Canon PowerShot G3 ... your thoughts

[Maverick2002]

Anyone who owns/has owned this camera, what are your thoughts? After 2.5 years with an amateur Fuji Finepix 1400Z and several thousand photos later, I feel like it's time to take the next step and get a really badass camera (well and the fact that mine pretty much just died). I've been doing some research on it and the only bad things I hear are:

1) relatively weak flash (can be fixed with hot shoe accessory)
2) lens cap falls off
3) poor autofocus in low-lit indoor environments

But these come from what appear to be professionals so these might be very slight nuances and they all recommend it nevertheless, naming it the best in its class, and although I'm no longer a noob I don't consider myself one of the elite; I've never gotten in-depth with SLR or anything of the sort.

I just want some personal experience input before I drive over to circuit city this weekend to take it for a spin.

 

[ProviaFan]

I've heard many good things about the Canon G3. However, to replace my extremely limiting Kodak DX3500, I am looking at an Olympus E-10 or E-20 (both DSLRs), mainly because I find consumer-level digital cameras very limiting after I got used to all the controls of my film SLR.

 

[GTaudiophile]

I am a G2 owner. Canon makes the best stuff around, and the G3 is quite good. If you have the money to burn, get the G3. If you want to save some, get the G2. The G2 and G3 use the same 4.0mpx sensor. The G3 adds 4x optical zoom and cosmetic changes, but produces the same image as the G2 from all that I've seen. If you have $1500 to spend, get the Canon 10D digital SLR.

 

[Woody419]

The Canon G1, G2, G3 take the best photos of any prosumer camera. I have a G1 and the photos are excellent, with no real need to upgrade right now, but if I did upgrade it would be to a G3. I believe one of the differences between the G2 and the G3 is bracketed focusing, which would be a big plus for macro shots. You can compare the Canon cameras at dpreview, the best unbiased reviews on the web.

 

[bumboo]

I have the G3. I got it instead of the G2 because I thought that the extra features were worth the price. This camera kicks ass! I also got the 420ex flash with it. I have shot more good photos with this camera in 6 months than I did with my Canon Elan II in three years.

Get it pronto!!

 

[RalfHutter]

I have a Canon S30 which is a pretty decent digicam but my Dad got a G3 which is a really, really good digicam. I borrow his G3 all the time. It takes waay better pictures than my S30 (and not just because it's a higher megapixel camera) in all enviornments. It's a real good camera for photography enthusiasts because you can control all the aspects of your shot manually or if you're feeling lazy you can just stick it on "Program", fire away and still get great pictures.

Yes, the lense cap does come off rather easily.

 

[Wiktor]

You may also want to take a look at Olympus C5050, it's quite simmilar, great as a first professional camera. It has 5.0 megapixels, but only 3x optical zoom, a lot of manual controlls (focus, white ballance, aparture, shutter speed, contrast, sharpness, saturation), it supports xD cards, compact flash (microdrives) and smart media, and it's quite handy (small). The magnesium body is also pretty awsome, and it gives the camera a more proffesional feeling. Costs about the same I think.

But the G3 is a fine camera and it's Cannon