G7X macro focus an embarrassment - please tell me why

geepondy wrote:

I believe this was discussed some time ago but I can't find the thread. My G7X close wide angle macro focus results is totally unusable. A small center part is in focus but quickly drops off to extremely blurry corners, making the picture totally unusable. It reminds me of those miniaturization filters shots I see. Please explain why. Whatever the reason I know my G15 does a much better job. Not only can I focus much closer but while the corners may be a little blurry, the picture as a whole, is much more usable. The same undesirable effect occurs with the G5X which of course shares the same lens and filter. Recently our much beloved G12 work camera broke and was replaced with a G5X. We take pictures of electronic sub assemblies and at times really need to focus close and expose finite detail such as solder connections, etc. and the G12 was so much better at this.

What is the workaround? If you pull the camera back and zoom in, you can only zoom so close before it will no longer focus. We can't get nearly as close and blow up the desired area of detail as we can with the G12 and G15. We're really bummed especially as these little gems of cameras are hard to come by now.

Here is an example by what I mean. This is with the G7X and unfortunately I don't have my G15 handy to do a comparison shot but trust me, it will do a much better job under the same circumstances. This actually is not the worst example as I backed the camera off a bit from its closest focusing point.

Sounds like you are doing specialised commercial macro work and you need a specialised camera for it. An ILC with a dedicated macro lens seems a better idea than one of these miniature large sensor cameras which will always be a bit of a lens compromise getting it all so small. The days of the 1/1.7" are gone and 1" is always going to be a diminished depth of field. The only macro lens I have is the Olympus 12-50 and this is much better than a compact as you can stand farther back from the subject.  A decent telephoto with macro would I think perform much better than your G's.

1" is very much of a hybrid between compact sensors and the larger ILC sensors and the latter give you no close focus at all with the standard lens.

What about a bridge camera which is one area where 1/2.3" survives as these usually can do macro and can have fast lenses at short focal lengths.