Canon G7 Review

There is a gaping hole in the spectrum of cameras currently available to serious photographers. Digital point-and-shoots flourish like weeds, and DSLRs continue to get better and less expensive. The hole though is found at the price / feature point where photographers need less than a DSLR and more than a simple digicam. Such a camera needs to offer good image quality, decent megapixel count, a high spec lens, fast aperture, clean medium-high ISO noise characteristics, decent handling, and an optical viewfinder. It also needs to provide raw capability.
The new Canon G7 meets most of these characteristics quite well but misses being a truly desirable camera because of its lack of raw capability. Why Canon has decided to remove raw from all of its new non-DSLRs is a mystery. It likely has been done so as not to cannibalize sales from the higher margin DSLR segment, but one really has to wonder at the marketing logic of this approach.
But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Before I launch in...