Canon G9
Canon Powershot G9
History
I purchased this camera around 2009 along with the Canon WP-DC21 underwater housing. The intention was to replace the very difficult to use Pentax Spotmatic in an Ikelite housing with a more modern digital alternative that could also produce video clips. It was also to replace an early 2MP digital camera that I flooded and destroyed very quickly in only 3 metres of water under a local pier. It’s amazing how badly the batteries react with salt water!! There is a comprehensive review of the G9 at this link for all the technical specs and comparative information. https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canong9
For now I thought I would revisit this camera and talk about its usage in general as well as for underwater use.
Canon G9 General use
As I mentioned in the previous section the controls are comprehensive but not all that intuitive to use at times. For underwater use this gets more difficult due to the fact that is it difficult to read the button labels when the camera is inside the housing. Thankfully with regular use it becomes a bit more natural in its operation. The rear screen is a good size and combined with the optical view finder make it easy to use even in bright sunlight. The G9 is a compact 12 MP digital camera with a fixed but retractable 7.4 to 44.4mm - f2.8/4.8 lens. Minimum aperture is f8 in both wide angle and telephoto ranges. It does feature a built in Neutral Density filter which can be useful given the limited aperture range available. ISO is settable from 80 to 1600 and video quality is a maximum at 1024 x 768 - 15fps.
This is one of those cameras that thrive in strong lighting but produce fairly pronounced noise at modest ISO settings above ISO 100. It’s a handy size and not too heavy so fits the bill for travel and probably best for snap shot type images these days but honestly my iPhone 12 Pro would be better all round for that type of use. I am looking forward to using it again underwater with some better lighting options and plan to rely on my Go Pro camera now for underwater video. Keep an eye out for these adventures in future blog entries.
Canon G9 Underwater
Apologies to the non-divers with this section since this might all sound like blah, blah, blah, water… For anyone interested in underwater cameras please read on. As mentioned above coloured sensor noise is quite evident at low light with the sensor above ISO 100. At the time I purchased this camera I had hoped to use my existing Ikelite 100A analogue strobe light since the G9 only has a small on camera flash. The housing does have a clip on diffuser but the flash can be too direct for clear images in water that is almost always full of suspended matter where I dive. The WP-DC21 housing does no have enough space to allow the use of a hot shoe TTL or optical trigger adapter so up until now lighting has been a problem. You can see this in my early gallery images. Where the flash has fired the lighting is flat and it takes some work in post to create a bit of contrast and get some life in the pictures. Moving forward 10 or 11 years, technology has come to the rescue with a possible Ikelite optical slave solution and also an extremely bright, multi-segment, LED style underwater light. Since I plan to shoot video underwater with my Go Pro camera the LED light will serve for both cameras at this stage until we see what sort of image quality is possible.
There are some older images in the Gallery and I will add new ones as I get back into using this rig again in the coming warmer weather.
Canon G9 Accessories
The G9 has a bottom 1/4” tripod mount and a ttl hot shoe that supports its use with Canon speed lights or even radio triggers for off camera strobes. The underwater housing WP-DC21 is pictured at left and above.
“If you are out there shooting, things will happen for you. If you’re not out there, you’ll only hear about it.”
– Jay Maisel