WDB
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Post by WDB on Jan 19, 2017 23:35:30 GMT
I'm enjoying taking pictures again for the first time in a while, partly thanks to a couple of inspiring business destinations. But I'm wondering whether it's time for an equipment update and, if so, which way to jump.
Travel kit at the moment is my dinky (inside pocket-size) Canon S100, which has gone on most of my trips in the last four years. It's better than anything that tiny deserves to be, and it's got me some very pleasing results. But it's sometimes slow to set up, it's difficult in bright light and its output, especially in low light, where I take a lot of my pictures, is ultimately limited by its size.
I also have have my Pentax *istDL2 SLR, and half a dozen lenses most of which worked better in my old film system. The camera was scarcely cutting edge when I bought it in 2006, but I like using it and the results are good, although I'd need to buy some wider lenses to make it genuinely useful for travel again. The widest I have is the 18-55 that came with it; otherwise it's 35 and 50 and 100 macros (and a very cheesy tele-zoom) none of which is much use for the head-on architectural shots I like to take in foreign cities. Pentax does a nice, compact 15mm, but I'm still not sure I'd want the bulk of an SLR along with my work kit on a trip. I'd also be hankering after a faster, younger body - but aren't we all?
Options? Natural successor to the Canon is a Sony RX100, probably a Mk3. This would give me a pop-up electronic viewfinder for bright days and an articulated screen for the rest. Bigger sensor too, which would help with night shots. But very expensive for what's still a point and shoot camera.
Then there are the mirrorless systems, which I've played with in some airport shops. I can discard Panasonic because I don't get on with their idea of an EVF. Olympus has launched the gorgeous Pen F, but the body alone is £900 and it's a biggish camera to contain only a smallish Four Thirds sensor. The OM-styled models look cute and might work better for me, but there's still that small sensor.
So I'm drawn to the Fuji range of APS-C bodies like the X-E2s, the same size as in my Pentax but barely half the weight and with ten more years of development behind it. From what I've seen it's the one to have for available-light and night-time work too. With the right lens it would go in a coat pocket so it could come out to dinner with me, and not overburden the work bag. I'd still have the Canon for when I really have to travel light.
Any experiences or ideas? I think Rob is - or has been - a Lumix G-man, but I don't think I will be, good as they seem on paper.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2017 9:59:43 GMT
WDB
I had a similar query to you for work purposes. My old but very very good Canon Ixus 85 was a great camera, but it was only 28mm (in 35mm film terms) and I wanted something wider angle. I spent some time in camera shops and bought a Sony Alpha 5000. I'm not certain of the designation but it comes with a detachable 24mm - 70mm lens and you can buy a longer telephoto lens if you wish. Lots of settings, good digital viewfinder (usable in bright sunlight) and not too bulky. It will fit inside my anorak pocket. It produces good results.
I was tempted to go back to a full size SLR (I used to use those for work as well), but with the advent of digital photography, clients require many more photos in a report from all sorts of locations and positions, meaning that lugging around an SLR is too difficult.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jan 20, 2017 12:49:50 GMT
Thanks, Esp. I hadn't really kept up with Sony's mirrorless range, mainly because (how superficial is this?) the product photos in the Nex days made them look a bit weird and all lens.
The A6000 is the current one with an EVF - is that what you have? Tilting screen too, which is a plus point for me. Not convinced by the lens range, which seems bulkier and less comprehensive than Fuji's. Ideally I want one lens in the 30-40mm equivalent range that would make the camera pocketable; Fuji has 23mm and 27mm lenses that would work. But perhaps I should have a fondle next time I'm at T5 (next week, quite possibly) and see how it feels in my big hands. It gets rave reviews for its focus performance, which does get my attention.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2017 15:35:50 GMT
I'm sure mine is the A5000. But it does have the tilting screen which works very well.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jan 20, 2017 16:15:01 GMT
Tilting screens are great; I still miss the one on my Canon A640, where I used it almost all the time. I like having the flexibility to rest the camera low down and get a view that would be hard to achieve by looking along the lens axis.
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Jan 20, 2017 18:35:51 GMT
Been busy at work so apologies not for replying sooner.
You are correct in saying I have a Panasonic Lumix. It's a G2 from 2010. Still take on holiday and the images from the standard M4/3 lens are good - not as sharp as the Sony Alpha 100. I have captured some nice photos and it does videos which the Alpha does not.
Things will have moved on since 2010 but the logic in buying it was the DSLR was big and heavy and didn't do video so I also used to take a DVR too. But then you'd not want to look like a Japanese tourist with both cameras at hand all the time so missed video opportunities for sure.
Then when I went to Krakow in 2013 I didn't want to take even the G2 because it was Ryanair and we took only hand luggage. So before then I got a new HTC One. Many will pan this phone but I got cracking photos from it. Yes they are lower resolution but I was very please. It had optical image stabilisation. The reason I got the DSLR was mainly low light photography (inside churches, night time, etc). The HTC One produced very good images in low light without a flash. I was actually quite surprised.
Fast forward to today and I have a Samsung Galaxy S6. Photos are even better than the HTC One M7. And when we've been away on holiday I've taken the G2. But we're often in places we know so I then leave the camera in the room. Also easier to get the phone out of the pocket.
If I was back in 2009 and the bridge cameras were as good then as they are now (and compacts) I might never gone down the DSLR and then M4/3 route.
The lens I'd have liked for the G2 was the 14-140mm one. But they are very expensive. And the Tamron and Sigma M4/3 lenses that were meant to arrive never seemed to and then I stopped looking. You can get adapters but I never tried.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jan 21, 2017 15:17:34 GMT
Thanks for the thoughts, Rob. I do use my iPhone cameras, of course, but the ergonomics don't really work for me, and it's very hard to hold the thing steady by the edges while dabbing a release button on the screen.
I'm settling on Fuji, but possibly on the SLR-style X-T10. I prefer the idea and rangefinder look of the X-E2, but I know that I'll get a lot of use out of a tilting screen, which only the T models have.
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Jan 21, 2017 15:25:24 GMT
Many cameras on phones can be set to use the volume buttons to take the picture. I know my last few phones have this option.
I once saw a man and wife where he was trying to get her to take a photo of him with the phone in a case. He was showing her how to have it dangle in the air below the front of the cover when you delicately pressed the button on the screen. Well it would keep swinging about and he was getting annoyed at her. He clearly though you couldn't hold the phone because the cover would fall down over the screen.
So I showed him if you rotated the phone 180 degrees and held the phone and let the cover hang down below it was a lot more secure. And the screen obviously rotated. He said he knew that.
He was making out his wife was an idiot - he was the idiot. :-)
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jan 26, 2017 16:09:01 GMT
Well, I jumped - or did I?
I'm now the owner of a Fuji X-series camera with an APS-C sensor. But I've not really jumped systems, as my new camera is the fixed-lens X70.
Reasoning? Size. This one really does go into a coat pocket - has already done so, in fact. It has no viewfinder but its LCD screen is large, clear and tiltable, so it will operate at waist or ground level if I want. And it's touch-enabled, so I can use it directly to select a focus point, or even to fire the shutter. That shutter makes a barely-audible 'tick', too, so it's possible to be very discreet with this camera.
Why not go interchangeable? Well, even the smallest body with the smallest lens is bigger than this, and this is not that small; it's a close match in size and weight (340g) for the A640, and fits the same Crumpler case I used to carry that in. So if my main goal is better pictures from days when I'm not out just to take pictures, even an X-E2 or a wee Olympus might have found itself left too often in the hotel. This will go in my work or overnight bag without a second thought. The battery charges inside the camera, too, so all I need to travel with is a USB cable.
And I have it now thanks to a short-lived (and possibly unintentional) special offer by Currys, which dropped the price of the silver version by almost 30% - in the process saving me from any further dithering over whether to choose silver or black. Reward vouchers from my NatWest credit card paid the first £60, so I have a £500 camera for less than £300. Looking forward to taking it to Paris and Cologne next week.
Further rationalizing: a new Fuji body would have got me into the system but still with only one lens. I'm reasoning that my Pentax body isn't that much bigger than an X-T10, so I could add a wide angle to that and have a useful range of lenses for days when I don't mind carrying more kit. Even if I then want to update the body, two purchases will have got me further up the utility ladder than would be possible with Fuji. And Pentax lens coatings are still the best in the (affordable) lens business.
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Post by crankcase on Jan 27, 2017 8:46:58 GMT
I love all the techy stuff on cameras as well as the next man, and I'd also be voting for a tilting screen as really important to me. But sometimes I think I need a reality check. This little set of Youtube vidoes I found interesting. A proper professional is given a cheap rubbish camera to see what they can do with it. And in some, it's the other way around - a complete novice is given a top end professional camera to see what they can do with it. No great surprises, the professionals do some amazing things with Christmas cracker cameras, but it does make you think - hang on, am I putting my resources into buttons and tech, when I should be putting them into understanding what I'm trying to photograph. Or look at the work, for example, of Nadar - 19th century French photographer and shameless self-publicist who did some AMAZING stuff with kit that was really primitive. He took pictures of every celebrity going at the time, but also "invented" aerial photography, as well as many other innovations. Guardian article here, or just google his images. Brilliant guy. www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/23/books-felix-nadar-france-photography-flight |
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Post by Hofmeister on Jan 27, 2017 9:15:46 GMT
There is a world of difference between going out to take pictures as a hobby, with all the planning that entails, and having a camera with you to capture stuff you see.
To capture stuff you see, the best camera is the one you have with you. Everyone has one world class fantastic "oh wow" picture in them, so for me, the camera in the phone is enough.
(for planned videos however, I am now getting to the stage where I need a trailer and a catering van! I need to go back to basic a bit i think!)
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Post by crankcase on Jan 27, 2017 9:39:58 GMT
i like the idea of the trailer and catering van, although to be honest it applies to any activity I might undertake, including walking the fifty yards to the cake shop.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jan 28, 2017 1:04:49 GMT
Fair point that a good photographer will always outdo a good camera. I think I'm just good enough to know when a picture I've taken would have looked better - not necessarily have been better - if I'd used a more capable camera. I have plenty more, of course, that I'd not have at all but for the small camera in my inside pocket.
That said, a really technically good, sharp picture, of the sort that only a really good, usually expensive lens can make, is a pleasure in itself. A bit like a really well-engineered recording; however much the BBC reviewer might rave about the Furtwängler recording made during an air raid, give me Salonen in a warm LA studio most days of the week.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Feb 13, 2017 20:09:48 GMT
Three weeks and two trips into Fuji ownership I'm enjoying the X70 enormously. It does make better pictures than the Canon, partly because it encourages me to be a little more deliberate in setting it up and composing, and that's partly to do with how fantastic the results look when I get it right.
I'm also getting it set up to my liking, with slow and fast ISO combinations in both b&w and 'classic chrome' colour programmed as custom settings. I'm learning how to 'back button focus' as an alternative to my habitual 'centre focus and reframe' method. And I'm taking care to support it correctly to let that big sensor give of its best after dark.
I've found the 'digital level' feature, which draws a white line across the screen and turns it green when the camera is properly horizontal, which I'm pretty bad at doing for myself.
And I've bought some extra bits for it, thanks to some more luck with special offers; it has a Fuji leather case and strap, an optical finder that fits in the hot shoe, a neat lens hood, and soon it will also have the WCL-X70 0.8x lens converter, which will give it the equivalent of a 21mm wideangle - albeit at the expense of pocketabiity. That, on paper, is £400-worth of accessories, for which I'll have paid £162, that add up to a versatile mini-system that will still fit in a tiny bag and still leave room for my lunch.
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Post by Hofmeister on Feb 13, 2017 22:22:13 GMT
I've found the 'digital level' feature, which draws a white line across the screen and turns it green when the camera is properly horizontal, which I'm pretty bad at doing for myself. My panasonic video camera offers that, or if you prefer, using the lens stabilisation system, it will auto level automatically. Handy when you are panning video. |
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