Canon G7X Mark II camera

[dhaas]

I recently used my Canon G7X Mark II camera in Hawaii. It was more a vacation so only a couple dives in Maui and Kona then snorkeling with some super fast Spinner Dolphins

The Canon G7X Mark II was more than up to the task. Some samples below shot with my new Fantasea housing and Inon S2000 strobes. Some with their compact Bigeye 67mm II wide angle lens.

www.haasimages.com

 

[dhaas]

A couple more sample photos below. These compact cameras travel easily as a back up to a SLR system or as your primary camera!

www.haasimages.com

 

[JackConnick]

Thanks for sharing David. Did you try any macro shots?

 

[dhaas]

Here's a macro shot (cropped a bit) of a blennie (I think).

The Canon G7X Mark II Digic 7 does seem to speed up AF a bit and I did experience a bump in battery life although for the size I never thought the Canon G7X 1st generation was bad.
Tiny camera = tiny battery and the trade off is size and weight for travel....

 

[dhaas]

Forgot to include my experience with the fabulous Fantasea housing:

All Fantasea housings come COMPLETE with external flash diffuser, optical synch cord connection snap in plate (to use with optically triggered strobes), wrist lanyard, velcro hand strap for action rafting or other "wet" environment photography, BUILT IN leak detector both visual LED and AUDIBLE and controls for each function. Plus a spare back o-ring and all Fantasea housings have a door AND face seal o-ring.

Your camera "drops in" securely and the rear buttons have wider spacing around the typical 4 way "cloverleaf" push buttons. They all make contact perfectly including the lens control / zoom ring. No gears or anything else to add either. On my FG7X II Canon G7X Mark II housing if you forget to pop up the flash there's a lever on the side that hits that control. Simply brilliant!

The top ON / OFF and shutter release push buttons are well sealed and smooth. The zoom lever returns to center via springs. No more trying to take a shot and the zoom control is stuck It's like you're shooting with the camera itself in your hand.......

Overall a SUPER designed well thought out piece of equipment

The Canon models I recommend include the Canon G16 and trio of the larger 1" sensor compacts G9X, G7X and G7X Mark II. All can deliver incredible pictures with simplicity and ease in their Fantasea housings.

David Haas
www.haasimages.com

 

[rks]

Any thoughts on the G5X or G3X? seems like with the ability to use wired flashes they might be interesting.

 

[dhaas]

The Canon G5X has a hot shoe which means you can fire as fast as your hard wired flash can recycle. I have several Ikelite customers using this in the Ikelite housing and like it. Canon shooter with Ikelite DS series digital subscribes especially like this model if downsizing from a SLR.

Ikelite offers a housing using the same hot shoe TTL circuitry for the Canon G3X also. The lens is really a long zoom range (nice travel camera) and can produce some cool tele macro shots with the Ikelite optional long flat port. If macro of shy critters is your thing this might be another choice to look at but you will give up any wide shooting.

All of the 1" sensor compacts can produce great images and travel easily. I went to Italy for 2 weeks last year with the original Canon G7X and no checked luggage (a non-diving trip) and made photos I've printed 14 X 24 prints from and they look great. Subsequent dive travel trips with a small housing system have been wonderful as well.

David Haas
Haas Photography Inc.
www.haasimages.com

 

[rks]

Awesome thank you for taking the time to give me that Feedback David.

I'd really like to see if there's a way to do this with a vacum check on the Ikelite housing, I've been pretty happy with the housings so far but there's always that moment entering the water when you hold your breath and hope nothing's wrong. In an ideal world they'd offer this feature, or Nauticam would make their smaller housings with the LED flash modules built in so that you weren't using the camera batteries or waiting for the recharge rate to trip your flashes...

 

[JackConnick]

Ikelite will have a vacuum valve out soon, but it's for DSLRs and all it does is such the port in. There's no real electronics we've been told. I doubt that Nauticam will have an electronic f/o board for compacts very soon, as it would be 1/3 the cost of the housing. The G7XII has a bigger battery that should help quite a bit.

 

[rks]

The customer service rep who responded to my mail specifically said it would be available for the G5x housing "Soon" however I actually found that I went after this earlier this year and have a similar mail from them from January so I'm not sure if their definition of "soon" jives with mine

Good to know that the G7XII is better with it's battery, I really love on my G15 that I can do three dives in a day and not worry about the camera battery or opening the housing, I try to only open the housing in my room, never on a boat. I also really like the much faster recycle time on the DS161's than you get from the internal strobe on the cameras. Seems like the only way to get this with optical strobes is to use a Sony or Nikon camera with the LED slave trigger (including getting TTL) in a Nauticam housing if one wants the pressure check.