Canon PowerShot G9 X Digital Camera

I'm a part-time professional photographer, specializing mostly in portrait sessions (senior photos, engagement photos, kids, families, etc.). I consider myself an expert in technique and equipment. Artistically, however, I'm a decent amateur. I don't have the creative eye that many others do. But I know the rules of photography, and am familiar with all the latest technology and products from full-frame 35mm on down to inexpensive point and shoots. I believe I can give a fair and accurate review of the Canon G9x.The Canon G9x has what they call a 1-inch type sensor. That doesn't mean much other than it is a larger sensor than most point and shoot cameras. The sensor measures 13mmx8mm (rounded to the nearest whole number). This is fairly large for such a small camera. The largest benefit to having this larger sensor is that the camera will perform much better in lower light than a typical point and shoot or a cellphone.I mentioned a cell phone (such as the latest Apples, Androids, etc.) because these phones take excellent images and video. They are so good, in fact, that the point and shoot camera market is imploding. Sales are. Dropping significantly. The phone allows you to take the photo or video, edit it, and then save and share it...all from one device. What's not to love about that? I use an iPhone 6s Plus and am thrilled with it for my day-to-day needs.I also use a full-frame Canon 6D and assorted lenses for taking portraits or landscapes when I really want an incredible amount of detail, lots of color, and excellent control on depth of field (choosing which areas of the photo are in or out of focus). My 6D is a professional camera. But I don't enjoy bringing it on vacation unless I am traveling alone specifically for photography.So if my iPhone and my DSLR each cover my needs, why did I buy the Canon G9x? In simple terms: It takes good photos in a small package, like my phone, but allows me all the same control features of a DSLR. The results or which are pictures that exceed the quality of a cell phone, fall a little short of a DSLR, but brings theme both together quite nicely.Here's what you get with this camera that a phone cannot match (not yet..give it a couple more years).1. The sensor is about the size of your thumbnail, unlike a cellphone that has a sensor half thee size of your pinky nail. This enables more light to get in.2. The camera has an optical zoom that covers from 28mm to about 80mm. This is about the same range as the zoom lens that comes with most DSLRs. A typical Canon Rebel comes with a lens that is 18-55. When compared to the G9x, they both come out to pretty much 28-80mm of range. So the G9x has the width to get group shots and the reach for portraits. It's not going to help if your subject is very far away, however. This camera is for taking pictures of people and places, not birds, air shows, wildlife, etc.The camera can function automatically, like your cell phone, or you can go as manually as you want in various stages. My favorite setting is TV (time value) because I know my shots won't be blurry if I use a shutter speed that matches my subject. I let the camera choose aperture (which isn't very important on a point and shoot) and ISO.For those who want to control aperture, that feature is available as well. You can make anything manual or automatic. It's up to you.The camera can be set to automatically feed photos to your phone wirelessly while you're out and about. You can do it while you take each shot or spend a couple minutes transferring the photos to your phone or tablet while you sit down for a snack. No wifi is needed. The camera and phone communicate directly with each other. The setup process is quick, and the files transfer quickly. It can be quirky, but if you are patient with yourself and the gear you quickly learn how to undo the quirks. From my perspective, the linking of the camera to a phone seems to be monogamous. I believe you have to reset your wireless settings on the camera if you want to transfer to a different device. I found this out yesterday when my brough both my iPad and iPhone on a trip. But again, you'll get used to it and will have your pics on the phone in no time.Pocketability: This is a very small camera, much smaller than I thought it would be. I don't think anyone will be able to complain about it fitting in a pocket. It's really small. I am a 6.0 man with a very average build and average size hands. The camera is a little more than half the length of my hand. It's tiny.The thickness is more than your phone (about double the thickness of my iPhone 6splus. The lens adds another thickness similar to an iPhone, so to get an idea of how thick it is, put two iPhones in one pocket.I personally don't own any clothing that would be a problem. Skinny jeans might be an issue, but then your phone is probably only able to go in the back pocket of your skinny jeans. This would need a little bit of room. However, regular jeans are not a problem at all.It has a huge list of other features, of course, most of which a phone doesn't have or will fall short in ability: IS, flash, tripod support, sd card, zoom, zoom during video, shutter control, aperture control, iso control, and much more.Some will be disappointed that the camera doesn't have a movable screen (which helps while at concerts or anyplace you need to raise of lower the camera into odd angles). To me, I prefer NOT to have a movable screen. It keeps the camera thinner and is one less thing to break.Some will say the lens tightens up too much on the aperture when zoomed. This doesn't bother me because I'm not using it as a portrait camera and don't need a blurry background for my vacation photos.RAW: The camera can shoot in RAW mode (and jpg at the same time if you want), so that you can pull your files into photoshop or Lightroom, etc. to get the most out of your images when editing. Canon's native software (free) is also fantastic.Price: This camera is worth the price. I paid $399 and it came with a 32gb SD card. I imagine at some point the camera might be 350, but probably not until the end of summer 2016.Why the G9X, when there are other cameras that do so much more? The simple answer is that this is the least expensive of all the cameras with this size sensor. At the top end is the Sony RX100, mark 4. It's $950. It has a lot more features and can outperform the G9x in many ways, but it has the exact same size sensor. In 90% of situations the cameras will perform equally. But the Canon is 1/3 the price of the Sony, and it's incredibly small compared to the competition.If you can afford a couple hundred more, I would recommend going for the G7X or G7X mark II, but if you want a camera that won't make you feel guilt on the price, and one that you can truly put in your pocket, the G9X is a big winner.My biggest praise of this camera: It does extremely well in low light. I am thrilled with the photos I'm getting, and I'm confident I can take photos indoors and print them at 11x14 without a worry, and in good light could print poster size prints. It's a great camera, and the first point and shoot I've decided to keep. I purchased and returned several others because those tiny sensor on most point and shoots just don't get great quality photos in anything but perfect conditions.I really don't see how anyone can go wrong with this camera at the sub-400 dollar price.

The camera cost too much money compared to a second hand one. The camera arrived scratched and with peeling paint, missing a part that covers the camera that is simply broken and did not come with the camera. Overall the camera looks very bad. The camera did not come with anything else, even though it was written that it would come with additional things like a wrist strap, battery pack, warranty card and more.

I purchased this camera and have had it a couple of weeks now, so I am still in the learning phase for this camera, but here are some thoughts.I already have a canon SX710 which is a great pocket sized camera with a 30x zoom. However, I have been wanting a camera with a larger sensor as a lot of what I photograph are night shots at concerts and area art installations, etc. When I was in the market, I originally wanted the G7X but found a significant price difference at the time between the G7X and the G9X and they both have similar features, but the G7X has a slightly better zoom and a flip screen, but I did not find those extras compelling enough to justify the extra $200, so I went with the G9X. I also looked at the Sony RX100 (the original) which at the time was priced identical to the G9X, however that camera came out in 2012 and the G9X has the same sensor, but also has an updated Digic 6 image processor, and the newer models of the Sony series were significantly more expensive.My first impressions:For daytime photographs I am getting great results, very sharp images.Coming from another Canon, I had almost no learning curve.I love the touch screen and the ability to touch focus, and don’t think I will ever buy another camera that does not have this feature.Night time low light shots have been very hit or miss. I am still learning this. I am also finding I am missing the zoom capability of the 710 in concert environments when I cannot get close to the stage. However, as I get used to the camera and am going very high on the ISO compared to where I have stopped in the past I am getting decent results. I think it will take a little more practice to really find out how high of an ISO I can go and still get good results. Unlike the 710 and my previous camera (Canon 260) there is no low light preset on this camera so it requires manually configuring in order to get good results, the auto mode does not work well in low light. The good thing is the touch screen makes configuration of the camera even in the darkest of places fairly easy. Also the control ring is useful for quick changes, for instance you can go into manual mode or P mode and touch ISO on the screen and then use the ring to change the setting, same goes for any of the settings, making it easy to change while looking at the subject you are preparing to shoot.[EDIT] I am finding in very low light I need to crank the ISO up to 5000 to get a good light picture, but I do see some noise at that level. The images are still okay for internet sharing. [/EDIT] New edit: I have been shooting in RAW for very dark environments and have been getting good results after tweaking in post processing. /edit2If I had my way I would have many more preset modes for common scenarios, like sports, low light, etc. I am not a pro and even though I have the basics of F-stop, ISO and shutter speed down, I am not fast at determining in my head what settings will work in what situation so I still have to experiment a bit and sometimes miss the moment because of this. Adding additional scenes in the scene mode setting seems like it would be fairly simple and a cost effective way of increasing the usability of the camera for non-pro photographers, as pros tend to stick to Manual mode anyway.I have found the HDR mode not as stark as I was hoping for, but the photos do come out nice, just not as dramatic as some HDR images I have seen on the internet.[edit] I figured out that the control ring will allow you to set different levels of HDR distortion to make photos more dramatic, I was using the least impactful mode at first [/edit]The background defocus is also not as stark as I was expecting, there have been times when a regular shot with a low f-stop looked similar to the background defocus setting, but without the delay that the defocus setting gives you. [edit] this can be increased using the control ring as well [/edit]The creative mode applies several different filters, I think it can be fun and on this camera you can specify the type of filters to apply (like Retro, auto, natural, and bold), this can be fun, but it seems like you lose some quality, I am not sure if I am imagining this or not. On the other hand, when you have seen 100 images of the same thing, sometimes the filters can make your photo stand out from the crowd. I will sometimes take one shot on creative mode (which give you 5 different pictures) and one shot with the settings I think will give the best quality results.Overall, excellent camera that takes good pictures and is fairly easy to use, and easy to carry. So far I love it. The pictures come out large, which is good as the limited zoom often means more cropping. I am still not sure if the G7X would have been the better choice, but $ made the difference and I think this camera is definitely a good buy if you are looking for a very pocketable camera with a 1 inch sensor.EDIT: I went to a concert last night and they had a large sign saying "no DSLR, SLR, or Mirrorless cameras allowed, cell phones and point and shoots okay". This little camera came right in and I got some good results. My photos turned out much better than the ones my wife took on her iPhone 6. So this is a benefit of a camera like this that appears to be just another low quality P&S.EDIT: I have been shooting in raw mode more and have been getting excellent results. I find that if I shoot in raw, even if I have to go up to ISO of 6400 I can eliminate most of the noise in a photo editor. If you are looking for a stealthy camera to bring into small concert venues that tend to be very dark, I have found I am getting near DSLR quality in a tiny package, this is especially useful in venues where they don't allow "professional" style cameras.After using this camera now for about 2 months, I am loving it more and more. I do think I would prefer the G7X for the flip screen and longer zoom range, but this camera seems to take comparable photos and is significantly less expensive.