Despite its complexity, the G12 is remarkably easy to use, owing to a menu system that's consistent with the ones used on . For the most part, physical buttons, dials, and scroll wheels handle the manual controls: A double-decker dial on the top of the camera lets you select a shooting mode or custom preset, and adjust the ISO setting anywhere from 100 to 3200; and another top-mounted dial provides fast access to exposure compensation settings.

The back of the camera hosts one-touch access buttons for selecting focus areas and light metering, and an "asterisk button" locks the auto-exposure and auto-focus. You can adjust aperture, shutter, and other manual settings by using either a front-mounted horizontal scroll wheel on the camera's grip or a back-mounted circular scroll wheel that doubles as the G12's menu navigation pad.

If you can deal with its slightly larger-than-average body, you'll find that the PowerShot G12 is a terrific camera in its class. Its only potential drawbacks are a relatively narrow maximum aperture of F2.4 and a somewhat slow burst mode speed of 2 shots per second with autofocus turned off and 0.7 shots per second with autofocus turned on. The G12's combination of manual controls, fun features, useful and well-constructed hardware, and excellent performance are extraordinary.