Opinion
Fredrik in Sweden.
I had a 3 Mpix Olympus D-550 (C-300) for 12 months and it has been very difficult to find a better camera when it broke.
I first bought a Casio QV 5700, a semi-big and very sophisticated camera. It had all the features I wished for, bright optics, manual settings etc. but the size and ancient slow action bothered me. I swiftly returned it.
I realized I wanted something pocketable with great performance. Since no reviews on the web met my demands I finally went for the G600, the heir of a test winner, unreviewed until now.
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The G600 with a spare battery and 512 Mb is a good setup. After the first charge of 14 hours the battery was good for 250 images (no flash, always display and 3 unloads) The very first charge also charges the onboard memory battery so it will perform better after that. It also takes 10 cycles before the battery is ripe. I expect 300-350 images.
Charging takes 2 hours with the bundled charger, neat.
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A normal image in fine mode takes up about 1500-2800 kb of space. => 240 images on my SD card.
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The shutter lag is ok, but not as awesome as I got the impression of. (with focus lock it is pretty instant)
I flung a stick into the evening air and shot it while it fell and the result was really neat and sharp. (See sample)
Startup time is really quick.
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The size is dreamy. You can hardly feel it is in your front pocket on a pair of tight jeans. The metal gives it a sturdy feel.
The blue LED's on the front are a nuissance. They provide extra light for focusing etc. I don't know when they are activated, or if I can turn it off.
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I have some sample images for you here.
All handheld on a grey spring evening in Sweden.
http://www.microsaft.com/g600/ this page.
Problems
I dislike using flash, as a result indoor images turn up dark.
Some are VERY dark with the automatic setting in spite of normal illumination.
I somewhat enhanced this by increasing ISO to 200.
Still not as good as my Olympus D-550 (C-300) in low light. I feel it necessery to switch between ISO modes for indoor and outdoor shots. Requires clicking in the menu.
The G600 wants to use flash at all times indoors. Flash make the pictures flat and boring. I want to capture atmosphere, not cold hard vectors.
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The Automatic "focus depth" was very tight.
If I focus on my face, the eyes look great but the nose gets blurry. (My nose isn't huge). I am not sure how to compensate for this. (still learning)
In macro mode this is apparent when shooting a fat larva where half the larva is out of focus. Unless you only photograph coins... this is a problem.
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In the evening, the automatic light control make the images a tad less bright and less in contrast than real life. Increasing brightness and contrast +25 and +25 in Pshop helps evening pictures.
I suspect this can be adjusted in the white balance settings.
Much of this can be compensated for, with internal tweaking, once and for all. The colors overall are very natural and life like.
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The multi spot autofocus tend to pick the items in the background and not the thing I want to shoot.
I saw no reason to use spot metering until I got the G600.
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The amount of "flawed images" are less than with the Casio, and I think that when I get used to this one it will perform as well as the point and shoot Olympus. I am well on my way.
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I would love it if it had a "speed dial" to chose
between different scene modes.
The sound and avi format works very well.
16 seconds amount only to 2800 kb.
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I'd rather they had two compartments for batteries than two for memory cards. Running out of juice is a bummer when you are to shoot the sunset from the top of a hill.
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Some would say that the zoom is too fast.
It is, like the Borg would say, ...efficient.
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It could be easier to record sound and movies. The menu system requires clicking... clicking...
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I need to test the lense and ccd more, with some colorful sunsets, but so far the quality is really nice. I can count individual strains of hair on my head on my images. I'll keep this one, because it is portable and creates great images under the right conditions and decent images under strain.
A third battery may be an investment.
Manual settings will work out some of my problems.
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/Fredrik
My free for all, no copyright 1000+ image archive.
(Most shot with the Olympus, but that will change.) http://www.microsaft.com
