White Balance & Colour
Canon compact cameras are widely respected for producing images with excellent colour definition, and the PowerShot G1 X is no exception. There is a full complement of default white-balance settings, as well as two custom modes.
AWB is the one setting most photographers will tend to leave the camera set to. I found it to be very reliable. Even when shooting in snowy conditions, the AWB setting left images with a good neutral white balance. The only images that show a slightly cold blue hue were those that I deliberately underexposed to preserve some highlight detail.
The usual range of Canon colour preset settings are on offer in the G1 X, but sadly a problem I have found with other PowerShot models remains. Although the black & white setting is generally good, there is no option for adjusting it to add more contrast or any colour filtered effects. There is a custom colour setting, but reducing the saturation does not turn the image to monochrome.
Rather, it just offers a slightly desaturated colour image. I realise this is a minor gripe, but it is one that I hope Canon will rectify, especially as the monochrome modes in its EOS cameras are excellent, with many different contrast options.
