Mayank B
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When the G9 was announced, in another thread on FM Forums, I had dismissed it, thinking a dSLR like D40 would be better for the same price. However, time passed and the G9 never left my thoughts. I then searched for as many G9 RAW files on the internet as I could find and tried to process them myself (on Lightroom). To be frank, they blew me away.
Got a G9, finally :-) and my impressions are:
1. As a serious shooter, I hardly shoot jpeg, only RAW, and the amount of detail a G9 RAW file captures is astounding. Even in not-so-good light (eg. evening), detail on far-away foliage (at infinity) is visible in some of my landscapes. And I constantly keep reminding myself that I am looking at a 12mp file from a P&S. WOW! Between a 12mp RAW file and a 12mp JPEG, there is a world of difference in detail.
2. Absolutely love the depth-of-field at f4 :-) To achieve the same, I was stopping down to f8 or f10 on a dSLR and so that's a huge two stop advantage to the G9 (Grin :-) However, having used an A640 prior to the G9, the G9 depth-of-field is not as great at f2.8 (G9 does require a bit of stopping down)
3. Noisy? Yes, even at ISO 80 if you apply sharpening, noise is easily visible on peoples faces and in the sky. But my experience says that even in large Epson prints (say 17x22"), the noise (visible to a pixel peeper) would hardly show. After applying NR on Lightroom, the fine noise reminds me more of a dSLR image than a P&S. Yes, surprisingly useable at ISO 400 and the ISO dial is something to fall in love with :-) At ISO 800 in RAW, it is upto the photographer to reduce chroma noise as per her/his preference, but highlight areas are pretty good, so I guess ISO 800 is useable for say dusk shots (and not night shots). Yes, the images do not look 'silky', like that from a dSLR, but that does not bother me. (It may bother stock or advertising photographers though.)
4. JPEG? The 12mp jpeg sucks, I suggest don't even try it. Try a jpeg on the 8mp, Super-fine setting (big enough) and you'll see quality.
5. Extreme corner softness is visible in some of my shots while pixel-peeping (A640, in my opinion, had better corner sharpness) but to me that's acceptable, a small compromise.
6. Purple fringing can be bad at times (much worse than A640), in most cases Lightroom is able to remove it but in cases like thin foliage against bright sky, it is sometimes not possible to eliminate it completely. Fringing (even green) is also visible in high-contrast macro shots and can look ugly at times.
7. Handling is superb, in-fact I don't feel like using my dSLR anymore :-) With a slow SD card, a RAW file may take upto 3 seconds to write, but that's Ok for me, my trees usually are not very fidgety :-)
8. Yes, as reported, the 3" hi-rez LCD is 'beautiful' but has a very slight (and not always noticeable) blue cast; as someone shooting RAW on Auto White Balance, it does not bother me. However, if you're shooting jpegs in tricky light situations, the blue bias may sometimes prompt you to change White Balance when it may not be required.... I have not been very happy with Auto While Balance, specially when shooting RAW, and have been changing it in PP for almost every shot.
9. RAW files remind me of dSLR images, pretty 'neutral' in terms of color, shadow and highlight detail, just right to work on. Highlight detail is not as good as that of a Canon dSLR but on many occasions, I have been able to recover highlights.
Overall as a serious shooter with an always ultimate aim of selling 17x22" fine-art prints, I would give the G9 Five Stars :-)
Hope this short review (full of smileys) will be helpful to some of you :-)
Cheers!
Mayank
Edited by Mayank B on Jan 08, 2008 at 01:17 PM GMT
Edited by Mayank B on Jan 08, 2008 at 01:23 PM GMT
Edited by Mayank B on Jan 08, 2008 at 01:25 PM GMT
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