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Canon G9, anyone played with it yet?
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This looks like a potentially brilliant street camera and possibly a decent assignment backup camera. Have any of you played with it? Thoughts?
by
Paul Treacy
at
Thu Aug 23 13:22:43 UTC 2007
(ed. May 20 2008)
New York City,
United States
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All will depend on the RAW write time and whether you can live with using either the LCD on the back of the camera or the (probably pretty inaccurate) optical viewfinder.
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Hmmm? Cute package for sure. I wish that these little guys would let you manually focus the lens with your fingers. The images look like they chunk out by 400 iso. Oh well. We’ll wait and see I guess.
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It’s coming out end of September here in Japan. At around 476 USD. Here is the camera on Canon Japan. http://tinyurl.com/ypheja
Official Samples from Canon’s site (big JPG): http://tinyurl.com/37k7mr
I wish it was a bit thinner. 3 inch LCD is nice, but it’s hardly evolutional. Apparently the shutter sound is now more “real”, 15th of a second will actually sound like 15th of a second on the F1 or T90.
I wonder if they skipped “G8” because of the international forum G8.
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I look forward to hearing of your impressions Robert.
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So what were your thoughts on the G9 Robert?
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Here’s a bunch of links reviewing the G9 courtesy of Photographybay.com.
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It looks like a nice little camera… but I won’t be getting one. If I want something small, I’ll just use my D200 with a prime lens. Or my lovely M6. Or my Holga. Or my Leica II.
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I got one a week or so ago, as a if all else fails backup, and to have a little camera like my old t4, not quite, but…
Well, it is pretty damn good, small, discrete, pretty fast shutter and focus. Only real complaint is that if you set the manual focus you have to leave the screen on, which I do not like to use. The viewfinder is small, but usable.
Have not really tested the lowlight results, but 400 is fine, totally usable. Shot some assignment pics with it the other day, and after some RAW fiddling, a little more than my 5D, they look great. RAW write speed is about 3 secs, total unscientific estimate, but ok, I am not a heavy shooter when it comes to motordrives, so this does not bother me to much, yet.
More when I have it.
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My wife and I pine for a P&S when we go out. Like last Spring, when we treated ourselves to a battery of rollercoaster rides at Six Flags, we had to make do with our cellphones for souvenir pictures, and I still haven’t figured out how to download images from our cellphones. A P&S would have been convenient. On the other hand, $500 is a lot of money for a camera that won’t be as useful as our serious gear. If we ever get around to getting a P&S, it’ll be something less pricey.
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Max…To download pics from a cell phone to your computer you’re going to have to buy the utility program from your cell phone manufacturer. That’s what I had to do with my Moto Razor.
G.
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Just got a G9 (was a huge fan of the G7). I would love to love this camera, but until there is a RAW processor worth a damn that can read its CR2 files, there is no point in buying a G9.
It ships with a version of Canon’s Zoombrowser and a separate RAW utility with a very basic interface. Canon’s own Digital Photo Professional can’t read G9 RAW files. Lightroom claims limited support for them, and you can view them in LR, but the program makes a hash of the files. They look better in the previews in the seconds before LR processes them, when they come out lighter and noisier than they seemed.
At this point, editing the JPEGs with a high-end program like LR is superior to editing the RAW files with Zoombrowser.
So I really have no idea how good the RAW files are, since I can’t insert them into my workflow and compare them to the RAW I process from my 30D in LR. Until LR or DPP can read them, I’m just shooting JPEGs (or RAW + JPEG)
Noise on the G9’s JPEGs at 400 or 800 seems less than the same shots on the G7. Shutter lag is improved to where it’s almost non-existent (it was at the outer edge of acceptable on the G7; now it’s well within acceptable).
So I’ll be a lot happier when I can shoot a RAW file at 800 or 1600 and run it through LR.
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Preston,I read this on another forum but can’t speak for its accuracy.
In addition to that, Adobe released their last upgrades for RC in PSCS3 and LR with an upsupported upgrade for the G9. ACR 4.2 and LR 1.2 both recognize the G9 (and are what I’m using). My belief is that the G9 took them a bit by surprise—it wasn’t supposed to ship until the middle to latter part of October and ended up shipping much earlier—so they added it to the recent upgrade for the 40D and MkIII. However, it appears it was not calibrated/profiled so the WB is wonky. Using something like a Whibal with the eyedropper or temp/tone sliders, you can correct WB without a problem. Everything else works as expected. There’s every reason to believe that the next upgrade will add the profile for the G9 and WB will view correctly.
I’ve also read that Silkypix now supports the G9—and I read on the Breezebrowser site that the G9 would soon be supported there.
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If you download the latest version of Adobe Camera Raw for CS3 you can process the RAW files in bridge.
ASA 1600 looks like TMAX 3200 pushed a stop or two, but 800 looks pretty good…
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Thanks, Mark. That post seems accurate, though I think it’s more than just the WB that is wonky in LR. I don’t have CS3 or Bridge, so I have to wait for another upgrade to LR or ACR.
I’m sure everything will be fine in the end. It’s just a bummer for now.
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I just wish the lenses on P&S cameras like the G9 would go wider, I could care less about going longer, but that’s what sells to consumers unfortunately.
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I just played with one in a shop. That’s all I needed. Not my thing. The body is rugged feeling, but too tiny for my hands. The lens also was a bit wobbly and lightweight plastic. Definitely wouldn’t survive my paces. Compared to a dSLR, the Sluggish AF, and a useless MF sealed the deal. The lag was a big improvement over previous models I’ve held, but that’s after the eternity (relative) of getting it focused. Setting manual exposure also has come a long way. Not ideal, but better.
I reckon if you are coming from the P&S world it would be a nice upgrade, but all the bells and whistles, with a viewfinder that is supposedly only suggestive of an actual frame, well… I’ll stick with my current set-up. A 5d with a 28/1.8 won’t fit in my pocket, but for now, fits me and my hand just fine. I can’t imagine sacrificing image quality and creamy short focus for physical camera size at this point.
Hopefully one day, they will issue a true manual digi P&S. At this point, all I want is to be able to speedily focus on the barrel while looking through a functioning viewfinder.
I’m actually glad I didn’t like it. I can’t afford an more gear at the moment anyway.
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My qestion about this camera, and for that matter, the the Ricoh GR (not having played with either) is… what’s the lag time between pressing the shutter button and shutter release like?
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Don’t know about the Ricoh, but for a point and shoot this one seems pretty good. There is still a noticeable lag compared to auto focus on an SLR, or manual focus on pretty much anything. It certainly won’t satisfy you if you are looking for a digital equivalent to a decent rangefinder in terms of speed…but the lag isn’t nearly as bad as I expected. Jethro is right that focus can take a little long, and that manual focus is difficult at best.
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I don’t notice the shutter lag on the G9. I noticed a slight lag on the G7. I realize that this is not a scientific evaluation.
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I’m not going to get this camera, rather I will finally buy Dreamweaver. I have some big projects in mind and so I should finally pay for it. CS3 will have to wait.
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Bought it today,returning it tomorrow for sure.
400 iso is very noisy but my main complaint is the white balance is nasty even within the frame, for example if you correct for skin tones the hair color is still off. On board flash to reduce iso creates red eye in every case.
Even processed using raw and PS in 16 bit does not help, using Noiseware Pro softens the picture too much to be usable. White balance makes no sense as what would be 5500 degrees on any other camera is 8500 degrees to be correct. Really disappointed.
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anyone else got their opinion about this camera? don’t know if go for it or wait for ricoh gr 2?
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I’ve had one for a couple of days. Traded in my G7 for it. I am very happy with it, everything the G7 was plus RAW. What’s not to love? Now that Adobe has released updates with complete support (in both Camera Raw and Lightroom) there’s a good raw converter. The upside: just as with the G7 it’s very fast. Even shooting raw it motors right along. I think the G7 is about 1.5 – 2 frames per second. The G9 raw is about 1 frame per second, so it is slower (in raw only, JPEG is still speedy by P&S standards) BUT there is no shot to shot lag or buffer issues. It keeps shooting as along as you have card space. It has excellent image quality up to about ISO 200. Noise becomes (slightly) apparent at ISO 200 very apparent at 400 and not usable above that (IMO).
Downside: still no 28mm wide angle and battery life could be better. But if you do your research and aware of what it will and won’t do it’s a great little camera. I think it’s an excellent backup to a dSLR or a really nice street/stealth camera. jack
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I second Jack’s opinion, it has its drawbacks, but does real well on others.
Even 400 is fine, esp. in BW.
I shot an assignment with it just to see how it would be, had a “real camera” too, and it was fine, half depress to focus and go.
really pretty good.
jml
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I got one last weekend. Great small camera, well build, fast, good raw processing. You can’t process raw with Aperture yet. Poor viewer. You need to work always with LCD. A great small camera.
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The new Lightroom handles the RAW files well, finally. I agree with most of the criticisms of the G9 but still find it a useful camera. It shoots really good (640 × 480) video, too.
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I have one and like it a lot. Not love, but close. The shutter lag is mostly af lag, so if you deal with that, it’s pretty quick. I’ve been pre-focusing by half pressing the shutter, either while I’m framing or even before I get it to my eye. I figure the DOF is so huge that even if focus isn’t exactly on, it’s going to be good enough, and after some testing it has been.
I’ve also put a voigtlander 35mm finder on the top and it’s pretty accurate on the sides and top, but the bottom needs a bit of estimation.
I don’t mind the noise, which is pretty significant at 1600. Looks like Kodak ektapress pushed.
It handles very nicely as well.
PS, sterlingtek batteries work well with the camera and only cost about $12.
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I got one this past weekend and am still trying to get use to it. For some reason I’m having trouble focusing on subjects — might be because of low-light conditions. We’ll see how it works out.
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I had a play with one the other day the files seemed peppered with noise at above ISO 400 but running it in noisewear on the default sorted it out, I think I will be buying one in the new year
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I got one yesterday. Nice little toy. It will become my “always with me” camera.
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I would have given it a thought had it had some wide angle…
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I am really interested in the video feature. Any comments on that.
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If interested in the video feature mainly, then you might want to look at the Canon S5 IS. It’s a compact camera too but its specialty is a dedicated video button that by-passes the menu twiddling and it records audio in stereo.
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Paul, I’ve tried that camera’s video set up. The buttons are convienent. The video itself wasn’t that great.
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The G9 is cool but what other cameras are out there like the G9 (slr/point and shoot blah blah things) i dont care about RAW just needs to be good jpeg files would be good if it cost $$ less than a G9 to? cheers
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Try the G7 (much cheaper now and no RAW).
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G7 is nice. I believe it is exactly the same body as the G-9. Nice little camera to carry around all the time.
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G7 is indeed a nice camera. The body is very slightly different, but barely noticeable changes. The LCD on the back is a bit smaller, and no RAW. I shot with one for about a year and was very happy with it.
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I’ve been debating whether or not to get the G9 or the A650. I’ve handled both; a friend has both of them, but handling and really putting the thing through its paces is another thing entirely.
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okay then G9ers (that’d be a good www btw), riddle me this:
Anyone get the wide angle adapter? Opinions??
Anyone use it and can honestly compare it to the Sigma DP1 with real experience???
Whats the best deal anyone landed on these?
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As soon as I bought it, I of course started thinking about adaptors, when I should really be thinking about channelling the money towards more SLR gear. I’m gonna try and stay “purist” for a while, and use it for the reason I got it – a straight up, non-obtrusive camera that doesn’t get any more attention than a consumer compact.
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Hey Gary, thanks for the link – I just did the custom modifications…
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paul, in case you don’t already know, you can play with one for a couple of hours and print out the results for free at the ny photo awards…..55 Washington Street (2nd floor) Canon G9 Production & Exhibition Studio
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Was on the loose with mine today in Tokyo – heading back to Ireland in the morning, so will post the results then….
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Didn’t get to the shindig last evening to play as was burning a fever. Still a little out of sorts.
Tomorrow is promised to my family. Don’t have any available cash anyway as want to get new gear. That’s more important to me right now.
Any word yet on the G10?
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i sold my G9 after a few weeks of messing around with it. i was not really that happy with its results.
i can’t wait interminable seconds for the raws to be be buffered so i don’t even try and always shot jpg, mostly B&W, on these little things.
i cant stand the current industry practices for small point and shoots, based on jerking up the pixels per inch without enlarging the sensors. would make sense to me to keep 4.2 mpx point and shoots with the sensor size we got today. i do understand why they do it though.
still prefer the panasonic dmc lx2, way smaller and natively 16:9. i just can’t digest the 4:3 format. i ordered the sigma DP1, APS size sensor and 3:2. lets see how that goes. if that doesn’t work for me ill buy a small ricoh gr1 with B&W film and forget about it.
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Hi Guy, if you are shooting in RAW you need a class 6 memory card, this camera has ‘live view’ mode and only works with fast cards. The LX2, is good and a 28mm, but only when its set to 16:9 which is a format I could not get on with. I often crop the g9’s images to 3:2. I am waiting to try a DP1 :)
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One of the first images I shot with the G9. Shinjuku Station, Tokyo:
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