OP
RLight
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Senior Member
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Posts: 4,427
Re: For the weary pro (pocket)
1
AdamT wrote:
HappySnapperUK wrote:
Thanks for the really interesting review of this camera and opinions from others. I have been looking at the G5X MK II recently. My Sony RX100 MK1 has failed due to sand ingress. I shoot Jpeg (I dont enjoy editing) mainly on the beach and around the coast in a variety of weather conditions. I know this camera isnt weather sealed but is it any less prone to sucking in dust, dirt etc than the Sony? I am really struggling to find a pocketable camera with decent zoom and good IQ that is suitable for my use. I found the zoom range on the Sony a bit limiting.
I`d never buy this camera for JPG output, its smeary and leaves heavy speckles in deep blue skies even at base ISO , in RAW in a decent converter like Capture one it rocks big time and you get to overexpose / pull back to take advantage of the cameras highlight recovery to get clean shadows but for some reason canon really held back on the JPG engine in the compacts (even the G1X-III) compared to the later EOS-M series (which actually DO produce fine detail in JPG) ..
Some may say "if you don`t pixel peep, its great " - but then so is a Phone - Just sayin' ..
I agree with Adam here on shoot RAW, but, the reality is the straight out of camera colors in JPEG of the Canon G5X II outweigh the quirk regarding overly aggressive noise reduction compared to say Sony RX100 (any) which have less aggressive noise reduction, but poor color rendition. I'd still buy a G5X II over a Sony RX100 series in this regard.
But yes, you would do best to shoot RAW, and even dump them into Lightroom and apply auto levels with Canon color match and call it a day. That'll get you 90-95% there in most cases anyways without being a Lightroom king/queen as the camera itself does a great job at auto white balance meaning you rarely have to correct it, if ever frankly, and the auto-exposure / metering of the camera is also good, as is Lightroom's metering of the RAWs. YMMV with other post processors.
DPR hints that RAW is the way to go with the G5X II in their review as well. I'll say you don't have to shoot RAW, but you'd be (very) wise to do so.
Even if you plan to shoot just JPEG, do yourself a favor? Shoot JPEG+RAW, or C-RAW even (lighter files with virtually zero penalty in RAW latitude for the savings) and keep the RAW or C-RAW files around for some day when you feel like processing them in the future. I do this myself (shoot both, and "double back" on the shots of interest in RAW and process those). Again, Lightroom with Auto levels makes REALLY quick work though where on G5X II files the most I find myself pulling the sliders is on exposure every now and again after Auto application. LR handles G5X II RAWs well. I can't say this about all cameras and Lightroom. Many of the new Canon's need DPP4 > TIFF > LR for best results (M6 II or EOS R's), other Canon's like the M50 Mark II, you should never touch with LR, and stay in DPP4.
All to say you have wonderful RAW conversion support for the G5X II without ever leaving Adobe, which is great for ease of use, and speed of handling.