Hello Mogodore, thanks for your message and welcome to the Cameralabs forums.
I agree the G7 is unique in being both relatively pocketable and having a 6x optical zoom with stabilisation, and I said as much in my verdict. But of course the trouble with unique products is finding something to compare them against - and I strongly believe in comparing products in reviews.
So without any direct rivals at that price and form factor, I compared it against what are essentially the models above and below it in Canon's own range, along with what you can get for the same money. I reckon that's a fair and useful approach!
I believe the comparison with the A640 is fair because they have the same resolution, the A640 has pretty good manual control, and it also has the flip out screen which was present on the G7's predecessors - and a feature a lot of potential G-series owners will look for. I think it would be remiss not to suggest this cheaper option which essentially gives the same quality with at least one major advantage.
I believe the comparison with the 400D / Rebel XTi is fair because again the G-series were often previously bought by people as an alternative to a DSLR - so it's interesting to see how they stack up today. It's fair to say someone looking for decent creative control might start looking at a high-end compact but ultimately be better-served by a DSLR, so it's useful to illustrate the differences.
In particular, our
outdoor noise results page illustrates one of the biggest image quality differences between a 10 Megapixel compact and a 10 Megapixel DSLR, and I haven't seen many other reviews do this. I think it's important to point this out as there are still a lot of people who don't know there's a big difference even when the resolution is the same.
And finally I think the comparison with the Panasonic FZ50 is valid simply because they cost the same. People may go out shopping for a pocketable camera, but there'd be few who wouldn't also check what was alternatively available at the same price.
So sure, no-ones going to put the FZ50 in a pocket, but many may be swayed to go for the larger form factor in order to enjoy a much longer 12x optical zoom and flip-out screen, not to mention RAW recording facilities.
As for the LX2, it does have many endearing qualities like RAW and 28mm, but I believe its image quality is a deal-breaker. See our
Panasonic LX2 review. And of course you can open our LX2 results pages in one window and the G7 pages in another if you want to compare how they performed in various tests.
I hope that explains our choices in the review and that you still found it useful,
Are you a G7 owner yourself? If so, let us know what you think of it...
Gordon
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