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

[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.