Canon Canon G1X in Tasmania

Luckypenguin

Hall of Famer
Location
Brisbane, Australia
Name
Nic
Recently I spent a week and a half in Tasmania which is Australia's southernmost and only island state. With me I took my E-M5, GH1, and Canon G1X. Oh, and my wife came along as well! When I broke down the usage of each camera I figured that the E-M5 was about 70%, the GH1 about 20%, and the G1X the remaining 10%. That isn't so much a criticism of the Canon but more a vote in favour of the sheer flexibility of the Olympus. Since it had the least number of images to sort through I processed those from the Canon first, some of which are shown here in this post. This is not a comprehensive overview of the trip since I didn't use the G1X at all of the places that we visited. Before this trip I had started to question whether I wanted to keep the Canon G1X, but after going through the images from it there is no way in the world that I would be selling this camera anytime soon. This is every bit the compact (if slower) equivalent of the EOS 50D + EF 24-105mm f4L combination that I was using prior to "going compact". The G1X finds itself in an odd position in the marketplace. It is bigger, more expensive and doesn't have the macro capability of the regular G series Canons, it doesn't have classic styling, it doesn't have interchangeable lenses, and the lens that it has isn't a fast and sexy prime lens. I think that the G1X will remain one of the hidden gems of advanced compact cameras.

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1. Driving onto the Tasman Bridge, looking up at Mt Wellington



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2. Parliament House



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3. Aurora Australis, the Australian-Antarctic research vessel



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4. Streets of Hobart



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5. Lady Nelson, a replica of an 18th century ship of the same name, anchored at Franklin Wharf



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6. The entrance to Constitution Dock, the finishing point for the winners of the Sydey to Hobart yacht race. The bridge swings up to allow passage.



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7. Mawson Place, named after the Antarctic explorer Sir Douglas Mawson



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8. Another tall ship anchored at Franklin Wharf



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9. Looking across the water towards Salamanca



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10. Tasmania is called the Apple Isle...



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11. ...but you can get other food there as well :)



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12. Collins St, Hobart



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13. The town of Richmond lays claim to a number or "Australia's oldests", including the oldest bridge still in use. We drove over it, it seems solid :)



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14. As above



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15. Wineglass Bay at Freycinet National Park. On a clear day the colours here are amazing. This wasn't a clear day...



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16. As above



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17. As above. That's a boat that you can see towards the bottom of the bay.



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18. On the other side of the peninsula is Coles Bay



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19. Some of the rock formations on the way up to the Wineglass Bay lookout



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20. Cradle Mountain National Park, with a view of the mountain that gives the park it's name



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21. Dove Lake, at the foot of Cradle Mountain



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22. Peering over a ledge into Dove Lake



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23. Cradle Mountain



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24. As above



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25. As above



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26. Gordon River



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27. As above



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28. As above



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29. As above



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30. Back in Hobart, with some more images down near the water at Franklin Wharf



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31. As above



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32. As above



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33. As above



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34. As above



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35. The obligatory shot out the plane window during the flight home
 
The color is nice, but three of the B&W really caught my eye.

Those are really nice photographs. I am particularly impressed with 8, 12, and 24. Are those monochrome out of the camera, or did you do post-processing or what?

The tall ship in B&W reminds me of some pen and ink illustrations I have seen.

Nice series. Well done!
 
The Colors remind me of the naturalness I got from my regretted 5dmkii!

The colours that I get from the G1X (in raw) do look very similar to the later model Canon DSLRs that I have used. The colours are actually very "robust", such that (if you want) you can apply a lot of saturation before the individual colours start to become over-saturated and lose detail. When I process the G1X files the only direct change that I make to the colours is to isolate the cyan channel and de-saturate it significantly. I don't really like the tendency of digital images to over-saturate light blues in the sky and turn them cyan. This isn't isolated to the G1X of course; I do this with all of my cameras.
 
Nice set. I love Tassie and usually spend 2 weeks there every year, though I usually skip Launceston and spend all my time in Hobart.

This was actually my first visit to Tasmania, and I really liked the place. Cities like Hobart and Launceston have some wonderful old architecture, and there is so much natural beauty as well. We only spent about a day in Launceston.
 
Those are really nice photographs. I am particularly impressed with 8, 12, and 24. Are those monochrome out of the camera, or did you do post-processing or what?

The tall ship in B&W reminds me of some pen and ink illustrations I have seen.

Nice series. Well done!

All of these were shot in raw, converted in Lightroom 4.1, and edited further using some of the tools in the Nik Color Efex and Silver Efex plugins. All of the b&ws were converted using one of two Silver Efex filters that I have customised to my taste. The G1X has a lot of jpeg options that you can play with, including b&w, but the problem is that as soon as you select the raw+jpeg shooting mode it disables the jpegs settings and uses a default profile, just like the G12 and other G series models before it. I prefer to save a raw file so I have not explored a lot of the jpeg options on the G1X.
 
Yeah that's a good thing, never thought of doing that, thanks :)

I have a tendency to push the midtones when I process an image, which makes any cyan colour in the sky more noticable than it might otherwise be. I think that the Olympus cameras that I have owned show the greatest tendency to turn light sky blues into cyan.
 
Great set, Nic. Glad you arent selling the G1X, it really does a great job. And thanks for the mini-travelogue :)

Thanks Sue. There are quite a few destinations missing in this set since I didn't use the G1X everywhere. Not shown here are Salamanca and Battery Point in Hobart, Mt Wellington, Bruny Island, Port Arthur, Launceston, and the West Coast Wilderness Railway from Strahan to Queenstown.
 
Very nice group of photos Nic. The clarity is exceptional in the photos. Did you run into the Tazmanian Devil during your visit? One of my favorite cartoon characters of all time.

Thanks Armando. There are a number of things that the G1X lens and sensor do very well including textures and edge definition, which I think creates the clarity that you mention. What it doesn't do well is highlight recovery. It is interesting to shoot it back-to-back with the E-M5 because on that camera I tend to overexpose, while on the Canon it is better to underexpose.

I didn't see a wild Tassie Devil since their numbers are quite low and they are mostly found in the more remote west and north western regions. We did visit a research, rehabilitation and breeding centre where we saw a number of captive devils.
 
That's a great set of photos Nic. I think I've commented on a few of them on Flickr, but if this is my first mention, a very positive mention it is! Great stuff.

That camera seems like a wonderful tool for the kind of reasonably sedate all-in-one travel shooting you're doing with it. It sounds like it might be a bit slow for my wants, but, jeez, the output from it is fantastic for what's still a relatively small all-in-one solution. better idea than a DSLR with a kit lens for anything other than action shooting I'd say. Hell, the output from it is fantastic PERIOD!

Great stuff,

-Ray
 
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