G1xII review from a former G2/G10/G11/G12/10D/20D/50D/7D user

This is a long post.... Wanted to share some of my thoughts on the G1x II camera after owning it for the better part of a year and using it as my main camera after downsizing my Dslr kit for more simplicity.

Though no longer, was a pro photographer for many years: weddings, darkroom work early on after college, then worked 13 years at a car photography studio shooting car catalogs and advertising and then heavy into the retouching and post end.

Have been selling off my Canon dslr kit because I no longer want to carry a bag of stuff anymore, and have, like many, been looking for the holy grail - one camera that's good enough to do most of what I might encounter.

The LX100 and G1x II were the two cameras I was thinking of, but chose the Canon for a few reasons:

• Movable LCD: I prefer the tilting instead of the swivel, as it's quicker to move for a low or high angle shot than the articulating variety imo. Plus, with all of my G series cameras that had the articulating, I always felt compelled to fold it inwards to avoid scratches.

• Lens hood: far as I could tell, the LX100 did not have any ability to have a lens hood installed; I could be wrong about that.

• Lens range: 120mm equivalent is quite a bit more important to me, especially when thinking of subject isolation considering the sensor size, which is relatively huge in a compact, but still a crop sensor in principle.

• Built in flash: On camera flash haters be darned - it is handy for fill at times and the G1x II flash allows for a good amount of bounce which is nice for both vert and horiz portraits.
• Built-in lens cap: self explanatory, handy to have.

Those reasons alone were enough to sway me away from the promises of a bit better quality and the video capabilities. If image quality was the end all be all for us all, we'd all be shooting with Nikon 800's or Phase Ones backs.

I never understand why folks suggest the RX100 line in comparison to the G1x as it's in an entirely different class size-wise; I wish the G1x was just a bit bigger actually, though I do have large hands. All that said, the Canon G1x II feels like a camera in need of a few firmware updates.

• Image quality is great. Better than my 50D in all respects, even with a quality prime lens.

• Buttons and controls are lacking - less well designed than the G12 I had... firmware could fix some of that. Can't stand having to use the fiddly rear control dial - pain in the butt.
• focus in general is ok, though at times it will not lock and you have to rotate the camera to lock in, then back to shoot... in low light it's not that great but you can work around it; wish manual focus was actually usable
• The dual rings are great, though as noted, the click ring has some serious reaction lag here and there. but even silly-er are the weird limitation in assigning functions to them, for instance, in AV mode, the front ring can be set for aperture, but then the click ring cannot be set for only exp. compensation - only aperture + Exp compensation?? Likewise, in M mode, the two front rings cannot be set for simply shutter and aperture... LX100 anyone??
• Manual focus is ridiculous! Many many many turns of the ring to cover the focus range - maybe the worst focus by wire implementation? too bad....
• Wifi sucks - what a pain to connect, and the app is overly simplistic and limiting.
• Wish it had a PC port, as is, no way to have a studio flash hooked up AND use the EVF.
• Menu system is not as well organized as the D series of SLR cameras.
• Battery life not as bad as some say, I've shot easily 300+ images and some video and a lot of review on a single battery.
• The EVF is a quality unit that is nice in some situations; the ability to use like a waist level gives it an advantage over the built-in units imo.

In my opinion, it still seems to be the only choice for a single camera that hits all the basics with the fewest limitations. What other camera offers a high quality fast 24-120mm range in a single package?

I'll say again that subject isolation is super important to me, so the upper zoom range is huge, along with the ability to have some reasonable control to lesson depth of field due to sensor size and aperture. It's built like a tank, with some familiarity, you can achieve a shooting flow and the the images are pretty darn close to slr quality.

I'm keeping a few of my slr lenses to try with an M3 in case it ever comes here, and the fact that the EVF works with both makes it a better value imo...

I will qualify all of the above by saying I bought the setup used with the camera, hood, EVF, extra Canon battery, and a leather Canon Japan G1X II case for about $635. Great deal; would I have bought it all at retail - near $1200? not sure....

Anyways, that's my take on the camera at the moment...Thanks, JT