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My official conclusion on G7

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I wrote in my first impression that using G7 is like playing a miniature accordion. I got a slight crampy feeling to my hand, too, and also felt like the camera was constantly slipping and falling.

The G7 is almost too small, so you have to handle it differently from the older Gs. For example, it is very difficult to take any pictures with one hand only, because that is like playing a really difficult chord with your accordion. You need two hands almost always.

However, when you get used to it, it feels better. Not good, but better. Today I handle it quite quickly and effortlessly, but with two hands. My left hand supports the camera when I make adjustments with the buttons and jog wheel.

You must try it for yourself, but then you should also consider that it will get better over some days. The initial feel was very clumsy at least for me.

Ravalls
 
Just a quick pointer: I am not pushing G7 to anyone. I maintain that it is a deeply flawed product. That is why I posted the garbage pic. So I don't need to make a case for it.

I am saying, however, that the combination of hotshoe, controls, size and IS does make it a pretty usable tool. I don't see any better on the market. The Fuji F30 has much, much better sensor, but without wide converter and hotshoe it won't fit my needs. I might buy it to complement G7, though.

As I wrote, I used the older Gs with external flash, too, because while those cameras had RAW and some good features, they were useless over ISO 100. I couldn't count on them (or my own hands) under about 1/15 seconds, either.

G7 is also useless in many situations, so I am going to use it with similar workarounds. When I do that, I have a pocketable kit with competent flash, IS and 26-210 lens. I like it.

Ravalls
 
Ravalls said:
You must try it for yourself, but then you should also consider
that it will get better over some days. The initial feel was very
clumsy at least for me.

Ravalls
Click to expand...
my fingers also hurt a little bit after holding G7, but I didn't expect otherwise from a "tiny" camera like this.

I'm planning to get a couple of non-slip thin black rubber pads and cut
them to size. They should give me a little more secure grip. Also gonna
look for a sturdy hand strap for my G7.

As for the dial, my current G7 feels a little tighter than the first defective G7 that I got. I wonder if this is a quality control issue... However, I
prefer the tighter dial...

Has anyone noticed that the images LCD viewfinder seems to move less fluidly than the screen on other LCD screens?(A640, SD800IS, for example)
I'm only testing the video shooting function right now...

Thanks!
 
Hi,

Very interesting "small essay". I'm going to buy G7 in near future. My way of thinking about photography is similar to yours. Too bad that Canon thinks in different way. But from the market point of view supercompact can kill DSLR. It's very important that G7 works. I have DSLR and sometimes I'am tired with the big bag of equipment IQ is superb but comfort is important too. Bashing G7 is strange to me. It has one main reason many people want supercompact and so far they cant get it.
Thank you for your essay.

Regards, swnw.
 
I don't have much use for the internal flash, so I don't pay much attention to it. Here are my observations so far:

It is not brilliant in any way. If you want to see a brilliant flash, try the Fuji F30.

It seems to work well enough as a fill flash in outdoor pics. I balanced it with available light like this...



...and the result was okay, but it needed some tweaking with the flash exposure and other parameters.

When I tested in a more normal situation, ie. not macro, the flash performed adequately.



Ravalls
 
Ravalls said:
Big mistake. G7 fits so well in the practical act of digital
capturing that there will be a sea change in the market. People
will always photograph people, and for this job a quality compact
will always be better than a DSLR.
Click to expand...
I can't agree with this at all. To me, shooting people is largely about subject isolation. With the very small apertures available in the G7, it's just incapable of good subject isolation on anything but the smallest targets. Even the S3IS is capable of more subject isolation than the G7 and it's not enough, most of the time.











--
Lee Jay
(see profile for equipment)
 
The depressing part of "journalism" is that it mostly deals with willing subjects. I would like to say that I chase wrongdoers in hot pursuit, but in fact, most of the time my work is about some sort of photo-ops.

So indeed, the subjects stand still and pose. This is actually a big reason why I can work with a camera like this. The shutter lag without flash is considerable (better than older Gs, but still slow) and flash makes it lot worse.

As I wrote before, this is not an action camera. If you need to catch something with your camera and flash, you need DSLR.

Ravalls
 
You are of course right. I should have expressed my self better.

I meant that a high-end compact is better in a candid, informal, personal situation - people photographing people, if you will.

Taking out a DSLR and pointing it to someone is a kind of official act, but shooting with a compact is more like conversation. Compact is about documenting people in their environment, and that is what I get paid for.

DSLR has lots of technical advantages, but compact has lots of social and psychologic advantages.

Ravalls
 
Ravalls said:
You are of course right. I should have expressed my self better.

I meant that a high-end compact is better in a candid, informal,
personal situation - people photographing people, if you will.

Taking out a DSLR and pointing it to someone is a kind of official
act, but shooting with a compact is more like conversation. Compact
is about documenting people in their environment, and that is what
I get paid for.
Click to expand...
There are three things about a dSLR that I like for just this kind of work.

1) When I'm close and point it at someone, they pay attention and people don't walk in front of me. I've noticed that people do walk in front of me when I'm holding the S3. But seeing an SLR with a largeish lens with a hood on it makes people more observant.

2) I have a perfect range from 24-105 with IS which is perfect for close quarters candids and posed shots. You may be able to get this with the wide converter on the G6 but then it's not small anymore.

3) When I don't want people to notice me, I have the 70-200/2.8L IS which gives me plenty of range, speed and IS to be out-of-sight of the people I'm photographing, and I can isolate them from a distance.

Basically, I only use the S3 when taking the dSLRs would be a problem.

--
Lee Jay
(see profile for equipment)
 
Ravalls said:
I meant that a high-end compact is better in a candid, informal,
personal situation - people photographing people, if you will.
...............
........., but compact has lots of
social and psychologic advantages.

Ravalls
Click to expand...
I agree. I've only recently acquired the 30D DSLR. Whenever I take it
out, the expression on people's faces always seem to change. This is
precisely why I got my G7. It's a tiny little camera, by comparison.
People pay no attention when you're shooting with a P&S camera.

Now... only if Minox made a little digital spy camera that I can buy.... :)
 
yeah, but you spent what, 1500 U$S on lenses?

And you still can't carry your camera on your pockets.
 
nanoc said:
yeah, but you spent what, 1500 U$S on lenses?
Click to expand...
More like $5,000.
nanoc said:
And you still can't carry your camera on your pockets.
Click to expand...
Yes, there's a tradeoff. If you want capability, you're going to have to accept a size penalty. But 90% of the shots I take with my dSLRs cannot be taken at all by any point-and-shoot camera.

--
Lee Jay
(see profile for equipment)
 
This is how I view the two cameras that I recently purchased:
30D is my wife, G7 is my mistress.... I love them both, in different
ways.... :) (or is it the other way around, G7 as the wife, since I can
take the wife everywhere.... the 30D as the mistress, since I can only
take her to a few certain places...) oh well....
 
You took his JPEG and corrected white balance.

How does that show that you need RAW to fix white balance?

Just asking. Did I miss something here?

Glenn
 
First, thanks for the time you put in to write your review: I found it very interesting.

I'm tempted by the G7, but only for it's external flash and portability where the DSLR "luggage" is inconvenient. You seem to say theat the G7 has a better hotshoe capability than earlier G series, but I think it's your way of saying that the hotshoe is the one thing that distinguishes the camera from other current p&s cameras out there. I agree.

It's all the other "decontenting" of the G7 compared to what we expected from a revamped version of the G6. When comparing the G7 vs. the G6, I don't see that you get much more besides megapixels --and 10 isn't really what I want on such a small sensor.

If there were no previous G series cameras preceding the G7, many of us would be placing orders though. But things are relative here, and the G7 is hard to get excited about because Canon pulled features that were significant (bigger battery, swivel LCD, RAW, remote, etc.).

A question: if you were choosing a new, in box G6 vs. the G7 for the same money, which would you choose?

--
There are no negatives to digital photography
 
Lee Jay said:


Click to expand...
I'd like to see THIS IMAGE QUALITY on G7, and for now... and ALL the samples I see for now from 10 different sources pro/simple users, the image quality is not at same level quality than these pictures...

My question, does any user of G7 can take this kind of picture and send it to us then we can see a great pictures (they are, really!) or not... I'm affraid with noise reduction technology...

If camera can't do this... then why buy G7 compared to S3IS... for me the 10MPIX compared to 6/8 MPIXELS is NOTHING... just try in photoshop to create a 10 MPIX and after PLACE INSIDE a 8MPIX, you'll see the small difference...

Thanks.
 
Cerdan said:
My question, does any user of G7 can take this kind of picture and
send it to us then we can see a great pictures (they are, really!)
Click to expand...
How is this one?



--
Lee Jay
(see profile for equipment)
 
GlennR said:
You took his JPEG and corrected white balance.
How does that show that you need RAW to fix white balance?
Click to expand...
This time the white balance was only slightly off and therefore correctable as 48bit RGB image with only slight deterioration of image quality. There are reported cases where a magazine has been forced to print images in greyscale because of badly off WB.

Even in this relatively easy case making the high quality correction took a good deal of fine tuning and would have been both more accurate and quicker with RAW. It would be most beneficial to use RAW so that one don’t have to take care of the WB at all in the shooting situation. And WB adjustment is only one of the benefits of RAW.

-Virvatulet
 
Cerdan said:
If camera can't do this... then why buy G7 compared to S3IS...
Click to expand...
All those were taken with a dSLR, not an S3IS.

--
Lee Jay
(see profile for equipment)
 
I know you are mainly into photos, but can you say how the video quality is? Compared to an S3 IS perhaps?

I know G7 is mono sound only, but is the video quality comparable to S3? I personally have a real use for the video function so I'd be very interested in this.
 
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