Canon PowerShot G7X – Product Review
I’m always a fan of Canon’s so I was excited to try out the new PowerShot G7X on our recent trip to Cairns. Here’s our review of the Canon PowerShot G7X.
Design:
The Canon PowerShot G7X is fairly small and fits in your hand perfectly! At 103mm x 60.4mm x 40.4mm it’s an extremely handy size and only weights 300 grams. This camera is perfect to pop in your handbag or pocket and take with everywhere you go!
Like most other Canon compacts, its body is speckled metal, giving a cool, hard feeling and one of the major benefits of the Canon PowerShot G7 X is its manual control. There’s a great click-feedback control wheel around the lens, an exposure dial under the mode dial, as well as the usual control wheel on the back plate. Most of the controls can be found on the back of the camera, along with a touchscreen display (making it a little easier to focus on the areas you want). The touchscreen display also flips up, making it easy to take those oh so important seflies! Haha.
Special Features
The My Colours function menu option contains a range of colour options for tweaking the look of your images before shooting. Which include vivid, neutral, sepia, black and white, positive film, lighter skin ton, darker skin ton, vivid blue, vivid green and vivid red
The Creative Filters shooting mode are also really cool, they include 10 different options to help spice up your images. High dynamic range, nostalgic, fish eye effect, miniature effect, toy camera effect, background defocus, soft focus, monochrome, super vivid and poster effect. ( I think I overused this a little haha!)
Canon Camera Connect app:
The Canon Camera Connect app is very easy to use, just make sure to read the instructions or set up as I can be a little confusing.
You can shoot images with your camera directly from your device – changing settings as you go or upload and save your favourite images from the day, making instant posting to social media quick and easy!
Recording and image quality:
The Canon PowerShot G7X produces images of very good quality. It recorded noise-free images at ISO 125-800, with some noise at ISO 1600. ISO 3200 and 6400 show more obvious noise but still remain perfectly usable, although the fastest setting of ISO 12800 is best avoided.
The very cute built-in flash worked well in and outdoors, with no red-eye and good overall exposure.
The anti-shake feature worked very well when hand-holding the camera in all conditions
My favourite part of using the Canon PowerShot G7Xwas the extensive range of My Color modes and Creative Filters make it easy to spice up your images!
You can shoot movies in full HD – 1920 x 1080, so you can show your family back home all the fun they are missing!
Nerdy stats:
Effective Pixels
Approx. 20.2M (Aspect ratio 3:2) [14]
Total Pixels
Approx. 20.9M
Focal Length
8.8 – 36.8 mm (35 mm equivalent: 24 – 100 mm)
Zoom
Optical 4.2x
ZoomPlus 8.4x
Digital Approx. 4x (with Digital Tele-Converter approx. 1.6x or 2.0x [1])
Combined approx. 17x
Maximum f/number
f/1.8-f/2.8
ISO Sensitivity
125, 160, 200, 250, 320, 400, 500, 640, 800, 1000, 1250, 1600, 2000, 2500, 3200, 4000, 5000, 6400, 8000, 10000, 12800 [15]
AUTO ISO: 125 – 12800 (possible to set Max. ISO speed and rate of change)
Shutter Speed
1 – 1/2000 sec. (factory default)
250 – 1/2000 sec. (total range – varies by shooting mode)
Viewfinder Information
AF information: Single/Spot AF points, AF Frame, AF status, Focus indicator, AF mode, AF point selection, AF point registration
Exposure information: Shutter speed, aperture value, ISO speed (always displayed), AE lock, exposure level/compensation, flash metering, spot metering circle, exposure warning, AEB, metering mode, shooting mode
Flash information: Flash ready, high-speed sync, FE lock, flash exposure compensation, red-eye reduction light.
Image information: Card information, maximum burst (2 digit display), Highlight tone priority (D+).
Composition information: Grid, Electronic level
Other information: Battery check, Warning symbol, Flicker Detection, drive mode, white balance, JPEG/RAW indicator”
Monitor
Tilt type 7.5 cm (3.0”) sRGB PureColor II G Touchscreen LCD (TFT). 3:2 aspect ratio. Approx. 1,040,000 dots. Capacitive type
Display Options
1. Quick Control Screen
2. Camera settings
3. Dual Axis Electronic Level
Flash
Auto, Manual Flash On / Off, Slow Synchro
Red-Eye Reduction
Yes
Built-in Flash Range
50 cm – 7.0 m (W) / 40 cm – 4.0 m (T)
External Flash
Canon High Power Flash HF-DC2
Modes
Smart Auto (58 scenes detected), Program AE, Shutter priority AE, Aperture priority AE, Manual, Custom, Hybrid Auto, Creative Shot, SCN (Portrait, Smart Shutter (Smile, Wink Self-Timer, FaceSelf-Timer), Star (Star Nightscape, Star Trails, Star Portrait, Star Time-Lapse Movie), Handheld Night Scene, Underwater, Snow, Fireworks), Creative Filters (High Dynamic Range, Nostalgic, Fish-eye Effect, Miniature Effect, Toy Camera Effect, Background Defocus, Soft Focus, Monochrome, Super Vivid, Poster Effect), Movie
Modes in Movie
Smart Auto (21 scenes detected), Standard, Program AE, Manual, Portrait, Nostalgic, Miniature Effect, Monochrome, Super Vivid, Poster Effect, Underwater, Snow, Fireworks, iFrame Movie
Photo Effects
My Colors (My Colors Off, Vivid, Neutral, Sepia, Black & White, Positive Film, Lighter Skin Tone, Darker Skin Tone, Vivid Blue, Vivid Green, Vivid Red, Custom Color)
Image Size
3:2 – (RAW, L) 5472 x 3648, (M1) 4320 x 2880, (M2) 2304 x 1536, (S) 720 x 480
4:3 – (RAW, L) 4864 x 3648, (M1) 3840 x 2880, (M2) 2048 x 1536, (S) 640 x 480
16:9 – (RAW, L) 5472 x 3080, (M1) 4320 x 2432, (M2) 1920 x 1080, (S) 720 x 408
1:1 – (RAW, L) 3648 x 3648, (M1) 2880 x 2880, (M2) 1536 x 1536, (S) 480 x 480
4:5 – (RAW, L) 2912 x 3648, (M1) 2304 x 2880, (M2) 1232 x 1536, (S) 384 x 480
Resize in playback (M2, S)
Compression
RAW, Superfine, Fine
Movies
(Full HD) 1920 x 1080, 60 fps / 30 fps
(HD) 1280 x 720, 30 fps
(L) 640 x 480, 30 fps
Star Time-Lapse Movie (Full HD) 30 fps / 15 fps
Miniature Effect (HD, L) 6 fps, 3 fps, 1.5 fps
Hybrid Auto (HD) 30 fps
iFrame Movie (Full HD) 30 fps
Movie Length
(Full HD & HD) Up to 4 GB or 29 min. 59 sec. [7]
(L) Up to 4 GB or 1 hour [4]
(Star Time-Lapse Movie) up to 128 sec
GPS
GPS via mobile (linked to a compatible smartphone)
Self Timer
Approx. 2 or 10 sec., Custom
Menu Languages
English, German, French, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Italian, Greek, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Spanish, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Turkish, Simplified Chinese, Chinese (traditional), Japanese, Korean, Thai, Arabic, Romanian, Farsi, Hindi, Malay, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Hebrew
Image Erase/Protection
Erase: Single image, All images in folder, Checkmarked images, unprotected images
Protection: Erase protection of one image at a time
Menu Categories
1. Shooting menu (x6)
2. AF Menu (x5)
3. Playback menu (x3)
4. Setup menu (x4)
5. Custom Functions menu (x5)
6. My Menu
Menu Languages
25 Languages: English, German, French, Dutch, Danish, Portuguese, Finnish, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, Spanish, Greek, Russian, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, Ukrainian, Turkish, Arabic, Thai, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean and Japanese
Memory Card
SD, SDHC, SDXC (UHS Speed Class 1 compatible)
Batteries
Rechargeable Li-ion Battery NB-13L (battery and charger supplied)
Battery life
Approx. 210 shots
Eco mode approx. 310 shots
Approx. 240 min. playback
Waterproof / Weatherproof Case
Waterproof Case (40m) WP-DC54
Flash
Canon High Power Flash HF-DC2
Weight
Approx. 304 g (including battery and memory card)
What you get in the box
o Camera Standard camera wrist strap
o Battery
o Battery charger
o USB cord
Buy it now RRP $800 (AUD)
Disclaimer: Canon provided the Canon PowerShot G7X for me to test.
