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Photography

The perfect compact camera?

My first foray into photography was abandoned halfway through an A-level at City of Bath College, around ’96 time. I was using a manual Pentax SLR with a bunch of prime lots of B+W film which I didn’t really appreciate or learn enough about at the time. Silly me, I could have been a lot further ahead now if I had but never mind.

My second attempt at Photography has been more successful and this was started with the purchase of a little FujiFilm F31fd in 2006 which was a great little camera which got me interested in the subject again. Lovely and compact and went with me everywhere. It still does actually but I rarely use it. I did use it a lot on the 365 project at first when it was more about snaps.

Since then I’ve been on the upgrade path which started with my first digital SLR, a D70, through to my current D700 (with a D300 in between). The trouble is with all of this is that they’ve all gradually been getting bigger and bigger which makes taking them with you all the time a right pain in the bum. Having said that it’s also worth taking them due to the incredible results that are possible with this format – think high ISO, depth of field control, instant reactions from the shutter, 12 megapixel RAW file formats, amazing ergonomics for changing aperture on the fly etc. So with all of this using a compact again feels like a complete exercise in frustration, shutter lag and lack of RAW being my biggest complaint, the lack of a hot shoe to allow off camera flash is also annoying. The other problem is that the settings are mostly menu driven so changing aperture is a real pain. It would be nice to be able to have some of these features but available in a smaller form. Another reason is that I want to take great shots on bike rides but lugging a D700 around + lens + flash isn’t much fun. It’s also a lot of cash that could get damaged with a nasty prang on the bike.

For a while I’ve been looking around at different types of more compact camera that might fulfil some of these criteria. One that did almost satisfy was the Canon G11 / 12 which has RAW format, hot shoe, external controls but fails for me on two points. It has a fixed (as in attached) zoom lens and is pretty ropey about 800 ISO or above in terms of sensor noise. They do seem to be popular with pros as travel cameras but I’m not convinced. There is a similar offering from Nikon but it seems to be a exact copy of the G11 style with nothing else to set it apart.

The next interesting development has been this area has been the Micro 4/3rds standard which was developed between Olympus and Panasonic. The Olympus EP-1 being the first to capture my interest with a removable lens, smart little ƒ1.7 prime, RAW format and pretty compact form, retro styling etc. The only let down being the lack of viewfinder. I tried one out the other day and it didn’t feel as good in the hand as I had expected. It felt much more plasticky than I had imagined which is a real shame.

The other new contender is the Sony NEX 5. Looks amazing and has a larger sensor than the EP-1 (APS-C sized) as well as a slimmer profile. The main thing that rules it out is that it is overly reliant on menus, something I’m keen to avoid. I like dials and manual controls.

So in the end this only leaves one contender – the Panasonic GF-1. I’ve tried this one too and it feels much more solid (more metal, less plastic), has a RAW format, hotshoe for remote flash, a nice ƒ1.7 prime lens as well as an electronic viewfinder option (not ideal but bearable). It seems to tick all of the boxes for a camera you could carry around with you all the time and get decent shots out of. Seems perfect for cycling too. Take this, some wireless triggers and an old external flash and you’d be golden. The other thing with all of these is that with a cheap adaptor I can use all my existing Nikon lenses (different crop factor but still potentially useful).

So if the books all balance up at the end of Jan then I think I’ll be grabbing myself one of these. Can’t wait.

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