The crops are taken from the original images, saved as High Quality JPEGs in Photoshop CS2 and presented here at 100%. Each number represents 100 lines per picture height (lpph), so a figure of 20 means a resolution of 2000 lpph.

In terms of resolving power, the Canon PowerShot G10 delivers 2450 lpph of horizontal and vertical resolution. This is around 10% more than its predecessor and the same we measured for the Canon EOS 50D, although the latter was a little better defined.

This is a great result for the PowerShot G10, although not without caveats. Diffraction unsurprisingly becomes an issue when you pack this number of pixels into a small area. The G10 only delivered 2450 lpph at its largest aperture and steadily lost resolution as the aperture closed; at its smallest aperture of f8, the resolution had fallen to 2000 lpph. But if you use the G10 at its optimum settings, there’s no denying it can capture a great deal of detail.

Canon’s clearly still playing the Megapixel numbers game though, and while the G10 can record a lot of detail at its lowest sensitivity and largest aperture, it begs the question whether there’ll be compromise at higher ISOs – to find out, head onto our Canon G10 High ISO results page. Alternatively, if you’re interested to see whether shooting in RAW can unveil greater detail still (hint – it can), first scroll down to the bottom of this page.