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G7X: first impressions and a question

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botze

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Recieved my Canon G7X yesterday. Have used it some today. I haven't looked at the images so much yet, but so far I am very impressed with the handling of this camera. To me, coming from EOS M, this camera is blazingly fast! Startup, autofocus, shot-to-shot times... everything is SOOO much faster than the EOS M! I don't understand the reviews talking about sluggish/laggy performance. It is very snappy and fast in the menus as well as when taking and reviewing photos!

I think the user interface is very well designed as well, and the buttons and features has a logical layout. So far, I am very positively surprised regarding the handling!

The one thing I am struggling a bit with is the WiFi menu, this could have been made better. And I cannot find a setting for automatically backing up my photos to e.g. Google Drive. My phone has this feature and I love it, I thought the camera would have it as well. It seems like you have to manually select the photos you want to transfer?

Edit: Oh and I almost forgot - the G7X seems to bump ISO a lot sooner than my EOS M - with the M, when in aperture priority, I often got shutter speeds at 1/10 - 1/20, resulting in blurry images. This seems to bump the ISO at a lot faster shutter speeds. And I love that you can set the auto ISO bump to slow, standard or fast (this was in standard).
 
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Glad you are enjoying the G7X. Those of us who have one know that whilst it's not a perfect camera (none are) it's a lot better than many of the negative reviews, including those of DPReview, make it out to be.

I don't use wifi on it so can't help on that.

Enjoy.
 
botze said:
Edit: Oh and I almost forgot - the G7X seems to bump ISO a lot sooner than my EOS M - with the M, when in aperture priority, I often got shutter speeds at 1/10 - 1/20, resulting in blurry images. This seems to bump the ISO at a lot faster shutter speeds. And I love that you can set the auto ISO bump to slow, standard or fast (this was in standard).
Click to expand...
I remember there is an option about how "fast" do you want the camera to increase the ISO or the shutter time. I will find the page in the manual tomorrow.
 
You can adjust rate of change. Select auto-ISO, then you'll see an onscreen icon to tap on the right side of the display. I believe it can also be set in settings menu.

There's no option to automatically backup as with a mobile phone. It's a manual affair of copying them through the Canon app to phone or PC. I think the most headache free way is to occasionally copy to a folder on your PC or phone set to auto backup.
 
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Yannis1976 said:
Yannis1976 said:
Edit: Oh and I almost forgot - the G7X seems to bump ISO a lot sooner than my EOS M - with the M, when in aperture priority, I often got shutter speeds at 1/10 - 1/20, resulting in blurry images. This seems to bump the ISO at a lot faster shutter speeds. And I love that you can set the auto ISO bump to slow, standard or fast (this was in standard).
Click to expand...
I remember there is an option about how "fast" do you want the camera to increase the ISO or the shutter time. I will find the page in the manual tomorrow.
Click to expand...
 
damian5000 said:
You can adjust rate of change. Select auto-ISO, then you'll see an onscreen icon to tap on the right side of the display. I believe it can also be set in settings menu.

There's no option to automatically backup as with a mobile phone. It's a manual affair of copying them through the Canon app to phone or PC. I think the most headache free way is to occasionally copy to a folder on your PC or phone set to auto backup.
Click to expand...
OK thanks for your reply! At least there is an option to backup all files at once, found it yesterday!



Another question: Yesterday I was shooting pictures of my kids in the snow. All shots were heavily underexposed. An example:



e2155e920e10473e8bfa1486de3f127e.jpg

I know this is challenging for any camera since the snow is so bright. But is there a setting to evaluate the exposure based on focus point and not the entire frame?
 
You might want to go with spot metering, but those are moving subjects, far away, and dark. Best method IMO is use evaluative and the handy exposure comp dial. Quick, easy.

You found a way to copy all images to phone without having to manually select?
 
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damian5000 said:
You might want to go with spot metering, but those are moving subjects, far away, and dark. Best method IMO is use evaluative and the handy exposure comp dial. Quick, easy.

You found a way to copy all images to phone without having to manually select?
Click to expand...
Yes, there was a setting in "Canon Image Gateway" under "Image syncronization" (not sure about the english menu option since I have it in swedish) where you could choose "save to Google Drive". After enabling that, there was a Google Drive option in camera. But this is all very confusing to me, like I said, the WiFi menu could have been made a lot better.

Thank you for your tips! Yes, in that shot the subjects were far away, I chose that one because you could not recognize any people in it, I did not want to publish a close-up of my kids :-) but the same underexposure was in all shots. I found the setting for spot metering! I hope it helps. Otherwise, the exposure copensation dial is very accessible like you said.
 
Re snow under-esposure: This is one of those things where some experience helps - knowing that camera metering wants to expose as if the scene was "neutral gray". So with snow or a bright white beach, for example, the camera meter will want to under-expose to render the bright white as gray. Recognizing a scene like this, the photographer will know he/she is likely going to dial in some + exposure compensation.

And for those cameras that have a "beach" or "snow" scene mode, the above is basically what that scene mode does automatically.

BTW, the "neutral gray" exposure metering thing is also why a pic of a bin of black coal will be gray instead of black - once again the camera is assuming the metered subject is neutral gray and will set the exposure accordingly. So in this case the photog dials in negative ec.
 
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damian5000 said:
Hmm.. I don't see this in the Android version of the Canon apps. It's desktop version? I'm not actually sure I want to sync everything, but it could be handy for the future.
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I haven't used the app, I am talking about Canon Image Gateway on the web. Haven't you used it?

www.canon.com/cig/
 
I've used it in the past. It had me jump through like 20 hoops for verification and such...and I just gave up on it. It seemed extremely dated. Maybe they've made improvements over the last year.
 
damian5000 said:
I've used it in the past. It had me jump through like 20 hoops for verification and such...and I just gave up on it. It seemed extremely dated. Maybe they've made improvements over the last year.
Click to expand...
It IS dated and cumbersome, but I thought you HAD to go through it, the camera told me to go there as soon as i pressed the WiFi button...
 
botze said:
damian5000 said:
I've used it in the past. It had me jump through like 20 hoops for verification and such...and I just gave up on it. It seemed extremely dated. Maybe they've made improvements over the last year.
Click to expand...
It IS dated and cumbersome, but I thought you HAD to go through it, the camera told me to go there as soon as i pressed the WiFi button...
Click to expand...
You very well may have to go through it. I generally just pop out the SD and copy them over. Seems easier to me. But if you've already setup and found the sync all magic, maybe that will work for you. I've been thinking about organizing my photos, reducing them all to 4mp or so and getting them all in one set of folders to sync to Google drive... It'll be a day long task... I've got duplicates and pics scattered on like 6 different SD cards and multiple folders throughout my PC.
 
damian5000 said:
damian5000 said:
damian5000 said:
I've used it in the past. It had me jump through like 20 hoops for verification and such...and I just gave up on it. It seemed extremely dated. Maybe they've made improvements over the last year.
Click to expand...
It IS dated and cumbersome, but I thought you HAD to go through it, the camera told me to go there as soon as i pressed the WiFi button...
Click to expand...
You very well may have to go through it. I generally just pop out the SD and copy them over. Seems easier to me. But if you've already setup and found the sync all magic, maybe that will work for you. I've been thinking about organizing my photos, reducing them all to 4mp or so and getting them all in one set of folders to sync to Google drive... It'll be a day long task... I've got duplicates and pics scattered on like 6 different SD cards and multiple folders throughout my PC.
Click to expand...
Yeah that might be easier if you just want to put your photos on a hard drive. But I like to put my photos as well as videos on Google Drive/YouTube and easily share them with my family, then it is a lot faster if I can put them online directly from the camera.
 
One can add the direct Flickr upload function inside the G7x playback to Wifi menu (button up). Flickr capacity for free storage is quite high, so I added the flickr option to the menu, next to my smartphone and tablet and the gateway Canon included. Smartphone and/or Tablet can be used to upload to Google drive, Dropbox... etc. Of course finding the right Wifi network outside your own house can be a challenge on the camera, direct connection to smartphone & tablet via Wifi is much simpler. Especially with a smartphone on a 4G LTE network subsequent uploading in the background by Wifi or mobile network to any cloud service like Google drive is fast and automatic. It is the reason on holidays I often use my phone/tablet as intermediary device when uploading. In a way I profit from the fact the Android software environment is continuously advancing, unlike the firmware based camera software, where we know Canon will not update on compacts, not even the premium ones. :-(

Wifi menu's and the interaction with the Canon camera app (Android for me) are not the most advanced but work. Sony camera's seem easier to work with as far as Wifi functions & Apps are concerned.... :-|

PS One of the reasons Smartphones used as camera's more and more is the seamless integration in either Android or Apple software and its App world behind them. Social media publication of pictures and video's have taken over the shoebox with photo's and albums, to which communication devices have continuous access!

--
Longterm photographer from way back in the 50's via analog SLR's, the Canon Epoca, different 35mm & APS compacts and three generations of video equipment. After using the Fuji F30, changed to high end Canon compacts both with (F)HD-video included ( IXUS 300HS & G7X).
 
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Donthuis said:
One can add the direct Flickr upload function inside the G7x playback to Wifi menu (button up). Flickr capacity for free storage is quite high, so I added the flickr option to the menu, next to my smartphone and tablet and the gateway Canon included. Smartphone and/or Tablet can be used to upload to Google drive, Dropbox... etc. Of course finding the right Wifi network outside your own house can be a challenge on the camera, direct connection to smartphone & tablet via Wifi is much simpler. Especially with a smartphone on a 4G LTE network subsequent uploading in the background by Wifi or mobile network to any cloud service like Google drive is fast and automatic. It is the reason on holidays I often use my phone/tablet as intermediary device when uploading. In a way I profit from the fact the Android software environment is continuously advancing, unlike the firmware based camera software, where we know Canon will not update on compacts, not even the premium ones. :-(

Wifi menu's and the interaction with the Canon camera app (Android for me) are not the most advanced but work. Sony camera's seem easier to work with as far as Wifi functions & Apps are concerned.... :-|

PS One of the reasons Smartphones used as camera's more and more is the seamless integration in either Android or Apple software and its App world behind them. Social media publication of pictures and video's have taken over the shoebox with photo's and albums, to which communication devices have continuous access!
Click to expand...
 
Donthuis said:
PS One of the reasons Smartphones used as camera's more and more is the seamless integration in either Android or Apple software and its App world behind them. Social media publication of pictures and video's have taken over the shoebox with photo's and albums, to which communication devices have continuous access!
Click to expand...
I totally agree and despair that the traditional compact camera makers don't seem to see this and put some real processing power into their compacts if they are to compete. But perhaps it is just too expensive for them.
 
In the manual a description is contained on how to link a smartphone to the G7x. Be aware the smartphone is identified by something not resembling the smartphone name from the manufacturer. So my Motorola Moto G LTE has an XT1039 identity and my Samsung Tablet someting like ST 21 20... (have to look it up)

You will find this name soon enough when following the manual. Once defined the G7x will remember the ID's

Longterm photographer from way back in the 50's via analog SLR's, the Canon Epoca, different 35mm & APS compacts and three generations of video equipment. After using the Fuji F30, changed to high end Canon compacts both with (F)HD-video included ( IXUS 300HS & G7X).
 
davesurrey said:
Donthuis said:
PS One of the reasons Smartphones used as camera's more and more is the seamless integration in either Android or Apple software and its App world behind them. Social media publication of pictures and video's have taken over the shoebox with photo's and albums, to which communication devices have continuous access!
Click to expand...
I totally agree and despair that the traditional compact camera makers don't seem to see this and put some real processing power into their compacts if they are to compete. But perhaps it is just too expensive for them.
Click to expand...
Integrated circuits cost next to nothing nowadays. Maybe Canon is still locked in to their legacy environment. It is hard to except by camera builders that their chips and software should follow the outside standards. It is not about processing power though, the image processing is what is loading their processors, the communication functions do not require anything near this level. Sony as Smartphone producer recognises this much better. Let's hope they will not exit the smartphone & tablet markets, because it will let them loose this expertise.

--
Longterm photographer from way back in the 50's via analog SLR's, the Canon Epoca, different 35mm & APS compacts and three generations of video equipment. After using the Fuji F30, changed to high end Canon compacts both with (F)HD-video included ( IXUS 300HS & G7X).
 
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