The Pro1 is a substantial machine, slightly smaller but more chunky than Canon's previous PowerShot flagship, the G5. Its zoom lens (which for you camera nerds is an L series providing a 35mm-equivalent range of 28mm to 200mm) extends almost obscenely at maximum focal length. In place of zoom buttons, you set your telephoto the old fashioned way, by twisting a zoom ring on the lens. (You cannot, however, adjust the telephoto during a shot.) In manual settings, you can also adjust focus with this ring by holding the MF button down at the same time. The controls are well designed to be used without looking so that you can keep your eyes on the important stuff going on beyond the lens.

The pictures this camera takes are stunning. Using medium zoom with automatic settings, I took an outdoor close-up of my beloved. I then embarrassed her by showing off my shot, zooming in to get the details of her skin and pulling back for the contrast of the blurred woodsy background. I set up the camera on a tripod and took pictures of the squirrels, raccoons and other critters who come to our back porch in search of seeds. The zoom lens lets you get in close without bothering them. At night, without a flash, I tweaked things until I found a setting that could give me crisp, though dark, shots of fast moving animals.

I do have two issues with the Pro1. The first is that it comes with a 64MB Compact Flash memory card. When taking pictures of such high resolution (1MB to 3MB each), you'll need a lot more memory, so you'll have to buy a 256MB or 512MB card.

More importantly, there is one area that this camera can't compete: speed. If you shoot soccer games or wild bird safaris, you'll probably be disappointed by this camera's inability to capture action. On the tripod with time to adjust and expose, it does very well, but in the spur of the moment, even in burst mode, it tends to dally.