mutineer
29th of April 2007 (Sun), 13:24
This is cross posted over on www.dgrin.com
I posted there asking about the G7 as a second camera. I had an SD400 (lost) and the SD500 (stolen)
I liked them very much, especially the size, but missed having some control. Not that I know much about how to use it, but like riding a fast motorbike, you may not use though it sure is nice knowing it is there.
So pulled the trigger on a G7.
Overall, I am very happy with the camera.
As with all things though, the endorsement is qualified.
If you are expecting DSLR performance you will be sorely disappointed. By a D40 (or a digirebel, I know we are canon heavy around here) if you want sports, no lag, and easy to hold.
Buy this is you want 90% of DSLR ability to fit in your pocket. Street photography, travel, snapshots, documentary/documentation etc.
The "ergos" or how the camera fits into what I wanted it for
As noted I wanted a camera that I am a lot more likely to grab on the way out than a DLSR but with a lot of the control. At leat as important, to me anyway, I wanted a camera that felt like a damn camera, not a computer accessory.
The build quality is enormously satisfying - I think of it as a poor man's rangefinder. More than anything else this is what drew me to the camera. Metal body, knurled dials, black body, and a satisfying weight.
The Industrial Design at Canon team really managed to give it an analog feel. It appeals to the same part of me that love my '04 Triumph Bonneville. It maintains enough of the sprint of the old object to be spiritually satisfying while still giving you enough of what you need to from modern equipment to get an effective job done.
My original intention was to keep it at work a lot of the time, drop it in my pocket and spend the occasional lunch hour wandering downtown and getting some street photos.
It is a lot of camera to drop in your pocket - probably too much for how I dress for work (I wear suits 90% of the time). If I use for what I bought for I will be carrying it around in my hand when dressed in a suit. Yes, a guy in a suit walking around snapping pictures st lunchtime downtown does look odd. Strangely enough I find myself having to push myself to actually take some pictures because I feel out pf place. The semiotics of this, along with why street photography fascinates me would make a great paper if I was still a college kid.
The G7 goes OK into jeans but it is big, think old man's wallet
If you consider what you wear part of your gear a set of regular old cargo pants would make a perfect camera bag for this camera. A battery, a metz flash, an onmibounce and an extra card would all fit easily in the pockets and disappear pretty quick when you are just walking around. (I don't have the flash or omni yet, but I will)
The lack of a grip, like the one found or prior G's, is what makes it more likely to be picked up on the way out the door and what makes someone with big paws like mine get frustrated with using it but there is no real way around this.
I put on a small wrist lanyard that I had laying around and this make an OK way to carry the camera around. It comes with an neck strap which just looks silly and cheap. To my mind having in your right hand ready to shoot is the way to carry it around.
The optical viewfinder is ridiculously small and difficult to use for me. I find myself holding the camera away from my face and using the LCD, which makes for some very poor technique. If I do not break this developing habit I will surely miss some otherwise good pictures, even with the image stabilization.
Much has been made of the lack of the swivel LCD from prior G's. The new LCD has such a wide viewing angle that I do not think you lose a lot of that functionality. Holding a camera over your head and utrningh te LCD 180 or moves like that cannot be repeated, but for the shot of the stall I held the camera about a foot off the ground and could see plenty of info to frame the shot. It was a quick snap, as you can see in the original below, if I had put more thought into framing the shot a crop would not have been necessaary.
The tech side
First let us dispense with the religious issues - I can live without RAW
My "workflow" is simply not that developed
If you are like 94% of the shooting public neither is yours. Letting Canon's incredibly selfish protection of their DSLR market by dropping RAW keep you from buying this camera is a mistake. If you need RAW you probably already have a DSLR anyway. I am pissed at Canon for hobbling this camera in this fashion too, but I also hate bad weather, my emotional response to either is likely to have the same effect on each.
Shutter lag seems to be worse than I thought it would be. With the flash is it is unforgivable in a camera at this price. My SD500 felt faster.
I'm going to play with custom settings to see if I can get around that with running around with the shutter button at half press which is really not realistic.
After looking at the specs from prior G's I would rather have the faster/wider lens over RAW
I know little about effective use of flash so I cannot comment intelligently on the settings regarding curtain and all that black magic
Neat Side Benefit
If you, like me, are the front end bottom half of the learning curve this camera has a really neat benefit.
The very nice LCD shows in real time the effect of changes to manual settings. Changes in f stop and aperture have an immediate effect on the viewed image on the LCD. Immediate feedback has shown me more in the few days of owning this little G7 than I got out a hell of a lot more time of owning a DSLR.
A lot of what I learned is surely obvious to most here, but a lot of things I probably should have already understood really became apparent to me though this feature.
This camera would make an incredible teaching tool in a 101 type photo class.
The pictures
The conversion above took about 10 minutes or less in Elements 5.0
Used the Conversion tool, upped contrast, played with shadow and highlighting some.
Upped the blue, dropped red some I think and cropped. Used Skew a little on the shot of the stall.
here are the originals
http://mutineer.smugmug.com/photos/147863137-L-1.jpg http://mutineer.smugmug.com/photos/147863162-L.jpg
http://mutineer.smugmug.com/photos/147863286-L-1.jpg http://mutineer.smugmug.com/photos/147863319-L.jpg
I posted there asking about the G7 as a second camera. I had an SD400 (lost) and the SD500 (stolen)
I liked them very much, especially the size, but missed having some control. Not that I know much about how to use it, but like riding a fast motorbike, you may not use though it sure is nice knowing it is there.
So pulled the trigger on a G7.
Overall, I am very happy with the camera.
As with all things though, the endorsement is qualified.
If you are expecting DSLR performance you will be sorely disappointed. By a D40 (or a digirebel, I know we are canon heavy around here) if you want sports, no lag, and easy to hold.
Buy this is you want 90% of DSLR ability to fit in your pocket. Street photography, travel, snapshots, documentary/documentation etc.
The "ergos" or how the camera fits into what I wanted it for
As noted I wanted a camera that I am a lot more likely to grab on the way out than a DLSR but with a lot of the control. At leat as important, to me anyway, I wanted a camera that felt like a damn camera, not a computer accessory.
The build quality is enormously satisfying - I think of it as a poor man's rangefinder. More than anything else this is what drew me to the camera. Metal body, knurled dials, black body, and a satisfying weight.
The Industrial Design at Canon team really managed to give it an analog feel. It appeals to the same part of me that love my '04 Triumph Bonneville. It maintains enough of the sprint of the old object to be spiritually satisfying while still giving you enough of what you need to from modern equipment to get an effective job done.
My original intention was to keep it at work a lot of the time, drop it in my pocket and spend the occasional lunch hour wandering downtown and getting some street photos.
It is a lot of camera to drop in your pocket - probably too much for how I dress for work (I wear suits 90% of the time). If I use for what I bought for I will be carrying it around in my hand when dressed in a suit. Yes, a guy in a suit walking around snapping pictures st lunchtime downtown does look odd. Strangely enough I find myself having to push myself to actually take some pictures because I feel out pf place. The semiotics of this, along with why street photography fascinates me would make a great paper if I was still a college kid.
The G7 goes OK into jeans but it is big, think old man's wallet
If you consider what you wear part of your gear a set of regular old cargo pants would make a perfect camera bag for this camera. A battery, a metz flash, an onmibounce and an extra card would all fit easily in the pockets and disappear pretty quick when you are just walking around. (I don't have the flash or omni yet, but I will)
The lack of a grip, like the one found or prior G's, is what makes it more likely to be picked up on the way out the door and what makes someone with big paws like mine get frustrated with using it but there is no real way around this.
I put on a small wrist lanyard that I had laying around and this make an OK way to carry the camera around. It comes with an neck strap which just looks silly and cheap. To my mind having in your right hand ready to shoot is the way to carry it around.
The optical viewfinder is ridiculously small and difficult to use for me. I find myself holding the camera away from my face and using the LCD, which makes for some very poor technique. If I do not break this developing habit I will surely miss some otherwise good pictures, even with the image stabilization.
Much has been made of the lack of the swivel LCD from prior G's. The new LCD has such a wide viewing angle that I do not think you lose a lot of that functionality. Holding a camera over your head and utrningh te LCD 180 or moves like that cannot be repeated, but for the shot of the stall I held the camera about a foot off the ground and could see plenty of info to frame the shot. It was a quick snap, as you can see in the original below, if I had put more thought into framing the shot a crop would not have been necessaary.
The tech side
First let us dispense with the religious issues - I can live without RAW
My "workflow" is simply not that developed
If you are like 94% of the shooting public neither is yours. Letting Canon's incredibly selfish protection of their DSLR market by dropping RAW keep you from buying this camera is a mistake. If you need RAW you probably already have a DSLR anyway. I am pissed at Canon for hobbling this camera in this fashion too, but I also hate bad weather, my emotional response to either is likely to have the same effect on each.
Shutter lag seems to be worse than I thought it would be. With the flash is it is unforgivable in a camera at this price. My SD500 felt faster.
I'm going to play with custom settings to see if I can get around that with running around with the shutter button at half press which is really not realistic.
After looking at the specs from prior G's I would rather have the faster/wider lens over RAW
I know little about effective use of flash so I cannot comment intelligently on the settings regarding curtain and all that black magic
Neat Side Benefit
If you, like me, are the front end bottom half of the learning curve this camera has a really neat benefit.
The very nice LCD shows in real time the effect of changes to manual settings. Changes in f stop and aperture have an immediate effect on the viewed image on the LCD. Immediate feedback has shown me more in the few days of owning this little G7 than I got out a hell of a lot more time of owning a DSLR.
A lot of what I learned is surely obvious to most here, but a lot of things I probably should have already understood really became apparent to me though this feature.
This camera would make an incredible teaching tool in a 101 type photo class.
The pictures
The conversion above took about 10 minutes or less in Elements 5.0
Used the Conversion tool, upped contrast, played with shadow and highlighting some.
Upped the blue, dropped red some I think and cropped. Used Skew a little on the shot of the stall.
here are the originals
http://mutineer.smugmug.com/photos/147863137-L-1.jpg http://mutineer.smugmug.com/photos/147863162-L.jpg
http://mutineer.smugmug.com/photos/147863286-L-1.jpg http://mutineer.smugmug.com/photos/147863319-L.jpg