 640-800 at 100%, I noticed that finer detail starts to smudge and there’s a loss of some sharpness due to the in-camera noise reduction. However, when I viewed images in full-screen mode on a 15in monitor, the noise was not noticeable. At this size, the point at which noise starts to become noticeable is ISO 1600, although JPEGs taken right the way up to ISO 3200 are still very usable and it’s only at ISO 6400 that luminance noise starts to become a problem. Images taken at the maximum ISO 12,800 are worth avoiding, because here JPEGs suffer significant loss of detail and raw images have a strong blue noise in shadow areas. Interestingly, even at this ISO no colour noise is evident.

I found that through the higher ISO settings, raw images have speckly luminance noise, which is better processed using software such as Adobe Lightroom/Camera Raw. Also, these raw images lack sharpness, saturation and contrast. Processing in Lightroom provides much better results and a greater level of detail than the corresponding JPEG images.

These images show 72ppi (100% on a computer screen) sections of images of a resolution chart, captured using the 28-140mm lens set to 50mm and f/4. We show the section of the resolution chart where the camera starts to fail to reproduce the lines separately. The higher the number visible in these images, the better the camera’s detail resolution is at the specified sensitivity setting.

Canon PowerShot G16 review – White balance and colour

Many of the photographs I shot with the G16 were taken using auto white balance, which I found accurate for most scenes. Like most cameras under tungsten light, the AWB setting is still a little too warm. The tungsten white balance in the G16 is accurate, although it is easier just to tweak the white balance compensation. By going into any of the white balance settings and selecting menu, it is possible to shift the colour between blue, green, red and magenta easily and quickly.

The usual white balance settings you would expect to find on a compact camera are present in the G16 plus a few extras. These include auto, cloudy, daylight, tungsten, fluorescent, fluorescent H, flash, custom1, custom2 and even a designated underwater setting. It’s a little disappointing not to see a custom Kelvin setting, although with the white balance compensation feature it may not be necessary.

In the PASM settings, a variety of different colour modes are available, including vivid, neutral, sepia, black and white positive film, lighter skin tone, darker skin tone, vivid blue, vivid green and vivid red, along with custom colour, which allows alteration of contrast, sharpness, saturation, red, green, blue and skin tone. Also inside the scene modes are a few settings that alter colour. I particularly like the monochrome setting, which allows black & white, sepia and blue-toning.

Canon PowerShot G16 review – Viewfinder, live view, LCD and video

Some users may be disappointed not to see an articulated screen such as the one featured on previous incarnations in the G series. In order to achieve a more compact body, a fixed 3in (7.5cm) PureColor II G LCD screen with a resolution of 922,000 dots is featured. This screen has a high refresh rate and at no time did it noticeably lag. Even in bright conditions the LCD does not suffer from reflections, and it remains sufficiently light enough to see what is going on even at awkward viewing angles. The colour rendition is also true to the final image. Although I too would have liked an articulated screen, or possibly even a fixed touchscreen, in general I found the LCD screen on the G16 perfectly usable.

The camera also carries an optical viewfinder that zooms in and out with the lens. At the widest end the lens barrel is visible, and it is only focal lengths of 35mm or longer that it can’t be seen. No information is displayed inside the viewfinder, so focus points cannot be seen. Also, very noticeable chromatic aberrations are present, particularly towards the corners of the frame. Overall, the viewfinder feels quite redundant, although there must be some situations where it has its uses.

Another first for the G16 is the ability to shoot full HD 1080p video at a rate of 60fps. This allows for very smooth footage even when slowed down. The frame rate can be reduced to 30fps in either 1080p, 720p or VGA. Inside the scene modes is a super-slow-motion movie setting that films 640×480-pixel video at 120fps, or 320×240 pixels at a whopping 240fps. While in video mode the zooming is substantially slower, making it nice and fluent – and inaudible.

Canon PowerShot G16 review – The competition

Undoubtedly, the Canon PowerShot G16’s main rival is the Nikon Coolpix P7800. This camera has a 12.2-million-pixel sensor and uses both an electronic viewfinder and an articulated LCD screen. In our test, the P7800 resolved more detail at lower ISO sensitivities, but the G16 surpassed its level of detail at higher ISO settings. The Canon camera is also much faster when processing both JPEGs and raw files, and it has quicker AF.

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 II is also strong competition, due to its large 1in sensor with 20.2-million-pixel resolution. It has an impressive dynamic range and produces highly detailed images. A similarly bright Carl Zeiss 10.4-37.1mm (28-100mm equivalent) f/1.8-4.9 lens makes the Sony camera capable of nice shallow depth of field. However, it is not as long as the G16 zoom. Currently, the RX100 II has a street price of around £399.

Canon PowerShot G16 review – Our verdict

The feature set on the Canon PowerShot G16 is limited in comparison to the technology offered by other manufacturers. For example, the Wi-Fi facility still doesn’t feature wireless shooting and HDR offers no manual control. Also, many users will be disappointed that there’s an optical viewfinder but no articulated screen, touchscreen or EVF. However, if you overlook these limitations and concentrate on what is available from the G16 its performance is fantastic.

It is easy to use, quick to get to know, has fast processing and bundles of creative options. The Wi-Fi is one of the best I have used, connecting quickly and working perfectly. Furthermore, image quality is very good – unlike with some compact cameras there was no ISO threshold at which there was a sharp drop-off. Pairing the camera with the fast f/1.8-2.8 lens also helps in low-light conditions.

With Wi-Fi and geotagging available from a smartphone or tablet, this makes the G16 a great travel camera, but it is equally good for the enthusiast photographer wanting full manual control but with the ease of use of a compact.

For more options have a look at the best compact cameras.