My fall trip to Zim has become good excuse to upgrade my cameras. Since i have decided not to lug around a full size DSLR, my research has led me to the Canon G12 and one of Canon's Pocket cameras (yet to be decided)to share between me and my wife. Was in the store today comparing models and wondering about the G12 will it give me that much better of a quality picture then say one of the SX series? These small cameras offer so much I'm wondering if the G12 is even needed.
Any help appreciated Thanks

The Canon G12 is a great camera, better than any of the smaller ones offered by Canon.

Problem with it is not much zoom.

If you look at me hunt report of this year, a lot of the photos were taken by the Panasonic TZ series camera - I think they have just made a TZ30 available.

These have a long zoom - around 18X. Which I prefer to have while on safari.

Also, they take fantastic Macro photos too.

If your wife is willing to take a slightly bigger camera, which do take much better pictures, I can highly recommend the Sony NEX7 or the Nikon V1.

Thanks for the helpful advice

Check out the new Canon G series. They have a much larger sensor in them than the G12, it is almost APS-C sized. Nice cameras.

Another miniature mega-zoom is the Sony Cybershot DSC HX-9V, for around $280 at B&H Photo.