I has a camera

[drplokta]

Like autopope (in a friends-locked entry), I have a shiny new camera.

(Note that all Micro Four-Thirds lens focal lengths given below need to be doubled to get a 35mm equivalent.)

Unlike autopope, I decided to go for a Micro Four-Thirds camera, the Panasonic GF1, with the 20mm f/1.7 prime lens included, and also the 45-200mm zoom. With £50 cashback from Panasonic, I won't lose any money if I decide to keep the lenses and sell the body on eBay, and buy an Olympus body instead.

The plan is to have a camera (with the 20mm lens) that I can easily carry around on holidays and excursions (It's just about pocketable, with largish pockets), with the zoom in the camera bag for times when I think I'll need it.

(The following is according to reviews, not personal experience.) The GF1's advantages over the Olympus E-P2 are quicker auto-focus, a better prime lens bundled with the camera, and it's cheaper. The Olympus's advantages are better JPEG processing, wider range of art filters built in, in-body image stabilisation (so it stabilises all lenses, and not just those with Panasonic's in-lens stabilisation built in), and a high quality electronic viewfinder (the Panasonic has a much worse one as an optional extra, which I've not bought). The first two of these can (I hope) largely be overcome by shooting raw and processing in Aperture.

I also quite fancy a wide angle lens (Panasonic do an extremely good one that's mind-bogglingly expensive) and a macro lens (Leica do a nice-looking 45mm f/2.8 one), which is also pretty expensive. And Panasonic are coming out with a 100-300mm superzoom later in the year. But this way lies madness, or at least bankruptcy. Of course, if I don't mind manual focussing, there's a large array of lens adaptors available, and thus access to lots of other lenses (although probably not anything with a very wide angle, due to the doubling of the effective focal length from the smaller sensor).

Comments

[billyabbott.livejournal.com]

I hadn't got onto the low-light bit, but that may have decided it - one of the main reasons I want a much smaller camera is to shoot at gigs, now that my IXUS50 is *really* out of date. I may have been looking at F30s on ebay...

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

I blame the photography mags really, and the shops. They kept harping on about megapixels, and sharpness, and daylight performance. Yet nearly everyone who buys a small camera wants it for taking photos of their friends and relatives, indoors, or outdoors in bad light, handheld, to view on screen, on the web, or in 6x4 prints. And so the F30/31 was seen as a dead end and didn't sell that well, and Fuji went back to the endless pixel race. Though they did make the W1 and I will love them forever for that. But if they'd only pressed on with the line they took with the F30, think what they could be doing now.

[billyabbott.livejournal.com]

I thought that the mini-boom in underwater photography might push things a bit, but most of the people I know who shoot while diving seem to use an F30/31 or complain that theyir photos are noisy.

[nojay.livejournal.com]

I recently bought a s/h Panasonic LX3, in part because it comes with an f2.0 lens and a big sensor in a small body and in part because of its 24mm wide-angle. That might make a good gig camera for you -- image stabilisation plus a fast lens and 10Mp can make up for the limited zoom range (only 2.5x) by cropping out the area of interest (aka digital zoom). It also offers 720p HD video recording as a bonus.

[drplokta]

Looking at dpreview.com's tests, the F30's image quality at ISO1600 is at least as good as the LX3 at ISO800. The LX3 goes a bit faster, with max aperture at f/2 instead of f/2.8, but the F30 is still going to win in low light situations.

[nojay.livejournal.com]

The F30 doesn't have image stabilisation which can be very useful in low-light although for action shots it's more problematical. I bought the LX3 in part because I thought it would make an ideal convention camera -- no flash needed for indoor work in normall-lit rooms, good at shooting crowds with the 24mm wide-angle feature, very pocketable and with decent 720p video capability if I need it. That's not exactly the spec for a gig camera but it's not far off.

[billyabbott.livejournal.com]

I grabbed the S90 in the end, and so far (after shooting some buildings in the dark and some bits of very static wall in the daytime...) it's rather nice. I may have to go and find a gig to see if a) they let me in with it and b) it works as well as I hope.

I didn't consider the 720p video thing until I read the specs today. I'm hoping I don't get into shooting video at any particular quality until I've justified buying a video camera.