Brief Review of the Canon Powershot G7X

[rhino123]

There is the birth of a new camera - Canon G7X. This time, Canon seemed to have abandon her 1.5" sensor and favour the 1" sensor format that had been make pretty popular by the excellent Sony RX100 series of compact cameras.

When Canon introduced this camera, I am excited... very excited, especially with the launch price. It was at US$699 when you get it from the United States and S$799 when you got it from Singapore. And frankly speaking, this type of pricing is incredibly good when compared to the price of a Sony RX100 mkIII which cost around US$799.99 in US and in excess of 1k when you get from Singapore.

That price prompt me to wait no further and gotten this camera finally.

I will not go into the details of the spec of the camera, you can read it up in the link provided.

http://www.canonrumors.com/2014/09/official-canon-powershot-g7-x/

Basically, it has a 20.2MP 1" sensor and was suspiciously like the same sensor used in RX100III. The camera also boast of the excellent Digi-6 processor.

Herein, I will have a quick review on this camera and my thoughts on it, what I like and what I hate about the camera.

 

[rhino123]

The first impression I have with the camera was that it was small... the buttons are small, the dials are small, everything are small. However, the built quality is excellent. There are no loose parts and no squeaky buttons or dials, everything is nice and tight.

However, the most immediate thing that I noticed was the lack of a hotshoe, not that it really matters for a camera this size, but I do hope that it had a hotshoe so I can add a viewfinder to it. But that is certainly not a deal breaker for me.

Then I noticed that the tripod hole on the camera are located too close to the battery and SD card compartment, so in mounting a quick release plate to it will certainly prevent the battery lid to be opened and that would not allow me to change battery when the camera is mounted on tripod.

That is a bummer, I like to mount my tripod plate permanently on my camera so that I can easily and quickly mount the whole setup to a tripod or monopod when needed. Since the G7X battery is only rated to be able to support 210 shots per charge, I predicted that I would need to change the battery quite a number of times during my shoots, and it would be a hassle to need to remove the tripod plate as and when I need to change battery or SD card.

The next thing I notice was the tilting LCD. It is cool and the touch screen is very responsive even when the sensitive was set to "standard". However I do hope that they gave the amount of freedom of flipping the screen like those from EPL6 or even G1XmkII. At present moment, I can only flip the screen upward and so it would not help me if I want to shoot overhead at my subject.

Immediately after having the camera, I take a shoot out of my window to my backyard.

Colour is good and sharpness is quite nice. Do note that it was pretty bright at that time, so the ISO setting was low.

The next test I do was the ISO test.

 

[rhino123]

For this test, I set my G7X on tripod, and my subject at around 1m area, shooting at f8 (no flash). All variable are set at constant, except for the ISO value.

ISO 125:

ISO 200:

ISO 400:

ISO 640:

ISO 800:

 

[rhino123]

ISO 1000:

ISO 1600:

ISO 2000:

ISO 2500:

ISO 3200:

 

[rhino123]

ISO 4000:

ISO 6400:

ISO 8000:

ISO 10000:

ISO 12800 (Maximum):

 

[rhino123]

From the ISO test that I have taken, I noticed that image all the way to ISO 3200 is pretty usable, although I would not go as far as saying that it had not noise at all, but I find that for a compact camera, I can accept this level of noise.

Build in Flash

With no hotshoe provided, the G7X did came with a built in flash. It is not as strong as a DSLR flash, but quite adequate for its use.

(PS. You can still use a slave flash by triggering it with the built in flash though. There is quite a number of these type of flash available in the market, I have just ordered a Godox CF-18 from ebay and when it came in, I will do few test shots and update this review).

AF Speed:

The AF speed of this camera is pretty fast, I wouldn't compare it with the likes of my OMD EM5 though, but it seemed pretty alright for a compact camera. I have no problem getting quick and accurate focusing even in dim lighting. And after shooting, I couldn't detect very significant lag (there is a bit of shutter lag, just not that significant... and I feel it is slightly better than my old EPL1).

Manual Focusing

The default manual focusing button was to press at the dial at the rear of the camera, maybe it is just me, but I find that there is a lag when I press that buttons and it is quite frustrating. There is provision for you to change the function ring on the lens to become the manual focus ring, and I would highly recommend that when you use alot of manual focusing. Manual focusing is not as fast as I like though, although many would argue that it is for the precision of the focusing, but I am hoping to be faster.



Finally, I still have not manage to do a lot of detail test on this camera (too busy with work and school and I sprain my freaking leg again). But will update this review once I get the chance.

Thanks for dropping by.

 

[undergrd]

Thanks for the review!

 

[dracoid4]

I read that f1.8 and f2.8 are soft and it is recommended to stop down to f3.2 for better result. Can you look into that when during your review?

 

[rhino123]

Thanks for the review!

Thanks for dropping by.

 

[rhino123]

I read that f1.8 and f2.8 are soft and it is recommended to stop down to f3.2 for better result. Can you look into that when during your review?

I have done a test, shooting at 24mm f1.8 to f11. I find that in terms of sharpness, they are quite consistence. I would not go as far as saying that G7 X produce the sharpest image in the market, but I find that it is pretty well controlled and the result I get is quite consistence.

(PS. Sorry, I do not do a very scientific test, I just hastily did a few shots in my office when my boss is not looking.)

Subject:

f1.8

f2.8

f3.2

f4

 

[rhino123]

f5

f5.6

f8

f11

 

[dracoid4]

I have done a test, shooting at 24mm f1.8 to f11. I find that in terms of sharpness, they are quite consistence. I would not go as far as saying that G7 X produce the sharpest image in the market, but I find that it is pretty well controlled and the result I get is quite consistence.

(PS. Sorry, I do not do a very scientific test, I just hastily did a few shots in my office when my boss is not looking.)

Thanks. Looks good. Still contemplating whether to get it.

 

[rhino123]

Having owned the camera for some time now, I have the chance to shoot a couple of hundreds of photos with it. All in all, I am very satisfied with the camera's image quality.

And since I have the time to play around with it more, I do notice that (my copy) had abit of shutter lag, slightly better than my old EPL1 (if I can recalled correctly). I have shot alot of RAW since then. There is something that I think I needed to point out. At present Lightroom and Photoshop don't support G7X RAW file, so you could either just use the software that you can download from Canon website to process those RAW images or convert them to TIFF file and do editing from LR and PS.

 

[ElCarnicero]

Hi i am still choosing this or RX camera but i am not sure how you feel about no EVF? I also do not think hotshoe is needed but the EVF in the RX is very nice. I also read the RX has better battery life can you confirm

 

[rhino123]

Hi i am still choosing this or RX camera but i am not sure how you feel about no EVF? I also do not think hotshoe is needed but the EVF in the RX is very nice. I also read the RX has better battery life can you confirm

I survive a hot sunny day in Little India recently, so far I don't find that I missed the EVF. Under direct sunlight, the image will be difficult to see from the viewfinder though. While on paper the battery juice seemed pretty low (only 210 shots per charge). But maybe it was my shooting style, I find it adequate for my use. Anyway, I shot around 1xx shots without the battery dropping one bar yesterday, so I am fully confident that the battery will last me more than what was stated.

Also it was my opinion that for such a small camera, a small little EVF when held to my eyes will be pretty awkward. So when I am using my friend's RX100III, I actually never use the EVF at all...

 

[mexican88]

Nearly bought this camera, thank goodness I went to play with it and discovered it's not for me. The lens ring is waaayyyyyy to stiff, fills almost as if it's stuck, and the real draw for the camera for me is the movie digest mode, which unfortunately in this camera, is wayyyy too laggy.

No doubt the image quality is good from what I've seen so far.. But the handling plays a huge part in choosing a camera too.. and I hate the way it handles.

 

[rhino123]

Nearly bought this camera, thank goodness I went to play with it and discovered it's not for me. The lens ring is waaayyyyyy to stiff, fills almost as if it's stuck, and the real draw for the camera for me is the movie digest mode, which unfortunately in this camera, is wayyyy too laggy.

No doubt the image quality is good from what I've seen so far.. But the handling plays a huge part in choosing a camera too.. and I hate the way it handles.

I am sorry that it don't work the way you would have like your camera. I like the lens ring, it is not wayyyy too stiff for me and felt that it was designed to feel that way, clicky... it work for someone, it don't works for other. As for movie mode, I don't use the movie digest mode at all, so I cannot comment on that. But I would really like to hear which other camera has a movie digest mode that is not laggy so that we can do side by side comparison.

As for whether you like or hate the way a camera handles it is very subjective and so not really relevant here. You hate how the camera handle doesn't equate to the camera's handling is bad, it is just that it don't handle as you like them, but to many, it is fine, or excellent or even better than other competitors.

(Edit: test a bit on the movie digest mode. I don't see the lagging thing you speaks of. You take the camera up, you point to your subject, you press the shutter button, and thats it. It took little less than 1 sec to record, because it is recording a still image as well as a short clip. Of course you are not going to get an instantaneous result. So I would say, it is an unreasonable expectation here.)

 

[kel77]

I got this cam for my recent overseas trip. Very pleased with the image quality. High ISO NR for jpeg is slightly aggressive though and AWB for skin tones in incandescent lighting is too warm. I would have preferred if I can work on the RAW files directly.
Was initially thinking there might be a problem on the battery life as no spare batteries are available yet, I only needed to make sure that I had recharged the battery every night.
The cam handling works for me. My only problem is the wifi button on right which I accidentally pressed quite a couple of times when I was taking the cam in/out of bag.

 

[smurfpiss]

Can it charge thru USB port with a power bank?

 

[rhino123]

Can it charge thru USB port with a power bank?

No. It can't. You need an extra-accessory for that. Basically I don't find that any useful for my usage. You can think otherwise.