Canon G7 impressions

[Quentin]

I've owned a Canon G7 for a couple of days, and I share most of the views of Michael in his review.

Its the ultimate nearly camera.  The body is tough, the menu design logical and complete. I paticularly like the on-screen histogram coupled with aperture priority shooting with very easy exposure compensation dial-in.  Works a treat.  Really can't fault the design, but image quality is so-so.  Some softness and (with my sample at least) some non-linear CA in some shooting conditions.  

My feeling is Canon should have (i) retained raw mode and (ii) used a better lens.  By better, I mean shorter reach, a little faster, with the emphasis on quality.  The lens on the G7 is adequate at best.  I also miss the high ISO qualtiy of my olf Fuji F10.  The G7 is a low ISO camera if you want decent results.

Running G7 jpegs through Silkypix really helps a lot.

Hopefully, there will eventually be a G7 pro with that faster shorter throw lens.

But still its a fun camera.

Quentin

[coors]

Concerning the G7's lack of a RAW format... I had originally decided to ignore this camera, when I read the spec sheet and determined that Canon did not implement RAW capture. When I finally considered that this very small sensor has 10 million pixel locations crammed onto it's surface and that it would probably be so noisy at to be unusable, even at the iso80 setting, if not for some very complex in camera processing... then was I able to believe that Canon may have ommitted RAW out of necessity... and for no other reason. When I began looking at other's images, from this camera, I was amazed at what I was seeing... at the lower iso settings. Though it would be great to have another stop of latitude, by using RAW, I too am now willing to work at getting the exposure correct for each image. This will probably require a lot of chimping.... and hopefully, one day, some sort of instinctiveness will take over (so that chimping will no longer be necessary) because of an understanding of how the camera behaves in all possible conditions. I certainly hope so, anyway.
Owen

[BernardLanguillier]

Thanks for the feedback Quentin.

Regards,
Bernard

[johnll]

I also have had a G7 for about a week now. I find the lack of RAW is less of an issue than I had originally feared. You do have to be careful with the highlights, however, and only blow those that you can allow to be blown, because there's no recovery.
I have been using the lens mostly within a stop or so of wide open pretty well all the time so far, in Av mode. The EC is quick and easy, as already mentioned.
My only real gripe about the camera is the quality of the viewfinder. It only covers about 80% of the scene, and there's no parallax correction, so what you actually get is a bit of a lottery.
Seems it's going to be a useful street camera, for which I don't often use the viewfinder (and never use the LCD screen).
Very compact and handy.

[soboyle]

I've been quite pleased with the G7, despite the shortcomings mentioned here and in the review. It is indeed almost a great camera, and I hope that the next generation fixes the few problems with it, it needs a larger sensor, faster lens, raw capability and fix the optical viewfinder parallax problem. As it is you need to remember to shift shots, especially vertical shots when composing through the optical viewfinder. But it does take very good images if you watch your exposure, dialing in exposure compensation is fast and easy.  
What pleases me most about the camera is the attention to the design, the quality build and small size, almost exactly the same size as my old Rollei 35 SE, a favorite carry around camera. Mine goes with me in my coat pocket every day.

[Fred Ragland]

... fix the optical viewfinder parallax problem...
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I got a G7 when they came out and have used it almost daily as a pocket camera.  As time passes, it becomes more comfortable with the one exception of the optical viewfinder.  What you see is not what you shoot.  There is always that moment of hesitency when you pause to mentally check how you're compensating for the missmatch between viewfinder and lens.  I like to crop in the camera which is a challenge with the G7.

[PeteC]

I've been wondering about buying a G7, too, and have been a bit put off by the lack of RAW.

But isn't this just a firmware thing? Couldn't Canon just make a firmware download available for those who want RAW? Probably not going to happen, but if enough people hammered the issue...?

The other point that puts me off is that it only goes to 35mmE wide. To me, 28mm is necessary. Pity. (Yes, I know there's a wide adapter, but I doubt it would be practical.)

I have strongly considered the Panasonic LX2, but there is too much noise/sharpness trade-off for me (from seeing the reviews). Michael's noise investigation of the G7 makes it look impressive.

Cheers,
Pete

[soboyle]

Regarding the optical viewfinder,  I wonder if its worth the effort to stick a small adhesive dot on the front of the optical viewfinder at the true center of the image. It would be an iterative process getting it in the right place, but then you would have a fighting chance of composing your subject where you want it in the frame.  As it is now the optical viewfinder is quite useless.
The camera shoots quicker when the lcd is switched off, so there is an advantage to shooting using the optical viewfinder, and for me it's a much prefered way to shoot.

I really can't see why Canon didn't enable raw on this camera, with the G7's noise level it clearly isn't any competition for the larger sensor bodies, but it would have made the image quality that much better and white balance settings not necessary when shooting.  As it is now I find my most frequent mistakes shooting with this camera is blowing highlights, and having a wrong white balance selected.

[astam]

I bought this camera a couple of months ago.  I've used it on trips to India, Chicago, NYC, the white mountains, and around town.  There's no question the image quality is not as good as the 5D that I also use.  It also happens to be small, light, and silent.  I have been able to get candid shots on trains, in crowded places, in temples, that I would not have been able to take with the much larger 5D.  I've carried the G7 into the mountains when carrying a pack of gear just woulnd't have been possible (sometimes you just have to keep up).

All cameras are compromises.  Sure it doesn't have RAW, it does have a bunch of preset image processing features that work quite well if you match the preset with the available light.  You need to read the manual, you need to practice with it to get the most out of it.  Think back to when you shot with Ektachrome, you didn't have the dyanamic range of RAW then either.  Imagine if you then had the option of switching from EK, to Velvia, to Kodachrome from shot to shot.  

This is a v cool little camera.  I think the best analogy would be to the old little 35mm rollei's with the pop-out lens.  Of course a Nikon F took sharper images, but sometime tyhe rollei could go places the Nikon couldn't -- like in your pocket or knapsack everyday.  Same thing for the G7.