Update:  Shortly after I created this article, some internet discussion about Canon’s DPP software handling noise better than Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom from Canon .cr2 files.  There are quite a few examples that show a similar pattern to what this test shows ... Adobe tends to create large blobs of color noise compared to DPP, which are smaller and less noticeable.  Since I can’t open a G9 file in DPP, and I can’t open a G10 file in Lightroom or ACR, I really can’t draw any strong conclusions as to whether or not the G10 by nature has less noise, or if in noise is better simply because DPP is doing a better job when processing the file.  In either case, using the G10 and DPP does provide better results.  As soon as ACR supports the G10 I can reprocess these images to see what difference that might make.

A quick test I took in my living room to see if the G10 improves on the G9 in noise performance.  Each camera was set up on a tripod using self timer to capture an image at ISO 100 through 1600.  The tripod position remained the same, and I tried to match the overall field of view using the cameras zoom lens.

The ISO 100 capture was exposed at the same setting (1 second at f/8) as the ISO 200 capture, then normalized in the RAW processor.  This wasn’t on purpose ... I didn’t realize that using the AV exposure mode, the camera won’t use a shutter speed slower than 1 second.  I went ahead and included them, more to indicate how underexposing a stop and normalizing in the RAW convertor compares with cranking up the ISO to 200.

The G9 files were processed with Lightroom with all sharpening and noise reduction off.  The G10 files were processed with Canon DPP, again with all noise reduction and sharpening off.  Interestingly enough Canon now supports the G10 with it’s professional level RAW processing program, DPP, but still no support for the G9.  Adobe doesn’t have G10 support in their RAW processing programs, and based on the latest information, G10 support probably won’t show up until CS4/ACR 5.0 are released.

From these tests, it appears the G10 noise is better.  It seems to be finer grained and less obtrusive, especially in the 800-1600 range.  I’m not much of a scientist, so I suppose the difference in how the noise looks may have something to d with the RAW processing software, and not so much the base level noise.  I personally don’t believe this, since ACR and DPP are both very good RAW processors.

Anyway, here are two 100% sections side by side.  (It appears the G10 is sharper in the leaf section, while the wall section appears sharper in the G9.  I think this indicates I didn’t get the focus exactly the same on both cameras, so this test doesn’t help much in determining whether the G10 captures detail better.  I plan on shooting some tests on that soon.)

ISO 100

ISO 200

ISO 400

ISO 800

ISO 1600

G9

G10

ISO 100

ISO 200

ISO 400

ISO 800

ISO 1600