The Canon G1X. The "Nice Guy" camera.

Edit: Attention new visitors from DP Review.  Let it go.  It's not God's gift to the camera world.

Not every camera has a compelling value proposition.  I am still searching for the irrefutable, single driving reason why someone would want or need the new Canon G1X.  The only thing I can think of is something mentioned by my photographer friend, Paul.  He mentioned that it's a good camera for someone who doesn't want to get sucked into the endless lens buying, and then body buying, that seems to plague the owners of system cameras...  So, not buying more gear is the compelling reason to buy this camera?  Does that make sense?

I'm not going to talk about image quality in this non-review.  Coming to grips with new cameras and their relationship with existing raw converters and the eccentricities of their menus takes time and practice and I'm not willing to expend the time and practice on every new camera that comes down the pike.  If you came here expecting an exhaustive and breathless review that dissects every menu item on this camera, and its performance under mindless duress,  then you have come to the wrong place and you should cut your loses and run away.  I am going to talk about wacky design choices and convoluted implementations by camera companies....

The G1X has a bigger chip than the earlier G series cameras.  And Canon reworked their basic G series body by giving it steroids and making it larger. I am okay with that because it's very comfortable to hold and the buttons and dials are big enough to please just about anyone. But the camera just doesn't work for me.  I am not a "hater" of the G series and have owned the G2, the G9, G10 and G11.  The things I could tolerate on sub $500 cameras (G12 is currently around $400 on Amazon) seem like a crazy oversight on a camera that costs nearly twice as much.

First off, while the chip may be noise free to a zillion ISO the camera is crippled with a lens that runs out of f-stop as it gets longer.  I may be spoiled by wonderful fast lenses like the 45mm 1.8 on a Panasonic or an Olympus Pen camera but giving me f5.6 on the long end is a non-starter.  I don't care about getting more photons into the system nearly as much as I care about taking advantage of the 6x increase in chip size over the G12 in order to render more stuff in the background out of focus.  Wouldn't it be nice if the lens was a 35mm to 70mm (full frame equivalence) f2.8 all the way through?  Wouldn't it be nice to sell the lens based on insanely good image quality rather than making it a slow jack-of-all-focal-length-trades?

Another facet of their Oxymoronic design is the inclusion of one of the worst optical finders ever created (and I'm thinking all the way back to cameras from the 1950's...) on a camera in 2012.  How much more would it have cost them to ditch the tunnel vision, K-mart special finder assembly and add a decent EVF?  I hate to bring the Panasonic G3 up again after this week's furor but in the G3 we have a camera with a nice EVF, a sensor with more resolution that's almost as big (geometrically) as the sensor in the GX1 and can be had with a decent lens for around $600.  $200 less than the G1X.  Much more usable finder.  Amazingly better.  

And while we're on the subject of that miserable OVF let's talk about the visual discomfort you'll live with because of the two function lights just to the right of the eyepiece.  Actually, on the eyepiece. As you compose you'll be blasted with focus confirmation LED's millimeters from your eye.  Tragic design.  Why couldn't those lights be included inside the finder?  Because it's the same finder they've pressed into service since the G2 of 2001.... Cost savings at its most gruesome.

The pop-up flash is there for all the people who think differently from me. And they must be legion.  But it also seems Oxymoronic sitting there next to a fully functional hot shoe.... 

note the two lights next to the eye hole.

Two nice things about the camera are the distribution of controls and the ample space for fingers and thumbs.  As my friend and I sat down and played with the camera I took a few shots of him.  I will not include them because they were not good.  The camera had a tendency to overexpose.  Yes, I could dial in minus 1.3 stops of exposure compensation but when I picked up my camera and shot it in aperture preferred auto the exposure, without compensation, was right on the money.

If you've read this far I'll remind you again that I haven't played with any of the raw files.  The images may be insanely good.  The camera, in spite of egregiously obvious cost cutting, may be destined to become a cult camera as the G cameras have always been. But I'll take a pass on this one.

Let me do that con/pro thing I see everywhere on the web.

Cons:

*Aperture small exactly at the focal length where I want large.

*OVF is an unmitigated disaster.

*Vestigial pop-up flash.

*Initial questions about exposure accuracy.

Pros:

*Husky, heavy construction (except around viewfinder).

*Big, comfortable and logical external controls.

*Big sensor.  (just slightly bigger than m4:3rds.  Nowhere as big as a standard APS-C).

Note to pocket photographers:  This camera will make an unsightly bulge in your Casual Dockers(tm).

My recommendation? I don't have one.  But if you only want to own one camera at least you won't be tempted to buy more lenses for this one...... 

Finally,  I'd feel guilty putting a link to Amazon for this one. Sadly, ethics are sabotaging my plan for extreme wealth building....

Added: 3/16/2012:  Think I'm being to negative about this camera?  See what Michael Reichman has to say on his website:  http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/canon_g1x_field_report.shtml

The Care and Feeding of Clients.

It's fun to pretend that creative businesses are totally dependent on the quality of the creativity offered.  It's fun to pretend that all there is to being a "professional" photographer is the credit card prowess to buy the latest gear and to learn to use it at the highest level.  If that was all there is to being a (financially) successful professional photographer then pretty much the rest of the economy would shut down because everyone would be a professional photographer.  

But the reality of the business is that....it's a business.  A business can make a wonderful and innovative product but if they don't bring it out into the market, educate customers about its features and benefits and tell them how to buy it, the product won't sell, the money won't come rolling in and the business will falter.  You can be the finest creative photographer in existence but if you don't put the work in front of the people who are in the market to buy the work you won't make money.

I was reminded of this recently.  I'd spent a lot of time and attention on my role as a writer of photo books.  The launch of a new book requires that the writers have a firm hand in marketing their books if they want the book to succeed.  I want the LED book to succeed so I organized reviewers, sent out press releases, called friends who write for newspapers and magazines and wrote about the book on my blog.  The book is doing well enough but the reality is that I took my eye off the only ball in the game that really matters to my bottom line.  My core business:  Making and selling photographs.

And the business started to suffer.  Bookings fell off.  Income dropped.  

As silly as it sounds I had made all the rookie mistakes that I counseled against in my book about the business of Commercial Photography.  I had stopped doing coherent and regular marketing.  I was coasting on my good looks and that will probably get me as far as driving on four flat tires.  

Then I looked at my new, iPad portfolio and realized that I really had two problems.  One was the lack of marketing but the other problem (maybe more serious) was the fact that I'd been doing all sorts of different photographs to illustrate a (seemingly) endless line of books and now my portfolio looked like a disconnected hodge-podge of images.  I had compensated by tossing in quantity.  The kitchen sink syndrome of portfolio engorgment.  Disconnected.  Chaotic. 

Even if my marketing revved up quickly and worked well I'd be shooting myself in the foot by tossing a confetti bomb of discordant images into an art buyer's lap. I wouldn't be pigeon-holed, just tossed in the waste can of failed suitors.

I knew how to fix the first problem:  Hard Work.  Get the mailing list in shape.  Prioritize. Tune up the message and send advertising.  I used the image above, shot for an Annual Report project, as my first postcard mailer of the year.  It sums up what I like to do.  I like to go on location with my big Elinchrom Ranger flash and make images of real people. It's technically more challenging than available light photography and requires good lighting skills.  That's a niche.  But a big enough one to be profitable.

I know my limitations so I didn't even attempt to do the design work on the post card.  I left that to award winning graphic designer, Belinda Yarritu.  She applied her skills to a 5.5 by 8 inch postcard and sent it out for printing.  I worked on my "Top 100" list of people (locally) that I'd like to work with and, when I finished with that I started on the next list.  The top 250.

But that still left the "defective" product presentation to deal with.  I was lucky.  In the right place at the right time, having coffee with the right person;  Lane Orsak, advertising agency owner and creative consultant.  I showed him my iPad portfolio over coffee and he actually groaned.  Over and over again.  I asked.  He replied,  "You know I like your work but you have way too much in here. It's not sequenced well.  It doesn't work together.  I hate the names you've given to the galleries.  This is a train wreck!!!"  Then he added, "I hope you're not showing this to potential clients....."

I must have looked totally dejected and hopeless because Lane took pity on me and grabbed my iPad out of my hands.  "Teach me how to use this portfolio program and give me a few days...."

He catches on fast so after 20 minutes of working with the app and taking a few notes he stood up, with my small computing machine in his hands, and walked out of the coffee shop.  He looked back over his shoulder and said, "Don't call me.  I'll call you when I've got it fixed..."

I spent the next few days sorting, labeling, (hand addressing a few) and stamping postcards.  I kept a list and made sure I had follow up telephone numbers and e-mail addresses.  And then I got the call.  Lane was bringing my rehabilitated portfolio back to me.

Lane had thrown away well over 50% of the stuff crowding my portfolio and it wasn't a butterfly that emerged from that little high tech coccoon, instead it was a bird of paradise.  Now the presentation flows and, more importantly, it leaves the prospect hungry for more.  We're back in the marketing groove once more and the first tentative phone calls and e-mails, asking for bids, are trickling in.  We've got another card in the works and a small, e-mail ad in reserve.

If you get cocky and start drinking your own Kool-Aid, or, if you take your eyes off your core business, the universe will slap you in the wallet.  While I'd love it if the sole determiner of my business was my photographic skill I've been reminded that there are a lot of "channels" out there for clients to choose from and you have to work to earn and keep your market share.  

Oh drat.  This creative enterprise is really a small business.  And the physics of small business are always in play.  Gravity never takes a vacation.