Canon G1 X – My Thoughts

Canon is calling its new G-Serise camera a large sensor zoom compact. Which really is a mouthful and possible handfull but in fairness does accurately describe the new camera. This time around Canon has opted for a 14MP CMOS sensor that is almost the same size that they use in their compact DSLR line 1.5″. This compared to its predecessor the G12 with its 10MP 1/1.7″ CCD mean the sensor just over six times larger. The hope of course that this makes for much better low light performance as well as more depth of field control. For a compact camera with a fixed lens its pretty fair range you get a 28-112mm equivalent F2.8-F5.6 lens. Not the fastest thing around when zoomed in but its comparable to other camera category and there is image stabilization on board to help out as well. While you can’t zoom in as much as the G12 I think this will be fine for most users. Personally I’m more excited to see that there is a built in 3-stop ND filter so you can shoot wide open even in realativly bright light. Though its true you could put filters on pervious G-serise cameras having it built-in means its likely to get used a lot more often.

Sure I haven’t touched on every feature like the 3″, 920,000 dot swivelling LCD screen which i’m sure will be outstanding. Or the fact being able to shoot 4.5 fps is pretty nice on a compact camera. I could go on and on but really thats not what this write up is about, you can google pretty much any spec you want.

So who is this camera for I started to think to my self. Sure as a pro, semi-pro back up or carry around camera for an enthusiast i’m sure the image quality will be more good enough and with raw and full manual controls on board there is lots of flexibility to be had in a reasonably size package. However the price on this sucker is going to be about $800 USD. That’s a fair chunk of change when you consider what an entry level DSLR is going for these days. To be fair thought this price is in line with other large sensor compact systems like the Panasonic GX1 or Olympis XZ-1.

I wish I could tell you a bit about how the camera handles and what I think of the images. However I’m not yet one of those site that is granted early access of pre-production models. I can say that I am excited to get try it out though. Those who know me know that I’m a big Nikon fan and always have been. However i’ve always had a spot in my heart for Canon’s point and shoot line. I did own a Canon G2 after all.