First new digital camera in 8 years

[vitocorleone]

Have a trip coming up in awhile and I thought it might be high time for a new digital camera since my "current" one is the Canon SD790IS... from 8 years ago. My iPhone 6 in the right conditions can take better pictures. That said, the Canon is about the size of a deck of playing cards, so it's super convenient.

But I wanted more - and something phones in the next 5 years anyway would be hard pressed to catch up to if only for simple optics reasons. And I had a bigger budget (sorry, wife!). So I did in-depth research and landed on the Canon G7X MKII. It arrived today and I'm loving it! The 2x thickness will take some getting used to and it definitely has more heft, but there's really no comparison beyond them both being digital cameras. One of the great things this camera can do with the better lens and wide aperture is to have the foreground object in focus and everything else blurred out - makes for amazing portraits. Yeah, it's no DSLR, but I never wanted to lug around a camera body and a bag of detachable lenses as I'd never use them for all that trouble. The camera is "4.2x" zoom, but that doesn't mean much, as the focal range is 24mm - 100mm. And wifi built in to transfer the jpegs if I want to a phone or computer or cloud. RAW stays on the 2x 32GB cards I bought. Think I might need a second battery though as that's a typical Canon Achilles heel.

I considered the Sony RX100III, which takes sharper pictures (when output as jpeg - the RAW ones are actually closer), but went with the Canon because it has more zoom (to 100mm instead of Sony's 70mm) and better overall usability. Saved $100+ going with the Canon as well. Don't really need it to record 4k video since god only knows when I'll have anything to play that back on!

 

[Tyr-Sog]

Great choice! Maybe the best currently.

Since selling off my DSLR kit last Nov I went from 100's of photos of my kids a month to a few crappy cellphone pictures of them a month. It was killing me not having a decent camera. Still I didn't want to drop a few thousand on a dslr setup again so I was looking at the P&S segment. This Canon was one of the top choices along with the lx100, the Sony, and I was really waiting on the Nikon DL series to launch(eta keeps getting pushed back).

Ultimately the wait for the Nikons lead me to doing some more research. I decided the look at the ICL mirrorless kits. I figured if I'm about to spend up to a grand on a P&S maybe I can move in to something a little more like a dslr but without the size. Bouncing back between the brands I kept coming back to the Fuji X system with the XT10 kit. $899 with the 16-50 & 50-230 lens and I also picked up the XF 35mm f2 for $299. A little more than I wanted to spend but I'm super happy with the Fuji system.

Look forward to seeing some pictures!

 

[vitocorleone]

Great choice! Maybe the best currently.

Since selling off my DSLR kit last Nov I went from 100's of photos of my kids a month to a few crappy cellphone pictures of them a month. It was killing me not having a decent camera. Still I didn't want to drop a few thousand on a dslr setup again so I was looking at the P&S segment. This Canon was one of the top choices along with the lx100, the Sony, and I was really waiting on the Nikon DL series to launch(eta keeps getting pushed back).

Ultimately the wait for the Nikons lead me to doing some more research. I decided the look at the ICL mirrorless kits. I figured if I'm about to spend up to a grand on a P&S maybe I can move in to something a little more like a dslr but without the size. Bouncing back between the brands I kept coming back to the Fuji X system with the XT10 kit. $899 with the 16-50 & 50-230 lens and I also picked up the XF 35mm f2 for $299. A little more than I wanted to spend but I'm super happy with the Fuji system.

Look forward to seeing some pictures!

Fuji's are great. If they'd have had a good alternative in the price range with the features (they didn't have zoom) I would've been more torn. I worked with a woman that switched from Canon or Nikon I think it was to Fuji and she's a semi-pro/serious hobbyist. Says she'll never go back.

Nikon has some interesting compacts coming soon, likely with better optics and 4k video like the Sony, but I didn't want to wait. Or learn a new UI, since the Canon UI is still pretty similar. Just more expansive.

Rumor has it the RX100V will be announced in a few months. I bet it's priced at $999.