I got the SD1100 IS
I'm super disappointed in the quality of the photos. I grew into digital on Canon point and shoots pre-ELF and ELF lines and they seem to keep getting better and better until these past two years, the photo quality doesn't seem to have improved. Not mujch point in having ISO settings on the SD1100 - anything above 200 is too grainy for me.

I thought about getting the G9 and wish I had.

Wish someone had a killer point and shoot - say a full frame! I love being able to have a camera in my pocket.

Hi Soooz,

I'd say, comparing A650 IS and EOS 1D Mark III, there's a lot of difference.

I mean, difference in image quality, compared to things like shutter lag, which on the A650 IS is measured in geological time. A lot more chromatic aberration (CA), and somewhat less sharpness. And this is with 12.1 megapixels (A650 IS) vs. 10.2 megapixels (1D Mark III). A lot more purple fringing of green trees against a blue sky on the A650 IS, when properly exposed. Not terrible, and only something you notice when zooming in tightly.

Despite the higher resolution, my impression does remain that the resolvable line pairs per picture height are greater on the professional camera than on the point and shoot, despite the difference in resolution. I believe this may be more of an artifact of the glass on the smaller camera, and not necessarily the imaging system, both of which are based on the DIGIC III image processor. But, on the A650 IS, I suspect they are not running the same algorithms, nor the same clock rate for the processor (though the 1D Mark III has two such chips).

OTOH, I have found that at ISO 1600, the A650 IS is only marginally noisy compared to the 1D Mark III, it was surprisingly sweeter than I expected. However, it's much, much worse at ISO 3200 though, I'd say not usable. The ISO 6400 on the 1D Mark III is in fact usable, in comparison. So, I don't think they run as much cleanup or noise-abatement code for the little point-and-shoot cameras.

Please note these are still somewhat subjective tests. I've not really had the time or inclination to compare on a scientific basis, because I think of these two cameras as completely different tools for different jobs.

This article, however, is just stellar image science about noise in camera sensors:
theory.uchicago.edu/~ejm/pix...ndex.html

Blessings and Light,
Michael

Oh, here's more objective data, the resolution test charts:

G9:
www.dpreview.com/reviews/c...page19.asp

The 1D Mark III did not get reviewed by dpreview.com, so apparently that information is not available to compare.

Best,
M