Just under a month ago the fine folks at Canon hosted a hands on event at Calumet Chicago. Excited at the chance to possibly get to play with the new Canon EOS 5D Mark II I happily trotted down to check it out.

Unfortunately they didn’t have the new 5D, however I did get to play with the new Powershot G10.

This was something I was afraid would happen. While the 5DmkII is a bit out of my spur of the moment price range… I did have the $500 on me to drop on the G10. Holding it in my hands I was instantly in love.

For those unfamiliar, the G10 is a significant upgrade of the intensely popular G9 point-and-shoot camera. Now, if you’re seriously into photography or just getting into Digital SLRs, you might be wondering why you should care about a measly point-and-shoot.

Because this is no measly point-and-shoot.

The G10 offers full manual controls as well as the standard point and shoot settings, Canon’s new noise reducing Digic IV chip, a variable aperture of 2.8 – 4.5, a 14.7 megapixel sensor and the ability to shoot RAW. The G10 is, in short: everything you would want in a basic point-and-shoot, in a much smaller more compact body.

My normal day-to-day camera has been a Rebel XTi since it’s release.. I’m never without a camera. Since my purchase of the G10 I’ve been carrying it around almost exclusively and I have to say, I’m in love. I have to say my favorite part about it is the ability to utilize the ‘Live View’ feature that will let me see what my image will look like using manual controls via the LED on the back of the camera. I can dial up and down to allow me to shoot in different lights and judge before I shoot in a much more accurate way. This is great for me as someone who does a lot of low light shooting. While the ISO 1600 setting is near unusable, the Digic IV chip does a great job of reducing the noise and makes serious strides by making ISO 800 a viable option for someone like myself. The 2.8 aperture doesn’t hurt either.

In closing, while I’m still waiting on the 5DmkII for more professional use, the G10 has taken over the role my Rebel previously filled as a solid and powerful day to day camera and it’s made me rethink my impressions of point-and-shoot cameras.  I love using it and I can’t stop showing it off.

You can check out some unprocessed images from the G10 to get an idea of how it performs and for yourself on my Flickr account.