Point and shot digital camera for everyday use: Fuji F31fd or Canon G7 ?
March 13th, 2007 by Adam
I’m going to buy a new digital camera for normal everyday use. I’ve read many reviews on the most popular sites related to digital photography such as www.steves-digicams.com, www.dpreview.com or www.imaging-resource.com and I narrowed my potential choices to two cameras: Fuji F31fd and Canon G7.
I’ve been using my fisrt digital camera since 2003 - this is my old Canon Powershot A60. It still produces good photos but it has only 2.0 megapixels. Now I need at least 6 MP becasue I’m going to print photos in A4 format. I don’t need a SLR or a hybrid camera becasue I shot only amateur photos and I don’t want to carry a heavy and big camera. You can see my photos taken with Canon A60 at Flickr.
As for Fuji F31df I liked its compact size and design. This model is similar to its ancestor Fuji F30 which has very good optics according to http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/F30/F30A4.HTM but only 3.0x zoom. It’s small, nice and shoots good photos at very low light. What I also like about this camera is 0.3% barrel distortion at wide angle, ISO 3200 and the face detector available in F31fd.
On the other hand there’s Canon G7 with 6.0x zoom, the image stabilization system and much more features for advanced photographers. It’s also compact with solid construction and an classic rangefinder style design. Its optics are not as good as F30’s: the Canon G7 produces about 0.82% barrel distortion at wide angle according to http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/G7/G7A4.HTM.
Which one should I buy? If you’re a user of F31d or G7 let me know what do you think about these cameras. I appreciate your opinion.
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The choice is pretty simple. Do you want the camera to do all the work or do you want control of the camera? I have a G7 and I love it because it’s fast and has a great zoom lens with image stabilization. It has great low light capability if you use the ISO 3200 mode and despite your comment about the optics, has a 6X zoom lens with great sharpness and color. The G7 can also take auxiliary lenses and high power flashes as well.
If you want control and quality, G7. If you want good and simple, Fuji.
Ambrose
Well I’m still confused..
I think the best solution would be to have two cameras: a small compact for every-day use such as Fuji F31 and the second one with the super zoom such as Fuji 6500 or Canon IS.
And since I saw this clip about F31 I’ve been even more confused: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElmIw_KcYEw
[…] As I mentioned in my previous post about compact digital cameras I wanted to buy a very useful and small compact camera. I finally decided to buy a Fuji FinePix F31fd instead of Canon G7. The most important advantage of F31fd is its really compact size - it is so handy that I can always carry it with me. Most hybrid and some compact cameras are in fact so big they require to have a special case beacuse they just don’t fit into a pocket. F31fd is really small; you can always have it with you and take hiqh quality photos wherever you are. It also looks very nice and has no useless components. […]
I too recently bought the f31 fd - It has great picture quality, is very fast, small and light. This camera now goes with me everywhere. My previous camera was a canon G3. Still takes great pics, but that will be doing tripod work now. We still have a 35mm slr that we use, too.
Having a little point and shoot like the f31 is very handy, and it has actually grabbed a number of good shots that i would never have gotten with the g3;mainly because the g3 is kept in a case, with lenses etc. I also dont tend to leave it either in the car, or carry it around in my bag or pocket,like the f31. At 100% crop, the quality of the f31 is sometimes quite dubious, and sometimes excellent. When you look up close, it has a weird pixelation that looks like some kind of brush-stroke filter! Reduce the size to 40% - 60%, and they are always beautifully detailed and rich. Sometimes they need a little sharpening. Again, sometimes it takes awesome low-light shots, and sometimes it just looks really noisey. I havent quite worked out the factors that contribute to it choosing which iso setting it wants under certain conditions. I guess time will tell, and i’ll be able to adjust. Of course, the f31 is not as controlable as the canon g series - f31 is a point and shoot: and it does it really well… Eventually i will swap the g3 out for a g9 or something, or more probably, a dslr. Having a dslr and a great, relativelt inexspensive point and shoot like the f31, lets you cover a lot of options. A lot more than any one camera ever could.