Canon’s Powershot G10 offers a staggering 14.7 million pixels on its hi-def CCD sensor.

Pixel count isn’t the only indicator of quality, but in general more pixels is better and certainly gives you more cropping choice after the event.

Unlike, say the Canon A590IS model, which is geared to amateurs, the Powershot G10 is very much a prosumer model. The feature list makes it clear.

Featuring a wide angle lens of 28 m.m. and also offers a 5x zoom. Optical Image Stabilisation helps you to keep the image sharp even at the long end of the zoom – very important if you can’t hand-hold a camera as steadily as previously. The image stabilisation feature should mean that more of your shots should come out sharp.

The LCD display is a 3.0-inch Pure Color LCD II screen. That makes it much easier to line up your shots – no more squinting to see what’s on the screen. If you’ve never used a large LCD monitor digital camera before then you’ll be astonished at just how much easier it makes life. The Canon Powershot offers a really beautiful display.

Canon have also added their DIGIC 4 image processor. The DIGIC 4 offers faster operation and enhanced image quality – something we all appreciate.

One thing to remember is that a digital camera needs some food and a camera that has extremely high resolution is going to need a lot of memory card to store its images. You can find a selection of well priced memory cards at places like www.digitalcamerafood.co.uk

That’s where cards like the sandisk 8gb sdhc secure digital card or the Transcend 8gb SDHC memory card are so useful. An 8gb card will store a useful number of hi-res images and allow you to keep shooting for longer.

The Powershot G10 is truly a stunning example of engineering and design.

You can safely say that it will be a more practical alternative to an SLR. Although it’s not the smallest digital ‘compact’ on the market, it’s probably the best specified and ergonomically designed cameras available today.