After a few days, I have mixed feelings about this camera but for the most part, I like it... I don't know how the engineers come up with some of the feature sets... the G9 has a series of "My-Color" settings which are useless for me... and the "Trad" iso setting knob can easily be accidentally turned to auto or hi... I liked the old pull and twist better. In many situations it's a great carry along PnS... just a bit kludgy used in manual mode looking at the LCD to compose instead of through the viewfinder. The Viewfinder is not representative of actual frame (only 80%?) which seems strange, but I have a tendency to shoot tight so I get a bonus crop factor if needed
the one thing that really concerns me is breaking that big LCD... one very cool feature is that all sound can be turned off...
Considering the cost, I would say it's 75% of an M8 for 1/10 of the cost...I bought mine locally from circuit city for 423 and tax which brought it to about 470usd total... and I have till Jan. 4 to return it... At the rate I'm going it would have well over a thousand frames burned by then. unless it starts acting up, I'll definitely keep it.
My Dog took the following image which goes to show... sometimes "beauty" is in the nose of the beholder
I'll post a wider variety soon...