Canon G7x Review

August 2024

Ten years old and

only one thing i’d change

(the opposite of planned obsolescence)

tl;dr

In short, if this camera had an EVF the review would pretty much be over.

I’d recommend it with no qualms.

But it doesn’t have an EVF, or an OVF. And now that we’ve identified one area for improvement, let’s go all the way and do a full review of the Canon G7x.

How and why I came to the Canon G7x nine years after it released.

The right thumbnail and title go a long way on YouTube, and when Ulysses Aoki titled a video This $200 Camera Shoot Infinite Film Like Photos I clicked. And I watched it all.

In short, his photos and praise of the G7x Mark II led me to finally accept the general compromises of a point and shoot camera.

I remember the first time I clicked the shutter on a DSLR fifteen years earlier. There was no shutter lag. There was separation of subject. And I could even hear some action inside when I fired the shutter. I loved it.

I felt more important than I ever had behind a camera. I felt like a photographer. And I spent the next five years or so in the world of DSLR’s thinking once I find the right camera, the photos will come.

…then came Fuji and their mirrorless X-Pro 1.

*Gone are those days, as Fuji’s body and lens line-up is feeling as unmotivated and bloated as any of other camera brand.

I fell for Fuji because of their limited choices and compact size (okay and styling, too).* When I moved to Fuji, they were just building their X product line and that meant limited options, which made it easy to understand the role of each body or lens.

I didn’t have to labor between two or three versions of the same focal length. I didn’t have competing lens coatings and Mk I and II’s. At launch Fuji had just three lens options, and I bought one.

And the one thing mirrorless taught us early on was a big body is no longer required for pro resolution or image quality. And since I’ve never needed ultra-fast autofocus (though I would welcome it anytime) or an ultra-fast shutter rate, the compromises of mirrorless felt small.

Back to the present—I’m married with a baby and I live in NYC. When I’m out I’m strapped with a baby or at least, baby gear. So small is more important than ever.

I’m also unwilling to shoot without manual controls. I shoot Aperture Priority a huge majority of the time.

So let’s go small. Let’s see if I can make photos I like. See if the image quality is noticeably less. See if I find it harder to use. Miss more shots. And just end up leaving it home.

Thanks to Ulysses, I’m starting with the Canon G7x. Not the Mark II, but the original.

Canon G7X

Mark I

Another important point that needs to be understood is why you would grab this camera over your smartphone’s camera.

If I can’t make anything more than what my iPhone can, I don’t want it. And that’s where three important features factor : RAW shooting for more latitude in editing (aka more fun!), an f1.8 on a larger sensor (though still small) for control over depth of field, and a zoom that optically reaches to about 100mm.

The wide size is a fast 1.8 lens, and that’s just helpful when, say, I want to shoot photos of my dim house for a listing and I don’t want to bother with the tripod. If you’re thinking, “Oh boy, I can really get some separation of my subject at 1.8” well it’s not automatic. The camera has separation and falloff that I think is pretty nice. It’s immediately not a phone photo. It’s subtle most times, but felt.

A big control wheel wrap the front lens for one control, and an Exposure Compensation dial sits by my right thumb as another. A thumb wheel on the rear serves as another, if needed (which it hardly is).

A camera should make it easy to take the photo i want.

  • A big, clear screen √

  • Buttons are discrete √

  • A menu system I can navigate √

  • Easy to carry √

  • Manual Controls √

The Canon G7x delivers on all of those fronts.

I even appreciate Canon’s color presets in Lightroom (Faithful, Portrait, Landscape, Neutral).

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