Studio Test Scene

Our latest test scene is designed to simulate both daylight and low-light shooting. Pressing the 'lighting' buttons at the top of the widget allows you to switch between the two. The daylight scene is shot with manually set white balance aimed at achieving neutral grays, but the camera is left in its Auto setting for the low-light tests (except Raw, which is manually corrected during conversion). We also offer three different viewing sizes: 'Full', 'Print', and 'Comp', with the latter two offering 'normalized' comparisons to more fairly compare cameras of differing resolutions by using matched viewing sizes. The 'Comp' option chooses the largest-available resolution common to the cameras being compared.

Raw Performance

A look at Raw shows one of the major struggles the G5 X has to deal with: its lens. A lot of aberration shows at F4 on top of a comparatively soft image. The Panasonic LX100 takes the victory in terms of lens quality among these cameras, with the Sony RX100 III not far behind in normalized comparisons.

Raw noise performance in low light is exactly what we are familiar with from the 20.2 MP 1"-type sensor found in various compact cameras from Sony and Canon. Performance is fairly comparable to the G1 X Mark II and LX100, despite having only half the sensor surface area relative to both those cameras. This speaks to the relatively high efficiency and low noise of the Sony-sourced 1"-type sensor. That said, at moderately high ISOs, the G1X II does manage to eke out a bit better performance by capturing more light with its larger sensor.

JPEG Performance

In terms of JPEG image quality, the G5 X can arguably be summed up as a case of 'good, but not great'. The standard JPEG images at base ISO come out looking comparable to other 1"-type sensor compacts, and even some with slightly larger sensors. However, a look at fine detail shows where the Canon can differ. The G5 X's default sharpening is a bit on the weak side, leaving behind foggy details and lacking contrast. The soft lens doesn't help matters. The Panasonic is an example of sharpening gone a bit too far, with stair-stepping visible along the Siemens stars. The RX100 III and G1X II show artifacts of large radius sharpening, displaying visible visible halos around edges (reduced in the RX100 IV, though).

Canon's colors do come through and shine, especially when looking at skin tones. The G5 X is warm and saturated with natural skin tones, while the Panasonic is red shifted and the Sony RX100 III is rather desaturated (the RX100 IV improves saturation, but still lacks warmth). A look at the color wheel shows the stronger saturation with the warmer tones on the Canon, and the blue shift that happens in the greener shades for the Sony. It also shows the deeper reds produced by the Panasonic. All of this perhaps more visible in the Gretagmacbeth color patches, which show the warmer reds, deeper and less green yellows, and deeper blues of the Canon particularly relative to the Sonys.

Noise reduction is also a differentiating factor in these cameras JPEG engines. The patches show that at ISO 12800 the Canon applies mostly chroma (color) noise reduction, while leaving a lot of the luminance noise behind. The Panasonic and Sony employ context-sensitive algorithms that try to eliminate noise, but leave behind a lot of wobbly edges and artifacts. Interestingly, although the color patches indicate low levels of noise reduction on the G5 X, the low contrast leaves tell a different story: the low sharpening levels combined with strong color noise reduction cause most details to be lost - as is the case with the LX100 - whereas the RX100 III's context-sensitive noise reduction still manages to leave details behind. It's worth noting though that the RX100 IV balances things out at high ISO better than any of these cameras: it manages to leave the most detail behind while managing noise effectively.