PowerShot G5 X Mark II

The Canon GX5 MkII arrived safely packaged in a secure box. I did download the manual and watched some of the you tube instructions videos from Canon before receiving the camera. I unpacked the camera and put secured the wrist strap the camera and charged the batteries with the battery cradle that you plug into the mains. Full charge take a few hours. I do note that on a full charge and saving files in the highest density setting will easily give you 200+ hundred photos or thereabouts from one charged battery. A full read of the instructions booklet and first time set-up will pay dividends. The compact camera is medium heavy in weight and is quite tangible in the hand and will fit into a pocket easily enough.The screen can be tilted or flipped all the way over to take selfies as appropriate. The dials are nicely laid out and familiarity with the buttons and the option to use the touch screen offer to make the camera easy to use. Its intuitively a nice easy camera to use and will not present difficulties to those wanting a good compact camera that is straight-forward and very good at what it does. Once you become more familiar with the camera there are various tricks and tweaks that can be enabled to take some very good photos. I will be trying the panoramic view when I find the appropriate view.In practise the camera is easy and straight-forward to use in the auto setting and start up is fast and with an appropriate storage memory card this will allow you to take photos in quick session if required. There is the option to quickly set-up and get some very nice portrait shots, I will be getting some practise in for next year when our next grand-child arrives.I thought the zoom was good, which us a combination of mechanical and digital electronic zoom if you need that bit extra zoom capability. This functions nicely, some practise in using zoom soon enables for some very good photos to be taken. I found the pop up viewfinder lens is useful on occasions. And the screen on the camera both to be highly responsive and accurate in the photos that one might take.You can take pictures by pressing the button on the camera of holding your finger on the touch screen to take photos. By touching part of the screen this will allow auto focus to pin-point area of interest.On the day of receiving this camera i took the photo of a parrot in a cage and a picture of a water type fountain. I am very impressed with the nice quality of the images.There is a lot of functionality that this camera offers and will provide lots of options to take really good photos longer term, it is highly versatile and you can personalise photos as required. It is definitely a photo orientated camera and if this is what you are seeking this is definitely worth consideration. I think the compact camera is really very good quality, very good at what it does and offers and will be a treat to anyone that users this very nice high quality camera.

I’ve upgraded to this from the Canon G7 Mk 2, which I thought was a great camera. I’m an enthusiastic amateur, so basically just want nice pics without a huge amount of effort or complication. This camera is the best compact I’ve had so far, although I’ve only ever bought Canons.First impressions were that the camera has a grippier feel to the front than the G7, and possibly feels a bit more solid, but otherwise very similar. It’s very slightly larger than the G7, but not enough to make a difference, and even fits into the same pouch I use.The main, noticeable difference is that there’s now a pop-up viewfinder where the flash used to be, and that the flash is now in the centre of the camera. Something else I’ve noticed, although I may have missed it on the last camera, is that it’s very easy to adjust the flash compensation by using the dial around the lens. That’s something I find useful for fill-in on bright days, where the standard setting usually isn’t enough if your subject is more than a very few feet away.Photo quality seems at least as good as the G7, and having a longer lens is a definite bonus. I’ve taken a few pics at the 5x zoom and they’re perfectly decent for display on a large tv. Even pics at the maximum digital zoom are pretty acceptable, although they look very blocky when zoomed right in, as you’d expect.One mode I used a lot on the G7 was handheld night scene, as that gave some very impressive pics at night-time. Using that, even people looked good if they had a source of light, such as a streetlamp, whilst still showing buildings lit up in the background. I’m pretty sure you couldn’t use the flash with that mode on the G7. However, on the G5, you can now use a flash to fill in people, removing the need to find an external light source. I haven’t used it much yet, but sense that you’ll need to be careful with the flash settings, possibly lowering the power. For me, this is a great improvement, as it should make night shots of people against, say old, illuminated buildings even more impressive.There are also many further settings you can use, such as starry skies, fireworks, portrait etc etc, so something for everyone who needs a little help in more challenging situations. This camera is as simple or as complicated as you want it to be, with the pdf instruction guide taking a long time to wade through.I haven’t used video mode yet, as that’s not something that’s important to me, but will update the review once I’ve done more with it. It’s not cheap, but for a 1” sensor with comparable quality, you’re at around £500 now for older models anyway, and can pay even more than this G5, albeit for different specs.