New review of the GX1 MK2

Here's one more review:
http://www.gizmodo.jp/sp/2014/03/powershot_g1_x_mark_ll.html

And a Japanese blog with pics (more pages):
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/sho47000002/47940678.html

JP is a friend of mine. He made the post below in dpreview’s G1X II preview comments. Here is my assessment after importing his original files from Flickr and cropping them at the lower left corner to compare extreme lens performance:

-The original G1X lens has good performance wide open at f/2.8 and at f/5.6, and compares very well to the 6D with 24/1.4L II.

-The G1X II corners are soft wide open at f/2 but the center is good so for extreme low-light conditions it will get the job done. The corner sharpens up at f/5.6 so that it can be used for landscapes and architecture subjects.

-The 6D with 24/1.4L II really isn’t the best benchmark for corner performance, so it makes the two high-end Point & Shoots look pretty remarkable in comparison.

-Overall the G1X II appears to have successfully expanded the original G1X’s 28mm f/2.8 lens to 24mm f/2.

By Storky (6 hours ago)

Hi there, as I'm in the lucky situation of owning both G1X-es (I was able to obtain the G1X mark II while I was in Japan), and a Canon 6D with some L lenses, I've done some informal comparison tests between the G1X mark 1 and the G1X mark 2, both set on maximally wide (as this is usually the most critical setting) and also the 6D with the 24mm 1.4L ii, for comparison.

The pictures are taken of one of my bookshelves, on a tripod, with manual focus (using live-view & the magnifyer). They are RAW pictures that I've converted to JPG using DPP, with no explicit post-processing at all. I don't know what DPP and/or the G1X-es do in camera, and to me it looks likely that some in-camera processing is performed in the G1X-es.

Here are the JPGs on Flickr.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jpderuiter/sets/72157642992889504/

For me, even though I can see that these lenses are not perfect, they are all clearly good enough for making fantastic pictures. Feel free to disagree.

Cheers, JP

mthalen wrote:

http://dicahub.com/powershot-g1-x-mark-ii

And some pics on Flickr (full size available):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpderuiter/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpderuiter/sets/72157642910523765/

Wow!  This lens has extremely low distortion across its full zoom range.  That is nearly 10 times less distortion than my 15-85 IS.  Canon has done a remarkable job of reducing the Barrel and pin-cushion distortion that wide-range zoom lenses always have..  Bravo!  I do wish that they had tested sharpness and resolving power though in addition to the distortion.  Perhaps it was there and I just couldn't find it.  Translate only gave me one page.

Dale Buhanan wrote:

mthalen wrote:

http://dicahub.com/powershot-g1-x-mark-ii

And some pics on Flickr (full size available):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpderuiter/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpderuiter/sets/72157642910523765/

Wow! This lens has extremely low distortion across its full zoom range. That is nearly 10 times less distortion than my 15-85 IS. Canon has done a remarkable job of reducing the Barrel and pin-cushion distortion that wide-range zoom lenses always have.. Bravo! I do wish that they had tested sharpness and resolving power though in addition to the distortion. Perhaps it was there and I just couldn't find it. Translate only gave me one page.

The low distortion may be one of the benefits of only using 13 megapixels of the 15 megapixel sensor. Although the lens is nominally 24mm, it could be wider on the full width of the sensor with the 24mm being a crop in software. It will be interesting if someone with the Mark II does a 24mm raw file converted in a non-Canon program so as not to include all the Canon default lens correction settings.

Ed

Tonkotsu Ramen wrote:

the wait is almost over!!

Looking forward to some miso ramen!

Dale Buhanan wrote:

mthalen wrote:

http://dicahub.com/powershot-g1-x-mark-ii

And some pics on Flickr (full size available):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpderuiter/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpderuiter/sets/72157642910523765/

Wow! This lens has extremely low distortion across its full zoom range. That is nearly 10 times less distortion than my 15-85 IS. Canon has done a remarkable job of reducing the Barrel and pin-cushion distortion that wide-range zoom lenses always have.. Bravo! I do wish that they had tested sharpness and resolving power though in addition to the distortion. Perhaps it was there and I just couldn't find it. Translate only gave me one page.

Are you really sure that you are NOT sponsored by Canon?

mjdundee wrote:

Dale Buhanan wrote:

mthalen wrote:

http://dicahub.com/powershot-g1-x-mark-ii

And some pics on Flickr (full size available):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpderuiter/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpderuiter/sets/72157642910523765/

Wow! This lens has extremely low distortion across its full zoom range. That is nearly 10 times less distortion than my 15-85 IS. Canon has done a remarkable job of reducing the Barrel and pin-cushion distortion that wide-range zoom lenses always have.. Bravo! I do wish that they had tested sharpness and resolving power though in addition to the distortion. Perhaps it was there and I just couldn't find it. Translate only gave me one page.

Are you really sure that you are NOT sponsored by Canon?

Well really mjdundee, when you get excited about or complement the GM1 does it make you an employee of Panasonic?  Just saying...

Ranlee wrote:

mjdundee wrote:

Dale Buhanan wrote:

mthalen wrote:

http://dicahub.com/powershot-g1-x-mark-ii

And some pics on Flickr (full size available):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpderuiter/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpderuiter/sets/72157642910523765/

Wow! This lens has extremely low distortion across its full zoom range. That is nearly 10 times less distortion than my 15-85 IS. Canon has done a remarkable job of reducing the Barrel and pin-cushion distortion that wide-range zoom lenses always have.. Bravo! I do wish that they had tested sharpness and resolving power though in addition to the distortion. Perhaps it was there and I just couldn't find it. Translate only gave me one page.

Are you really sure that you are NOT sponsored by Canon?

Well really mjdundee, when you get excited about or complement the GM1 does it make you an employee of Panasonic? Just saying...

Of course I can write whatever I want - independent from any brand. I always try to find out the best value for my kind of photography and budget and this can be as well a Panasonic product (btw - the GM 1 is my first Panasonic product and I had 6 Canon cameras some Pentax, a Olympus and even a Casio as well)

The important difference is: I am NOT a moderator of depreview who I expect to be neutral exept if he or she writes a detailed review after having tested a new camera precisely.

mjdundee wrote:

Ranlee wrote:

mjdundee wrote:

Dale Buhanan wrote:

mthalen wrote:

http://dicahub.com/powershot-g1-x-mark-ii

And some pics on Flickr (full size available):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpderuiter/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpderuiter/sets/72157642910523765/

Wow! This lens has extremely low distortion across its full zoom range. That is nearly 10 times less distortion than my 15-85 IS. Canon has done a remarkable job of reducing the Barrel and pin-cushion distortion that wide-range zoom lenses always have.. Bravo! I do wish that they had tested sharpness and resolving power though in addition to the distortion. Perhaps it was there and I just couldn't find it. Translate only gave me one page.

Are you really sure that you are NOT sponsored by Canon?

Well really mjdundee, when you get excited about or complement the GM1 does it make you an employee of Panasonic? Just saying...

Of course I can write whatever I want - independent from any brand. I always try to find out the best value for my kind of photography and budget and this can be as well a Panasonic product (btw - the GM 1 is my first Panasonic product and I had 6 Canon cameras some Pentax, a Olympus and even a Casio as well)

The important difference is: I am NOT a moderator of depreview who I expect to be neutral exept if he or she writes a detailed review after having tested a new camera precisely.

You can write whatever you want as long as you adhere to the full forum rules. So continually posting Off Topic material in any of the forums can get those posts deleted, or even get you banned. (Read rule #6) Each forum is set up to discuss the subject in the forum header. This is the Canon Powershot forum and the posts are supposed to be on that subject.

Continual negative posts about a Canon powershot in this forum is also a violation of rules 6 and the Admins have ruled that to be unacceptable, and posts deleted or the poster banned. I'm not threatening you at all, but just making you aware of forum and posting guidelines. You don't have complete freedom of speech here. It is restricted to the posting guidelines.

And no, I don't work for Canon. As an Engineer, I am simply impressed that they achieved that low a level of distortion across the full zoom range. (-0.41% with an average of-0.3%) I'm sure the lens alone can't be THAT good, and that in camera software correction has been applied, but still, that is very impressive results and nearly 10 times less that what I get on my 7D with the 15-85 IS. (3.15%) Surprising to me that you don't feel the same way.

Dale Buhanan wrote:

mjdundee wrote:

Ranlee wrote:

mjdundee wrote:

Dale Buhanan wrote:

mthalen wrote:

http://dicahub.com/powershot-g1-x-mark-ii

And some pics on Flickr (full size available):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpderuiter/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpderuiter/sets/72157642910523765/

Wow! This lens has extremely low distortion across its full zoom range. That is nearly 10 times less distortion than my 15-85 IS. Canon has done a remarkable job of reducing the Barrel and pin-cushion distortion that wide-range zoom lenses always have.. Bravo! I do wish that they had tested sharpness and resolving power though in addition to the distortion. Perhaps it was there and I just couldn't find it. Translate only gave me one page.

Are you really sure that you are NOT sponsored by Canon?

Well really mjdundee, when you get excited about or complement the GM1 does it make you an employee of Panasonic? Just saying...

Of course I can write whatever I want - independent from any brand. I always try to find out the best value for my kind of photography and budget and this can be as well a Panasonic product (btw - the GM 1 is my first Panasonic product and I had 6 Canon cameras some Pentax, a Olympus and even a Casio as well)

The important difference is: I am NOT a moderator of depreview who I expect to be neutral exept if he or she writes a detailed review after having tested a new camera precisely.

You can write whatever you want as long as you adhere to the full forum rules. So continually posting Off Topic material in any of the forums can get those posts deleted, or even get you banned. (Read rule #6) Each forum is set up to discuss the subject in the forum header. This is the Canon Powershot forum and the posts are supposed to be on that subject.

Continual negative posts about a Canon powershot in this forum is also a violation of rules 6 and the Admins have ruled that to be unacceptable, and posts deleted or the poster banned. I'm not threatening you at all, but just making you aware of forum and posting guidelines. You don't have complete freedom of speech here. It is restricted to the posting guidelines.

And no, I don't work for Canon. As an Engineer, I am simply impressed that they achieved that low a level of distortion across the full zoom range. (-0.41% with an average of-0.3%) I'm sure the lens alone can't be THAT good, and that in camera software correction has been applied, but still, that is very impressive results and nearly 10 times less that what I get on my 7D with the 15-85 IS. (3.15%) Surprising to me that you don't feel the same way.

OK - thats fair. It is alway a shame if things got to extremes and I will do everything to avoid this.

As soon as I find something posotive or advanced on a nwe powershot model be sure I will enter a post follwing the subject of the forum theme.

Hopefully this doesn't take ages. I really would like to post positive replies soon.

Have a great WE.

Kind regards,

Tom

technic wrote:

ck_WTB wrote:

JP is a friend of mine. He made the post below in dpreview’s G1X II preview comments. Here is my assessment after importing his original files from Flickr and cropping them at the lower left corner to compare extreme lens performance:

-The original G1X lens has good performance wide open at f/2.8 and at f/5.6, and compares very well to the 6D with 24/1.4L II.

-The G1X II corners are soft wide open at f/2 but the center is good so for extreme low-light conditions it will get the job done. The corner sharpens up at f/5.6 so that it can be used for landscapes and architecture subjects.

-The 6D with 24/1.4L II really isn’t the best benchmark for corner performance, so it makes the two high-end Point & Shoots look pretty remarkable in comparison.

-Overall the G1X II appears to have successfully expanded the original G1X’s 28mm f/2.8 lens to 24mm f/2.

By Storky (6 hours ago)

Hi there, as I'm in the lucky situation of owning both G1X-es (I was able to obtain the G1X mark II while I was in Japan), and a Canon 6D with some L lenses, I've done some informal comparison tests between the G1X mark 1 and the G1X mark 2, both set on maximally wide (as this is usually the most critical setting) and also the 6D with the 24mm 1.4L ii, for comparison.

The pictures are taken of one of my bookshelves, on a tripod, with manual focus (using live-view & the magnifyer). They are RAW pictures that I've converted to JPG using DPP, with no explicit post-processing at all. I don't know what DPP and/or the G1X-es do in camera, and to me it looks likely that some in-camera processing is performed in the G1X-es.

Here are the JPGs on Flickr.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jpderuiter/sets/72157642992889504/

For me, even though I can see that these lenses are not perfect, they are all clearly good enough for making fantastic pictures. Feel free to disagree.

I would love to see some pictures comparing performance of these cameras/lenses for outside (infinity) subjects. A bookshelve is not representative for judging outdoor performance; some lenses perform very differently at infinity (distortion, corner sharpness etc.).

If the lens is soft at f/2 that is acceptable to me, but it should be pretty sharp into the corners at 24mm, f/2.8-f/4 - otherwise I'm not interested.

We had discussed this issue and I originally proposed testing conditions at or near infinity by using a large exterior building that fills the frame. Unfortunately, JP does not have ready access to such a building and does not have time to find one. Since I reside in North America and JP lives half a world away, there’s little more I can add beyond speculation about the G1X II. That being said, there are sample images available at/near infinity that you can find online.

mjdundee wrote:

Dale Buhanan wrote:

You can write whatever you want as long as you adhere to the full forum rules. So continually posting Off Topic material in any of the forums can get those posts deleted, or even get you banned. (Read rule #6) Each forum is set up to discuss the subject in the forum header. This is the Canon Powershot forum and the posts are supposed to be on that subject.

Continual negative posts about a Canon powershot in this forum is also a violation of rules 6 and the Admins have ruled that to be unacceptable, and posts deleted or the poster banned. I'm not threatening you at all, but just making you aware of forum and posting guidelines. You don't have complete freedom of speech here. It is restricted to the posting guidelines.

And no, I don't work for Canon. As an Engineer, I am simply impressed that they achieved that low a level of distortion across the full zoom range. (-0.41% with an average of-0.3%) I'm sure the lens alone can't be THAT good, and that in camera software correction has been applied, but still, that is very impressive results and nearly 10 times less that what I get on my 7D with the 15-85 IS. (3.15%) Surprising to me that you don't feel the same way.

OK - thats fair. It is alway a shame if things got to extremes and I will do everything to avoid this.

As soon as I find something posotive or advanced on a nwe powershot model be sure I will enter a post follwing the subject of the forum theme.

Hopefully this doesn't take ages. I really would like to post positive replies soon.

Have a great WE.

Kind regards,

Tom

Thanks, and you also, Tom.

technic wrote:

Dale Buhanan wrote:

As an Engineer, I am simply impressed that they achieved that low a level of distortion across the full zoom range. (-0.41% with an average of-0.3%) I'm sure the lens alone can't be THAT good, and that in camera software correction has been applied, but still, that is very impressive results and nearly 10 times less that what I get on my 7D with the 15-85 IS. (3.15%) Surprising to me that you don't feel the same way.

I'm sure this 'low distortion' is all just software corrections and not optics. Does the 7D correct distortion in-camera? I guess not; my 450D doesn't and the distortion of the 15-85 isn't more than 3%. I'm only impressed if they have low distortion AND at least the same (corner/border) resolution and (micro-)contrast as the 15-85, at similar f-stops.

I completely agree with you, technic.  I think it has to be software in-camera correction as well.  But however, it is achieved, it still is an impressive achievement to gain such a low distortion figure across the full zoom range!  That is what impresses me most. So, I am pretty sure since Canon made the lens and matched it to the camera, they were able to custom design a software curve fitting that gave good across the range distortion correction.

I would suspect (hope), that they also corrected some edge and corner sharpness issues as well.  They do that in DPP for example from the full lens profiles you can download.  So, since they already have the technology and have used it before... All they need to do is move it into the camera with the more powerful processor and do the same thing there.  I certainly hope they did!

It is very impressive to me when I do full lens correction for the 15-85 in DPP how much sharper and cleaner the corners and borders get when I am shooting at full wide.  It cleans up to where little tiny branches in bushes become very sharp and discernible, where before the full lens correction is applied they look softer and more mushy.  So, as well as the distortion correction, I hope they do the full profile correction in the G1X-II like they do in DPP. 

And yes, you can get some lens correction with the 7D in camera by downloading the lens profile to the camera.  I have not done that, but instead use DPP for lens corrections, because I think it does a better job and does more things.  And, that 3.15% number for the 15-85 I quoted came from photozone.de.

Dale Buhanan wrote:

technic wrote:

Dale Buhanan wrote:

As an Engineer, I am simply impressed that they achieved that low a level of distortion across the full zoom range. (-0.41% with an average of-0.3%) I'm sure the lens alone can't be THAT good, and that in camera software correction has been applied, but still, that is very impressive results and nearly 10 times less that what I get on my 7D with the 15-85 IS. (3.15%) Surprising to me that you don't feel the same way.

I'm sure this 'low distortion' is all just software corrections and not optics. Does the 7D correct distortion in-camera? I guess not; my 450D doesn't and the distortion of the 15-85 isn't more than 3%. I'm only impressed if they have low distortion AND at least the same (corner/border) resolution and (micro-)contrast as the 15-85, at similar f-stops.

I completely agree with you, technic. I think it has to be software in-camera correction as well. But however, it is achieved, it still is an impressive achievement to gain such a low distortion figure across the full zoom range! That is what impresses me most. So, I am pretty sure since Canon made the lens and matched it to the camera, they were able to custom design a software curve fitting that gave good across the range distortion correction.

I would suspect (hope), that they also corrected some edge and corner sharpness issues as well. They do that in DPP for example from the full lens profiles you can download. So, since they already have the technology and have used it before... All they need to do is move it into the camera with the more powerful processor and do the same thing there. I certainly hope they did!

It is very impressive to me when I do full lens correction for the 15-85 in DPP how much sharper and cleaner the corners and borders get when I am shooting at full wide. It cleans up to where little tiny branches in bushes become very sharp and discernible, where before the full lens correction is applied they look softer and more mushy. So, as well as the distortion correction, I hope they do the full profile correction in the G1X-II like they do in DPP.

And yes, you can get some lens correction with the 7D in camera by downloading the lens profile to the camera. I have not done that, but instead use DPP for lens corrections, because I think it does a better job and does more things. And, that 3.15% number for the 15-85 I quoted came from photozone.de.

I guess I was under the impression that lens distortion tests were conducted using raw files before software correction was applied.  Am I mistaken or was this G1XmkII test an exception?

Ranlee wrote:

Dale Buhanan wrote:

technic wrote:

Dale Buhanan wrote:

As an Engineer, I am simply impressed that they achieved that low a level of distortion across the full zoom range. (-0.41% with an average of-0.3%) I'm sure the lens alone can't be THAT good, and that in camera software correction has been applied, but still, that is very impressive results and nearly 10 times less that what I get on my 7D with the 15-85 IS. (3.15%) Surprising to me that you don't feel the same way.

I'm sure this 'low distortion' is all just software corrections and not optics. Does the 7D correct distortion in-camera? I guess not; my 450D doesn't and the distortion of the 15-85 isn't more than 3%. I'm only impressed if they have low distortion AND at least the same (corner/border) resolution and (micro-)contrast as the 15-85, at similar f-stops.

I completely agree with you, technic. I think it has to be software in-camera correction as well. But however, it is achieved, it still is an impressive achievement to gain such a low distortion figure across the full zoom range! That is what impresses me most. So, I am pretty sure since Canon made the lens and matched it to the camera, they were able to custom design a software curve fitting that gave good across the range distortion correction.

I would suspect (hope), that they also corrected some edge and corner sharpness issues as well. They do that in DPP for example from the full lens profiles you can download. So, since they already have the technology and have used it before... All they need to do is move it into the camera with the more powerful processor and do the same thing there. I certainly hope they did!

It is very impressive to me when I do full lens correction for the 15-85 in DPP how much sharper and cleaner the corners and borders get when I am shooting at full wide. It cleans up to where little tiny branches in bushes become very sharp and discernible, where before the full lens correction is applied they look softer and more mushy. So, as well as the distortion correction, I hope they do the full profile correction in the G1X-II like they do in DPP.

And yes, you can get some lens correction with the 7D in camera by downloading the lens profile to the camera. I have not done that, but instead use DPP for lens corrections, because I think it does a better job and does more things. And, that 3.15% number for the 15-85 I quoted came from photozone.de.

I guess I was under the impression that lens distortion tests were conducted using raw files before software correction was applied. Am I mistaken or was this G1XmkII test an exception?

Good question, Randy. In DPP the lens correction is applied to the RAW file and then it is converted to jpg. You can't see any image with a RAW file alone. It has to be converted to jpg, or something, before there is even an image to measure.

So, somewhere the data was measured on a viewable image. But since the review was in Japanese, and they didn't give details of how the measurement was made, I really don't know the answer.

In camera may have corrected in RAW and then converted to jpg, or they may have applied the correction in camera to the jpg and then looked at the image and measured. I don't know and they didn't say. So that is something we still need to find out.