Some random Canon G7 thoughts, observations and tips

Things to do:

• If you want a nice blue sky, set the EV compensation where you want it, set the metering mode to "spot" and lock the exposure with the star button on the sky. You may want to turn the flash on for fill and/or use a polarizer.
• While we're on the subject, if you press the star button to lock exposures, you can use the wheel to switch between equivalent exposures (meaning if it's at f/2.8 1/500, I can turn the wheel to switch it to f/4 1/250)
• A scenic photography trick that's been going on at least since Galen Rowell is to set your flash's EV compensation to somewhere between -1 and -2 and leave it on. This lights up the shadows so they'll fit better into the limited dynamic range of your JPEG images.
• Since Canon realized finally that nobody was actually using the "Print" button, it has become a button that you can assign a function to. I have mine set to change metering mode.
• The "Custom Delay" button makes for a great pseudo-intervalometer. Set the delay to something useful and set it to take 10 exposures. It'll take 10 exposures right after another.
• Use the built-in neutral density filter when you shoot video in bright sunlight. It will give you more motion blur and make things look more "natural"
• The image stabilization works best when you take a series of shots in burst mode. Usually the first one will be blurry because you just pushed the shutter and the last shot will be blurry because you moved. But one of the middle ones will often look OK.
• A long standing photography trick since the early days of digital cameras is to shoot with a cloudy white balance when it isn't cloudy. This tends to simulate the "look" of a sunset shot.
• If you press the SET and POWER button at the same time, it displays an animated clock.
• I found that having the neck strap on the G7 didn't work for me. I put the wrist lanyard from my dead A95 on it instead.

Thoughts:

• I also find that the G7 feels enough like a film camera that I sometimes want to reach for the film advance knob, which I don't want to do with any other non-motorized-advance cameras.
• The G7 looks a lot more "professional" than most other point and shoot cameras, especially with a flash attached. Although, the flash ends up being bigger than the camera. I really want a potato-masher flash so I can really look silly.
• Some folks are making better hand-grips for the G7 and other random accessories, to make it feel better in the hands. I prefer to keep the camera thinner. I measured it against an A95 and it's the same thickness, just with a thinner right hand-grip.

Things you might want to be aware of:

• I still find that I am happiest when I use the "Flexizone" mode, although a friend with a G7 finds the focusing speed altogether too slow and finds that the Facial recognition mode is the fastest and least annoying.
• The way that Canon decided to store their ISO information is, at best, idiosyncratic. They don't put it where the standard says it should be, and they don't consider that a bug. Also, if you shoot in Auto or Hi ISO modes, the information about what ISO it shot at seems to be lost.
• If you look at 100% crops of the G7, you will reel in horror at the amount of noise there. Don't worry about it. Saying the G7 is a 10 megapixel camera is kind of like saying that gummy bears are fat free. It's technically true, but slightly misleading. Just imagine that it's really between 5 and 7 megapixels of real resolution and then you won't stress out as much.
• Canon's been changing all of their cameras so that the batteries and memory are underneath the same door. The way the G7 is designed, you can't put a tripod quick-attach on it and not have to unscrew it every time you change batteries or memory.
• The ISO knob is handy, but it can be turned without you realizing it. I've discovered it in ISO-HI mode too often.
• Flash exposure and non-flash exposure are not linked. This may or may not confuse you. What this means is that the flash puts out the same amount of light regardless of the EV-compensation setting. If you want to control the flash, use the flash-compensation.
• You may not be able to shoot the G7 one-handed. I can, but I've got freakishly big hands.
• The LCD doesn't tilt like the G6. On the other hand, it is viewable over a fairly wide angle, which makes up for that some, but not all, of the time.

Quirks common to most Cannon P&S cameras:

• If you want to take shots longer than 1 second, you have to tell the camera to do it by putting it in manual or Tv mode. This is Canon's attempt to not surprise you with a blurry useless frame when you try to shoot in the dark without a flash. In auto mode, it will never go over 1/8th of a second and in Av mode it won't go over one second.
• The camera tends to force you to 1/60th of a second while shooting with a flash, so if you want to drag the shutter, you have to do it in Manual or Tv mode.
• When you are in M mode, they don't provide any way to do "automatic" flash. This is totally unlike how the E-TTL system works on the bigger cameras, where it will guess at a "fill" flash for your settings.
• Sometimes the LCD will give a very accurate preview of what your end result will look like. Sometimes it won't. The reasoning behind why it does what it does makes perfect sense to me because I kinda understand what it's doing inside. It may not make sense to you. The worst case scenario is that you need to review the picture taken afterwards.
• Canon took RAW mode out of all of their non-SLR cameras, but then everybody else has been doing this as well. The CHDK hack doesn't work on the G7.
• Canon is about 1/3 to 2/3 of a stop different from what people think is right, so most folks leave the EV-compensation set somewhere between those two.

I've been spending a lot of time shooting with the G7 because I still don't have a back for my RB67, which is really my favorite camera at this point. I got one from KEH, but it wasn't quite right, so I sent it back. And apparently their shipping folks put a priority on new orders and kinda let exchange orders slide a little so it hasn't made its way back to me yet.

I have been actively convincing folks to use a Sunpack 383 Super recently. Most people I know don't have any sort of flash hardware and I think that it's because they see how much a Canon 430EX or Nikon SB600 costs and decide to get better lenses instead.