Hi
Has anyone actually bought and used a g7? Is the absence of raw really such a big drawback. It would seem to be the perfect pocket travel camera. I am planning a trip to Italy and somehow the 20d suddenly seems too much trouble. Any feedback, anyone?
thanks Ivan

Yes, I have. It's a terrific little camera with which I've been extremely pleased. Coming from an S70, I am glad I didn't heed the "RAW-less" warnings of the Internet harpies on this camera. It's very good as a small, handy, casual camera. Certainly the best in its genre I've owned, including the S70.

hi
My thoughts were that if you put the settings for sharpness, contrast and saturation on low one would have 'more' to work with later. Have you tried it, does it work? Is it necessary? Any ideas on max print size?
BTW I dont have any compacts so my only frame of reference would be a 20d.
Many thanks
Ivan

Ken, knowing that you have the 1DsMkII, I'm curious if you carry the G7 in addition to it---or instead of. I haven't had a small pocketable camera for a long long time and keep thinking about one. However, I wonder if I would find myself carrying it instead of the 5D--and then wish I had had the 5D LOL. I won't carry both.

I bought my husband the F30--and it suits his needs but I dislike shooting with it quite a bit, so know I don't want anything that small.

One more question---do you use the OV or the LCD for composing--or would that matter depending upon the lighting?

Diane

Hi Diane:
For me, the G7 gets the call when I can't, or won't, carry a larger camera. Examples: social or family gatherings, casual walks, other events where a full-size camera would be boorish to have.

That was my original goal when I purchased a Canon S70 two years ago. With its RAW file format I thought I would be set. But, despite having RAW, I could rarely get S70 image colors to look very good. Also, the S70's shutter lag, and lag between RAW shots was uncomfortably long and images above ISO 200 were noisier than a day care center. So I gave up on the notion of a good pocket cam...until the G7.

Regarding the viewfinder, I know that many people really want to use an optical viewfinder on these little cameras. For the life of me I cannot imagine why. Yes, the G7 has one, and it displays approximately 80% of the scene. But it's a silly feature that offers limited functionality. The lcd shows 100% of the scene, plus exposure and focus status, in a bright, clear and large display (better than the 5D's). It's easily viewable in most light. Being able to compose and capture an image without pressing the camera to your face is, to me, a good thing. The only disadvantage of the lcd viewfinder is thee occurrence of vivid streaks (in the vf image, not the recorded image) when there are bright point-source lights near the edges of the frame, particularly in darker scenes. That's a pain, but one that's been with these little cameras for a long time, not unique to the G7, and is an annoyance rather than a disabler.

Ivan:
I have been using the following color and image settings on the G7 and have been very pleased so far. But I am still experimenting.
White balance: AWB
"My Colors":
Either "Positive Film" (good for well-illuminated settings) or
"custom" with Sharpness: -1, Contrast: -1, others at normal mid-setting. This "custom" profile has worked best for me in lower light scenes (ISO 400+) by allowing fewer opportunities for compression artifacts to appear due, I think, to contrast data miscalculations.

I've been using the camera almost exclusively in manual exposure mode and generally view -1/3 stop being a sweet spot. I find that its program exposures are a bit hot, a characteristic that can sometimes be hard to mitigate with only 8-bit JPG files.

Regarding print sizes, I've not had a need to print G7 images larger than a nominal 8x10 so far. (I did print one 3-frame panorama on 13x19 with excellent results, but that doesn't count.) I have no doubt, however, that a well-captured G7 image would easily be printable at 13x19 and perhaps beyond.

Hi Ken
thanks for all the info. Seems to be a great little camera and definately worth considering.
It is strange how photo technology has progressed and our attitudes towards it. I suppose any camera(and file format) can do a fantastic job if one is willing to learn and experiment and get to know the 'tool', which after all it only is.
Ivan

Much like trying to fight city hall, sometimes life is too short and you need to pick your battles.

Learning to use the G7 for what it DOES is the only sensible approach in my humble opinion.

Sure beats the diatribe about why Canon didn't build a camera the way you think they should and in the mean time missing out on using a very cool little camera.

I have one; nice camera design, crap sensor salvaged up to a point by Canon's skills with noise reduction.

I bought my G7 after using a Fuji F10 and I really miss the high ISO capability of the Fuji (now improved in the latest F30. The fact is the G7 is only any good at up to 100 ISO. The camera itself is a very neat and wel thought out design, and I love using it within its quite narrow performance envelope. I have turned the sharpening and contrast down to the minimum so I can use the jpegs a little more like a raw file. But what I really want is a camera like the G7 bit with a better sensor and raw file format.

Quentin.

I have one and I like it a lot. I use it specifically for travel when I'm not intent on "serious" photography. It has a small neat battery charger, and it all fits nicely in a briefcase. Since I'm mostly using it as a tourist, for what will be small prints, I'll use it at higher ISOs than Quentin. I also find that its flash works pretty well, for what it does, i.e., you can line up six people in front of a restaurant at night and take a group photo. In another discussion of this camera, I suggested that you could get shots out of it roughly comparable to what you could get with a 70s Leica and 70s film. Others may disagree...

JC

I too have moved on from the "it has no raw" mind set, and bought one. As others have said, the G7 does what it does, and does it very well. I don't agree with the crap sensor comment above.

ISO 400 in the G7 is way better than Provia 400F, which is my standard for a 400 ISO professional slide film. So that I am clear with where I come from with this comparison. Sure, if you enjoy "clinic clean" images, germ free type of photography, well, any digicam is not for you, not only the G7.

Me, I am having loads of fun with it. Here are linkks to some of my shots with it:

http://paulobizarro.com/tema.asp?id=7

http://paulobizarro.com/tema.asp?id=32

These shots seem quite impressice to me, Paulo, considering it's a P&S. You've controlled the highlights well and managed to get good detail in the shadows without obvious noise. Occasionally, in the brightest clouds, there's a hint of blown highlights, but it's not excessive by any means.

My main criticism would be a general sense, in some of the shots, of a lack of local contrast in the mid-tones. It's as though you used the Shadow/highlight tool in PS without getting the 'radius' and 'tonal width' quite right.

Not having used a P & S other than my very old G1 (and some very early digicams) and my husband's new F30 (which I don't like because of size, primarily), I'm asking this kind of blindly.

I've been considering the G7 as a small alternative for hiking and casual shooting. However, I read the review of the A640 on dpreview--and the IQ, sensor, etc. seem to be of equal value to the G7. I would miss the longer tele (which would not be a factor for me at all), the ISO dial, the hotshoe (another non factor for me) and WB and some other things would be more menu driven. The 640 is slightly smaller than the G7 and certainly not as 'classy' as the G7--but all in all, I'm wondering for the almost $200 difference in the price and the fact that this will be a camera I don't expect to use a lot, if the 640 might make sense for me. My main camera is a 5D and usually for hiking I carry a 28 f/1.8, 50 f/1.4 and 85 f/1.8 (and sometimes a 24-70L instead)---but even this light kit can take some of the fun out of the hike. BTW--I have considered buying a 400D or 350, but would still end up with lenses, larger case (a LP sling 200 these days) and it would still be a supplementary cam--I use a 10D as backup so don't really 'need' a backup as such.

I don't normally even mention this--its a nonissue in almost anything else, but I will soon be 68 and I guess that I do notice a difference these days as opposed to when I was 58 LOL, thus the consideration at all of a smaller cam for certain circumstances.

I'd appreciate any thoughts--esp. from anyone that has handled or shot with both. Its unlikely I will find anyplace that does have both available for shooting.

Diane

Haven't you answered your own question ?


Another consideration might be the Panasonic. Which does include a RAW option.

Perhaps---but, though I generally trust dpreview's reviews, I'm wondering if there's something that may be missing from the review. Is the big difference the IS, non-menu functions and longer tele??

I'll look at the Panasonic too-thanks. I would def. miss RAW---but others seem to be dealing with it. Ken Tanaka has some very good images on his site with the G7--I've yet to see anyone tout the 640 on this site for similar puposes.

Diane

Very nice G7 images, Paulo! If you had not noted the camera I seriously doubt that many, if any, would have guessed they were taken with a G7.

That's a good question regarding the practical differences between the A640 and G7. The DPreview reviews for the G7 and the A640 make for some interesting comparative reading.

I am curious if the G7 has a feature that is on my SD800. My SD800 will show me after I take the photo, what area was being focused on. It shows a small box on the display, that is over the focus area. Usuing that I can ensure that the primary object in my image is the one the camera focused on. If not, reshoot.

Does the G7 have that ability.

No.

Ivan,

To your original response, I posted the following on dpreview a couple of weeks ago. I had reservations with the G7 (no RAW, questionable performance above ISO 100), but those have been put to rest after using it under what I considered to be difficult lighting conditions. To save myself some time, I've copied and pasted my original post. Bottom line, I'm very pleased with the performance so far, even shooting at ISO 400 without RAW. One added bonus I didn't originally mention was that I also got some decent video footage that I obviously wouldn't have been allowed to capture with a video camcorder.

Steve



Original dpreview post:

I picked up a G7 as a go anywhere alternative to my 20D. Is it perfect? Of course not. But it's looking to be just about everything I need in this type of camera. I saw Bruce at the Light of Day concert in NJ a couple of weeks ago. Great show, as expected, he "surprised" the audience by showing up to play around 1:00 in the morning with a couple of the groups. I never would have been able to bring in my 20D. I was very pleased, and pleasantly surprised by the shots I was able to get. They're posted here:

http://sevemiller.smugmug.com/gallery/2200430/1/114469488

We were no more than 20 feet from the stage. I initially tried using the built-in flash but that was a joke. I then turned off the flash and shot at M or Tv, typically at 1/100, f/4.5, and ISO 400 (which disappointingly, you can't tell the latter from the EXIF - thanks Canon). I basically waited for the stage spotlights to be bright enough and generally found the light to be adequate. Are they perfectly clean, noiseless images? Of course not. But bottom-line is that I was able to get the shot thanks to the P&S size, 6x zoom, and pretty decent image quality considering the setting.

I have no intentions of turning this into another G7 good/bad thread. I'm merely posting this to show that the G7 served its purpose and allowed me to get the shots. Would another P&S do the same job or better? Maybe, but that doesn't matter to me. I have what I need. Oh, and at the risk of treading into dangerous territory, while I would love to have 16-bit RAW editing headroom, I was again, pleasantly surprised by how easily I was able to tweak the JPGs in Lightroom, almost as if the originals were RAW files. That's not a G7 specific issue, rather a statement that while many of us want RAW in our P&S alternative to our DSLRs, the ability to edit JPGs like RAW files in LR or CS3 make the lack of RAW in the G7 a bit more palatable.