Just wanted to share a few pictures from and thoughts about this little capable camera. May it will be helpful for those who thinking on what P&S to choose.
It was my be the first time that I left all my large caliber weaponry at home and went for a trip to Austria with only a little P&S.
The first feeling was somewhat of a liberation. To be able to walk around the cities and ski down the slopes with just a little light camera in the jacket's pocket was very pleasant. The second was a surprise to see how easy it handles all the conditions : bright sun and huge dynamic range of the mountains, daytime street life, snowfall at the dusk, nightlife, and dark museums.
I shot everything in RAW, developed in RSE and Im glad that I did, was especially handy when correcting the WB of mountain snow shots. The little flipping LCD screen was great the last museum shot was taken by holding the camera against a waist high rail and pointing the screen upwards 1 sec exposure, very little noise. The rest of the pics are handheld.
I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this camera to anybody. It's a keeper. I only hope Canon would update it next year. DIGIC II and IS would be just fine.
My P&S alternative to my 10D is a G6, too, and it's never let me down. I spent two days in Yosemite with it this Summer, and got some impressive results. I do wish it had a faster processor, but the fast lens makes up for it, IMO, and I'd be hesitant to upgrade to anything newer that Canon might present. I tried the S2 IS for a few weeks, and found it to be an absolute joke. I also tried a Pro1, but still preferred the G6, which has much less CA and seemed to also have better contrast/color.
These P&S cams are great for "grab" shots -- but they have two major drawbacks.
1) At any fast ISO the noise is usually pretty horrible.
2) due to the small sensor size it's almost impossible to get any narrow DOF shots. (This means that everything will be in focus rather than having a "blurred" background which is very useful in nature, protraiture etc etc).
For exanple given a longer faster lens on a DSLR ( say 70-200 2.8 IS -- OK weight I know but what a shot you would have got with the colour etc) I'd have attempted to get the whole of the kid wearing orange in the shot and blurred out a lot of the background. (Not trying to criticise the pic --just explaining some of advantages of a DSLR vs the shotcomings of a P&S).
Fine when taking say scenic shots but it can severely limit your creative ability. In general these P&S cameras are best used for taking "Snapshots" rather than "Photos" -- although as usual all rules in photography can be broken with excellent results from time to time.
Incidentally this is also a drawback in using standard lenses on 1.6X cameras -- you'll never get a really narrow DOF.
Still however you've captured some nice shots there and in its class the G6 was certainly a very good camera.
Yeah the G-6 is great. Just bought one a couple of months ago to use instead of my 1D on a cruise.
As you say it was liberating... I had the camera with me ALL the time, and got some great shots that most likely would of never made it to the 1D. (the 1D would of been sitting back in my room) A camera is good only if you have it along.
It would of been nice with the extra reach on my 1D lenses, and the DOF. (more work in PS now) But this made the vacation instead of a work day which was nice.
Hey gfiksel, nice work. I was thinking about getting a G6 to take on my hiking trip to Austria and Switzerland last September. In the end I took my Canon A70 P&S and my old trusty Nikon FM2. I must say, I was quite pleased with the snaps that came out of the A70.
Thanks, everybody for the nice words and good comments, and Happy New Year.
Rick: great demonstration of the ISO 400 capabilities.
Peter: gorgeous mountain ridge shot.
Kyle, of course you're absolutely right and my thoughts exactly. My point was that every camera has it's purpose.
My main purpose of the trip was skiing and mountain hiking and somehow the 70-200 did go well with that . My check-in weight limitation would've been exceeded greatly and I would've needed a second bag, but it's another story.
The G6 handled the mountain lighting and the landscape very gracefully, I might say. As far as the guy in the orange, well it was a snapshot as you said. Although I spent some time waiting for him to get in the low left corner of the viewfinder and he kept missing the turns and he was skating very slowly
. My check-in weight limitation would've been exceeded greatly and I would've needed a second bag, but it's another story.