Not having too much time to really shake out my new Canon G10, I’ve just been grabbing shots as I come across something.

I have to say, I really like the selection dials that let you adjust the exposure and ISO on the fly, without wading through menus.

The menu driven user-interface is really intuitive when you’ve played with it a short while. It really makes using this camera a joy.

Having come from a Nikon DSLR (D-200), I was concerned that the menus would be as bad as most of the ones I’d seen on point & shoot cameras.

I like the wide-angle (28mm) lens, I don’t miss the extra focal length that Canon left out, I bought this camera mainly for “street shooting” and for when I didn’t want to lug around a big DSLR.

There’s an amusing amount of barrel-distortion at the wide-end, but I like the effect for the most part and can add a bit of character to a wide shot, just don’t take pictures of groups of your friends, or at least put your best friends in the middle and your lesser friends on the outside edges where you don’t have to care so much if they get wider than they really are.

The macro is a lot of fun too, getting you close and not too shallow a depth-of-field when you use aperture-priority and close it down to the minimum, aperture of f8.

The motorized zoom works well, but like all of the motorized-zooms nowhere near as accurate, from a framing standpoint, as a manual-zoom.

Unfortunately, noise is an issue at ISOs 400 and higher, like most point and shoots, pretty much limiting you to 400 ISO in times of desperation and anything higher for absuolte desperation.

Shutter response is serviceable, but certainly isn’t up to DSLR standards yet. It’s decent, but still isn’t the best choice for sports or hyper-active kids.

Again, like most point & shoots, picture quality is extremely good with very-good lighting, with some chromatic-aberration showing up.

As the lighting dwindles, the noise and aberration increases in proportion the the light decreasing.

The 3″ screen on the back of the camera is absolutely awesome. Big, bright, clear, your pictures will look their best on this little screen, even better than on your computer.

The icons and indicators detract from those times it’d be nice to have a uncluttered screen, but with the menus minimized it’s not too bad.

All in all, it is a well built, easy and fun to use camera, a level above most point & shoots, but still a ways away from replacing a DSLR.

I’m glad I bought it, but I’m still curious what the micro 4/3rds system will bring to the phographer…maybe we’ll finally get the portability of a point & shoot and the response and accuracy of the DSLR that I’ve been looking for since I had my olympus C-2000 and my Nikon D1x.