A frustrating lens that should have been great
930058
The Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 lens focuses quickly and accurately, and can produce nice pictures as long as you keep your subjects away from the edges of the frame. The center is sharp, but even on an APS-C (cropped frame) camera such as a Digital Rebel or 50D, the edges are quite soft at f/1.8 and remain noticeably soft no matter how far you stop it down. On a full-frame camera such as the 5D Mark II, the edges are unspeakably bad. The lens also shows strong chromatic aberrations and heavy purple fringing around specular highlights. Stopping down does not reduce these effects significantly, but it is usually not a problem on indoor shots as long as sunny windows and unshaded lamps (including flourescent tubes) are kept out of the frame.

My goal in purchasing this lens was to improve my indoor martial arts photography, but its optical defects were so frustrating that I found myself taking any excuse not to use it. I simply couldn't trust it to produce usable images. I ended up selling it. Now when I need a fast lens in about this focal length, I usually reach for the less-expensive but optically superior&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Canon-EF-35mm-f-2-Wide-Angle-Lens/dp/B00009XVCU/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Canon EF 35mm f/2 Wide Angle Lens</a>. The 35mm f/2 does not have USM, so it does not focus quite as quickly or silently as the 28mm f/1.8, but it produces good pictures without weird color artifacts.

The EF 28mm f/1.8 USM is the worst prime SLR lens in Canon's product line as far as I know. It is the only such lens that I recommend avoiding.
595090
Recently I purchased this lens and took it out for a spin last weekend; I came away a little disappointed.  I was really looking forward to using this lens as we are in the final home stretch of winter.  I was looking forward to great shots of birds, spring colors and other wild life opportunities.  I'm not a expert photographer, but on my weekend outing I had to crank up the ISO to 1000 and open it up to 4.8 to even get a chance at capturing  my subject, a grazing buffalo 40 yards away.  Lens hunts for the focus point...show as malaise in January.  Forget using a polarizer.  I shot 500 or so photos and maybe 20 are useable.  The other issue I have with this lens is it sucks the life and vibrancy out of a subject.  Of my final 20 usable photos I spent a lot of time in photo editing fixing the color and saturation.  So, my opinion is if you buy this lens get a good tripod too and hope your subject isn't moving at all.  Sports photography keep it in the bag!  For me, this lens is being returned.  I own the Olympus m. Zuiko 40-150 and it out performs the 75-300 hands down...not even close at 1/3 the price.
3020726
I really wanted to like this camera (I own two other lumix models), but the unresponsiveness of the camera makes it impossible to use for me.

Physical Characteristics
+ I like how the lens cover is integrated with the camera
+ The back screen flips over for easy self shots
+ The form factor is quite flat so its easy to slip into a bag or purse

Quality
- The outdoor pictures are fine, but the camera seems to struggle with even moderate low-light conditions
+ Pictures with movement turned out pretty nicely and the camera is capable of taking multiple shots in quick succession
+ The 20x zoom is impressive, but impractical. Zooming that far generally results in blurry shots when taken without a tripod and remote

Other considerations
- The on/off button seems to be a step back from the on/off switch. I would often press it two to three times because I wasn't sure if it was on yet.
- This general sense of unresponsiveness seems to extend to even zooming in and out
- The wifi is a nice touch, but if I can't turn the camera on and take a quick shot within a few seconds it does not meet my needs
3730617
This lens can be wonderfully sharp if you get a good copy. Unfortunately the one I received had very severe uneven focus across the frame, making it practically useless as a UWA lens. My copy also had quite pronounced barrel distortion, not sure whether this is common for this lens, or just my copy is particularly bad.
2371817
This lens does have some nice features, the most notable of course is the ability to go from a semi-wide angle shot all the way to 300mm and zoom in.  The lens has a locking feature that allows you to lock the zoom.
Unlike the other reviewers I was not happy in the least with the prints I got using this lens.  I took six test rolls of film and found the pictures to be sub-par.  The auto focus on this lens seems to be the main culprit.  Even in conditions with good lighting this lens seemed to be forever focusing, and half the pictures still seem to lack focus.  The color separation was horrible on the prints.  Until I bought this lens I never had a problem getting good pictures using automatic settings on my camera (N70).
I brought this lens back and bought the Nikon 70-300 and continued using my Quantray 28-80 for the majority of my shooting.  The difference was noticeable, immediately noticeable.  The Nikon lens focus's quicker, and the prints come out a heck of a lot better.
4780574
I've given myself this lens a long time ago (2001). At the time, I shot with an "analogic" (read film) Canon camera. I was not satisfied with the picture quality I could get from this lens, specially above 200mm. But most of the times I could blame myself ("Hum... I probably didn't hold it steady enough").

  On 2005 I got my first digital SLR (the&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Canon-Digital-Rebel-XT-8MP-Digital-SLR-Camera-with-EF-S-18-55mm-f3-5-5-6-Lens-Silver/dp/B0007QKMQY/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Canon Digital Rebel XT 8MP Digital SLR Camera with EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 Lens (Silver)</a>) and, man, how bad the pictures taken with this lens really where! Now, being able to look at the specs ("So... the shutter speed was right on this shot, after all! 1/1000 should be steady enough! But, still, the picture looks soft (unsharp)!") and reviewing pictures right after taking then *proved* that the problem were the lens, not me! :-) Moreover, this lens would take forever to focus.

  I used to think on the people that "just use L quality lens" as snobs, people with more money than reason. That is not the case here. It is a complete waste of money to get this particular lens. I now have the&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Canon-EF-70-300mm-f-4-5-6-IS-USM-Lens-for-Canon-EOS-SLR-Cameras/dp/B0007Y794O/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens for Canon EOS SLR Cameras</a>&nbsp;(~3 times more expansive) and I do regret all pictures I've taken (missed, in the end...) with the 75-300mm. There is no DxO software able to save them... :-(

  Sure, I would love to be able to afford something like the&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Canon-EF-70-200mm-f-2-8L-II-IS-USM-Telephoto-Zoom-Lens-for-Canon-SLR-Cameras/dp/B0033PRWSW/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L II IS USM Telephoto Zoom Lens for Canon SLR Cameras</a>&nbsp;and the few experiences I've got with it have shown that it is way, way better than my&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Canon-EF-70-300mm-f-4-5-6-IS-USM-Lens-for-Canon-EOS-SLR-Cameras/dp/B0007Y794O/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens for Canon EOS SLR Cameras</a>. But there is a (lower) picture quality threshold Canon should never cross. And the 75-300mm is bellow it. Period.
1850752
Nice lens, but too difficult to mount and center with the clip, and too heavy to stay mounted. Always felt like it was going to fall off!
1867114
Lots of potential, lots of great features and a great lens but....

I have had this camera for about 3 months. I wanted it for a Wedding, Big Family thanksgiving and Christmas. So far I have been disappointed and have been using my old Cannon SD790IS again. The problem is almost always focus. I would say 20%-30% of the indoor photos I take have focus trouble. I tried to take a photo of our Christmas tree with only the tree lights (big tree with 8-100 light strings). The camera could not focus using iAuto or other modes. I had to Manually focus to get a clear shot...the cannon took a clear (but noisy with a cheaper lens) focused picture the first shot. I submitted some photos to a web page to have some pros look at them and the conclusion is to return the camera to Olympus and get it fixed.
(yes I tried 'single point' focus and 100 other settings)

Also:
Video hunts continually for focus. I knew this would happen to some extent from reviews however I can not use video at all.

I have started the return process and will update after Olympus looks at it and responds. At this point I just hope I got a 'defective' one that can be fixed or exchanged for a good working one.
3193149
Bought this lens for my son when I gave him my old Canon 7D so I can't attest to its image quality.  But one obvious glaring negative is its zoom creep, major and all the way zoomed out, all the time!  I know there is a zoom lock which is only practical if you don't intend to use the zoom or when in storage, but who ever uses that when you're walking around and taking pictures all day!?
3822900
I'd heard there was a chance I'd get a lemon, but had heard the chance was better for a good one with the Nikon version. I was sadly unlucky.

**Updated**

So I received my second version of this lens. Thankfully I bought it off Amazon and received my second copy the following day. You have to love Amazon customer service. I put this lens on my D300 and took a couple test shots. Same problem! Now I'm irritated. Back to Amazon it goes. Am I an idiot to want to even try again? Another update soon...
1988121
This lens takes photos and that's about it. This lens can not focus perfectly on one point. The photos are the complete opposite of sharp, they are all very soft. I've tried night photos and then I've tried controlled light photos where I adjeusted ISO shutter and aperture to many different settings and still couldn't get a good photo. The corner distortion in this lens is absolutely horrendous and when you apply lens correction in Lightroom it makes it worse. I really wanted this lens to be great but I isn't. Maybe I got a bad lens but overall I would highly advise against buying this lens.
1997958
I'd give this camera four or five stars if that's all I was reviewing. However, the G X Vario PZ 14-42mm kit lens that came with it is a severe disappointment. It has a tendency to cause motion blur, i.e., a double image, and it's very unpredictable. The blurring occurs at fast or slow shutter speeds, not all the time, but invariably on what might be my favorite shots! And on every one of my images, the right side is distinctly sharper than the left side...which appears somewhat out of focus. After suffering with this lens for several months, I've ordered a new prime lens. I think a recall should be issued by Panasonic for the G X Vario PZ 14-42mm/F3.5-5.6 lens.

So if you buy this camera and you're particular about image quality don't get it with the Power Zoom 14-42mm lens.
43404
I had this lens for about two weeks and tried very hard to like it but just didn't.  I have the Tokina 11-16, which I really like, so I decided to give this a try.  Admittedly, cost was a big factor since the Canon 100-400 was a long way off in terms of finances.

The big issue for me was softness and CA's.  No matter how hard I tried, I could not get very sharp photos.  I have a Canon 70-200 f/4L non-is, and I could consistently get better cropped photos at 200mm that were better than any from the Tokina.  I did a lot of testing at different apertures and just could not find a real sweet spot.  Even at f/4, the Canon 70-200 was better than the Tokina at f/8 and at any focal length.

One other issue I found with the lens was that it is a front focusing lens.  This would cause the image to loose more sharpness because the end of the lens would droop causing part of the image to go out of focus.

It is very possible that I got a bad copy.  My biggest gripes:

-Front focusing;
-CA's and purple fringing pretty bad, if you are shooting water fowl, look elsewhere;
-Heavy for size;
-Images not very sharp
-I don't recall the term, but if you are shooting towards the sun, the flaring is HORRIBLE!

Tokina makes a solid feeling lens and the lens is very compact and could make a good travel telephoto.

My suggestion is to look at other telephotos.
4653603
This lens produces blurry pictures below 1/400s at the the long end (around 42mm), even with the image stabilizer turned off and the camera placed on a tripod. This has been reported elsewhere (dpreview) as being a problem with this lens. After running a number of tests I was able to reproduce this problem myself with my sample of this lens, which came with firmware v. 1.1 installed. It doesn't seem to happen at all subject distances, which made it a bit tricky to pin down.

In addition, there is also a problem with the image stabilizer at all focal lengths, at shutter speeds ranging from 1/60s-1/400s. Pictures taken with the image stabilizer turned on are less sharp than pictures taken with the image stabilizer turned off. Even with the latest firmware this is still a problem.
2019699
This lens was tested with a Canon EOS 7D and was compared to other lenses.
At f/1.4, the lens demonstrated chromatic aberration consistently on contrasted subjects.  In comparing this to the Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 and the Zeiss 80mm Planar T* f/2.8, I set the optimum focus at f/1.4 then dialed to f/2.8; there was no close comparison when enlarged with Photoshop.  At 16x there is obvious chromatic abberation and the clarity (lens sharpness) was poor.  When shooting at the sweet-spot, f/8, there was a quality improvement to the images.  But, I bought this lens for the bokeh and ability to shoot in low light conditions.  I would not recommend this lens for creating prints 11x14 or larger.
3390600
It's either my camera has always been defective or the majority of people here compare the photos to their old cell phone camera. I am a very experienced user and I understand well the functions of this camera, how to shoot and divide the light metering on a screen, choose shutter speeds and iris functions, target correct ISO to prevent image noise, choose a great color mode etc. Please consider that ween you read the following:

Pros:
Great construction
Great lens
Great basic features
Excellent ergonomics
Was considered high megapixels when it came out (now 10.1mp is below average)
Great battery life per charge
Very nice HD video

Cons:
Photos appear great on LCD, but when you transfer them to the computer, everything is out of focus and horribly pixalated. That is true even for excellent light conditions
This camera is unable to do macro. About 1 out of 20 shots come out right  in terms of focus (but then it's probably a very noisy photo). The camera has a strange auto-focus function: You see it focuses on the object perfectly, it then pass the focus point and remains blurring the image. You constantly have to change the setting, lighting or your angle to capture macro objects and trick the camera to put them in focus. Often you have to stand far and zoom into it, but then you have to put the camera on a tripod because touching it when taking a macro photo from afar will cause it to move and blur the photo. It's really very-very poor.
Night shots are very poor quality when comparing with other cameras
Memory Stick Duo is slow and proprietary. Chances are you will need an adapter for most computers out there.
Camera takes long time to turn on and take a first photo
Difficult to operate manual modes, very limited.
SLR-like form factor accommodates large lens, but the lens cannot be interchanged.
Flash cannot be adjusted and your choice is either burnt photos or dark noisy photos
A bit heavy and bulky for its size. It's not an SLR but it's also not something you can carry in your pocket. In other words, you are robbed out of the benefits of SLR but you don't gain the compact benefits of a point-and-shoot travel size camera (which may have similar specs and price point) so it's quite pointless
What you see on the LCD is NOT what you see on the PC. In fact, if you read the manual there are many troubleshooting tips where Sony themselves tell you that dots, streaks, wrong colors, etc. that you see on the LCD are not recorded in the real photo. What's thr point of this? The LCD should ALWAYS represent EXACTLY what you will see on your computer screen. Moreover, because it is small, you cannot see how pixalated, noisy or out of focus the photos really are, which you discover later when you transfer them to your computer.  This means you have to always take many redundant photos with changed focus, settings and angles just to make sure. It makes the photo taking an annoyance. Not only is it not fun but you run out of disc space and have to then sort many more photos than reasonable -just to dig a few good ones.
Sony's instructions also keep suggesting to avoid all kinds of terrible results by changing the scene, lighting angle or how you center objects in your photo.  I am sorry, but a scene should NEVER accommodate a camera. Camera is a passive device that helps the person behind it tell a story and document or memorize a scene.  My camera should never dictate the scene itself.

Overall, poor camera. It is probably best to get a nice point-and shoot or a nice SLR rather than this failing hybrid. It's just bad.
994001
This camera would have been a promising alternative if not better than the Sony RX100 Mark III. However, the following issues below are irritating:

1. WiFi/NFC connection is a huge pain. Good luck on trying to connect your iPhone's Canon Camera Window App and the G7x. During my 2-Wk vacation in Minnesota, it had only done so twice. In fact it drained its battery far more while attempting to connect with the iPhone than actually taking pictures.  You know my friend's RX100 Mark III is a cinch to pair with my iPhone.  I don't understand why Canon can't replicate that design or algorithm to make it work with the G7x.  I've found a way by resetting the WiFi settings every now and then for it to work, but the first connection is always time consumming.

2. Max shutter speed of 1/2000 is very limiting. The promise of a background blur is possible on a case to case basis (refer to #3 below). With a snow background, lowest ISO, and aperture-priority mode at f2.8 telephoto, the camera forces the aperture to override f2.8 and go all the way from 5.6 to 7.0 because it's shutter speed is capped at 1/2000. In most situations 1/2000.  However, the G1x II is at 1/4000, why cut back?

3. Aperture/Av-Priority. This is in relation to #2 above. Even if you set the aperture at max f2.8 at telephoto, the camera ignores that and forces it to f7.0 in my case, when it's too bright, such as as the sunlit snow background.  This happens when Safety Shift is turned ON as it automatically adjusts exposure when shutter is pressed half-way--but isn't that what its supposed to do, so why turn it off?  Background blur only works when it's not sunny or shutter speed is below 1/2000.

4. Very poor battery life. Imagine running out of battery after only 40 shots. Why? Because it spent most of its charge from me trying to pair with the iPhone which on my case had only done twice. If you're out in the field or travelling and excited about updating your FB status or Tweets, then good luck making a successful connection.

If you don't believe me, read the reviews about the G7x by CameraLabs.com and DPreview.com and they can vouch for some of my issues above.

What I like:

1.  Auto-Focus is delightfully fast.

2.  Longer zoom than RX100 III.  However portrait background blur can only be achieved on a case to case basis.  See my note above on 1/2000 shutter speed cap and camera's overriding aperture-priority value.  Turn the Safety Shift to OFF to retain Av-priority setting on really bright days.

3.  Touch operation is very responsive, including swipe and pinch to zoom.

4.  Very handy and very well made.