Bye Nikon, hello Canon G2?

Joe said:

Thanks

wireless200 said:

Mark Wieser said:

Just how "good" is the G2?

Click to expand...

I was close to ordering the cp5000; almost ordered site unseen.
After looking over the specs and early reviews I went with the g2.

I looked at a cp5000 in the store last week and it was okay. The
quality seemed good though the size and buttons were a bit small
for my taste.

The g2 is pretty good IMO. I was long time (20+ years) Minolta SLR
user and never thought I go digital at least not until the digital
slr's came down in price.

At this point, I pretty much on board with digital cameras. For
many of the photos I take, the g2 compares favorably with an SLR
and the latitude in manipulating the photo in photoshop is the deal
closer.

-David

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Warren Fernandez said:

I don't believe Canon offers an underwater housing option for the
G2, so are you intending to purchase some sort of 3rd party option?
(and would you mind sharing the link to such a company?

Canon does offer an underwater housing (to 30m) with the S30/S40,
but no external flash attachment. ...and from the little I have
read up on the topic, without an external flash you may as well not
even bother to take the shot...especially in the case of macro I
would think.

Looking over the product line here in Japan (where I currently
live), it was kinda funny because the only camera I could find that
had both an underwater housing and external flash as maker options
was the Sony P5, which offers almost no manual functionality. (go
figure...I really wonder how many serious underwater photographers
would use an all-auto point and shoot...?) I presume the really
serious folks all use 3rd party products, which I am guessing are
not cheap (due to limited production volume).

best regards,
warren

Joe said:

Thanks

wireless200 said:

Mark Wieser said:

Just how "good" is the G2?

Click to expand...

I was close to ordering the cp5000; almost ordered site unseen.
After looking over the specs and early reviews I went with the g2.

I looked at a cp5000 in the store last week and it was okay. The
quality seemed good though the size and buttons were a bit small
for my taste.

The g2 is pretty good IMO. I was long time (20+ years) Minolta SLR
user and never thought I go digital at least not until the digital
slr's came down in price.

At this point, I pretty much on board with digital cameras. For
many of the photos I take, the g2 compares favorably with an SLR
and the latitude in manipulating the photo in photoshop is the deal
closer.

-David

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Mark Wieser said:

Wow,

Never thought I'd be posting this on a Canon forum -- but, here
goes...

I'm a "diehard" Nikon fan...shot Nikon SLR's & Digitals for
years...just purchased the CP5000 -- and I'm not happy!

Why? Because I also purchased a Canon S30 for my wife and it seems
to be significantly out-performing my 5 MegaPixel Nikon when it
comes to exposures (specifically indoor flash)...

So...here's the million dollar question to you Canon G2 owners out
there...

Just how "good" is the G2? Is the noise level as low as the S30?
How about the quality of exposures? Does the G2 deliver results
comparable or superior to the S30?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

jhaze said:

So, do a focus lock prior to the shot. Press the shutter button
down halfway while square is centered on an object at distance you
want focused on (if you are close to subject press macro button
first). When square goes green press in and hold manual focus
button and view distance scale. Since the manual focus button is
hard to press this is a little difficult. check to see where the
scale has focused to and see if it more or less matches your
subject distance by guess (for example I can guess that I'm about 5
feet from subject roughly...I check to see that distance scale
reads about 5 feet in LCD as a double check). After this be sure
the MF Icon is displayed in lower right of LCD- this indicates
focus is locked and will not refocus when you next fully press
shutter button.

I use fully manual focus quite a bit. do this by guessing subject
distance. Then I press manual focus button in and use the 4 way
button and keep adjusting until scale reads correct distance.
There's not a lot of resolution on this scale, and it's hard to
zero in on the distance you want. But it is a good indicator of
whether you have somehow got it focus on infinity when it should be
on 5 feet say. I also try to use as small an aperture as I can,
especially at small subject distances.
Jim H.

Click to expand...

Mark Wieser said:

Wow,

Never thought I'd be posting this on a Canon forum -- but, here
goes...

I'm a "diehard" Nikon fan...shot Nikon SLR's & Digitals for
years...just purchased the CP5000 -- and I'm not happy!

Why? Because I also purchased a Canon S30 for my wife and it seems
to be significantly out-performing my 5 MegaPixel Nikon when it
comes to exposures (specifically indoor flash)...

So...here's the million dollar question to you Canon G2 owners out
there...

Just how "good" is the G2? Is the noise level as low as the S30?
How about the quality of exposures? Does the G2 deliver results
comparable or superior to the S30?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Sylvain C. said:

S.

jhaze said:

So, do a focus lock prior to the shot. Press the shutter button
down halfway while square is centered on an object at distance you

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

SdeGat said:

SdeGat said:

I use fully manual focus quite a bit. do this by guessing subject
distance. Then I press manual focus button in and use the 4 way
button and keep adjusting until scale reads correct distance.

Click to expand...

s.

SdeGat said:

Jim H.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

jhaze said:

Michael Skvarenina said:

I am a G2 owner and have experienced 2 major problems/issues with
this camera:

1, Overexposed pictures when using the flash, especially when
shooting a subject against a dark background. Seems there's an
active thread as we speak over on the Nikon forum about the same
issue. Usually what I get is a highly washed out subject and a
dark background.

Click to expand...

Well, the G2 is doing what it's supposed to do, isn't it? It's in
evaluative mode, but sees a lot of dark background which takes up
most of frame and so tries to make the dark background lighter and
suceeds in throwing out a blast of full intensity trying to make a
night scene look "medium grey". It by definition washes out a
smaller foreground subject.

So by putting it in spot metering mode and centering the square
fully on the foreground subject, then pressing the " " button for
flash FE lock, you can lock in flash exposure and recompose frame.
Doing this will force the camera to only use your foreground
subject for exposure instead of a huge expanse of "black night"
background.

Well, try it out anyway. This is how all my other camras work, I
haven't done any night scenes yet with the G2

jhaze said:

2, Slow focus and out of focus pictures. At times the G2 won't
even get a focus and you end up standing there holding the shutter
button down waiting and waiting for the camera to fire, and your
subjects wondering when the camera is going to flash.

Other times it appears to get a focus and takes the picture (the
quick review in the LCD look good) but when uploaded, you discover
that the focus wasn't quite that accurate.

Click to expand...

So, do a focus lock prior to the shot. Press the shutter button
down halfway while square is centered on an object at distance you
want focused on (if you are close to subject press macro button
first). When square goes green press in and hold manual focus
button and view distance scale. Since the manual focus button is
hard to press this is a little difficult. check to see where the
scale has focused to and see if it more or less matches your
subject distance by guess (for example I can guess that I'm about 5
feet from subject roughly...I check to see that distance scale
reads about 5 feet in LCD as a double check). After this be sure
the MF Icon is displayed in lower right of LCD- this indicates
focus is locked and will not refocus when you next fully press
shutter button.

I use fully manual focus quite a bit. do this by guessing subject
distance. Then I press manual focus button in and use the 4 way
button and keep adjusting until scale reads correct distance.
There's not a lot of resolution on this scale, and it's hard to
zero in on the distance you want. But it is a good indicator of
whether you have somehow got it focus on infinity when it should be
on 5 feet say. I also try to use as small an aperture as I can,
especially at small subject distances.
Jim H.

Click to expand...

DigitalCrazy said:

Not sure how good the G2 is compared to the S30 but I do know we
tried 5 digital cameras (one of which was the Nikon 995 and others
being Olympus. Starting with the D-510 up to the E100 RS) and took
them all back. We got the G2 last night and I can't begin to say
how PLEASED we are. WOW! Thanks Canon

--
Tyler

Click to expand...

jhaze said:

Yes and no Sylvian. I do the manual focus a lot now, and it's
becoming second nature. It takes about 20 seconds give or take. It
would take half that time if the G2 had a proper focusing ring,
like an SLR lens. Or even if the manual focus button was easier to
press and the 4 button scroll had more resolution..

I can make it take zero seconds though. This was a technique I used
by using a little Rollei 35, which has no viewfinder focus aid at
all...you have to guess the distance to subject and set the focus
ring to that. You would think that guessing subject distance is
difficult, but try it for an hour or two and it's easy.

To apply this to the G2 however, you can prefocus. Lets say youre 5
feet from a tree and you want to take pictures of people who will
be passing next to the tree in a few seconds/ minutes. Simply
manually focus to five feet (or use the auto focus on the tree if
you wish and check to see the scale picked it up properly in
viewfinder).

If you need to focus REALLY fast and you're a decent distance away
from the subject, using the hyperfocal distancing method works very
well (do a search for "hyperfocal") If you memorize a few numbers.

You can also "preexposure set" by pointing the camera in spot
metering mode at a subject that is medium gray and pressing " ". I
use medium lit grass or pavement, it works quite well. This is an
old camera trick. But I'm very impressed with evaluative metering
mode, it has evolved quite a bit.

To sum up: Yes it takes longer if you haven't practiced manual
focus with a few other little tricks like guessing distance,
hyperfocal distances, prefocusing, etc. And it is perfectly fine if
you do not wish to do this but rely on the auto focus capability of
the G2. You will certainly have an advantage at say basketball
games and the like. And I really think evaluative metering is neat.
Auto focus/exposure has it's place, but I like manual controls
because I know what the camera is doing. Often times if I think I'm
going to miss a shot I'll rely on auto focus/exposure in Tv or Av
mode for a quick shot; then I go back and repeat the shot manually
focusing/spot metering/ exposure comp in the same mode.

Apologies for the legnth
Jim H.

Click to expand...

Tyler Maudlin said:

Not sure how good the G2 is compared to the S30 but I do know we
tried 5 digital cameras (one of which was the Nikon 995 and others
being Olympus. Starting with the D-510 up to the E100 RS) and took
them all back. We got the G2 last night and I can't begin to say
how PLEASED we are. WOW! Thanks Canon

Click to expand...

• Bad low light focusing.
• Too much noise in the photo's.