If you follow my blog you will remember that I got a tad frustrated by always seeming to have an unsuitable lens with me and not wanting to carry lots of kit around. I think it was Traveling Light.

Anyway, the Canon G5X looked like it might just fit the bill and after doing a small amount of online research I headed to a few shops to tell them what I was looking for in a camera. These shops were independent of each other and one is a place I have used frequently and had really good advice; London Camera Exchange on The Strand in London.

I tried out the camera at a concert in Berlin & didn’t get any results I would consider half way decent. That said, I had not had much of a chance to get to know the camera.

The big problem I had was a noticeable lag with the electronic viewfinder. The result was that when I was pressing the shutter release the frame I was seeing in the viewfinder had already changed by the subject or light changing.

The auto focus had some real problems in low light too.

That said, when the light was fine and the subject was not moving, I managed to get some nice images like this shot taken at The Nhow hotel in Berlin.

The above image was taken at a photographic exhibition called DO NOT DISTURB by Olaf Heine. Some great images and I bought the book.

I also had some images focusing on this toy bandit that I found while walking along the river spree. For some reason the auto focus kept trying to fix on the background. Although I wasn’t that close and do not think I should have needed to go into the macro setting  I changed the settings to macro and the focusing was fine.

A quick trip up Berlin’s TV tower and really no issues with this little compact at all. In fact the fully articulating LCD screen really came into its own for framing this shot. I ended up using this screen frequently and its a useful tool on this camera.

Back in London I headed out with the compact G5X again. Managed to get a few photographs of a protest but found the lag with the viewfinder to still be an issue.

So it was over to the pond to try and figure out how much of a framing lag there was with the viewfinder. These two swans were perfect for this and at time they made the perfect heart shape. Unfortunately this was the closest I could get to capturing it. I think with a bit more practice with this camera the time lag can be mostly overcome, however Canon have definitely got room or improvement.

 

Its not often you see the exotic out and about in London but this chameleon was alone the canal (with its owner). It took a few shots to get this nicely focused with issues being that the camera seemed to want to lock focus onto the background.

I’m going to preserver with this camera a bit longer. I can see that it has potential to be that good quality general purpose, small, easy to carry, every day camera.

If you’re thinking about buying one of these, the problem I have mainly experienced are  with auto-focusing. It really does not like things close up.

Do look at lots of reviews and even see if you can try one out before parting with your cash.  That said, I am looking forward to playing around with this little camera a bit more and will be putting it through its paces to see how useful it might be for street photography.

Thanks for stopping and reading my blog.

Kind regards, Jim Jimmy James.

Ps. You can see more images on Tumblr  Flickr and Instagram