Canon G2

1/13/03

I received my Canon G2 on January 10, 2003. I ordered it to replace my Olympus C3020. The Oly was a good camera but it lacked a few things that I wanted, namely Compact Flash support (so I can share cards with my Olympus E20,) flash hotshoe, autofocus assist light, RAW mode, and ISO 50. I ordered the G2 from B&H Photo where I order 95% of my photographic equipment. It is a factory refurbished model but I have yet to find one defect in the camera.

Here are my initial thoughts about the G2:

• The build quality is excellent
• The AF assist light is fantastic! This is the first camera I have owned with an AF assist light and I don't think I can ever live without it now. I just wish my E20 had one.
• The LCD is great quality -- even better than my Pro90 was.
• The autofocus is faster than my 3020 was.
• The writes to the card are very fast. This is very nice compared to my E20.
• Most importantly, the pictures are beautiful. I am highly impressed with the photo quality.

I also ordered a Vivitar 285HV flash to use with the G2. It works great but WOW this thing is big. The G2 isn't exactly a compact camera -- it's about the size of a large point-and-shoot film camera -- but the Vivitar flash absolutely dwarfs the camera. Attaching it to the camera's hotshoe makes the whole contraption feel rather cumbersome and unweildy. Because the flash is so large, it feels like you are holding a flash that just happens to have a camera attached to the bottom of it. Here are a couple of pics of the combo (click the thumbs to open larger versions.)

Using a flash this large on a camera the size of the E20 isn't a problem, but on the G2 it's a bit of a challenge. Mounting the camera and flash on my Stroboframe bracket makes things quite a bit easier, but then I have a combo that isn't much smaller than my E20/FL40 combo on the bracket, which is one reason I bought the G2 to begin with (to have a smaller camera to carry around with me.) Just for kicks, here are a couple of pictures that illustrate the size difference between the Vivitar and my Olympus FL40 flash for the E20:

The Vivitar also feels cheaper than the FL40 but that's probably because it IS ($80 vs. $300.) Despite the size of the Vivitar flash, I love it with the G2 because it produces some excellent pictures. A few examples (again, click the thumb to see the large version:)

The picture of the flowers wasn't taken with the flash -- it was a 2 1/2 second exposure at f/5.6 on a tripod. I know the white balance is a little off on this one but I didn't bother to fix it. I just wanted to show the level of detail that the G2 captures.