Pretty hot, Canon. 28mm at f/2, shoots RAW, manual controls (the ring at the base of the lens actually works and can be assigned to focus, shutter speed, aperture, or exposure compensation). They also announced a G11 today, but this S90 is basically a mini version with slightly less resolution (and priced accordingly). (via jstn)

There are a few common trends with my day-to-day camera use. First, I shoot wide. I’m not shooting gazelles on safari (new band name?) or Heidi Montag outside of Kitson, I used to shoot portraits with the tight compression of a telephoto but particularly with small cameras, “zooming in” makes for boring, flat pictures and easily ruins a personal, social moment. Of the 63gb of photos I’ve kept from my G10 since getting it in January, I’ve probably shot a dozen total that weren’t at its widest. This has a wider focal length and a wider aperture, the first two things I would change about the G10, though I love that the ring can be programmed to jump between traditional fixed lengths (28/35/50/85mm), it’s very Japanese.

Next is the 10 megapixel. Like the Mhz myth, I could write for days about the stupidity of high megapixel counts. The short and the long is this new generation of the G and S series have bigger CCDs with few subdivisions (pixels) which equated to smoother tones, less artifacts, better low light performance, richer colour, better depth of field… all around the best improvement you can make to a digital camera. The bigger conversation is that 99% of photos shot with astronomical megapixel counts and/or in RAW are wastes of space - they end up on facebook or an online portfolio, maybe one out of fifty gets printed, but usually no bigger than 4x6 or a rare 8x10. A lot of guys make a lot of money writing books about shooting RAW, non-destructive workflows, but unless you’re tearing your pictures to pieces in photoshop trying to fix what you should have done in camera, a jpg usually does the trick and can make a very nice 18x24 inch print. Even when I do shoot RAW, I wish the G10 could shoot low-resolution RAW like some higher end DSLRs. I like that Canon has took a step back from the MP arms race.

Last is the form factor. This is slimmer, which means I’ll have it with me when I need it - and what good is a camera if you hate lugging it around. I dig the streamlined shape and like that they’ve ditched the EVF. I’ve never looked through the EVF of a point & shoot, with very few exceptions do I even look at LCD to compose - I look at what I’m shooting, facial expressions, what’s happening in the background - with experience I know the composition of the frame so I can look at my subject instead of hiding behind the gadget. This camera seems like it feels right, fits right, and because it’s generally less obtrusive will make for better day-to-day, social photographs. I like the popup flash for fill (and hope it recycles faster than G10 and has a button for slow-sync which the G series hides in a menu), like that it still has a custom preset (which is perfect as a “digital notebook”) and aperture priority.

Yeah, like Justin said, pretty hot. So who wants my G9 and G10?