Canon PowerShot G7 & WP-DC11

My experience with the G2 has been that RAW is absolutely wonderful, for allowing after the fact white balance, and get all the colors right, with no banding.

So, if you are going to give up RAW anyway, I wonder if the G7 is the way to go? I wonder if it is finally as fast as a sony, say V3, in low light autofocus? My guess is no.

I wonder if the G7 autofocus is as good as the Pro1, in low contrast situations?

Oh, oh.

Looks like the G7 has a significant extra shutter lag, using the flash, and even more using an external flash! Yikes:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp...essage=21078215

0.5 extra seconds, and this is final half press! Ohhhh Noooooooooo!

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canong7/page5.asp

Don,

I've read many of the posts at www.dpreview.com from Canon G7 users. Again, it ain't a dSLR, but many users don't use ANY camera enough to learn how to maximize the features.

Shutter lag with externally connected flash units (Canon 430EX on surface) or UW units with eTTL2 with practice can still produce very good images. Unless all you shoot are fast moving tuna, etc.

I've found with just a bit of practice anticipating where a fish, turtle, or diver is swimming I've been able to get many, many decent shots with P&S cameras. Go read my trip report at www.scuba-adventures.com on a Shearwater trip in September. Or check out the samples below. All shot with a Fuji E900 and externally tripped DS51!

If you aren't going to go dSLR, I think the Canon G7 or even Canon A640 are great choices. One just needs to get a camera and housing and start practicing!

YMMV

dhaas

Everything you say may be, but for this price of camera, it should be a lot better. At this price, in 2006, you should not be having to deal with LONGER final half press shutter lag than my old G2 has!!! The G2 was .095 seconds, final shutter lag. The G7 autofocus is better, which is important, but that final half press lag should be completely gone! Not up to .5 seconds, in a silly canon marketing decision to try to force us to buy DSLRs.

With no RAW, and bad final half press shutter lag, there is no way it is worth the price, or the aggravation of trying to shut uw photo with such a poor excuse for great line of cameras...

YMMV indeed.

B)

Don,

Yeah, it's definitely overpriced at $500.00 +. But people said $350.00 (or whatever it was) for the Fuji E900 was overpriced. Until Dr. Bob and others starting posting amazing images taken with the little thing.

Focus triggering at .5 seconds if that is the spec isn't terrible. I've shot P&S cameras with longer shutter lag than that and still got photos....Plus I've see people buy a dSLR and still be unable to capture a fish, diver, dolphin, shark, etc. Always has been and will be more photographer than equipment.

I'm not high on the Canon G7 for argument's sake. Just realistic about the capability at $200.00 or more beneath a dSLR. (Canon Rebel XTi) which will cost more to house, extra ports, lenses, etc. All in a smaller travel package if that is important to some shooters. And as I've said before, RAW won't help bad photography techniques.

Regarding Canon's marketing ideas, I can't say I know what they're thinking but I bet 99% of shooters who buy a Canon G7 won't miss RAW, or the swivel screen, or find the focus lag time terrible. They'll sell all they can produce.

But hey, just my humble opinion

dhaas

Hi

Ikelite has just released the housing for the canon g7.

Expensive and no use actually for a wide lense.

I will buy the Canon housing , not so heavy ( I own also a Nikon D50 in a sea and sea housing and I travel ..) , not so big and doing the same work !!

Dominique

http://www.ikelite.com/web_pages/5can_g7.html#seedown

Hi Everyone

Would the Canon Ixus 850 (SD800) with the WP DC9 housing not be a better u/w camera?

It has a 28mm wide angle and with only 7mp there should be less noise at all ISO settings.

Dave

Hi Everyone

 

Would the Canon Ixus 850 (SD800) with the WP DC9 housing not be a better u/w camera?

 

It has a 28mm wide angle and with only 7mp there should be less noise at all ISO settings.

 

Dave

Hi Dave.

Probably not. It does not have any manual exposure mode, or aperture priority, so use with any external flash will be nearly impossible.

Don,

 

Yeah, it's definitely overpriced at $500.00 +. But people said $350.00 (or whatever it was) for the Fuji E900 was overpriced. Until Dr. Bob and others starting posting amazing images taken with the little thing.

 

Focus triggering at .5 seconds if that is the spec isn't terrible.

 

Regarding Canon's marketing ideas, I can't say I know what they're thinking but I bet 99% of shooters who buy a Canon G7 won't miss RAW, or the swivel screen, or find the focus lag time terrible. They'll sell all they can produce.

 

dhaas

Hi David.

It seems to me the reason the e900 produces great uw images, and what makes it worth the $350 is low lag times, and RAW mode! The final shutter lag, after half press pre-focus is .010 seconds. About the same as the G3-5-6 and the Pro1. If the e900 had a hot shoe, I would already have bought one.

Adding extra lag time with a slow autofocus is one thing, but extra final half press shutter lag, when you and the fish are all moving in opposite directions, makes it stupid. Yes you can get plenty of good shots. Through shear bullheadedness and refusal to quit. In fact I've done so! See my G2 results. But you also have a ton more aggravation, than you would, lots more failed tries before you get one right, just with that extra lag...

I'm sure you're right that 99% of people that buy the G7 will not miss raw. Since all those who demand RAW are refusing to buy the G7.

If I told you, back in the film days, that you could shoot negatives, but when you got them developed you only got back really great prints, and the negatives would be destroyed, would you accept and defend this?

That is the same as leaving off RAW, in this level of camera. You can claim that is all comes down to skill of the photographer, but that is not the issue. The issue is flexibility. The jpg has the cameras settings for WB, sharpness, and contrast already built into it, and has thrown out the extra 4 bits of data on every pixel, (not even worrying about the jpg compression yet - just the conversion from 12 to 8 bit). This means that any further experimentation you might want to do, say convert to B&W, or change the results of the camera's automatic contrast setting, must be done on the print, instead of starting with the negative.

I've been shooting raw since 2000 or so, and I think a proper work flow must start from RAW. There is no good reason not to, and every reason to do so. If the automatic conversion from RAW to jpg works to your satisfaction, great! 98% of the time it does. But if you want to adjust the WB, or contrast, or convert to B&W, you can safely do so without introducing any banding, or spiky histograms.

My real gripe, is that I don't want the bulk, weight, or price of a housed DSLR setup. Been there with the N90s throughout the 90s. Rather not do it again, though I'm getting frustrated now. I've argued here, in the past, that a truly capable P&S with a great live view LCD, negligible lags, fast AF, and RAW mode is actually a better UW photo tool than a DSLR, with it's tiny (relatively) viewfinder, and large bulk underwater.

The G series of cameras has been my big hope, that someday canon would actually make a truly great P&S, that would fill this role. The G6 was there, but for the autofocus speed. Then canon took years of putting out silly little cameras with much faster AF & shutter operations than the G6, but never released that next G camera. Now they do, but they've abandoned RAW and added this arbitrary extra lag with flash, in direct opposition to what all us long time G camera fans were hoping for.

I guess I"ll either buy a nikon dslr, or give up and get a e900. Or maybe go back and get a Pro1 or G6 even, if I can find them still.

Sigh.

Don

Dominique,

The Ikelite housing will have a HARD WIRED eTTL flash connection when used with Ikelite DS strobes for TRUE eTTL underwater and you can adjust flash output in the camera's menu. You won't get ANY flash connection with Canon's housing.

The Ikelite also has threaded exterior to accept any brand, including their NEW wide angle lens adapter on the outside. So still plenty of flexibility here. Plus a lot tougher housing, with some room for user error around your camera in case you goof up assembling it.

As far as Dave James comments, people misunderstand that even if a P&S camera has a 28mm lens once you put it underwater behind a housing's FLAT port you lose some of this angle due to refraction and the resultant narrowing of the lens's view. So unless you have some custom housing with a dome port, the wide P&S lens angle is moot....

Don, I hear your frustrations......Wanting a small compact high peformance camera with advanced features and using the screens we love to compose with underwater. As I've said before, underwater shooters are likely a eensy teensy minority in the photography world and making features for the minority doen't fit manufacturing plans these days.

So underwater shooters might not buy the Canon G7? Who cares! Canon won't....and they'll still sell a ton of them.....So we have to deal with these compromises and as I stated before, and then go shoot a LOT.

I can also tell you this, the great flash and shutter performance of the Fuji E900, per their spec, still seems agonizingly slow compared to a dSLR.....Hence my use of the tiny, affordable and super capable Canon Rebel XTi and some decent glass.

Finally, RAW......I understand all the technical advantages. The ability to adjust for errors, super technically adept B&W conversions, etc. But I hear from more and more people getting into UW digital photography that the last thing they want to do is learn a "workflow".....They just want to get a decently framed and exposed angelfish, dive buddy on the wreck, dolphin, etc. and email it out. Plus maybe make some prints for their albums. That's it........Oh yeah, they want it to be FUN Not work.....So therein lies the truth of the majority of shooters out there.

I have 8700+ photos right now sitting in my iPhoto database. I could probably delete 75% of them keeping the real nice ones and not miss the others. This is another bane of digital imaging, being buried under tons of meaningless, "almost" shots we keep, store, back up, etc. And most will NEVER be worked on and hence need tweeked from the RAW file. But if someone wants to use RAW, so be it....As I said elsewhere in this thread, I MIGHT soon......

Later!

dhaas

Forgot to mention that as the slow final press with flash subject has been discussed over at www.dpreview.com many are wondering if this is a software or firmware glitch and can be updated by Canon.

Also someone posted about pressing the "pre-flash" star button after locking AF and then pulling the trigger and it seemed to speed up final firing when using a flash connected to the hot shoe.

Not sure if that could be done easily in a housing, though.......

dhaas

Thanks for all the info on the G7 Dave. I also agree on RAW (Requires A lot of Work) - if you capture the right exposure, you should not really need it except for challenging lighting situations. If someone requires the level of image control that RAW provides, they should be looking at a DSLR to begin with - the jump in quality from a point & shoot CCD to a DSLR sensor will be much greater than the jump in quality between JPG and RAW. IMHO as a serious amatuer, the jump in quality from JPG to RAW (that 95% of people won't even notice) is hardly worth the post-processing time investment.

That being said, it does seem a bad choice to put out a camera at a "prosumer" price point and then take away a feature (RAW) desirable to prosumer shooters. That coupled with the many comments I've seen about the shutter lag are making me rethink the G7 for underwater. Canon seems to be trading in its market savvy for corporate hubris - the company that redefined the DSLR market as a consumer good by coming out with a good DSLR under $1,000 is now taking away features that customers value to segregate its market segments - and is fooling no one in doing it. Not to mention oddly arrogant things like pulling the ISO data out of its EXIF files, an industry standard.

Time will tell if Canon is opening the door to higher profits or fiercer competition in the high end point & shoot space, I'm sure Nikon & Olympus will offer something comparable with RAW and less shutter lag - I am going to postpone my G7 purchase to see what the next few months bring.

As far as Dave James comments, people misunderstand that even if a P&S camera has a 28mm lens once you put it underwater behind a housing's FLAT port you lose some of this angle due to refraction and the resultant narrowing of the lens's view. So unless you have some custom housing with a dome port, the wide P&S lens angle is moot....

Hi

With regard to the above, I'd never considered that Canon would cripple the wide angle capability of their P&S product with their (own) uw housing. I'm probably going going to get a new setup at the end of January. I like Canon cameras and despite the slow shutter speed, noise levels at high ISO etc. I'm torn between a G7 and ixus850.

Will the G7 have a similar wide angle performance then to the 850 once they're each encased in their uw housings?

Dave James

Dave,

Yes, I think the wide angle performance behind any housing's flat port would likely be the same. Although the mega-pixel difference of the G7 might give your files a bit of an edge....

You're areally tlaking two different feature sets in comapring these cameras. Apples and Oranges....

dhaas

Dominique,

 

The Ikelite housing will have a HARD WIRED eTTL flash connection when used with Ikelite DS strobes for TRUE eTTL underwater and you can adjust flash output in the camera's menu. You won't get ANY flash connection with Canon's housing.

 

The Ikelite also has threaded exterior to accept any brand, including their NEW wide angle lens adapter on the outside. So still plenty of flexibility here. Plus a lot tougher housing, with some room for user error around your camera in case you goof up assembling it.

FINE !! I own two Inon 2000 w ...!!!

And I don't think that the use of an extra wide angle lens will be so easy with Ikelite housing and G7....even Ikelite said in their commentary that the use of their own wide lense will not be possible ..

Anyway , I travel twice a year , and the g7 is only my second camera , I would certainly prefer the Ikelite housing , but definitivly it's too big for my purpose as I've still to carry my Nikon d 50 with lenses and sea and sea housing and ports and flashs and arms and everything ...

It's so funny to try to be an underwater photographer !!!

Expensive and no use actually for a wide lense.

 

 

http://www.ikelite.com/web_pages/5can_g7.html#seedown

Any reason why Ike are saying the WA lenses won't work???

Ryan.

Any reason why Ike are saying the WA lenses won't work???

 

Ryan.

According to Ikelite, "extreme lens length". I think this may be that with the lens retracted for wide angle shots, the WA lens might have an issue with vignetting. On my SP-350 with 20mm Sea & Sea lens, I have that issue, but you can slightly zoom the camera and still get some wide angle effect, even if you don't have the full 105 degrees, or whatever is offered by the lens.

According to Ikelite, "extreme lens length". I think this may be that with the lens retracted for wide angle shots, the WA lens might have an issue with vignetting. On my SP-350 with 20mm Sea & Sea lens, I have that issue, but you can slightly zoom the camera and still get some wide angle effect, even if you don't have the full 105 degrees, or whatever is offered by the lens.

What about the Inon fisheye external lense (UFL – 165AD). Still going to have the same problems? I'm on the verge of buying this camera, but if it's lacking WA capabilities, I may have to reconsider.

What are the main differences between a WA lense and a fisheye?

Cheers,

Ryan.

Yeah...i've been looking at this camera for uw use too...

I was wondering if anyone has used the Ikelite housing w/ wet lenses? In particular:

- Wide angle eg. INON WL-100 & dome

- Macro stacking lenses eg. INON 165s

...& if they have any comments on

- focus (speed, accuracy, limitations)

- depth of field

It seems that it's a really good camera, but Canon has decided to cut it short on a few areas. So here's my 2 cents....

I'm disapppointed that the RAW feature is cut out. After all, it's suppose to be a "Pro"sumer, right? That's what higher end cameras are suppose to be about; features!! So what if not everyone is going to use it?? Admittedly, i don't use it that often either. Seems they've slightly dipped into the "Con"sumer range w/ the G7! Disappointing!

I love the flip out LCD & of course, i would prefer to have a tripod or a higher vantage point....but sometimes it's just not there, & my c5050 has made the day w/ the flip out on many occasions....especially when you're in a room & you have the camera against the wall for max coverage or very near the ground for perspective...much nicer than burying your chin in mud or sand just to get that shot... I've started carrying a mirror w/ my non-flips for the same advantage.

I think the shutter lag (especially at 0.5secs!!) at this stage of camera production & evolution on a prosumer is TOO MUCH!! If it was a consumer camera, it wold be much more acceptable.

I feel the camera manufacturers are just playing a game w/ consumers, cutting out a little bit of this & little bit of that each time, so that we keep upgrading. Why not just make an excellent camera, nevermind the cost so much & get it right with ALL the features! Eventually, the digital high end guys will keep upgrading just for the megapixels anyway. I dont' think it's soooo difficult to judge what are good features, esp. when there's always the option to NOT use it. How many of us use EVERY feature in our high end devices?...& not just cameras...Features!!!

I'm sure that there's lots of SLR users who would love to have a "portable" that offers almost as much flexibilty as their SLR, just so they can have it with them ALL the time. That's where portability comes in right??! Look at phones & laptops?!

ON the flip side, i do like the new dialer, the look & compactness of the G7. Question is, what will Olympus & the others counter with now?

Ryan, a quick answer: a fisheye is a WA lense....but not all WA lenses are a fisheye. THe fisheye is just a very very very wide angle...

Hi Lanwu, I agree 100% -

The game is called "portfolio management" or "segment sculpting" (MBA buzzwords but a real detriment to consumers) - and you are absolutely right, they are removing features people value to push consumers towards higher end cameras and create "migration paths" for people who outgrow point and shoot cameras to make the jump up to DSLRs.

As I said in my rant above, Canon showed incredible insight by introducing the digital Rebel at under $1000 and redefining the digital SLR as a consumer good - and carving themselves a lion's share of the market. In my opinion, they are really abandoning that now with the over priced and under featured G7. Of course they will sell a ton of them to consumers who don't know the difference, but it does leave prosumer customers vulnerable if Nikon & Olympus offer better performing cameras in a comparable price range. Yes - it is absolutely a game Canon is playing, one that hurts consumers and creates risks for Canon.

I played a little with a friend's G7, it is very nice for a land camera but given its prosumer price but consumer performance (shutter lag, no RAW), I've decided to wait a few months to see how Nikon & Olympus respond . I previously shot a 5060 and liked the flip lens, that is not a deal breaker but it certainly adds to a long list of negatives. I wanted the G7 for compactness during dives and travel, but am unwilling to sink so much money into a system that I know will frustrate me with long shutter lag.

One other important area where I think Canon is really missing the boat (no dive pun intended) - people tend to be very brand loyal to SLR systems, especially since they usually have a large investment in lenses. But with point & shoot, that is weakend. I shot Nikon film SLRs for years, but then bought a Olympus 5060 because side by side its features and performance were better than the comparable Nikon Coolpix at the time.