OK, let me start off by saying that I have not used a Canon camera (P&S or otherwise) aside from occasionally on vacation (my wife's 5 year old SD960 and that was very infrequently) for quite a while. Had several P&S and more advanced cameras years ago (never a DSLR) but ended up switching to Olympus.
And my reason for the G7X was I wanted something smaller to just carry around when going out for walks, dinners, parties etc. (Though my "large" camera is the Olympus EM10 which especially with a small prime is not exactly LARGE either. LOL) And I felt that the G7X would be a nice replacement for those times than my Olympus Stylus 1, which to be honest is not much smaller than the EM10.
Now to the G7X. Initial impressions - from a shooting point of view and looking at some of my early shots - are VERY good. Obviously there are certain things that I have to get used to - especially being so used to the way the various Olympus cameras work - but that will not take away from initial impressions.
The camera is very responsive as far as startup and shot to shot. In good light the AF is very quick for a P&S camera. In dimmer light it does slow down but that is to be expected at least as far as MY expectations. What surprised me is how often - mostly again in normal room lighting, but not what I would consider dark) was how often I got that little yellow box/? which I assume (I am not big on reading manuals) means the camera could not get AF lock. Now - since I am still very early in my G7X time - it could be that I was trying to focus outside the range for the lens. But I don't think so as I was able to do a manual focus with the same focal length. One example was taking a picture of my grandson in about 3/4 profile from about 2-3 feet away. The camera had a lot of difficulty focusing on the eye that was towards me (using single and small AF point) but when I shifted the AF point to his ear (so not much difference in lighting or distance) it did AF. I even got the dreaded Yellow Box outside in very good light today - but that only happened when I was trying to get some pictures of leaves and perhaps did not know the AF distance for the different settings.
Aside from the AF quirks (won't call them problems/issues till I have more of a chance to RTFM and play with the camera more), I was very impressed. The dynamic range for a small camera (albeit with a larger sensor) was very good, even shooting JPEGs. Did a lot of playing with the various artsy settings - I liked the Art Filters on the Olympus cameras also BTW - and had a lot of fun.
The control layout is pretty nice for a small camera - a bit surprised at how hard it is to move the EV wheel, though I guess that is intentional so that it does not get turned accidentally. And getting used to reaching over the control wheels/mode dial to reach to much smaller shutter button. Do miss the fact that the LCD does not tilt downward, but I guess that was a design decision because it probably would have made the camera larger and thicker (like my older Olympus XZ-2).
Only "issues" so far are that apparently (unless I am missing something) is you cannot easily set Face Detection without going into the menus. My preferred setting for the various Olympus cameras was to have the single center AF point on all the time and also Face Detection, which would override the center AF point if it detected a face. But from what I see on the G7X is you can either choose a single AF point or the Face AiAF, which then allows the camera to choose whatever AF point it wants when there is no face detected.
Also, I assume that there have not been any firmware updates yet for the camera, but not having a USB cable to connect to a computer I felt was pretty chinsy on the part of Canon for a $700 camera. Yes I know I can (EVENTUALLY) connect the camera via wifi to my iMac - but have not been able to get that to work yet.
Oh well, here are some quick and dirty pics from my first outing. As I said - very impressed so far with what I have seen from the camera.
And my reason for the G7X was I wanted something smaller to just carry around when going out for walks, dinners, parties etc. (Though my "large" camera is the Olympus EM10 which especially with a small prime is not exactly LARGE either. LOL) And I felt that the G7X would be a nice replacement for those times than my Olympus Stylus 1, which to be honest is not much smaller than the EM10.
Now to the G7X. Initial impressions - from a shooting point of view and looking at some of my early shots - are VERY good. Obviously there are certain things that I have to get used to - especially being so used to the way the various Olympus cameras work - but that will not take away from initial impressions.
The camera is very responsive as far as startup and shot to shot. In good light the AF is very quick for a P&S camera. In dimmer light it does slow down but that is to be expected at least as far as MY expectations. What surprised me is how often - mostly again in normal room lighting, but not what I would consider dark) was how often I got that little yellow box/? which I assume (I am not big on reading manuals) means the camera could not get AF lock. Now - since I am still very early in my G7X time - it could be that I was trying to focus outside the range for the lens. But I don't think so as I was able to do a manual focus with the same focal length. One example was taking a picture of my grandson in about 3/4 profile from about 2-3 feet away. The camera had a lot of difficulty focusing on the eye that was towards me (using single and small AF point) but when I shifted the AF point to his ear (so not much difference in lighting or distance) it did AF. I even got the dreaded Yellow Box outside in very good light today - but that only happened when I was trying to get some pictures of leaves and perhaps did not know the AF distance for the different settings.
Aside from the AF quirks (won't call them problems/issues till I have more of a chance to RTFM and play with the camera more), I was very impressed. The dynamic range for a small camera (albeit with a larger sensor) was very good, even shooting JPEGs. Did a lot of playing with the various artsy settings - I liked the Art Filters on the Olympus cameras also BTW - and had a lot of fun.
The control layout is pretty nice for a small camera - a bit surprised at how hard it is to move the EV wheel, though I guess that is intentional so that it does not get turned accidentally. And getting used to reaching over the control wheels/mode dial to reach to much smaller shutter button. Do miss the fact that the LCD does not tilt downward, but I guess that was a design decision because it probably would have made the camera larger and thicker (like my older Olympus XZ-2).
Only "issues" so far are that apparently (unless I am missing something) is you cannot easily set Face Detection without going into the menus. My preferred setting for the various Olympus cameras was to have the single center AF point on all the time and also Face Detection, which would override the center AF point if it detected a face. But from what I see on the G7X is you can either choose a single AF point or the Face AiAF, which then allows the camera to choose whatever AF point it wants when there is no face detected.
Also, I assume that there have not been any firmware updates yet for the camera, but not having a USB cable to connect to a computer I felt was pretty chinsy on the part of Canon for a $700 camera. Yes I know I can (EVENTUALLY) connect the camera via wifi to my iMac - but have not been able to get that to work yet.
Oh well, here are some quick and dirty pics from my first outing. As I said - very impressed so far with what I have seen from the camera.
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