I’ve wanted a new point and shoot for a while now. I really like my Canon 40D, but I need something that I can bring with me when carrying around a full setup isn’t realistic (hiking, traveling with the family, etc.).

The Canon G9 is appealing to me for a number of reasons, including its ability to take pictures in RAW mode, shoot video, use off camera flash (you’ll notice it has a hot shoe on top), its manual settings and more. I’ve seen several very positive reactions to it, including the Strobist and David Tejada. I wasn’t fully convinced, though, until David Hobby (the Strobist) recently posted a video he took in Dubai while at a shoot in the desert (you can check out the video here). The video and audio quality really impressed me and finally pushed me to go out and get one for myself.

I just opened it up today, so I haven’t had much of a chance to really put it through its paces yet, but I figured I’d post my intial thoughts. A more complete review will follow in the coming weeks.

• Solid Build Quality: The camera feels great in the hand. It has a solid feel and good balance.
• Tons of Great Features: I’m already loving the high amount of control it gives over settings. The ability to easily set a wide range of ISO settings, go into full manual, etc. doesn’t come in many cameras this size.
• Other Cool Benefits: A few other things that jump out at me quickly - the live view on the large LCD (3″) shows a live histogram, along with other critical information. Also, it adds the feature of auto-rotating your images when playing them back. Doing so allows you to turn your camera to view the LCD in portrait mode and any photos taken in portrait mode are rotated, providing maximum viewing. This is something I’ve seen on other point and shoots and really like.

Well, I’m signing off for now but will be keeping this handy little camera within arm’s length for a while. I’ll post more findings, some test photos and a more official review as soon as I can.