Lee Special - Our Canon G7X Mark II

There was one thing for certain when we planned this road trip: we would be taking a LOT of photos. On previous trips I had taken my DSLR (a Canon EOS 400D) and whilst I loved this camera, the practicalities of interchangeable lenses simply wouldn't work for a 6-month, seat-of-the-pants trip around the US. What I wanted was the best of both worlds: a compact point and shoot that also gave me a bit of creative control if that's what was needed.

My shortlist consisted of:

• Canon G7X Mark II
• Sony RX100 Mark V
• Panasonic LX200

The problem with the Panasonic was that it didn't yet exist. The LX100 was a great camera but a successor had been rumoured to be coming out for almost a year and I was reluctant to take the plunge, knowing that doing so would only prompt the immediate release of the upgrade.

The Sony was a great camera, too, but was on the very high end of my price range. I could have gone for a Mark IV and saved some money, but buying back-dated tech just didn't seem the right thing to do.

In the end, I went for the Canon. It felt like the right balance of features and cost. Being an existing Canon owner, I'd also be broadly familiar with the menu systems, icons and so forth.

All of the three cameras on my shortlist had online reports of some level of issues with dust entering the lens and/or sensor, so I was already aware that this could become a problem. We first noticed dust spots in our pictures in Colorado, but these typically only showed up when taking pictures or videos towards the sun - something we try not to do anyway.

Then, in Lake Tahoe, we noticed a large black spot in many of our videos. If you've been watching our latest videos, you will have no doubt seen this spot and probably been annoyed nearly as much as we have about it.

The camera was still within warranty, so Sam contacted Canon with details of the problem. To our dismay, Canon would only investigate the issue if we sent the camera back to them. This simply wasn't an option, so we tried a number of self-help procedures which included jarring the camera as firmly as we dared and sticking it out of the window on an Interstate whilst zooming the lens in and out. Neither of these techniques worked, although we thought the annoying black spot did move about a bit, but that might just have been wishful thinking.

When taking photos, the focal plane made the spot disappear in most cases - it was only the videos in which we had this unwelcome guest, so we decided to soldier on and hope for the best.

One day, in cooler temperatures and higher elevation, we realised that our guest has disappeared. Gone. Without saying goodbye! The dust also seemed less problematic, and we rejoiced that we once again had a tenable means of recording our adventures. Yay!

The tale, however, continues...

One day sitting in Fin, Sam was scratching at a spot or bite on her leg - as she does - when she realises it is actually a teeny tiny screw. Initially I thought it was from the underside of the laptop, as I had known these to become loose before. We squirreled it off for further investigation at our next overnight stop. Taking a few photos en route, we realised it was actually from the camera. It was from one corner of the folding screen and, as such, was quite important as without it I could easily imagine the screen shearing off and rendering our G7X properly kaput.

That evening - with, I hasten to add, no beers in me - I attempted to reinsert this 1mm screw into the camera with a pair of tweezers. What could possibly go wro... PING! The tiny screw flew into the forest floor, never to be seen again.

The challenge was now on to find a replacement screw. Trying a couple of stores, we happened upon a hardware store in Forks, Washington. This, I have been reliably informed, is the one that Bella from the Twilight books worked in.

I didn't see any vampires or wolves, but a young guy at the customer service counter was very helpful in helping me find a screw that was almost the right size. Forcing it into the threaded hole, the screen was now fairly stable. The fact that the screw did not go in completely flush was outweighed by the fact that the screen wasn't going to get sheared off anytime soon.

As I write this entry, we are back in a good place with our trusty little camera. He is, however, going to need some major love from a Canon service centre when we get back to the UK!