You might be able to.... if Dpreview redoes their studio test shots for the G1X. They actually have done this for several recent models that were reviewed right before they changed their test charts.
I would think that dpreview would do direct comparison as they did in the past. But we still have imagingresource.com as well for direct comparisons once they tested it.
The G1 X is already there.
I don't think this is related to lens price, it is first of all related to lens construction (too compact). The S100/110 (and some other bright/WA 1/1.7" compacts) has this problem to a minor degree. A bit soft wide open, but very good one stop down; and less sharp corners at WA due to 'stretching'.
Some people want to use f/2 in medium to good light levels, where the sharpness loss will be painfully obvious (judging from the first results). For landscape / architecture style images I try to keep ISO as low as possible for better sharpness and DR, and for this type of images sharpness loss in the corners is often undesirable (soft corners will be far more obvious that e.g. in people or low light shots). I can accept softness full open if it is really sharp by f/4 in the WA range, but even that is questionable.
As mentioned before, I'm not interested in high ISO performance; btw, any improvement will be the result of in-camera processing which you can also realise with better processing from RAW.
You might be right that S100/S110 is better at f2 but I can't quantify it yet until we see direct comparison (and reviewer said wasn't fully sure about results). Imaging-resource has dedicated tests for these so will be interesting to check it out there.
Why do you want to shoot f2 if low-light isn't a concern? Shallow DOF?
We all have different needs obviously but some people want less noisy high ISO performance for handheld low-light photography (RAW is not doing any miracles). If you don't care about high ISO you might as well consider G16 or other camera's in this class since dynamic range and resolution is very similar at a much lower price.
sometimes I want limited DOF, but quite often I use a large aperture because it enables me to use decent ISO handheld. Many of my shots are with subjects near infinity, where a limited DOF (e.g. from 10 meters to infinity) is all I need.
as mentioned, if it is really sharp at f/4 it is probably acceptable to me; but in that case I'm still wondering why I'm paying (in price/size/weight) for such a bright lens...
I tried an S110 for a week and did a lot of testing, also comparing it to my 450D with 15-85IS lens. Based on internet reviews I was expecting dubious corner sharpness in the WA range, but this proved very acceptable especially when using RAW. The slightly 'soft' rendering full open but was no problem for me, it was acceptable IMHO and completely gone by f/2.8. Only at 120mm equiv. the rendering looked very soft at any aperture (note: it only looked soft due to low micro-contrast, there actually was a surprising amount of small detail).
I do most of my shooting at large subject distance (landscape, architecture, cityscapes etc.) and have found this type of studio tests VERY unreliable to judge lens performance at long distance. I have used many different digital cameras professionally and the difference between such tests and real life results are sometimes staggering. The corners of my S110 looked pretty good, better than I was expecting based on internet tests like the example above. Compared to my 450D with 15-85IS zoom (both have 12 MPixel sensor) the corners of the S110 were less sharp in the WA range, but the difference wasn't 'huge'.Here's btw imaging resource corner test with S110 (I do have an S100 as well):
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/canon-s110/canon-s110A4.HTM
Not that great either but again no idea how to quantify it yet until we see better test:
S110 F2 upper left corner
Kinglau711... thank you for the update. Can you also confirm that it is equally 'good' at the corners as it is in the center of the image?
It's strange that at the 24mm focal length, the center sharpens up, but the corners become softer as you go from f/2 to f/4. This effect does not happen at the other focal lengths, though.
that would suggest field curvature (which may or may not be a problem at other distance setting for outside shots) or a misaligned lens.
Agree. Just looking at the testcard images it doesn't look much better than the 5x cheaper S110 IMHO. But I don't pay much attention to such testcard shots as they are not representative for my type of photography. It does look like the ambitious bright lens is mostly for bragging rights, and not very useful for general photography (with the lens near wide open). I will be comparing images with my 450D + 15-85IS lens; if the G1X Mk II is better at f/4 than my current combo I might still buy it because of size/weight and tilt screen - if no better option comes along in the next months.
That would negate much of the advantage of a high speed lens at that focal length..
Yes, with a DSLR lens one could say it helps to get a brighter viewfinder but that doesn't apply here (except that it probably helps for viewfinder visibility with low light shots).
