7 posts tagged “g7”
So, the 90mm lens on my RB67 is broken and not worth repairing. So I'm going to plunk down $90 for yet another 90mm C f/3.8 lens for the RB67. :/
On the bright side, everything ELSE works now. So I'm just stuck with about at 25mm field of view of the world till I get a new lens.
Falling into the bay really sucked, doncha know?
Oh, and did I add that the G7 is now obselete? They announced the G9 and they added back RAW. I doubt it needs 2 more megapixels, but the RAW stuff would have been nice. Maybe they'll release a firmware patch or somebody'll figure out how to hack the Digic III firmware.
Oh well. Ender, you should like the 14mm prime with your 5D. Maybe this one won't suck so much. :)
Oh, and you can now add comments on wireheadarts.com now. So, go add some. :P
The G7 in the Apex case fits nicely on my handlebars, so I would stop at various points to take pictures. I went from the office to the bay trail, looped out to the radar dish, then followed Caribbean Drive till I reached the Baylands park in Santa Clara, then went back on the bay trail, towards Alviso
I wandered around Alviso for a bit. I went to the nice park on the way to Drawbridge. Then I found my way to a bike trail through Santa Clara.
I went past Great America and then got on the VTA to the Lick Mill station. From there, I rode it till the Mountain View end of line and biked back home.
Some thoughts?
- 15 miles is a nice pleasant bike ride.
- I can go pretty far if I use the VTA to spread out the travels.
- The G7 in the bag on the handlebars plus a single 383 super is a pretty knockout combo. I need to find a good way to pack the flash somewhere on the bike so that I don't need to have anything on my back.
- I like the hardcore advanced features in the G7, most notably the exposure-lock control and spot metering that is separate from focusing and the ability to trigger the 383 super for fill flash.
- Star Trekin' (my bike) can handle gravel trails quite well. I did roads, paved bike path, gravel bike path, and sand bike paths. Plus a little bit of off-road.
I got a Lowepro Apex 60 AW bag for the G7 instead of the official "fitted" Canon bag meant for the G7. I think it was a good move, mostly because the Apex is just about the right size to hold the G7, with a tripod shoe on the bottom, and a spare battery and the MiniSD->SD adapter.
Also, the Apex attatches to Star Trekin's handlebars. So I can use my two toys together.
I also packed one of my 383 Super flashes in my bag because I found that they are awfully handy to have around. Even though the 383 Super flashes aren't E-TTL for proper integration, I'm finding that it's really handy.
I really want to go on some long photographic bike rides now. :)
Update: "Wow that's a large ca.... errr.... flash on your camera" The G-string looks silly when I have a flash that's bigger than the camera mounted. :D
- For the uninitiated... The G-string is an amusing nickname for the Canon G7. :D
- Being able to put one of my flashes in the hotshoe on the G7 is excellent. Feels like a real camera this way.
- First portrait subject is Mrs. Wirehead.
- Some of the on-screen stuff is actually better than a digital SLR... mostly in terms of being able to view a live histogram.
- The UI takes a little getting used to, but once you get the swing of it, it's super-fast. A lot of stuff that I'd have to dig into the menus for on the A95 I don't need to here.
- Canon's doing great on noise reduction algorithms. Basic sensitometry dictates that it's going to perform worse than the A95 did, but the noise reduction makes the 400 ASA mode look actually halfway smooth.
- Standard memory cards are just great. My cellphone (a Motorola Q) takes MiniSD cards. The G-string takes full size SD cards. I have a MiniSD -> SD adapter, so I was able to take pictures and then upload them on the spot using my Q, with no desktop or laptop computer in between. xD Picture Cards and Memory Sticks need not apply. :P
- The strap that came with it is kinda overkill for me. It's a small neck strap, but it's just too big and main-camera ish. So I took the wrist lanyard off of the A95 and put it on the G-String and that's about right.
- Nice UI feature: There's a * button that lets you lock the exposure. This works out well because I can place the sky at +1 EV and then let the rest of the scene fall where it may.
- Another nice UI feature: Overexposed pixels blink.
- First scenic shot was the 7-Eleven turned into a Quik-E-Mart to promote the Simpsons movie.
- Ender, you'd love the G7. It's got that lovely feeling of control over your shooting while still fitting in a pants pocket *and* can work Strobist style *or* E-TTL style.
The Insurance people are teh sux0r. They always manage to call when I can't pick up the phone and then never pick up when I call back. They called Tuesday and I was on the streets of NYC and didn't hear it. I called back, knowing that I was at that moment directly across the street from Adorama, but no dice.
They called today in the middle of a meeting. Same thing. GRRR!!!
I'm mostly annoyed because I want to get this camera situation resolved so I can pick up my new camera and be done with all this crap. I dono, I'm actually halfway excited about getting the G7 after playing with it, which is a surprise for me. The way I see it:
- The presence of ISO 1600, nasty as it may be, is actually useful for me because I'll just be using it to set up an exposure on the repaired Mamiya at night.
- The G7 has real lens-moving image stabilization. This should come in handy in the dark.
- The G7 has a real hotshoe, so I can use the extra-famous ultra-cheap eBay radio slaves and plug one of my flashes directly in. Plus, it has a bunch of nice features that the A95 didn't have, like second-curtain flash, more control over the flash output, and flash-EV compensation. Almost makes me want to save up for a 430EX. :)
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The interface isn't half bad, with more buttons in the right places, a customizable shortcut button, and a data wheel that just felt a little speedier than the A95's interface. It's weird, but there's an ISO knob up top... which I kinda wish that digital SLRs had. Also, there aren't as many useless modes (Most of the mode knob on the A95 was devoted to generally useless modes)
- There's a metal tripod socket instead of a plastic socket. I was always worried that the A95's socket would finally crap out and it would fall off the tripod. It was quite stripped by the time it died.
- There's a live histogram, which is almost, but not quite, impossible to make work in an SLR camera. Also, there's exposure bracketing, spot metering, and flashing blown highlights.. all of which should come in handy... and all of which the A95 didn't have.
- The G7 is tiny. I like this.