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Is G1X MkIII a great lightweight hiking /landscape/ travel camera?

Started Feb 13, 2020 | Discussions thread
MiguelATF
MiguelATF Contributing Member • Posts: 516
Re: Is G1X MkIII a great lightweight hiking /landscape/ travel camera?
3

Short answer: YES.  It really is.

For my money, and taste, and photographic tendencies, it is, simply, the BEST lightweight semi-pocketable hiking/landscape/travel camera I have EVER used.  Period.

My own list of great lightweight cameras which I have shot with and owned, includes both the tiny lightweight mirrorless Lumix bodies - the GM1 and the GM5 - the Ricoh GR APS-C compact - the equally brilliant and fixed lens Nikon Coolpix A - the 1st-generation Canon EOS-M compact mirrorless (with the brilliant, tiny 22mm pancake lens) - all of which were (and still are) truly fine lightweight travel/hiking/landscape cameras.

The G1x Mark III is as good as any of them and, in quite a few small but subtle ways, even better. The zoom lens is wonderful and, at least in my copy, very very sharp. Image quality is superior including that oh-so-hard-to-define category of microcontrast. The APS-C sensor which the Canon engineers squeezed into this tiny body is a fine one. Additionally, it's weatherproof (a big plus for traveling) - and beautifully built: the camera is small but feels professionally constructed, unlike some compact cameras.

The only theoretical downside is that the zoom lens isn't quite fast enough for very low-light (available light) shooting - although I actually have used it, successfully, in both night and bad-lighting situations. But that's it's only real defect and it has never been a problem for me.

Some reviewers have complained that the lens isn't quite as sharp as some of its competitors. I suspect this may be due to the differences between different copies of the same lens. You can certainly argue that a fixed prime lens high-end compact - like the Ricoh GR with its 28mm lens - will give you greater IQ than a zoom - and Fujifilm's latest fixed-lens X100 iterations have faster lenses, though they are not zooms. But I'm splitting hairs here.

For me - and this is admittedly a personal and heretical viewpoint - the only small APS-C travel-worthy cameras which come close to what the G1xiii does ... are two Leica's - the Vario X and the CL - both of which cost quite a bit more and (for me at least) neither of which does everything the G1x can.

I'm attaching an image I took with my G1x Mkiii a few years ago - just as a sample of its overall IQ -

Coche de los Muertos

I'm not a pixel peeper nor a person who likes or is fond of camera tech - but for me, this tiny camera with its small zoom lens - is my travel camera of choice.

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