My previous camera was a lovely little Nikon Coolpix but I think I got sand in the lens as it had a lens malfunction and as yet we have not taken it to be fixed. My husband has a work camera that he has sole use of and has at home so before Christmas he gave it to me to use until we get around to fixing the other one and this is the Canon G12. His work spent a lot of money on it so its definitely a better quality than my little Nikon and in terms of picture quality it is brilliant. I am not very technical so I will write this review from the point of view of a consumer who basically takes hundreds of pictures of her kids every week!

The Canon Powershot G12 is a handheld digital camera but it is quite chunky and fairly heavy to hold. I like handbag cameras as I call them, a camera I can put in my handbag and always have available when I want to take candid shots of my kids. This one does go in my handbag but is quite heavy and not as small as I would like.

The feature I like about this camera is the screen. The screen is on a hinge and you can pull it out from the body of the camera and move it to the side so you can then have one hand on the camera and the other on the screen so you get a bit more of a steady hand when you want to take a picture. You can also swivel the screen around and then put it back in the camera so its like a regular build in screen. This is handy if you like taking pictures like this and what I like about it is that when you close it the screen is protected and does not scratch like other screens where they are on show all the time.

I do find I have a problem when the screen is in the camera though with holding the camera. There are lots of buttons all over the right hand side of the camera and I find there is no where to rest my thumb whilst I am holding the camera and trying to take a picture. This is the way I take pictures and so I usually end up pushing a button that I don't want to which is quite annoying and impacts my photo taking somewhat. The Func.Set button on the middle wheel is raised also and this always gets in the way too, its not a huge problem but it is a disadvantage in my opinion.

That said the buttons are easy to understand and helpful on this camera. Your photo taking button is at the top right and is easy to press with your right index finger. When you press the button which shows you the photos you have taken there is then a wheel which lets you scroll through these at quite a fast paste which is nice is you are looking for one photo in particular.

The camera takes quite a large battery. The slot is easy to open and then you slide in the battery. In over 2 years of owning this camera we have never had to replace it which is great although it would be a work expense when my husband needs to. The memory card clicks in and out of its slot and is again easy to take in and out. We have a Sandisk Ultra 16GB card.

The lens on this camera is a Canon Zoom Lens 5 x15 6.1-30.5mm. Not entirely sure what this means so I am going to post here a bit of information on the camera that I got from the Canon website.

"The PowerShot G12 gives exceptional images with HS System and a premium Canon wide-angle lens. Full Manual mode, RAW, Front Dial and optional Lens Filter Adapter allow professional levels of control."
HS System
High-sensitivity 10 MP CCD
28mm wide, 5x zoom lens, Hybrid IS
7.0 cm (2.8") vari-angle LCD, Electronic Level, OVF
Front Dial, Full Manual & RAW
HD movies, HDMI
High Dynamic Range mode
Smart Auto
Multi-Aspect Shooting
Extensive accessory system

The camera comes with a lead that you can attach to your computer which makes downloading your photos really easy. I get such clear crisp pictures with this camera and have some beautiful shots of my kids on it, I would recommend this camera for a nice picture and easy of picture taking.