Canon PowerShot G1 X Mark II review: A heavyweight in many ways

ngyouqian [at] mediacorp.com.sg

SINGAPORE — The original PowerShot G1 X was launched in 2012 and two years later, Canon is releasing the upgrade: The PowerShot G1 X Mark II.

The Mark II is a compact camera that caters to enthusiast photographers who are fastidious about image quality and willing to splurge on electronic devices.

With a 12.8-megapixel high-sensitivity 1.5-inch CMOS sensor (in 3:2 aspect ratio), Mark II captures vividly-coloured and well-saturated images.

It comes with a 4X zoom lens that has a maximum aperture of f/2.0, and ISO peaks at 12,800. This means that images are sufficiently lit even under low-light conditions, but users should take note that images appear slightly noisy once ISO hits 3,200 and above.

Auto-focusing is only a fingertip away. The user simply needs to tap any part of the 3.0-inch touchscreen LCD to focus on a subject or an object — perfect for those used to photography on smartphone cameras.

The Mark II also delivers superlative performance when it comes to shooting videos. The videos are sharp, and for aspiring videographers, the impression of nifty camera work is now an achievable feat.

Amateur photographers, however, may want to give it a miss. If this is your first higher-end camera, you might end up taking time to master making adjustments to aperture and shutter speed. The Mark II comes with on-screen instructions, but they are not exactly helpful.

The real issue is how making adjustments on the Mark II is both tedious and perplexing. While the ISO is adjusted by a dial located beside the LCD screen, the inner control ring around the lens determines the aperture and shutter speed, and so you have to move from dial to ring to make adjustments. There is an outer control ring that controls the manual focus, and I ended up wrapping my index finger and thumb awkwardly around the lens to turn the dual control rings.

Unless you have agile fingers, making adjustments to exposure can be time-consuming compared with some other compact cameras. Great pictures become harder to come by, as you have to fiddle with all the controls arranged all over the camera, which might mean you miss a picture-perfect moment.

While Canon touts the PowerShot series as compact, the Mark II, which weighs 553g, is still quite a bit heavier than the rest of the range. Despite a short-length lens, the metallic body makes the camera feel unbalanced, but solid, in my hands.

The Canon Powershot G1 X Mark II is a huge improvement over its predecessor. Enthusiasts can consider it thanks to the good-looking images it produces. However, it does not come cheap — retailing at more than S$1,000 — and also lacks the optical viewfinder of its predecessor.

For those moving from smartphones or other compact cameras, it is worth considering if the weight, price and the hard-to-master controls are worth it.