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Canon G7

Posted on February 19, 2007
Filed Under Diary |

Just bought a Canon G7 to back up our aging Fuji camera (which has been failing bit-by-bit over the past few months).

First impressions:

Well, a bit of new kit is rarely as exciting as the hype makes out but I like it.

First, the bad news:

No RAW format. Well, for Indonesia Export this is not such a bad thing… as much as I like the idea, our approach to product photos just doesn’t allow us to spend too long on each photo or overcomplicate the production / editing stage. In other words, we shoot a few pics, check it on the monitor (never, never ever on the built in LCD) and if there’s a problem, we adjust and then take a few hundred photos.

We’re strictly for the web and, on that level, the G7 probably represents overkill.

I did however want to play around with RAW format just for the hell of it so it is a little disappointing.

Also, no power adaptor with the package — I mean, you can’t plug it in.

Odd that: it’s got a hotshoe (mount for external flash) and the little screw-hole for a tripod… suggestive of studio work but no adaptor for mains. Goofy, really. And, over here, to get the adaptor, we need to order from Jakarta… a pain in the butt and expensive (nearly US$100.00 just for the adaptor).

Good things:

Image stabilisation is something I’ve wanted in a camera since I found out about cameras. Brilliant. I’ve been drinking coffee all day but I can still zoom in from a few meters away and get off a decent shot.

Not much noise. I had a 5mp Fuji snapshot thingie (not for the office, it was a birthday present for my wife) and I expected it to take fab photos right out of the box — it never did. The images were always speckled or noisy. What a pain and what a waste of money. Presumably, the genius at Fujifilm had decided we all want print while, in fact, most of us are keeping the images on our computers because even though memory costs and storage costs and laptops and desktops and high speed cpus are price dropping like wounded buffalo, print costs keep going up. So for an ordinary Joseph like myself, seeing noisy images on screen are a complete no-no. The G7 is fine, just fine.

Color fidelity is good… maybe right on the money or so it seems.

Heft is perfect, feels like it’s made of steel so if I end up being chased down the street for taking photos, I should be able to turn around at some point and fetch my pursuer a decent clip about the ear. More importantly, I don’t have to worry about it falling apart in my hands. A real concern when I take into account the sheer number of photos being taken and the camera is not just in my hands but passed person to person.

Also, although I’ve seen a few moans about the flimsy lens, I love the fact that it contracts completely — when it’s switched off there’s no problem with scratches, etc. In other words, I just stop worrying about it.

That’s about it. I may follow up when I’ve taken a few hundred more shots with it but for now, I like it.

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