larry
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Contributing Member
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Posts: 889
A few G7x ii setup and LR tips
Jun 11, 2016
5
I've had my G9 replacement for a couple days, now, and I'm mostly loving it. Here's some tips on setup that I've started using. These are by no means well-researched and lived-with-for-decades, locked-down commandments, but I hope they help some of you get the best out of this cam.
Press the Q/Set button. In the Q menu, touch the Picture Style Icon. Select Fine Detail default, or in your chosen preset, set sharpening settings to 3,1,1. Canon has many of these presets sharpening at a high 'radius', which makes fine details look bloated.
In the menu, Camera, tab 5, set ISO Speed ISO Auto Settings, Rate of change to Slow. This will keep ISO lower, and shutter speed longer. You might need to go to Standard if you have shaky hands. You can alternatively use M manual mode to force the Aperture and Shutter speed to minimise noise.
Using f/1.8 might degrade lens performance. I like shooting wide-open, but have not been thrilled with sharpness. f/2 might be significantly better...
In Camera menu, tab 2, set Touch Shutter to Enable. This is a great feature for getting focus on non-centered subjects.
In Camera menu tab 3, set AF Frame Size to Small if you use Center AF on your DSLR. It's still too big, but...
Press the Info button till you get the level indicator. It's easy to use, and gets those horizons straight.
Shoot RAW! If you have an older version of Adobe PS, or Lightroom, you can use the latest (free) DNG converter to create .dng's that your version will open. Lightroom 6.6 stand-alone will process the RAW's natively, without the hassle. You can still upgrade to LR 6.6 standalone, google for details.
In LR, here's some suggestions.
Set Highlights to -10.
Sharpening | NR at ISO:
125:
60 1.0 50 20 | 20 90 0 | 25 90 0
250:
50 1.0 75 5 | 35 80 0 | 25 90 0
1250:
60 1 25 20 | 35 80 0 | 20 90 20
3200:
60 1 10 5 | 47 100 0 | 15 90 20
6400:
30 1 30 0 | 60 95 0 | 20 80 40
12,800:
30 .7 30 0 | 55 89 0 | 15 30 40
These settings are preliminary. I prefer some grain, and some sharpening, over smashing all luminance noise into mush. You might prefer different settings if you resize down, or print.
I'm experimenting with exposing 1/3 stop brighter than default. The sensor seems able to handle this. I drop it down in LR. In fact, I'm dropping EV down 1 stop. The G7x seems much brighter than my 5D3.