Which Has The Best Lens? Sony RX100 VII Vs Canon G5 X II Vs ...

Now that we're pushing through our full review of Canon's G7 X Mark III and have published our full reviews of the G5 X Mark II and Sony's RX100 VII, we wanted to take a look at how all three of their lenses stack up against each other.

Of course, there are some differences here in terms of zoom length and aperture range, but since these represent the latest pocketable zoom compacts on the market, we were curious as to how those differences impact the outright image quality each camera is capable of. So, let's take a look.

The first thing you'll notice is that the Sony is much clearer in the central portion of the frame, at each camera's widest focal length and aperture. Stopping down the Canon cameras to match the wide-open aperture of the Sony improves things somewhat, especially on the G7 X III. As we move out to the corners, the Sony shows a clearer advantage over the Canon's.

As we move into the middle of the zoom range, all three cameras perform very similarly in the center of the frame, which is to say, quite good. Stopping down the Canon's to match the Sony's lens at F4 does look to give the PowerShots a bit more contrast. The corners likewise look pretty good here, and again, stopping down the Canon cameras to match the Sony's maximum aperture gives them a bit of a sharpness boost.

Next, at the G7 X Mark III's maximum zoom length of 100mm equivalent, the Sony shows a bit less fringing right off the bat, but all look pretty decent in the center. It's in the corners where it looks like G5 X II is really starting to fall apart, unfortunately. Once you reach its maximum zoom of 120mm equivalent, the G5 X II starts to look a little hazy next to the Sony across the frame.

So from what we can tell from these copies, the Sony will give you more consistently sharp results regardless of where you find yourself in the zoom range, or across the image frame. But, and this is a big but, you're giving up an awful lot of aperture (and gain a ton of zoom, to be fair) to get that sharpness. If you find yourself wanting to shoot in more dim conditions, the Canons may be a tad bit softer, but their faster lenses will keep your ISO values lower, and therefore noise levels lower. It's up to you to decide which suits you best.

But poke around the rest of the scene and the other settings we've provided, and let us know what you think in the comments.