You Just Can't Keep a Good Thing Down

My friend got a G1 on my recommendation and then I got a G2 after playing with his G1. I used it for almost two years and was pretty happy with it. There were a few annoying problems that nagged me enough to consider another manufacture. So, I looked at Olympus's C-5050, Nikon's CoolPix 5400 and even looked at the Canon G3. I did extensive testing with them all and found the G3 still to be better then the competition. But I hesitated because of the G2's faults.

What were the faults? Poor auto-focus (AF), slow repeated shooting, and excessive red eye. There were a few others, but so minor that they were livable. So I read and read and read about the G3 and pretty much read the two of the three were pretty much fixed. Red eye was still a problem. When I was just about to go with the G3, Canon announced the G5. What I read made me smile and anxious to grab it. First, the AF and continuous shooting had completely redone and carried down from their professional D series. Sweet! Second, the red eye was supposedly was fixed as well. What else could one want at such a great price? So I nabbed one the minute it was on Amazon's site.

When I got it, I was so excited, I took pictures of the whole thing from delivery by UPS to taking the camera out of the box. Yes, all done with my G2. Once the battery was charged and ready to go, I immediately tested out the G2's weaknesses. This is what I found.

AF has indeed been fixed. The G2 would commonly give about 50% blurry pictures when taken quickly one after another. Now, I'd say the figure is a very low single digit percentile. When I took pictures of the firework show at Legoland for July 4th, out of about 80 pictures, 2 were blurry. That's it! I was very impressed because the conditions were tougher then what I would have attempted with the G2 being it was twilight and it takes longer for the AF to adjust. Here, it was no problem.

The AF is also quicker now. The G2 use to lag seriously trying to focus in a subject, but now it's so quick that I've been getting some incredible pictures and comments from my wife like, "How did you get that so quick?". See, we're all use the G2. So repeated shooting has also been vastly improved from the G2. Do note, because of the changes, you can no longer do continuous shooting with the LCD on and in AUTO mode. Not a big deal, but a difference from the G2.

So the last flaw, red eye. Did that get fixed? Well, not completely. While the G2 pretty much flashed all dark shots with red eye, the G5 has reduced the count drastically, but not completely. I still get red eye shots and in one instance, the majority of shots where red eye inflicted. I noticed in the G5 manual that they stress pointing the red eye light into the subjects eyes, but that isn't a good practice for children that always move and when you have more then one subject in the frame, ummm, it can't be done. So, get Photoshop Elements or Photoshop Album to take care of that in post production. You can also use an external flash as well.

One thing I have noticed in the improvement section for the flash is wash out. The G2 use to really be bad in washing out subjects when you were close to them. The flash was too powerful. Now they've reduced the size of the flash and adjusted the white balance in the AUTO mode and there is considerably less wash out to none. I was extremely excited by that...as were my five month old boy. :) But with it came a slightly noticeable problem. In the very bottom right corner, the lighting isn't as bright as the rest of the frame. In fact, in some situations, it's simply dark. So, the flash's reduction in size seems not be able full an entire frame. Again, minor, but to a perfectionist like me, noticeable.

A final note on the flash is a slow recharge time. If you take about three pictures in a row quickly, the fourth one will take a good few seconds before the flash is ready to fire. I understand that the camera is working over time at this point being it's all electronic and it's using the limited battery for it's other functions as well, but it's still a drag in some cases. Once again, use an external flash to help alleviate this situation. Since this is a prosumer camera, you can use any of the professional boot type flashes from Canon.

Overall, this is the best camera out there for under $800. I looked at others online such a Minolta's DiMAGE 7i that was just a little higher in price but stuck with the G5 as it's price was my limit. For this price, I just feel you won't find a better camera. My family, friends and I have immediately noticed the differences and improvements in pictures between the G5 and G2 in just the two weeks I've had the camera. Within the second night of using it and getting pix I would have not got with the G2, I smiled and told my wife, "I SOOO love this camera. The G5 rox!"