Canon Powershot G5X.2 Initial impressions and thoughts 19 August 2019

I am a long time user of compact cameras. They seem to offer the promise, or at least the potential for big camera picture quality in a small package.

Some actually manage to achieve this.

The Ricoh GR2 and GR3 each have a (different)  outstanding lens and are capable of excellent image quality.  But the Ricoh GR cameras lack an EVF, zoom lens and articulated monitor. So they did not work for me.

I find that on a bright sunny day trying to use a camera without a viewfinder is an exercise in frustration. So sadly, the GR compacts had to go.

My very first digital camera was a Canon S70 compact. Since then I have owned and used many compacts from Canon, Nikon, Sony and Panasonic and been frustrated by all of them for a variety of reasons.

I have been using a Sony RX100.5A for several months and found that for the most part this little compact makes very good photos. But the user experience and ergonomics do not encourage an enthusiast photographer to manage the controls. Sony’s intransigent failure to fix a litany of user issues right from the original   RX100 is even more frustrating. They just keep on re-using the same poorly designed user interface model after model even including the latest Mk7 version.

I had a Canon Powershot G1X.3 a while ago but could not form a long term attachment to it. The lens while very sharp has a small aperture, limiting low light use. This is exacerbated by the old style Canon 27mm sensor sensor which on my tests actually produces more luminance noise at high ISO settings than current Micro Four Thirds models. The final straw was prominent purple/green fringing at high contrast boundaries which all too often changed to grey fringing when I tried to correct the false colors in Photoshop.

I tried a  G7X.2 but found the lens quite unsatisfactory particularly at the wide end and towards the periphery of the frame.

The G5X got bad reviews for sluggish performance particularly with raw capture, and it has the same lens as the G7X line.

When the G5X.2 was announced it appeared to address most of the problems with the GxX line.

It got a built in EVF, but unfortunately of the pop-up type. I understand why makers like this feature. 

It is a kind of have your cake (low profile) and eat it too (you still get an EVF) kind of deal. But the pop-up-pull-out-push-in-push-down process gets tedious after a while and no eyecup can be fitted.

My strong preference is for a permanently ready EVF. On my admittedly amateurish calculations I think they could fit a camera like this with such an EVF by raising the height just 8mm. This would also free up space for a better set of controls and allow a fully articulated monitor to be fitted.

It also got a completely new lens with a longer zoom range.

So I picked up a G5X.2 as soon as it was available in Australia and have been using it for two weeks.

My impressions thus far are mixed. There are some good features and some not-so-good.

On paper the specifications, features and capabilities appear comprehensive. And they mostly are.

But as is often the case with Canon they give with one hand and take away with the other.

So the always-ready EVF has been swallowed into the body and the fully articulated monitor screen has been downgraded to a flip-up-down type. Some users prefer this, others hate it.

Single shot performance has greatly improved over the original G5X.  The Mk2 can fire off raw frames as fast as you like with no holdups.

There is no viewfinder blackout but as with other recent models Canon manages this by a little trick. 

The viewfinder holds an image of the last frame until the camera can load a preview of the next frame at which point if you are handholding there is a little sideways jump in the image.

Things are not so rosy for continuous shooting and Servo AF. The camera will follow focus on a moving subject (I used cars driving at about 40kph) at 3.3 frames per second with an in focus rate of about 75%. That is nowhere near what Sony compacts can now do but I suspect most users of theses compact cameras will not care much as they are not likely to be used for sport/action.

Overall the camera responds promptly to user inputs.

With a bit of user practice to get into the swing of it (literally) and thoughtful subject selection the G5X.2 can do nice in-camera auto panoramas with a low level of stitching defects.

The Sony sensor in the G5X.2 is a well known entity having appeared in several Sony cameras over the last few years. It is capable of very good image quality with high dynamic range, good tonal gradation and heaps of resolution.

The lens in the G5X.2 is all new with a longer zoom range than the one in the G5X/G7X/G7X.2/G7X.3 models.

On my tests it is also much better optically with better sharpness right across the focal length range.

The only downsides are

a) The appearance of purple fringing at high contrast edges particularly at the edges of the frame at the wide end of the zoom. Tree branches and foliage against a bright  sky will see lots of purple fringing. This is most apparent in raw files but also affects JPGs. It is generally correctable in Adobe Camera Raw although sometimes correction is incomplete.

This is disappointing given that Sony and Panasonic cameras using the same sensor are much less prone to color fringing. One might have hoped that after the problems with the G1X.3 that Canon might have fixed this issue. But no, it continues to be an unwelcome feature of the Powershot line.

b) The lens is a bit soft towards the edges and corners at the wide end of the zoom. Whether or not this is a problem will depend on individual usage and expectations.

The lens is very sharp in a large centre area at the wide end and very sharp in the mid range of the zoom and at the long end.

I did notice some minor focus variation toward the long end of the zoom in my tests.

I found no major problems with autofocus. Canon makes no special claims but I found single AF reasonably fast and more important  mostly reliable. Low light AF is also reliable.

Unfortunately you only get two AF area frame sizes and you have to enter the Q Menu to switch between them.

Continuous autofocus in video is slow but steady. It’s fine as long as you know what to expect.

On the subject of video the G5X.2 has a limited  offering but I found the standard FHD 25p delivered a level of quality which looked decent to my inexpert eye.

Unfortunately for vloggers there is no microphone jack in the G5X.2 but there is one in the G7X.3, go figure. This is one of those product splitting differentiations which really put people off Canon.

Maybe the pop-up EVF took over the space where a mic jack might otherwise go. If so why does that become the consumer’s problem ?  This is the kind of thing which manufacturers should fix before releasing product to market.

The G5X.2 user experience and ergonomics are about average for a compact, which is to say there are some aspects which work quite well, others not so well.

It’s more user friendly than the RX100 series but there is plenty of room for improvement.

At least you can hold onto the G5X.2 without having to buy an accessory handle of some kind. And the thumb support is well positioned and sized.

Viewing is a mixed offering. The EVF and monitor are of good quality providing a clear and mostly accurate view of the subject.

But camera data are presented differently in the monitor (overlaid on the image)  and EVF (beneath the image) and on the EVF differently depending on camera orientation. I much prefer the Panasonic system which can be found on even the most basic Lumix models which allows the EVF and monitor and the camera data to look the same all the time.

Operation is straightforward enough and will be familiar to anyone with Canon Powershot experience.

As with most compacts the controls are cramped although not as badly as those on the Sony RX100 series.

The clicky ring around the lens barrel is much more positive and user friendly than the frustratingly vague smoothy ring on the RX100 series.

The stacked exposure compensation and Mode dials need to be operated with care to avoid activating both together.

It is way past time for Canon to review the Q Menu implementation. It needs to be more like Sony’s Fn button system, one thing Sony does get right ergonomically.

At long last Canon has moved on from the old “rate of change” auto ISO implementation to a more modern system which is focal length sensitive and works much better.

T

he G5X.2 has a well implemented touch screen which is very useful for a range of user inputs from selecting AF area frame position to making adjustments, managing menus and playback operations and much more.  

This is one of the best features of the user experience with this camera.

The G5X.2 improves on its predecessor in many ways with better specifications, features, performance, image quality and some aspects of the ergonomics.

But it also loses the always ready EVF over the lens axis, the front dial  and the fully articulated screen.

The real question it seems to me is whether the G5X.2 or any other current model does enough to entice an enthusiast photographer to invest in a compact camera in addition to his or her recent model smartphone. Some of these now feature a real optical zoom lens of reportedly good performance.

The market will answer this question fairly soon but I suspect the answer will be “no” and the reason is connectivity.

When I want to share photos with family I capture them on my (obsolete, old tech but still working OK) smartphone even if I have a real camera with me.

And that connectivity issue I suspect will kill off the consumer style compact camera altogether.

The problem for the G5X.2 as I see it is that it is still a consumer model albeit a somewhat upmarket one.

If I am right it follows that the only compacts which will survive are those pitched at the upper end of the enthusiast market.

Here we find models like the Leica Q2 which apparently is Leica’s best selling model at only AUD7700  !!! (and extra if you want a handle !!!)  and the Fujifilm X100F which looks like a real bargain by comparison at just AUD1685.

The people who buy these cameras just want the best camera gear that money can buy.   They don’t care about the photographic capability of  their smartphone and are not interested in a consumer style compact.