Professional compact that's nearest to DSLR

I wanted a compact (non-changeable lens) that can be convenient to carry around and give me reasonable performance similar to my larger DSLRs, including my full-frame ones. I am not much of a Canon fan as all my DSLRs are Nikon, however, I bought the G1X MkII due to its specifications and Nikon has nothing close to it. I looked at other choices including Sony’s RX100 MkII but decided on the newer G1X MkII. When the original G1X first came out, the specification simply put me off and I was glad that I waited for the MkII.

Whether you believe or not, the 1.5” sensor coupled with the fast lens do give you a reasonable degree of depth-of-field for portraits. In fact, the blurred background for portraits is one of the best for compacts I have ever seen. This new lens 24-120mm is much more useful and the workable macro distance are welcome improvements from its predecessor.

Another good design feature of the G1X MkII lens is that it includes an in-built lens cover, whereas some other competitors have a separate lens cover which can be lost easily (not much good for an all-in-one compact) or jam the lens from extending as you try to turn on the camera quickly.

On the sensor front, I am slightly disappointed with the mega-pixels count, I would have expected an increase to 16MP, but alas Canon probably was more worried about excessive noise creeping in at low light photography and therefore decided to keep the sensor at 13MP. In a sense that may have been the right decision as low light photography from this G1X MkII produces probably the best quality I have ever seen from a compact.

One interesting feature which I have discovered about the flash, was the way that the flash was constructed and pops up. I could manually point the flash upwards for a ceiling bounce rather than a direct flash. I am not sure whether that’s a fluke in the design or it was on purpose, but the result of the photo is the flash light being less harsh on the subject although one might need to adjust the exposure to compensate for the slight loss in light.

Whether it’s a patent issue or what, but why on earth the G1X MkII did not include a panoramic assist scene mode, whereas all other compacts come as a standard feature? Even my mobile phone has a panoramic mode. Very disappointed on Canon in this regard.

The G1X MkII comes with a star-time-lapse mode for shooting time-lapse video for stars trail. It’s a somewhat half-hearted effort for time-lapse shooting, which is very unfortunate.

I am, however, relatively pleased with its pull-out LCD display, and being able to flip up (for selfies and low ground level shooting), as well as pulling downwards 45 degrees for holding the camera above-head for shooting. Extremely useful.

All in all, I find the G1X MkII quite a useful compact especially as a carry-around replacement for the more bulky DSLR, and is definitely in the realm for professionals. It is, however, let down by some of the bells and whistles for point and shoot one would have expected from a decent compact camera.