Canon Powershot G6 Review

Switching into Play mode brings up the last picture captured up in full screen mode with overlay data for folder/picture number, current picture / total number of pictures, image quality and size, date and time of exposure. The "key" icon indicates the image has been protected. The "musical note" icon indicates that a voice annotation is attached to the image.

You can get all the picture information including a histogram by pressing the DISPLAY button. As you can see it is very complete and includes folder and image number, ISO sensitivity, exposure mode, shutter speed, aperture, exposure compensation, white balance, focus mode, image size and quality, date and time.

The playback image can be magnified up to 10X by toggling the zoom control to the telephoto position. You can stop at any enlargement step and scroll around inside the image.

Pressing the macro mode button in play enables the thumbnail index mode. Here you can quickly search through the stored images and find one to playback in full screen mode. Press the metering mode button to enter "Jump" mode that lets you go through images a full screen at a time.

The Play menu with options for Protecting images from accidental erasure, Rotate to re-orient portrait mode images for proper display on a TV screen, Erase All images. Single images can be erased by pressing the "FUNC" button while they're being viewed. The Slide Show option lets you select an interval time between images and and start and stop a presentation. The Print Order option lets you embed DPOF (Digital Print Order Format) information on the card so any selected pictures can be easily printed by DPOF-compliant printers or services. Transfer Order lets you select pictures to be transfered to the computer via the USB port.

Movies can be played back on the camera's LCD screen or a TV set when using the included A/V cable. Sound is played back on the internal speaker or TV set.

When playing movies you can access the Edit menu to edit the length of recorded videos when needed.

Pressing the MF button in Play mode enables the voice recording option so you can attach up to 60 second audio notes to still pictures.

SETUP options:

• Mute - Enable/disable all camera sounds
• Volume - submenu to set the next five volume parameters
  • Start-up Volume - Adjust the volume of the start-up sounds
  • Operation Volume - Adjust volume of other camera sounds
  • Selftimer Volume - Adjust volume of selftimer beep
  • Shutter Volume - Adjust volume of the shutter sound effect
  • Playback Volume - Adjust playback volume for movie clips
• LCD Brightness - Adjust brightness of the color LCD
• Power Saving - submenu for the next parameters
  • Auto Power Down - Enable/disable automatic power-off feature
  • Display Off - Set the time delay to turn off the color LCD
• Date / Time - Sets the clock and/or calendar
• Format - Formats the CF card, also handy for checking the amount of space remaining
• File Number Reset - Manually resets file numbering with new card, the default is sequential numbering to prevent duplicate filenames.
• Auto Rotate - Enable/disable auto image rotation
• Distance Units - Manual focus distance in meters or feet
• Language - Change the menu language
• Video System - Format of video signal, NTSC or PAL.

My Camera options:

• Theme - Select theme for My Camera settings
• Start-Up Image - Selects image shown at start-up
• Start-Up Sound - Select sound played at start-up
• Operation Sound - Select desired camera sounds
• Self-Timer Sound - Select desired Self-Timer beep sound.
• Shutter Sound - Select desired shutter sound effect