Canon G7 X Mark II review - pocket-sized brilliance

The Canon G7 X was my favourite camera of 2015. Its image quality was a match for consumer SLRs (with their kit lenses at least) and yet it was small and light enough to slip into a trouser pocket. Key to its success was its 1in sensor and wide-aperture lens, which combined to capture just as much light as consumer SLRs. This meant it was able to compete with them for image quality — not bad for a camera weighing 301g and measuring 40mm thick.

The G7 X wasn’t the only camera to pull off this trick. In fact, Sony invented the concept with its RX100 series. However, the G7 X rose to the top with its more generous 4.2x zoom range, elegant touchscreen interface and lower price than the Sony RX100 III.

In 2016 the market for compact cameras with 1in sensors has picked up in pace. We’ve seen the arrival of the Panasonic TZ100 with its 10x zoom, the 4k-capable Sony RX100 IV, a trio of cameras from Nikon and the Canon G9 X with its incredibly svelte design and aggressively low price. Canon now hopes to up the ante yet again with the G7 X Mark II.

Design and features

The improvements are relatively subtle — a faster processor, a proper grip on the front of the camera, a redesigned hinge on the 3in LCD screen so it tilts down as well as up. Battery life is up from 210 to 240 shots — a welcome improvement but still below average. Extra batteries cost a staggering £49.

The rubber grip is only a few millimetres deep but there’s a well-defined ridge that’s unlikely to slip through fingers. It’s a big improvement on the smooth, featureless fronts of the G7 X and Sony’s RX100 series cameras. Another design tweak is a small lever beside the lens that lets you choose whether the lens ring has a smooth or ratcheted motion. The former makes more sense for autofocus adjustments while the latter is better for aperture adjustment. I can’t say that it’s a life-changing innovation.

For me, the lens ring itself felt a bit out of place on such a small camera, which I prefer to hold with a pincer-shaped grasp in both hands rather than cradling it with the left hand. As a result, I found it more natural to spin the rear wheel to make adjustments. Fortunately, the touchscreen makes it quick to call up settings for adjustment with the wheel.

Using the Custom White Balance function is frustratingly long-winded. Whereas most cameras let you calibrate the white balance by pointing the lens at a white or grey subject and pressing a couple of buttons, the G7 X II demands that you take a photo of said subject and then navigate to an obscurely located menu page in order to perform the calibration. I use this function far more than manual focus, for instance, but it’s manual focus that has a labelled button on the back of the camera.

For most other purposes, the controls are quick and intuitive. There’s a chunky exposure compensation dial on the top plate, and the touchscreen makes light work of moving the autofocus point. I’m a big fan of touchscreens on cameras, and also of screens that tilt up for comfortable shooting at hip-height. The Sony RX100-series cameras have tilting screens, while the Panasonic TZ100 and Canon G9 X have touchscreens, but the G7 X II includes both.

Performance of the original G7 X was unremarkable, but the updated model makes significant improvements. Shots were captured every 0.5 seconds in normal use, with decisive autofocus quickly locking onto subjects. Continuous JPEG shooting was at 8fps for 30 frames before slowing to 5fps — a superb result. Continuous RAW performance was much improved from the dire 1.2fps achieved by the G7 X, capturing 22 frames at 8fps before slowing to 1.9fps.

Video quality

The video mode is good rather than great. It supports 1080p recording at frame rates up to 60fps, and the touchscreen is particularly useful for on-the-fly autofocus adjustments. Details aren’t as refined as on the best 1080p footage and can’t begin to compete with 4K footage, but this needn’t put casual video shooters off. A bigger issue is how it stops recording without any warning when video files reach 4GB — that’s about 16 minutes.

Image quality

Photo quality is the star attraction, and it’s about as good as it gets from a pocket-sized camera. Colours were rich and vibrant, there was plenty of detail in its 20-megapixel files and the combination of the 1in sensor, f/1.8-2.8 lens and carefully controlled noise reduction in JPEGs knocked the ball out of the park in low light. There was a slight softness to focus at the edges of wide-angle shots, but it’s a minor point.

Comparing it with the Sony RX100 IV in my studio test scene, the Canon exhibited slightly sharper details at slow ISO speeds and less invasive noise-reduction artefacts at ISO 800 and above. There’s not much to separate them for image quality, but these traits and the Canon’s more generous 4.2x optical zoom range means it clinches the lead.

^ Focus is a little soft in the corners of this wide-angle shot but it’s not much to worry about. (1/500s, f/4, ISO 125, 24mm equivalent)

^ Focus is crisp from edge to edge in the middle of the zoom range. (1/1250s, f/4.5, ISO 125, 66mm equivalent)

^ No problems with focus at the long end of the zoom, either. Dense foliage looks a little vague on close inspection, but all in all it’s a great result. (1/1250s, f/3.5, ISO 125, 100mm equivalent)

^ The ISO speed was accidentally left at 800 for this shot but there’s little sign of noise or noise-reduction artefacts. The resulting 1/500s shutter speed has frozen the motion in the flames. (1/500s, f/4, ISO 800, 82mm equivalent)

^ The wide-aperture lens means there’s less of a need for the camera to resort to fast ISO speeds when shooting in low light. It also delivers a shallow depth of field, blurring the background in a way that’s normally only available on much bigger cameras. (1/100s, f/2.8, ISO 400, 100mm equivalent)

^ Raising the shutter speed to 1/250s to freeze motion, this indoor shot is phenomenally good for such a small camera. (1/250s, f/2.8, ISO 800, 100mm equivalent)

^ I struggled to find a subject dark enough to push the ISO speed up significantly. This shot at ISO 3200 is a little grainy but looks fine at modest sizes. (1/20s, f/2.5, ISO 3200, 44mm equivalent)

^ Shooting by the light of streetlamps hikes the ISO speed up to 6400. Shadows are pretty grainy but it’s still a passable result. (1/13s, f/2.5, ISO 6400, 50mm equivalent)

^ These are cropped details from four shots, taken with a 1/100s shutter speed to directly compare the light-gathering ability of each camera’s sensor and lens combination. The G7 X Mk II easily holds its own against much bulkier competitors, and exhibits less noise and more detail than both the Canon EOS 1300D and Panasonic GX80 with their kit lenses.

^ Here’s the out-of-camera JPEG of the same shot. (1/100s, f/2.8, ISO 1000, 100mm equivalent)

Conclusion

I’m a massive fan of this type of camera. It’s ideal for holidays and expeditions where a big camera is impractical, and especially for nights out where most compact cameras really struggle in low light. SLR and CSC owners may want to get one as a pocketable backup camera. The 240-shot battery life is disappointing but virtually everything else about the G7 X Mk II is seriously impressive. It’s responsive and easy to use, genuinely pocket-sized and takes pictures that are a match for consumer SLRs.

Electronic viewfinders are a matter of taste, but I’d quite happily omit one for the sake of the G7 X Mark II’s tilting touchscreen. The Sony RX100 IV comes top for video with its 4K and slow-motion options, but it has a smaller zoom, less accessible controls and it costs £250 more. Those on a tight budget should check out the Canon G9 X, which costs around £360, but the G7 X II is on course for being my favourite camera of 2016. Buy the Canon G7 X Mark II now from Jessops