Greg Matthews61547
Well-known member
After 10,000 pics, will sell this one. Bought just before a trip to Europe last summer. The camera is a mix of good and bad, but the bad is about picture artifacts, and outweighs the good when it shows up. Good is it's a responsive camera (compared to Nikon's). Controls are designed to get to things you change often easily. Picture resolution is apparently excellent. Highlight treatment (clipping) is excellent - compared to terrible on say Nikon 4500. Battery life is excellent. LCD is bright and clear.
The not so good. CA ruins many shots, it can be 10 pixels wide and is cyan, ugly, impossible to remove. Flare is terrible, meaning bright areas bleed and pollute, so a shot through a tree the sky peeking through the cracks completely washes out the detail of the tree. Focus in low light is not possible. Nikon's get a bad rap, but this camera below certain light will not focus no matter how you set it. Color balance is in the ballpark, but quality of color is terrible compared to any Nikon. Cartoonish pics are the norm. Too much saturation. Colors tend toward cyan (not a natural color). Even set to reduce saturation, colors are not good. Few pics look natural. Noise is marginally acceptable at 50, unacceptable at higher ISO. That's why they limit long shutter to 15s. Anything longer would be useless. I have the wide adapter. Quality isn't great, and adds to already unacceptable CA.
Yes, I took 10,000 shots in Europe. My shots with Nikon 990 and 995 in previous years are more pleasing due to no CA and far superior color. The higher resolution of the G5 was what I was driven by, but buying this camera was an expensive mistake for me. I have Epson 2200 and print large, where CA cannot be missed. If you print small or only view on computer, you might not find as objectionable.
But it is responsive. Now having owned both (Nikon 950/990/995/4500 and Canon G5), Nikon is far better for landscape photography (color especially), Canon for sports (fast response).
I will replace this with Nikon 5400 for vacations, and will get Nikon D2H for a responsive camera (I do more and more sports).
The not so good. CA ruins many shots, it can be 10 pixels wide and is cyan, ugly, impossible to remove. Flare is terrible, meaning bright areas bleed and pollute, so a shot through a tree the sky peeking through the cracks completely washes out the detail of the tree. Focus in low light is not possible. Nikon's get a bad rap, but this camera below certain light will not focus no matter how you set it. Color balance is in the ballpark, but quality of color is terrible compared to any Nikon. Cartoonish pics are the norm. Too much saturation. Colors tend toward cyan (not a natural color). Even set to reduce saturation, colors are not good. Few pics look natural. Noise is marginally acceptable at 50, unacceptable at higher ISO. That's why they limit long shutter to 15s. Anything longer would be useless. I have the wide adapter. Quality isn't great, and adds to already unacceptable CA.
Yes, I took 10,000 shots in Europe. My shots with Nikon 990 and 995 in previous years are more pleasing due to no CA and far superior color. The higher resolution of the G5 was what I was driven by, but buying this camera was an expensive mistake for me. I have Epson 2200 and print large, where CA cannot be missed. If you print small or only view on computer, you might not find as objectionable.
But it is responsive. Now having owned both (Nikon 950/990/995/4500 and Canon G5), Nikon is far better for landscape photography (color especially), Canon for sports (fast response).
I will replace this with Nikon 5400 for vacations, and will get Nikon D2H for a responsive camera (I do more and more sports).