G9 RAW processing

Anniversary Party 8.16.08

Anyone else notice this?

I've been shooting with the Canon G9 exclusively for the last week. It's a great walking around camera, but I'm frustrated by the noise level at anything above 200, and at a slight shutter lag. I've also sensed that processing the files is more sluggish than my 5D images.

I use Adobe Raw Converter for everything, and 99% of my work never gets any further than ACR processing. I process my files daily, renaming the day's photos, adding metadata, and applying default and individual image corrections.

With the Powershot G9 images, it seemed this goes a lot slower. The sliders hesitate and I have to wait a second or two for any change to register. Today I did a side by side test.

I put a hundred images each in a G9 and a 5D folder. I purged the image cache in Bridge, and I manually deleted all the .xml sidecar files. Then I did some test processing.

I could process the 5D files with an instantaneous response to my adjustments, even with a hundred files open in ACR. The G9 files were slow and hesitant. A great test on processing speed is to hold down the Option key when clicking either the Black or Exposure slider. This gives a black or white point preview. Response was instant on any 5D file. The image took a second or two to display with the G9 shots.

It seems that Adobe's code for reading the Canon RAW files is more robust for the pro camera than for this P&S. Anyone have experience with other raw processors?

Comments

[David Adam Edelstein]

That is really weird. I'll check and report back.

[Paul McEvoy]

I bought one but kept it sealed in the box and borrowed my friends for an afternoon. I must say I was totally unimpressed with it. I liked it because I could shoot video with it, but as a camera, it was altogether mediocre. Shutter lag was lame, it felt lame. I was never sure when I'd actually taken a picture. Slow response on the LCD. Pictures, even Raw, were totally soft. There was nothing there I really liked. It was like a crappy swiss army knife, does everything pretty poorly.

My $.02