The Online Photographer

Which Sony Will It Be?

Since I learned you can get a Sony camera converted to B&W only, I've been looking at Sony cameras.

I already own a conversion candidate...but that doesn't stop me from looking.  :-) 

Speaking of which, there's a sale on Sonys at B&H Photo right now—the stellar deal appears to be an A7 Mark II with a 28–70mm lens and some accessories for less than a grand; or you can choose the more recent A7 Mark III with the same lens. The same split is replicated with the high-res models, where the cheaper A7R Mark III is mirrored by the up-to-date A7R Mark IV (both with no lens but with a card, bag, and extra battery).

But the real dilemma—and a hard choice—seems to be between the top APS-C model, the A6600 (not included in the current sale), and the "standard" full-frame model, the A7 Mark III. The former is more compact and has a "rangefinder style" layout; the latter, which is really still quite compact by today's standards, has the more conventional faux-SLR type of body design.

Deciding between the two would be a hard choice to make I think, whether you're buying yourself or recommending a camera to others.

The Sony A6600 has a larger grip that houses
a bigger battery

For purchase and as a recommendation, I'd personally tend to lean toward the A6600, although I can see how others might do the opposite. I like the ex-NEX line of Sony products, and while I've never owned the A6000 or later cameras, I tested an A6500 at the end of 2017 and liked it. (Of course I have fond memories of my NEX-6 which is now a fossil in digital camera lifetimes.)

I'm resigned to the fact that I'm going to be shooting stills with video cameras for the rest of my life—y'know, you adapt, even if you don't really like it—but in the case of the A6600, all the videocentric improvements and refinements have actually had one effect that stills shooters also really appreciate: namely a bigger, beefier grip and a bigger, better battery. That was done for video shooting I'm sure, but I love a good solid grip and I head out with a single battery nine times out of ten, so there's no harm in having one that lasts longer.

The A6600 in general has been highly refined by this point, and numerous reviews mention the superior finish and apparent build quality of the A6600, and the fact that Sony has revamped the haptics of the buttons, improving their "clickiness," their sound and feel. That's another of those things that shouldn't matter but does to me.

As far as lenses go, it is again a hard choice. Do you prefer Sony's latest G-Master statements, or do you tend to prefer smaller, lighter lenses? Of course they're all the same lensmount and will fit on either the A6600 or A7 Mark III, but most people will tend to match the lens to the sensor. There again, my preference tilts to the A6600. My baseline complement of lenses (for me, not as a recommendation necessarily) is a 35mm angle-of-view equivalent prime and an 85mm-e prime, and I'd love to have one of those beautiful Zeiss 24mm's paired with Sigma's lovely little 56mm ƒ/1.4 DC DN. What a sweet lens that is. They both are.

One thing both cameras have is Sony's Eye-AF focusing, which leads the field and is really a wonder of modern technology. It's a "sufficiently advanced" technology that remains magic. If you shoot people (or want to when the plague years end), it's got to be something you'd want.

There are many great cameras vying to be our "objects of desire." Obviously the list is very different for each of us. The A6600 would rank high on my own list. When I look at it I like pretty much everything I see.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

BOOK of the WEEK
as discussed in this post from last week:

How Not to Diet by Michael Greger
(Links go to Amazon)

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Andrew Young: "I had a Sony A7R Mark II converted to monochrome last year and really enjoy it. I greatly prefer it to color cameras for black and white images. It streamlines the workflow and looks great. I print using the Piezography monochrome inkjet system, so it is 100% B&W from start to finish. Great fun."

Arg: "Let’s face it: mirrorless cameras are only possible, with a pleasant EVF experience, if the sensor is a video device first and foremost. Even if the camera couldn’t record video, its sensor has to output high-quality, high-bitrate, low-latency video. Hooray for video-oriented sensors!"

Greg K.: "This past summer, I switched from Canon to Sony after nearly three decades of film and digital cameras from the former. I initially expected to buy an A6600 and the 200–600mm lens for bird photography, figuring the extra crop factor would often be very useful.

"Despite all the good technology inside of the A6600, after actually handling it in our local camera store, I strongly disliked the ergonomics of the smaller body. Trying to change settings in shooting position required uncomfortable contortions of my hand to reach the dials and I knew I would not enjoy using that camera body. I walked out of the store that day pretty disappointed because I knew my shopping was going to get a lot more expensive (I eventually bought an A7R Mark IV). The full frame Sony bodies fit my hand better than their APS-C bodies but even so, I still added the battery grip to my A7R Mark IV because my hand started to hurt after long days of shooting. Now, perhaps the balance is different if you are going to shoot with smaller lenses (as is more typical for many other types of photography). For me, the APS-C vs. full frame and newer vs. previous generation decisions were rapidly subjugated to handling considerations, which actually simplified my buying process."

Cyber Monday Deals, a Computer, and the Two Cameras I Covet Most

SONY LENSES on sale

NIKON CAMERAS and LENSES on sale

FUJIFILM CAMERAS and LENSES on sale

CANON CAMERAS and LENSES on sale

Superpowerful superlight: For Apple fans, the MacBook Air with the new integrated M1 chip might not be the best computer, but it's got to have a shot at being the best-yet travel laptop. 0.63 inch thick (1.6 cm) and 2.8 pounds (1.3 kg), with specs that would have sounded implausible to a science fiction writer twenty years ago. All for less than that Sony/Zeiss 24mm ƒ/1.8 lens I like so much (the price on that is never going to come down into the realm of reason).

You can get a hundred bucks off if you preorder the MacBook Pro M1 today too.

[WARNING! Somewhat NSFW illustration past the break]

 

Rangefinder News

So you thought your Z7 was expensive?

This looks like a crummy beat-up old camera, but in fact you're looking at the most expensive Nikon ever sold. Let's just say if you wanted to trade your house for it, you'd better live in a pretty nice house. Two customers connected by phone to the Wetzlar Camera Auction (WCA) at the Wetzlar Hotel Bürgerhof on October 10th got into "an exciting bidding war," and the hammer fell on this old Nikon L, an early prototype rangefinder from 1947–48, at a stunning-to-normal-folks price of 397,900 euros. Come on! Who's the no-cash-having piker who lost that contest? Nikon at the time was working out whether to go with the Zeiss Contax bayonet mount or the Leica M39 screw mount (it went with the former). More generally, collectible cameras, mostly Leicas, have reportedly been doing very well lately.

Mike

[CORRECTION: I am having a bad day! An earlier version of this post discussed a rumor that turned out to be very old—I forgot to check the date on the article. Wiping egg off face! Very sorry for the rookie error, which has been removed. —Mike the Not-So-Good Ed.]

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Thanks to all our Patreon contributors!

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

xf mj: "Do rumors ever stop being rumors if they never come true? I'd like to think not. I'm more than happy to keep hoping and wishing for an RD-2."

Mike replies: And the funny thing was, as I was typing that up, I was thinking wow, just like before. I actually remembered back to when the rumor was new.

Is Fuji's X-S10 an Admission that the X-T4 is Too Big?

You must be aware that Fuji has released a new camera model. It's a "Really-New-Not-An-Update" introduction, which puts it in a special class of news these days; many new introductions are refreshes or revisions of previously existing models.

(That isn't a complaint. We approve of refinement—it's one thing that helps make cameras great—and we're spoiled for choice these days. It's not like we don't have enough variety to choose from.)

According to Camerasize.com, the X-T4 is 7% (8.6 mm) wider and 9% (7.7 mm) taller than the new X-S10, and weighs 31% (142g or 5 ounces) more. As you can see from the visual comparison at the link, it's a significant difference. 

It's significant because Fuji is one of the few cameramakers that provides a full range of compact lenses for its lensmount, rather than a smattering of token offerings. (I love the word "smattering.")

It seems to be human nature to "improve" products by a.) adding features, b.) adding expense, and c.) adding size and weight. Have you ever seen an original Honda Civic?! They're about the size of a beachball. I exaggerate, but they're Mr. Bean cars for sure. (In America we ride motorcycles that are bigger than the original Civic.) The current Honda Civic is larger than the original Honda Accord that came to America in the 1970s. The Accord was a "compact" then. These days, after decades of incremental bloat, Honda seems to be struggling to keep the Accord within the "mid-sized" category.

Personally, I settled on my "Goldilocks" ideal size long before digital was a gleam in Fuji's eye. It was easy—some cameras felt too big, and some cameras felt too small, so I just figured out where the middle was. Of course it's all individual. Whenever I use my original X-T1, though (I temporarily added the large grip just to see what it felt like and never took it off again), I'm struck anew by how "right-sized" it is. Not too big, not too small. The X-T1 with the smaller Fuji lenses is right there for me.

The X-S10 makes perfect sense for Fuji's lineup, though, which is nothing if not logical. The company seems to like pairing "rangefinder-styled" and "SLR-styled" digital cameras at every market segment. One way you can think about the new body is that the X-S10 is simply the SLR-styled counterpart to the X-100V.

I wonder, though, if the X-S10 might also be Fuji's implicit acknowledgement that the X-T[x] series is becoming a victim of incremental bloat. And maybe feature-creep too.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

David L Glos: "Bloat is the short answer as to how I ended up on Fuji's doorstep. Like many, I started with a Pentax K1000, but my first camera love was a Nikon FM2, received as an 18th birthday present. Simple, extremely reliable, and compact, it was a faithful companion for many years. Eventually I started into Nikon's APS-C digital options, and finally ended up with a D800, which is everything an FM2 is not. Despite tremendous image quality, I just never bonded with the beast. Modern Nikon DSLRs, and companion Wunderlenses, are of a size and weight that I am no longer willing to schlep around for enjoyment. My current Fuji X-T20 based kit is a modern riff on my old FM2 kit, and has become a most agreeable companion. Surprise, I like my cars smaller, simpler, and fitted with a manual transmission too."

RubyT: "If they ever get these fires under control I might have to drive down to Boulder and handle one. It piques my interest, although if they'd give my X-T30 the Classic Negative simulation I'd mostly be tempted by the new lens, for hiking, which takes us back to the fires. Ah, well. It will help keep my holiday budget in check."

Nikon Z6 Original / Crowdsource Review

As you know, the Nikon Z6 is about to be updated: the Z6 Mark II should be out this month.

Still time, then, for us to be on the cutting edge (yes, sarcasm) and review the original Z6. (No link because I don't recommend you buy one before the new one comes out. Wait and see.)

A few years ago, we did a Crowdsource review of a lens, the Olympus 17mm ƒ/1.8. We asked users and owners for their thoughts. We especially wanted their summary opinions of how they felt about it, and we included pictures not to prove any technical arguments but rather to show what kinds of things users were doing with the lens.

Same this time...

Tell us what you think of your Z6, good and bad, and we'll build a group review from your comments. Because who know more about a camera than the people who actually use it?

If you include a link to a picture, you can save me some time if it's 800 pixels wide, sRGB, and a JPEG. Thanks for that—it's a headache to have to reformat lots of pictures.

TOP is off on Saturdays so no new post tomorrow, but if this draws responses you can come back over the weekend and read some of them.

Have at it, Nikon fans! And have a lovely weekend everyone. After an uncommonly beautiful Summer, the gloriously pretty weather here is continuing into the Fall. Yesterday the sky was a spectacle, with more and more varied clouds even than usual. You had to look, but if you did, it was truly a treat. And I watched the full moon set over the bluff early this morning, from the neighbors' dock down by the water.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Please help support The Online Photographer through Patreon

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Rod Purcell: "Hi Mike, crowdsourcing camera reviews is such a great idea. So here is my experience of the Nikon Z6. As you will see, I quite like it.

"I have used Nikon cameras for over 25 years. For digital I've used the D70, D200, D300, D600, and D750. Each new model incrementally improved the sensor, viewfinder, AF, etc., whilst iterating the layout and user experience.

"Now it's the Z6. You can trace the evolution of Nikons to this point. You pick it up and it feels smaller, but familiar, comfortable even. The viewfinder is great, the AF is quick, the new S lenses are a step up, and with the adapter the recent AF lenses work, as do the older manual focus AI's. Very effective in-body stabilisation is the icing on the cake.

"Some people complain about the 'missing' second card slot, but for me it has never been an issue. No camera is ever going to be perfect. I have other cameras, but if it's an important job the Z6 is my go-to kit: landscapes, portraits, street, still life, etc., no problem. As a general purpose camera (stills or video) it's rock solid. What else do you need? This photo's from a project on street markets in Kolkata—Z6 with 35mm ƒ/1.8 S lens."

Mike replies: That's beautiful—subtle colors.

John Camp: "The Z6 is a very competent camera that I wish I hadn't bought. People on this forum are sophisticated enough that they don't need to hear all the various pro/con arguments, but basically, what we have in the Z6 is a compact mirrorless camera linked to a heavy full-sized lens system, so it's neither fish nor fowl. It could have been a compact street and travel system with excellent, small ƒ/4 zoom lenses, and maybe two or three really high-quality fast single-focus lenses for specialists. But it's not. In effect, you might as well have a full-sized DSLR. (The Nikon equivalent DSLR would be the D750, which weighs less than six ounces more than the Z6, and if you're already in the Nikon system, as I was, you wouldn't have to buy new lenses—and you'd have that DSLR viewfinder.)

"I will say that the 24–70mm S is an exceptional zoom, and the 85mm is brilliant—but I think perhaps better matched with the higher resolution, and more expensive, Z7.

"My Z6 mostly sits unused, and when I really want to go out and hunt, I most often take my Panasonic GX8 with a 12–60mm (24–120mm-e) ƒ/2.8–4 Leica-branded zoom, which is notably smaller than even the Nikon 24–70mm S.

"As I said to begin with, the Nikon is an excellent camera that I wish I hadn't bought."

Robert Pillow: "Likes: lightweight body; the EVF which makes dim-light compositions and manual focus a breeze; touch sensitive LCD; IBIS; IQ; shutter response to shutter release engagement; ability to adapt third-party lenses; the performance with the FTZ adapter.

"Two dislikes worth mentioning: 1.) The size of the S lenses in general is unreal. I have the 50mm ƒ/1.8 and 35mm ƒ/1.8. Both are very fine lenses. However, they are incredibly large compared to their rangefinder and SLR counterparts. I wish Nikon could find a way to produce optics similar in size to traditional rangefinder lenses. It’s really astounding to me that my Zeiss ZM C Sonnar 50mm ƒ/1.5 joined to a third-party Z adapter is half the size of the native 50mm lens. (This has become one of two favorite adapted set-ups. The other is the AFS 105mm ƒ/2.8 VR Micro/FTZ, but to be honest I’ve been thinking about getting a used AI-S 105mm ƒ/2.5 because the macro lens seems heavy to me for a walking around lens.) 2.) Sometimes, the sensor for switching from EVF to LCD mistakes my stomach for an eye when I try to pretend my Z6 is a TLR. (If you’re wondering, my belly button is covered by a shirt.)"

Mike asks: Can't you turn the latter off? On many cameras you can disable that.

Frank Doring: "I was a bit skeptical because of all the complaints about AF performance and the smaller number of physical controls compared to DSLRs like my (now sold) D810. But I wanted more reliable focusing across the frame with a fastish 35mm lens that I could shoot fully open without reservations. I might have overcome my distaste for Sony’s bodies if they had offered a decent 35mm ƒ/2, but they didn't at the time. The Nikkor Z 35/1.8 S is lovely (if a bit large and heavy). On the Z6, it yields much better results in every way than the 35mm ƒ/1.8G on the D810: focus precision, repeatability, image quality in and out of focus—even after accounting for the resolution difference. The same holds for the new 50mm ƒ/1.8 S vs. the 50mm ƒ/1.4G. I don’t shoot bursts. In non-burst modes, I’ve been very happy with the AF performance. The eye-AF (starting with firmware 2.0) has been working well with the two primes (at ƒ/1.8, torso to almost headshot distance), only occasionally favoring eyelashes over irises.

"The smaller number of buttons compared to the D810 is more than compensated for by the customization options. I find the user settings especially useful. I often alternate between tripod shooting (MF, live view, auto-ISO off, small aperture, bracketing, exposure compensation, shutter delay) and handheld reportage (AF, viewfinder, auto-ISO on, large aperture, no bracketing, different or no exposure compensation, no shutter delay). To switch between the two modes with the D810 is an error-prone dance of button presses, dial spins, and menu settings. With the Z6 (or Z7), it’s a simple dial turn from U1 to U2.

"Of course there are annoyances: the back LCD is cluttered with icons that can’t be turned off; you can’t display the virtual horizon and histogram together; the silly graphic for the virtual horizon blocks the view of the subject (Fuji gets this right); the enlarged view doesn’t show the effect of apertures smaller than ƒ/5.6 (ditto in split-screen zoom view); no button can be programmed to toggle exposure settings in live view (very useful e.g. for biased exposure bracketing); eye- and face-AF only works in auto-area mode and can’t be toggled with a button. But the operational improvements outweigh the annoyances."

Antonio Ramirez: "I have owned my Z6 for 18 months now. I can say without reservation that it is the digital camera with which I have clicked the best. Image quality is top notch, with beautiful colors. High ISO performance is outstanding, bettering my former low light champ Nikon Dƒ. What I like the best, though, is the EVF. After a lifetime of using OVFs in DSLRs, the quality of the EVF, the visibility in low light, and the immediate feedback (WYSIWYG) were a revelation to me. Autofocus is as quick and precise as I need it to be. Eye detect works fine for portraits.

"Two complaints: 1.) No way to turn off all information in the LCD screen, which means it is impossible to get a completely unobstructed view of your scene when framing using the screen. This should be easily fixable in firmware, but so far, they have not done so. 2.) The position of the image review button means I constantly hit it when leveling the camera on a tripod. Really very annoying. The FTZ adapter works seamlessly, although it adds some bulk to the camera. I use my Zeiss ZF.2 primes with the Z6, and with the EVF and focus assist (magnification and peaking) manual focus is way easier than with the DSLRs. It’s a shame it does not autofocus with screw drive AF lenses, but you can never expect total backward compatibility from Nikon. I actually bought the Z6 on a whim, running a Nikon Dƒ, D7200, and a Leica M-P Typ 240 at the time. While I still own all of them, none have seen any use since purchasing the Z6. I expect to continue to enjoy the Z6 for a long time."

Rob L.: "I really loved the Z6—it's a great camera. The lack of non-huge lenses killed it for me. I rented it thinking myself silly for spending money on the rental that I could have put toward the camera, and returned it because it didn't change the main reason I went to Fuji cameras in the first place. And I shoot an X-H1, so body size isn't the issue. If I were only shooting converted Leica glass, I'd likely get it—however, the S lenses, while phenomenal, are huge and overpriced for my needs."

Ken (partial comment): "Lenses are what are keeping me from buying a Z camera."

Mike adds: It's funny, the Z lenses for me are both the main draw and the biggest turnoff. That 35mm looks spectacular from everything I can see online, but look at this—it's also significantly bigger and heavier than my current ~85mm angle-of-view equivalent.

I wish Camerasize would let us compare the 85mm Z lens with the old Olympus OM Zuiko 85mm ƒ/2, a lens especially designed to be short and compact.

Dennis Lee: "This crowdsourcer responds: Z7.

"Not sure why so many love/hate/buy the Z6.... Magic starts happening with the larger resolution. When I first got my Z7 I fell into the same mindset that the medium size files would be fine, sufficient; and they were. They were also a little ho-hum. Honestly I thought I had made a mistake in my purchase. But for the goof on an architectural job I switched to High (Max) resolution and my world changed.

"I would switch my second body (D3s) to a Z7 in a second if I could afford it. There is a difference in color rendering in the large files that I don't see in the Medium res shots. Subtle tones come out, sharpness is astounding, and there's just a quality to the capturing of light that I don't see in the smaller files. Combine these qualities with the ability to dial in perfect exposure via mirrorless and the camera is a Home Run in my opinion.

"I have to imagine the Z6 files are similar to the Z7 medium sized files. I'm not surprised people are bored.

"So I think maybe TOP proposed the wrong question here with asking about the Z6 in regards to the new Nikon mirrorless line. Kinda like asking what everyone thinks about the Chevy while ignoring the Cadillac built on the same chassis in the next parking space."

Any Sakurai: "I own a Nikon D200, D300, and D810—forced into the D810 because Nikon took too long to release a successor to the D300 (the D500)—and a Z6. The D810 is excellent, of course—but for seven years the D300 was my workhorse. The D300 was perfect—the highly capable sports car, compared to the D810 luxury SUV. What I’ve found is that the Z6 is like that D300 sports car—just the right size, fast, and easy to handle. And while the Z6 compares directly to the technical capabilities of my D810, I’ve found that it’s more fun to Compare the Z6 to the D300. I love my Z6 as much as I love my D300. It’s my grab-and-go, take anywhere camera. Modern performance in a Goldilocks-sized package. Interestingly, my walkabout lens is the Nikkor Z 85mm ƒ/1.8 S, a marvelous lens that compares well to my classic AF Nikkor 85mm ƒ/1.4D."

A Sony-Fuji Comparison

I must be feeling slightly guilty about slagging off full-frame the other day because I keep thinking about it.

A image-quality comparison of cameras I'd like to see would be between the Fuji X100 V and the Sony RX1R II. The two are broadly similar in that they're both unusually compact, more-or-less-pocketable cameras with fixed 35mm angle-of-view-equivalent lenses...the Fuji's a 23mm ƒ/2 and the Sony's a 35mm ƒ/2. The difference is that one is a 26.1-megapixel APS-C sensor and the other is a 42.4-megapixel full-frame sensor. The Sony has both more pixels and a larger pixel-pitch.

(Cost is another difference, $1,399 and $3,298 respectively.)

Here's the size difference. You might be surprised that the Fuji is "larger," but that's from the front view—toggle to the top-plate view before you decide on that. They're both about the same weight...close enough that you'd have trouble judging which one is heavier with one in each hand.

If you were offered one or the other as a gift (i.e., no cost to you, but can't resell it!), which would you choose?

Me, I'd like to see that comparison first. I know this is unlikely, but does anyone happen to own both?

Mike

UPDATE Friday night: I added this picture of the Sony with its popup EVF extended to answer all the commenters who said the Rx1R II doesn't have a viewfinder! It does. It replaced the flash in the Mark II revision. You can see the sliding button for deployment on the left-hand edge. You can also set the finder to be an on-off control for the camera. 

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

SteveAitch: "Re 'If you were offered one or the other as a gift (i.e., no cost to you, but can't resell it!), which would you choose?' Neither. Not interested in a fixed focal length fixed lens camera. Especially as the focal length is not one I am a great fan of. Plus my mum warned me about strange men offering gifts....  ;-)  "

Mike replies: I am not strange! Different. That word you are searching for is "different."  :-D

Jayanand Govindaraj: "I still have A Fuji X100S, it has served me well for years, continues to do so, and I have been extremely satisfied with what it delivers. Why on Earth should I want anything else? After it collapses in a pile of dust, I will replace it with something available at that point of time!"

Yoshi Carroll: "I have owned the Fuji and I seriously considered and played with the Sony. On the internet the Sony won easily, but in my hand it felt awful. Too small and cramped and finicky. It made me unhappy to hold it."

Robin Campbell: "Easy! For me at least. The Sony. I own the RX1 and the images I get from this little camera are simply outstanding! Plus, I prefer Sony's color profiles over Fuji's. I sold my Fuji X-T1 for this very reason."

Kenneth Tanaka: "I own both. I cannot provide a 1:1 comparison right now. But I'm not confident that it would be meaningful, certainly not at JPEG website quality anyway.

"Technically the Sony RX1R-II will produce a larger and 'better' image file for some types of photography and some subjects. The sensor is the same as the A7RII so...duh. It's also more than twice the price of the Fuji!

Sony RX1R-II and Fujifilm X100V

"But honestly, from a practical and enjoyability view the X100V will win more hearts. It's lighter, its focus and overall operation is much snappier, it has touch-screen focus point management, it has that lovely unique reverse-Galilean-style optical viewfinder (that the internet ignorantly calls a 'rangefinder'), and it's much easier to slide into a coat pocket / bag and deploy quickly. It's just much more lovable. And its images are almost identical to those of the Fujifilm X-T2 and X-T2, arguably some of the best APS-C files ever.

"The Sony RX1R-II is perhaps the better choice for a slower, studied photographer needing the biggest, best image file of static subjects. (Landscapers and crime sceners?) 'Cuz ya ain't gonna do anything quickly with that camera!

"In my broader view, however, these cameras are both a bit out of date, but especially the Sony. For three grand you can get an equally good image file from an ILC-style camera with small, high-quality prime lens. And you get more versatility."

Scott K: "I am expectantly waiting and hoping that Sony will release a new RX1R Mark III soon. I rented the RX1R II last year and thought it was fantastic—but its autofocus and viewfinder are quite dated. If they updated it with one of the current ~3- or ~5-MP viewfinders and their real-time tracking AF system (and a better battery) I don’t know how I could convince myself not to get one. So, on second thought, here’s hoping they don't update it....

"I also tried the Fuji X100F last year. Great camera but I didn’t have enough time to get used to it. I’m more used to the Sony handling/menus. I also discovered how much I don't like the rendering of the X-Trans files in ACR, which I recall is a topic that has been much discussed here."

Luke: "I used an RX1 for quite a while, until I dropped and bashed it on a crowded bus in Dubrovnik. I got a very large percentage of technically good photos, and, because I trusted it, a large percentage of enjoyable photos. The results from raw in Lightroom were amazing. I have to say it was my favorite camera ever. If my hands weren't so shaky, I'd buy another. But IBIS is a wonderful thing."

Snubnose Sony a7C

Darn, I wish I had said this when I was thinking of it a few weeks ago—y'all would think I was prescient. Or in the loop such that I knew this was coming, which I'm not, and didn't. What I was thinking was that a camera manufacturer should give us a lens that replicates the two lenses (well, the two lenses I have, anyway) on the iPhone: roughly, 28mm-e and 56mm-e.

We were treated a couple of days ago with a camera introduction of a type that's getting increasingly rare: a new camera that's not an iteration. An actual "Mark I."

Sony introduced the A7C, "C" presumably standing for "compact," an all-new camera with an up-to-the-minute full-frame sensor in a form-factor that's very close to the small, handy A6000-series bodies. Nice.

And along with it? A 28–60mm ƒ/4–5.6 compact lens that comes close to replicating iPhone viewing angles, which presumably iPhoneographers are getting ever more comfortable with. The lens is $300 when bundled with the camera, or $500 alone (note that it won't be shipping till February).

Detective tales
I'm old but not that old, and I seem to vaguely recall reading, when I was a kid, in comic books and detective stories, about something called a "snub-nose revolver," a revolver with a short barrel. (I'm not a gun guy, as you can probably tell.)

Photo by Hmaag (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Smith & Wesson Model 36 snub-nose revolver

Usually presented as the weapon of choice for tough guys and dangerous characters. You had to be careful of guys who packed a snubnose. Anyway that's what the A7C reminded me of when I first saw it.

Snubnose Sony

Naturally it's a camcorder, as all the kids want video these days. (Kids who can pay the $1,800 ticket, that is. )

If they'd given it an articulated viewfinder like the one on the Panasonic GX8 and a flip-up viewing screen instead of the type favored by the video set, my GAS would've been triggered. (You?) And we're never going to get one camera that leaves video off altogether, are we? Sigh. But then, we all know my tastes are nonstandard.

Here are all the details. Available for pre-order. Tough guys and dangerous characters can score one from Jake the Trenchcoat who hangs out under the streetlight at the corner of West 34th and Ninth Avenue. Da rest o' yous,watch out for mugs packing a7C's. They're small but they pack a wallop.

"Lefty"

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Hey buddy, can you spare a dime?

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

JG: "I want to like this camera and lens combo, I really do. But I'm not sure how useful 28mm ƒ/4 and 60mm ƒ/5.6 combinations will be for my purposes, even if they do make the camera smaller and lighter than it would be otherwise.

"As for snub-nose revolvers, your comparison is probably more apt than you realize, because they generally compromise performance for the sake of being a lot easier to carry and conceal (i.e., the best pistol is the one you have with you...lol!) Suffice it to say, though, if one is truly serious about self-defense, there are better choices one can make about the gun they carry. Likewise, if one is truly serious about their photography, there are better choices one can make about the camera they carry, too.

"Knowing a little about Mike's personal feelings about guns, I wouldn't have mentioned any of the above in my comment except he opened the door."

Last Man Standing

I mentioned (and pictured) a Wista field view camera yesterday. You might be interested to know that Keiichiro Nagaoka, builder of a similar but competing 4x5, is the last craftsman still building wooden cameras by hand in Japan. He was 82 years old as of the end of 2019 and has to make his own metal parts now (no more subcontractors willing to do it), but he's still building new 4x5's and 8x10's, just as he has since he started way back in 1962.

Here's the link to a September 2020 article about him originally published in Saray magazine: https://serai.jp/hobby/1002833.

Most people probably already know how to do the following, but those who don't will appreciate this: To auto-translate a whole web page, open Google Translate. In the right-hand pane, choose the language you wish to translate into. Enter the URL (web address) in the left-hand pane, then hit the "go" button in the right-hand pane (the rounded square with the arrow in it to the right of the URL). The auto-translation will open in a new window.

Keiichiro Nagaoka, from the Saray magazine article

Compliments of the participants in a thread at the LF forum (largeformatphotography.info) started by mhayashi, here's a look at what Nagaoka-san's workshop in Ueno, Tokyo, looks like from the street; here's a PDF of a Nagaoka brochure, and here's a video about him in Japanese. These give us a portrait of a happy craftsman who has spent his life doing what he likes.

One of the participants in that thread is Joe Kashi, who is also a TOP reader. Maybe Joe, if he is reading this, could send me a portrait of his Nagaoka, and tell us the story of it?

My old friend Oren, curator and custodian of the Stately Oren Manor View Camera Museum and Graveyard*, always preferred Nagaokas because they are lighter than competing 4x5 field cameras.

Heavy, man
Apropos of weight, the Wista-of-sainted-memory came in at least three woods—cherry, Japanese rosewood, and ebony. The cherry one is the lightest; and the rarest kind, the ebony, is the heaviest by a good margin. My own preference far and away is the rosewood one.

You will virtually never see a Wista with pristine bellows

Should you be interested in a Wista, the rarest of the rare happens to be up for auction right this moment: one on which the bellows are not crinkled from someone forcing it to close who doesn't know how to close it! Virtually all Wistas for sale have such crinkles in the bellows. It's cosmetic damage only—crinkled ones still function—but if you buy this pristine one, for heaven's sake learn to close the camera properly—do not force it—it's counter-intuitive but not hard to learn if you just work it out—and keep these "survivor" bellows in good shape!

Chances of that happening: close to zero, unless someone reading this really does buy that. It's rare that I can predict the future, but here's what's going to happen to that camera: the buyer will have trouble folding his new camera and ham-handedly try to force it to close, and those perfect bellows will become crinkled, just like all the rest. For such is life.

TOP is off tomorrow. See you on Sunday! I am still not caught up on the comments from last Sunday, but I will work on them till I am. Hope you have a nice weekend.

Mike
(Thanks to Oren and the folks on the LF board)

*That is, he, shall we say, owns, um, more old wooden view cameras than might be strictly required for purposes.

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Please help support The Online Photographer through Patreon

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Neil Partridge: "I'm never likely to use, own or even hold a bellows camera, but I'm intrigued: what's the right way to close one? Is it just case of doing it slowly? Is there a sequence to follow, perhaps with things being loosened off? Sorry I don't even know how one works!"

Mike replies: They all close differently. Or rather, there are different ways to close different cameras, and you just have to learn how yours works. It's like anything else. Buy a new car, you have to groove new habits for operating the controls thoughtlessly. The Wista folds in a way that's a bit counter-intuitive, and you need to learn how to do it and then develop a routine to do it properly. It's not rocket science—you could figure it out in five minutes with no instruction. But when you try the way that seems like it's obvious and it doesn't want to work, the thing to do is not to simply apply more pressure to force it. When I sold mine, there were no crinkles in the bellows.

Matt: "After working with a folding 4x5 for a few years, I scraped together enough cash to buy an ebony 45s...a non-folding work of art that also happens to be a wonderful camera to work with. It is quick to set up, a joy to use, and very easy to lock down solid. Being able to set it up without the extra steps of a folding camera has meant fewer photos missed. It has its downsides...more limited movements than some cameras, and shorter bellows than others, but it is one of the few cameras I’ve owned that makes me happy just pulling it out of the bag. I hope the same will be true for whoever buys that Wista!"

Lee: "The cherry Wista 45 DX I bought in 1982 has bellows that are in great shape, and not crinkled. I used it to shoot a portfolio to get freelance studio assisting jobs, and I shot with it around Europe for a year.

"A French electrician and photo hobbyist got curious about the camera in Fiesole when I was shooting Etruscan ruins. We gave him a ride back to his hotel in Florence, and he hosted my wife and I in his Paris apartment a month or two later. He gave us a ride around Paris in his 2CV the evening we arrived, pointing out the various places around town where sex workers were picked up by their clientele. He was working on his Ph.D. in psychology, and that was his area of study. You never know where an interesting camera will take you."

Kodachromeguy: "Mike, even most metal folders (Wista, Toyo Field, Rittreck) have wrinkled bellows. The Rittrecks seem especially prone. Maybe folding a field camera does take a rocket scientist."

Malcolm Myers: "I have a Nagaoka 4x5. Sadly, it doesn't get the use it should. One day I'll get back to it."

Mike replies: As I said, mostly I cannot predict the future, but....  :-(

Michael J. Perini: "Lovely story about Mr. Nagaoka, I love it. For me, the quintessential wooden view camera has always been the Deardorff. It does everything you need and no more. Wista and Nagaoka made wonderful cameras but the best out of Japan were those from Ebony, especially their truly innovative wide-angle 4x5's which could be had with stainless steel or titanium hardware."

Fred Tuman: "A Nagaoka saved my commercial career. We were starting a very high-end residential wall coverings shoot in Coconut Grove, Florida. The prep time alone for this project cost thousands and it was all on my head. My usual large format kit consisted of six large cases with two Linhof 4x5's, 8000 watt seconds of lighting, tripods, light stands, etc.; weighing in at about 150 lbs. All of this goes on the airplane with my assistant and I. As a backup I also take with me, as a carry-on in a backpack, the Nagaoka and three small lenses, plus six film holders. My assistant carries a light tripod, three small light stands, and three Vivitar 283 flashes with built-in slaves.

"As you are about to guess...all the checked-in luggage goes to a destination unknown. The client (with his wife and two kids) are anxiously waiting with three stylists to get this production going. The Nagaoka performed brilliantly. For three days we shot all the vignettes with this modest combo. Thankfully, after the third day,the children were getting restless, and the client took them to Disneyland and had the confidence enough to leave me be. The rest of my equipment miraculously showed up and we could get our business done."

Mike replies: Fred's story is another example of the pro's dictum: always have a backup!

Learning to Love the Panasonic GX9

[This is the third and last of our three articles about the Panasonic GX9/12–60mm ƒ/3.5–5.6 kit. The first one is "Panasonic GX9 and 12-60mm f/3.5-5.6 Review, Part I," and the second is "Panasonic GX9 Review." Plus, I've posted pictures from the camera in several other posts, for instance this one and this one. Bear in mind the blogging platform I use softens (and darkens, which drives me crazy) the pictures somewhat. The kit I used came to me new as a loaner courtesy of my friend Izzy at B&H Photo. If you buy one because of these articles, please consider buying yours from Izzy. —Ed.]

-

I wrote previously about my knee-jerk negative reaction when I received this camera. It wasn't what I wanted it to be.

As soon as I set aside my prejudices, though, it was only about three days before I took to the GX9 like a duck to water. For about the next ten or twelve days I would grab the thing every day, sling it on, and head on out to the back roads to snap happily away at this 'n' that and the other thing. Just poking around the countryside.

Whither Micro 4/3?
Does Micro 4/3 have a future? Probably, but times are a little stormy for the format at the moment. It's next in line for the juggernaut that is the smartphone camera (shudder!) to steamroll over and obliterate. Olympus has quit the field, leaving its camera division to who knows what fate (I'm in the pessimist camp on that), and Panasonic has a new girlfriend in FF mirrorless, and is lately all starry-eyed and distracted over that. Sometimes I wonder just how much longer Panasonic (which is actually a great company) will find cameras an appealing market in which to be.

The camera market seems to be splitting into camera phones on the one hand and FF-sensor engineering marvels on the other, plus a jumble of niche products. It's a bit ironic that, concurrently, 4/3 has arguably fully matured and come into its own as an excellent compromise. The sensors are better than they ever were, and have gotten good enough that you can use them for dang near anything (Jose Luis Gonzalez's camera portraits that I featured the other day were shot on Micro 4/3). Yet the size and weight of the cameras and lenses really do make for a big plus over most bulky FF camera and lenses-on-steroids combos.

The 4/3 sensor size is less of a compromise now than it has ever been, if you're just into taking pictures rather than making microscopic comparisons between cameras in order to declare a gold-medal winner.

Here's an example of a slight limitation of the small sensor. Shooting with camera-determined autoexposure, the sunlit bit at the top of the tree trunk in the background is too overexposed to recover completely. So you do have to be a little more careful with exposures than you would have to be with a high-DR FF sensor.

And, as with phone cameras, there are DR limitations. In this shot a very bright evening sun is either in the frame or just out of it (I don't recall exactly), and with a lot of HDR I could just get the slight striations in the sky in the upper right, which is enough sky for this small JPEG. No telling if it would be enough in a print or a larger JPEG. Exposing for the sky here, on the other hand, resulted in the dark areas being too dark to bring up in post.

But this is all just par for the course in getting to know your sensor.

Getting to know your sensor and getting to know your lens are the two basics when familiarizing yourself with a new camera. And zooms are tougher to get to know than primes by a long shot. Where do you get field curvature, where do you get distortion, where do you get vignetting...it just takes a while to sort it all out, but once you do, you're aware of when issues are going to pop up, so you can either compensate for them while shooting or else you know you're covered and you won't have any problems. The picture above was wide and wide open, so I could start to get a read on worst-case vignetting. I ended up darkening the light upper-left-hand corner, because I needed more vignetting! I almost never mind vignetting. Darkening the edges of a print was a standard protocol when I printed in silver. It almost always helps and almost never hurts. And of course you can almost perfectly correct it in Photoshop if you want to, these days.

Mo's field (you remember Moses!)

Overall I liked this little camera and lens. It punches above its weight, you might say, its weight being one of the great things about it. Just not painful to carry. You can take it with you.

Grip it
Speaking of carrying, a little more about the aftermarket handgrip I used with the camera (I took pictures of it on the camera but I'll be darned if I can find them. Oh well, there are some on the eBay page linked below). It was 3-D printed by a 36-year-old electrical engineer from Czech Republic named Viacheslav Pronin. He bought source files from a guy named Alex from Switzerland for a GX85, and modified the files for the GX9. His customers suggested the Arca Swiss mount. The grip is made of PETG, a glycol-modified version of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), usually used to make water bottles. The handle is hollow, which accounts for its lightness. On my gram scale which I use to measure my white tea, it weighs in at 54.4g (1.92 oz.). It takes just over six hours to print. You can buy one from Viacheslav Pronin on eBay for $22 (shipping is free). A nice touch is that although it attaches to the camera by the tripod mount, it provides a new tripod mount in the grip so you're not deprived of it. Full disclosure, Viacheslav sent me one for free, although that doesn't do me any good because I didn't keep the camera.

With the Pronin grip, the GX9 is just handy. Even the zoom is petite. And speaking of the zoom, let me eat just a little crow: Panasonic isn't being stupid trying to encourage people to try this lens. It's a really nice little zoom, quite sharp and with a very useful range.

Sorted
Once I'd gotten past my initial funk I noticed that several things about the camera had been changed since the GX7. The on-off switch is in a new spot, and I found it an improvement—it falls naturally under the right thumb and it quickly grew very comfortable to use. Plus, the camera has sprouted an exposure compensation ring, good for me because that's the way I shoot, using the exposure comp frequently. That goes way, way back for me, to the Contax 139Q I went through art school with. The Contax had a prominent exposure compensation ring quirkily marked "1/4, 1/2, X1, 2, 4." (A "stop" means either half as much light or twice as much light as the next stop up or down.) There's nothing good or bad about it, it's just how I get the job done. And in just a few days, that control on the GX9, too, became easy and natural to adjust.

Although the GX7 and GX9 are more or less identical in size and shape and weight, my subjective impression is that there have been a number of incremental technical improvements that together take the whole experience up another notch, mirroring the aggregate of all the small improvements in ergonomics. Not just the 20-MP vs. the earlier 16-MP sensor. I attached a strap, but just as often carried the camera swinging from one hand or the other, and it never felt burdensome or weighty carrying it that way. [CORRECTION: Augh! I knew there was something I forgot. I meant to add a few sentences about the GX8's much-discussed shutter-shock problem and the fact that it is said to have been entirely fixed in the GX9. Please see Helmut the Austrian's Featured Comment below. —Mike the distractable Ed.]

It's been a long time since I used the GX7, so this is only an impression from memory, and you should read as much subjectivism into it as you want to. However, I felt during my time with this camera that all the small changes have made for a big improvement. As similar as it is, almost everything seems better. The controls, the viewfinder, the IS, the speed, the viewing screen, the battery life—I would guess all these things are at least a little better on the GX9.

Are there downsides? Yes, absolutely, but they're just imperfections rather than outright negatives or deal-breakers. Namely: the viewfinder is nice, but it's not a patch on the superior viewfinder of the GX8. The Pronin grip is an all-but-essential improvement, but it can't entirely hide the fact that the camera isn't an ergonomically excellent design out of the box. It's small and a bit finicky. But I got used to it. And the shutter sound is laggy, which made me uncomfortable at first—it mimics the sound of a slow shutter speed, which made me feel insecure at times, like I wasn't shooting at a high enough shutter speed to stop action or hand-shake. But that goes away too. Biggest downside: I personally would get a proper travel charger and an extra battery for it (I charged direct to camera while I had this one), and that adds significantly to the cost. But hey, it only stings once.

It's not perfect, in other words. But you'll forgive that. It's a camera, and you just have to get used to it.

The overriding impression I took away from the experience is that this kit is both useful and fun. I got quite attached to it while it was here. I just don't grab my more businesslike X-H1 with nearly the same let's-go-have-fun-with-photography feeling. I really enjoyed the time I spent with the Panasonic GX9. No, it's not a GX8 II, and yes, I still want a GX8 II. But I'm glad I came to my senses and gave it a chance.

Recommended? You bet. Override your prejudices and your analytical misgivings, if you have any, and just take the little thing out for a walk. You'll make friends before you know it.

Have a nice weekend! See you on Sunday.

Mike
(Thanks to Izzy and B&H Photo)

UPDATE Saturday morning: I have a mea culpa to make...

I really should make a serious effort to finish camera reviews while the camera is still here. With this camera, hugh crawford had questions about the shutter sound and jseliger had questions about the autofocus, and I don't have the camera here any more to examine or compare. Also, waiting until the camera departs before finishing the review makes it more difficult to finish writing the reviews somehow. Which tends to make me procrastinate, and for me procrastination is deadly.

In the future I'll make a sincere effort to change my policy and work to finish the review while the camera is still on the desk.

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Please help support The Online Photographer through Patreon

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

jseliger: "The missing word in the post is 'autofocus,' which has been Panasonic's weak point for a while. If you're shooting things where autofocus isn't very important, then obviously it doesn't matter, but Panasonic's autofocus has fallen far behind Fuji, Sony, or Canon."

Olybacker: "The way the world is at present, and the way the camera manufacturing world is at present, I cannot help but wonder whether the next 'shocking development' from the mainstream and mass-market camera makers will be a new film camera. Who will be first?"

Helmut the Austrian (partial comment): "Regarding the shutter: maybe, the mechanical sound is not so awesome, but this system seems to be an answer to various discussions and complaints about shutter shock not only in the GX8. Imaging-Resource says: 'The GX9 sports a brand-new shutter drive mechanism which is in most respects a significant upgrade, but which does have a couple of potential drawbacks. Based around an electromagnetic drive, it's said to have only one-tenth the shutter shock of the previous system, helping photographers to maximize per-pixel sharpness. It's also noticeably quieter than the old mechanism. But one downside is that it now tops out at a fastest shutter speed of 1/4,000 second, where the GX8 could shoot at 1/8,000 second.' Greetings from Austria / EU, with many thanks for your interesting blog."

'Leica Cannot Keep Up With Demand'

New black Leica M-A unmetered film camera.
Curiously, in stock at B&H Photo as of this writing.

There's a meme going around the photosphere that "Leica cannot keep up with the demand for film cameras." Here's an example. It's because of comments made by various Leica bigwigs lately.

I have no doubt that everything those gentlemen said was true, but we need more data. I mean, it could be that they have two guys assembling 36 cameras a month and now they're getting 44 orders a month. It doesn’t precisely mean either that demand for film cameras is surging generally or that Leica is selling film cameras hand over fist. I mean, it could mean that, but we need a little more drill-down for adequate interpretation.

Big grain of salt, is all I'm saying.

Change of sub-topic but not subject
...Here's a related question: if you were getting a film Leica—and let's say you could afford anything—what would you get? Brand new? Leica currently makes two film cameras, the M-A (meterless, so no battery) and MP (metered, so one or two button batteries that last a year plus). Curiously given the "can't meet demand" theme, B&H has the silver MP in stock and the black M-A in stock). Or vintage?

I'd go used, but I'd be torn. The plain everyday M6, which was an M4-P with a built-in, coupled but non-autoexposure light meter, is the most practical Leica and the most common on the used market (I'd search out a Leitz example). But I think I'd hold out for a really good M4 (all of those were Leitz) and have it serviced. Repair ace Sherry Krauter told me long ago that the M4 was the best-built Leica, as well as the only one that didn't improve, degrade, or fluctuate over its production lifetime: all built to the same high standard from first to last. Although Leicaphiles will dispute this every which way, it's good enough for me. I shot with an M4 for a year and it was a luminous experience, one of many in photography I'm grateful to have had.

Mike
(Thanks to Steve R.)

[CORRECTIONS galore: I somehow managed to make a high density of mistakes in this, for such a short post. The picture was originally labeled as an MP, which is wrong; fixed now. Also, the M6 meter is not uncoupled as I first said; it's coupled, just not auto-exposure. Also fixed now. Thanks to Pieter K. and Carl W. for taking care of dotty Uncle Mike, who obviously isn't taking his pills. —Ed.]

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Please help support The Online Photographer through Patreon

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Chris Nicholls: "As the happy owner of an M6 (with 0.58 viewfinder to suit my spectacles) and an M4, I'll confirm that you can't go wrong with either of those."

Dan Khong: "My best Leica is nicknamed the Hexar RF. It has aperture priority auto exposure and motor drive. Miles ahead of the pack."

David Saxe: "Over the past 30 years, I have owned every Leica M series film camera except the M5. If I were to buy a pure nostalgia/retro film camera it would be the M3. It had brighter viewfinder and with only three framelines it didn't need to nest them inside each other. Also like any other film Leica, it allowed me to use my favorite lens—the Dual Range Summicron."

Nigli: "I have a friend who has a Leica. Her father took a photo of Che Geuvera with it. I want that one."

Bruce Appelbaum: "Five years ago I bought a Leica M7 starter kit that included the 50mm Summicron lens. I paid about $5,800 for the whole thing, which was a great price—Leica had dropped prices because they said the dollar was very strong.

"The nearest thing to the Leica were a couple of Voigtlander Bessa rangefinder cameras. The Voigt cameras went out of production and the remaining stock of 4A, 4M, 3A, and 3M versions closed out at less than $1,000 for the body only. I cannot recall which other Leica bodies were available in 2015, but none of them was offered with the lens. The two cameras in stock are now about $5,200 each and the same lens that came with my M7 is now $2,600. Sales tax not included in any of these numbers.

"Do I like the M7? Yep. Using it has improved my photography by limiting me to a prime lens and a 36-exposure roll of film. No exposure bracketing to run through high dynamic range software, and I have to move my ass, not a zoom ring, to frame the photo.

"My issues: it seems like film prices go up a lot every time I need to stock up, and since I do my own B&W negative developing, chemicals are more expensive, and Kodak no longer sells one-liter packs of D-76.

"P.S. I have a very understanding wife who allowed me to splurge for a camera and lens what could have been a nice down payment on a car."

Larry Canaday: "So...I still have the M4 I got in Germany in 1969. For about five years it (with two Summicrons) was my only 35mm and accounted for well more than half my photographic income. I'll get some Tri-X and let you know the results."

BDR: "It’s funny this should have come up today, as I just bought a brand new silver Leica MP yesterday. The prices of used Leicas with meters have gone up so much over the last few years, that purchasing new suddenly seemed more reasonable."

Mike replies: I dearly hope you bought it through my links. Someone buying a Leica through my links is the holy grail.

Rob L: "I'd stick with my M6—meters are helpful, and I know what the one in my M6, at least, is telling me when I shoot TMY or HP5+. I do agree, the M4, or M4-P, is likely more solid, but heck, the film rewind knob on mine took a nasty hit in the late '90s and I just kept dealing with the slight grinding on turning until the brass smoothed out, and it's still fine, so how much more do I need? What still strikes me is how elegant the M6 remains. a simple indicator of exposure if you wish to pay attention, two controls to adjust exposure, one for focus. You may get things wrong but it's hard to be confused."

Mike replies: That's a great line, "You may get things wrong but it's hard to be confused." My memory is getting less sticky these days but I hope I remember that.

David Lee: "I was into Leica for quite a long time. Now I don’t know what to do with them. When I daydream, I say to myself that I will buy an M10 and sell the M6’s and just keep the lenses. Then reality bites and I realize that I am not getting an M10 and I will not shoot film anymore. We need someone to come up with a digital back door that fits any M body. That’s me daydreaming again."

schralp: "Sorry, this reminds me that when it comes to Leica, the emperor has no clothes. Seriously, $5,200 for a box with a shutter that spools film by and allows viewing through another window? And, a couple hundred more if you want a meter to guide your decision making. I certainly hope you’re right; that is to say, there was a demand for 44 and they only made 36."

Speed: "Why would anyone want to use a film camera today? ...Wonders someone with a manual-transmission car. OK. I get it."

Luke: "I used to lust after a Leica M. It's a lovely analog machine. The whole focus-by-proxy thing, though...a helicoid, and a cam, and some levers, and windows and frame lines, and a best guess. The only M that Imaging-Resource ever tested was very badly misaligned, and focus was trial-and-error only. My first cheap digital Rebel many years ago was an astounding masterpiece of precision manufacturing for very few bucks. Now, that's amazing."

[Luke tested products at Imaging-Resource for many years. —Ed.]

Rick in CO: "Best all around film camera I've ever used, which I had to sell to get into the Leica digital M, was the Mamiya 7. Great lenses, easy to use and light enough to carry anywhere. Still miss it!"

scott kirkpatrick: "On 'Leica Bigwigs.' Leica's not big enough for the wigs to have grown much. The lead owner, Dr. Andreas Kaufmann, is from an Austrian family which cashed in its real estate enterprises about 20 years ago, was looking for a classy new investment, and were drawn to Leica by its partnership with Hermes. Hermes left soon after, but the Kaufmann family stayed for the cameras. CEOs and finance guys have come and gone since then, but there is a tier of product managers that seem to have come up through the ranks. They also seem to love cameras. Stefan Daniel, who is quoted in your linked article, is a special case, and a real jewel. He's the VP with overall responsibility for products, but he started as a teen-aged intern doing camera and lens repairs. He claims that on certain very old and treasured R lenses, he is the only one left at Leica who knows how to fix them and can do so. His taste is for simple products and user interfaces, and it shows. So when Daniel (and Peter Karbe for lenses) talks about new products or about Leica history, they are not just selling something. They have been there and are willing to share opinions about why things have been done as they were."

Fred Tuman: "In 1974 at the impressionable age of 18 I walked into Olden's Photo Store with $350 in my hand looking to buy a Leica. The salesman showed me a beat-to-death Canon 7 and said this was the best my hard-earned sum could manage. I stared at the wrinkled metal shutter for a long time seeing my dream slip away.

"Then a miracle happened. A priest tapped me on my shoulder and said if I could drive him back to his parish, he might have some Leica stuff I'd be interested in. Luckily I borrowed my brother's car to get into the city, so off to the garage we went. All the way back to Queens, he kept asking me what type of photography I liked to shoot, and from the conversation I knew he was legit and the real deal. We went to his quarters and his room was decorated with excellent photojournalist-style photos taken from around the world. He pulled out from a cupboard a Leica M2, a 35mm ƒ/2 Summicron, a 50mm ƒ/3.5 Elmar, and a Leicavit. (at the time I didn't know the 'Vit' was worth more than the rest of the bunch.) I happily gave him my $350, and started my love affair with Leica that has never ended. It's the only camera you don't look into...you see through. I use my digital M of today exactly the same way as that first M2."

Panasonic GX9 Review

This isn't actually a review*. It's a brief account of my recent experience shooting with a Panasonic GX9 for 19 days. The GX9 I used was brand new when it arrived as a loaner from B&H Photo.

First, the bad news.
My first impression taking the camera out of the box, I have to admit, was a wave of negativity. I'm a fan of the GX8, which I owned for a year, and I was not a big fan of the GX7, a very different camera which I also owned for a year. Don't get me wrong—the GX7 is a good camera, and has been used to good effect by good photographers I know. (That's three "goods" to drive the point home. You see what I did there.) However, I did not like it. It seemed too small and fiddly, sort of unsorted, and my intuitive sense was that it never worked quite right. I wanted to like it but couldn't. I never trusted it. Didn't bond with it, you might say.

So my first thought was, oh no, not this again. It seemed all too familiar. Like that gnarly little GX7 had returned to haunt me.

...And taunt me, too. Taunt me about the GX8, I mean. I really am genuinely a little angry about the orphaning of the GX8. And no kidding about that, I'm sincerely unhappy about it. The GX8 was of my favorite cameras of recent years, yet it was one which could have used the kind of "refining" Mark II revision that so many cameras routinely get. Not to skip ahead, but, the exact same sort of revision the similarly not-quite-there GX7 has received with this GX9. Why not the GX8? I'm perturbed. As well as, let us admit, petulant.

So my first reaction was twofold: the GX9 wasn't a GX8 II, which was a bad thing; and it really was a GX7 II...also a bad thing. That's why unboxing the GX9 triggered a gut response of dismay, even something close to disgust. 

Finally, ordering a GX9, in the US at least, force-feeds you a kit lens, and I also resent that on principle. I'm a grownup. Not a beginner. I'll pick my own lenses, thanks. Minimum I expect from a camera company: give me the option of buying the kit lens or the body-only. What, you want to discourage as customers people who already own your lenses?!?

Overall, I was pretty grumpy.

At that juncture—in that state—I blatted out a reactive screed of a post and splashed it out onto the blog. Probably a bad idea. Various readers complained, and they were right. I decided not to fix it, but simply to remove it**. So away it went.

Get a grip
Knowing the awkward grip/bulge on the side of the GX7 was one of the many things I disliked about it, and wanting to pre-emptively defend against being annoyed anew, I ordered this for the GX9 from eBay:

It's a very reasonably priced, impressively lightweight handgrip designed for the GX9. I thought it would improve my personal experience of the little GX9. And it did.

After a few days of feeling grumpy and cross and knee-jerk negative—and of ignoring the camera still cradled on top of its disordered shipping materials—the grip arrived. As I fitted it to the camera, I felt a pang of self-recrimination and thought, oh, Mike, grow up. Get over yourself. It's a camera. After all these years, you can use any cam damera under the sun and adapt to it, can't you? Didn't you use an ancient dented Spotmatic with no light meter and a broken lens for a whole year once (c.1998), and make perfectly nice pictures with it? When did you get so picktidious? (That's picky and fastidious mashed together.) At least this thing has a flip-up viewing screen, which you like, and which your precious GX8 didn't have. It's small and tossable, which you say you like. It's got a longer lens than your 12–35mm zoom (the GX9 comes with the 12–60mm ƒ/3.5–5.6 ASPH POWER O.I.S. standard), and you've wanted to experiment with a longer lens. And the kit lens makes the camera a bargain, because the lens alone retails for $498, meaning that they're throwing in the camera for only an extra $300. So just go do your job and adjust to this and shoot with it for a while. Stop being a baby.

So I did. I did a little mental flipperoo, like turning off one switch and turned on another, and started taking the little bugger out for exercise. And that's when the fun started...

[...To be continued...]

Mike

Ed. note: Please hold on to your comments until the conclusion. Thanks!

*I put "review" in the title for the search engines.

**That's happened remarkably few times over the years, actually, although I've done it before. You'd think I'd have hundreds of false starts and rough drafts that never made it to publication, but no, not so; and you'd think there would have been dozens if not hundreds of times that I had put up a bad post, thought better of it, and then deep-sixed it hours, days, or weeks later. But that's not the case either. It has happened, but not very often. It was the same way at the magazines—I wrote between two and three hundred articles that were published in various newspapers and magazines, and only two were ever rejected. (I took note of it when it happened because it was a rare occurrence.) At this point I've written roughly nine thousand(!) posts on TOP, starting at Blogger and now on Typepad, and, with relatively few exceptions, everything I write goes up, and everything that goes up stays up. I have an indulgent editor, though (me).

How to Buy a Camera

Pick the lenses first. That's how I do it.

This is just my idea of how to go about this, by the way. Just friendly advice, is all, submitted for your consideration.

Figure out what you want for lenses and then find the brand that has all the lenses you need. Then pick a camera body that fits those lenses.

That's first. The second rule I have for myself is: I make sure all the lenses I want exist now. All. Now. Never buy a camera based on one or more lenses that are on a "roadmap" (= promised product) or that you simply assume will eventually be made someday because it's logical. The market doesn't do logic, or—at least—what strikes you as logical might not appear that way to marketers. It's exasperating that smart corporations with all their resources still fail to see things your way, but it happens.

Left hanging
My advice comes from bitter experience. It's the result of months and years spent waiting and waiting and waiting for lenses I assumed would be in the pipeline "sometime soon"...but weren't. I think my friend John C. just went through this, drumming his fingers impatiently for Nikon to announce a Nikkor-Z 70–200mm ƒ/4, smaller and lighter than the ƒ/2.8.

I've done the same thing more than once over the years, I'm sorry to admit. After a while you do get tired of being left hanging, so you might as well have some sympathy for your future self from the start.

The lenses should fit you in terms not only of optical performance, but also in terms of size, and affordability, or any other parameter you personally happen to care about. You know what you care about; I don't. Size is important to me, but I know photographers who don't care about it at all. When asked what camera he used, Ansel Adams used to answer, "the biggest one I can carry!"

Having all the lenses you might want available now is one of the things that makes Micro 4/3 so appealing, in my view. Anyone who can't build a personal kit of lenses out of the multitudinous offerings in Micro 4/3 isn't trying very hard. It's also one of the reasons I loved the Olympus OM system so much in the '80s and '90s—I loved the lenses. These days, Fuji floats my boat. Your (nautical) mileage may vary.

Oh, and if you're fastidious or quirky in some way? Indulge that. Make yourself happy. That would be my advice. Only you know what ruffles your truffles, and it doesn't have to make sense to anybody but you. Matching filter sizes? Superfast maximum apertures? The L-word engraved on the barrel? Rainproofing? Good bokeh, for whatever your definition of "good" happens to be? Bargain price, expensive price? Latest thing, vintage thing? Lots, few? Well-worn, pristine? The same brand Dad used? Anything but the brand Dad used?

And don't settle. At least for your main lens, the one you use 60–80% of the time. There are times I've bought into cameras thinking well, I can just use the [x] lens, it's not perfect but it'll do, only to find myself growing more and more unsatisfied down the road.

Rural views
Of course, you need to have enough experience in the first place to know what kinds of lenses you want. There aren't any rules for that. For instance, my main need is for a prime (single focal length) lens I like in the 35mm to 40mm or equivalent range. (At times I use a 50mm-e.) But Thom Hogan, who certainly knows lenses, says he has never cared for the 35mm(-e) focal length, finding it "in between." I know plenty of people whose main lens is always a zoom, who feel constricted and trapped with just a prime on the camera. So then they need to be able to find and afford the right zoom for their tastes.

And even my needs are changing. Five years ago I moved to a rural area of rolling farmland and narrow lakes in deep valleys, and as I've mentioned several times, scenic pictures are "farther away" here. What I'm carrying in the car as of now are the focal-length equivalents of a 21mm, a 50mm, and an 85–300mm zoom. That's a new kit for me, from a Mike-historical perspective.

A final possibility I can imagine is that you simply don't care about lenses—you'll use what you have, you're not picky, and you can adapt to a variety focal lengths. I'd say I don't know what planet you're from, except I've often been the same way—when I'm reviewing a camera! Or when I was too frugal to have it the way I wanted it. Or just bought something to try it.

When I got my first DSLR, it came with a Chinese-built film-era zoom of 28–75mm, which on my APS-C camera was ~42–112mm focal-length equivalent. (A version of which is still available but darned expensive now.) Not my kind of lens at all. Well, it was my only lens on that camera for several years. It was good enough, and I didn't know if I'd stay with that lensmount (brand) so I was reluctant to buy anything else, and I got used to it.

All this speaks to my first thought about the Nikon Z5: what about the lenses? I'm not looking to jump systems, but I evaluate cameras this way out of habit. Well then, the Nikkor-Z 35mm ƒ/1.8 S looks to me like it might be one of the best 35mms made, optically speaking. But compared to the Fuji of similar spec, it might be a bit too much of a honker—big, heavy, expensive—and although it's only borderline in all three of those negative characteristics, I'm suspicious as to whether I'd be happy with it over the long haul. I know myself too well. Could well be fine (or better than fine, ideal) for others, but it doesn't look like a natural fit for me. I'd have to try it out to know.

Your Kentucky windage may vary.

TGIF
Have a great weekend, wherever in the world you are. Be cautious, and prudent, and good health to you and your family too. ("The hawk just hovers in the updraft, thinking its minimal, hawkish thoughts and waiting for hawkish opportunity." That's from "The Virus is a Hawk." Great sentence, sad truth.) If the weather holds, I plan to head out with the new-to-me used Fuji 55–200mm tomorrow and see how we get along. Looking forward to that. I'll be back here on Sunday.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

trecento: " I'd like to add, 'don't underestimate the kit lens.' I've used some very good kit lenses before, and I know others have tested some that perform exceptionally.

"I've lost a lot of opportunities to not owning an adequately fast prime. I learned that the hard way, when I bought an affordable entry level DSLR, without checking to see if I could heft or afford the prime lenses for it. That was an expensive mistake. Most of the loss wasn't the money—it was the opportunity to take pictures with a more appropriate lens. I even considered switching to a system that had more awesome features...until someone warned me that I should see for myself if they even made a prime lens in the focal length I needed. (Spoiler: NO.) I think seeing for yourself is the most important thing. Mike is right. Find out what you need to do, then ask the lenses: can you do this?"

Josh Hawkins: "Re 'Pick the lenses first.' Absolutely. I'm also a fan of having a personal lens roadmap. I lay out my ideal set of lenses, within some sense of reality, and then buy just those lenses as much as possible. Other random lenses to fill this hole or that hole for a while just end up being wasted money. (I'm bad about selling my old used gear. I hope that gives you a good laugh Mike.) It also forces me to sit down and decide what I really want and need, ƒ/2.8 or ƒ/4 in my zooms? And sometimes the answer can be surprising."

Mike replies: It did make me chuckle. Ironic!

I like your idea of a personal road map or buying plan. It's like going into the grocery store with a list versus wandering around seeing what catches your eye. Another hint for saving wasted motion is to buy the cheap version of a lens first. If you don't like it, you can always trade it for the expensive version later. But often when you just take pictures with it you realize it serves the purpose just fine. Taking pictures cures a lot of lens angst. Of course sometimes you have to buy the "good one" just to satisfy curiosity.

I bought the Fuji 23mm ƒ/1.4 first, in 2014, because it was all there was then. Only recently added the newer 23mm ƒ/2 which I probably would have bought first if I could have. Now I guess there will be a shootout, which basically will be decided by which one I grab most often. It's an uphill battle for the Fujicron, though: the 23mm ƒ/1.4 has served me well and it's not that big.

 

Nikon's New Z5

Working with the Z5. Illustration courtesy of B&H Photo.

When Nikon's new Z5 was announced the other day, not quite two years after the rollout of the Z mount, I had to confront a disagreeable facet of my psychology: I think I'm reflexively more interested in products that aren't at the top end of the range.

I shouldn't be prejudiced; it makes no sense to be. But there it is. I find myself feeling much more enthused about the Z5 that I have been about the high-end, mega-megapixel cameras where the Bigs battle each other for bragging rights.

Tiny! But slow. But tiny!

Half a lens
And, knock me over with a feather—along with the new camera, Nikon actually introduced a new lens that is designed for small size and (actual, not just claimed!) compactness. The new Nikkor Z 24–50mm ƒ/4–6.3 is slow, which I think I don't mind because sensors have gotten so fast and we just don't need the same speed from our lenses we once did. But it's very small and handy. This from the company that rolled out a plain old 50mm ƒ/1.8 that is nearly three and a half inches long, weighs nearly fifteen ounces, and takes a relatively humongous 62mm filter. An exercise in optical perfection it is, but a nifty fifty it is not.

Of course, the 24–50mm is only half a normal zoom lens—it's missing the tele half. But hey, why not? You can use it as an "adjustable normal lens." My recent experience with Micro 4/3 lenses indicates that where I live, anyway, the reach of a 70mm-e zoom just isn't adequate for freedom; the 12–60mm I had with the GX9 really did allow me much more freedom and brought a whole new way of seeing within reach when taking pictures. If you can only go to 70mm, you might as well stop at 50mm and just acknowledge that you're going to need a separate companion lens in the tele zoom range. Good frinkin'.

Going to Lhasa
So now what Nikon needs to complement the new lens is a matching short telephoto. Something like a modern descendant of the famous E Series 75mm–150mm ƒ/3.5 lens would do. They can make that one slower, too, if it's also light and handy like the 24–50mm and not punishing to carry.

If you're not familiar with the old E Series 75–150mm from the 1980s (and why would you be?), it was a budget lens intended for amateurs that had a special optical quality—smooth, gentle, luminous—that fashion and pro portrait photographers loved. It made models' skin look fantastic, in the days before you could make them into whatever you wanted in Photoshop. Despite its "lesser" consumer status (unfortunately accompanied by lesser build quality—the one-touch zoom could get loose and creep after a while), it became a cult classic beloved of some very big-name fashion shooters who could have shot with any lens they wanted.

Not to mention that the legendary Galen Rowell favored it. He carried light lenses because he thought nothing of running for miles to get into position for a shot. If I'm not mistaken the much-admired cover photograph of his Mountains of the Middle Kingdom was shot with that lens. Used to be you could get a poster of it. Its title is "Rainbow Over the Potala Palace," the Potala Palace being in Lhasa.

Only on TOP do you start out reading about a new camera intro and end up in Tibet.

Anyway, more about the Z5 in the future, but I wanted to herald its arrival. It's only $1,400 at launch, so it's Nikon's answer to Canon's RP (which is admittedly even cheaper now because it's been out for a while). Looks good. But then, apparently I'm a hound for less expensive cameras in the more practical, utilitarian region of a product range. Even though it makes no sense for me to be like that.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

Albert Smith: "That Series E 75–150mm ƒ/3.5 lens was amazing, and not just because it was cheap. I bought one on a whim during its closeout for exactly one hundred bucks. I already had the classic 105mm ƒ/2.5 as well as the AIS 85mm ƒ/2 and 135mm ƒ/2, so I did not need the zoom. It was so good that it lived on my F3.

"That zoom and a second camera with a 35mm lens was all I needed for 90% of my shots.

"In Galen Rowell's book Mountain Light he gives the long narrative explanation of capturing that rainbow shot in Tibet. Great luck and timing. It would be hard to say the image would be better with a bigger more expensive lens...he had to jog to get the angle for the alignment before the rainbow faded. He stashed his gear and ran to the best spot with his F3 and the 75–150mm zoom. Before his death, it was his best selling image...made with this hundred-dollar lens."

Canon R6 and R5: Mike's Take

Thanks for all the great responses to the Canon R6 and R5 post the other other day. My own idiosyncratic personal reactions to the Canon R6 and R5:

• Canon has really changed lensmounts—again! But with much (much) less fanfare (not to mention less sturm und drang and the tearing of hair and rending of garments) than in 1987 (the beginning of EOS), if only because they haven't at the same time killed the EF mount. The SLRs will march on for now. But development seems to have veered into full-frame mirrorless (FFM). Is the EF mount in the early stages of "dead man walking" status? (This is the way Olympus's original 4/3 departed, you recall.)
• Each time I read the description—clearly guided by Canon—of the new 85mm ƒ/2 R Macro as "compact," I want to do a spit-take with my white tea and lemon. That beast is a brute. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but yer killin' me—stop with the "compact" adjective already. Not.
• My initial reaction is that the R6 and R5 would each be keenly priced at half their actual introductory prices. C'mon, they're Canons, not designer Leica specials with goat-scrotum leather coverings. Some economist I read long ago claimed that peoples' conception of money becomes fixed around age 50, in which case the value of money might be stuck at 2007 in my head. So maybe it's my fault. So two-thirds then. That would make them $2,599 f0r the R5 and $1,665 for the R6. Sound more rational? Does to me. (Easy for us to say, though.) Ironically, the company that started the trend of premium pricing to make up for lower sales, Olympus, is following Contax and Bronica and a list of other once-great camera brand names into the dustbin of history. But that's not stopping others from following their lead.
• I morosely foresee a future (in my cloudy crystal ball) of nothing but complex and feature-laden FFM camera/camcorders on the one hand and smartphones on the other (and Fuji, hopefully, still marching alone to the sound of its own drummer in the middle).
• The new Canons look nice to me. Style, stylishness, and styleyness were never Canon's strong suit. But I echo what many commenters said. FFM just doesn't make a huge amount of sense to me without—ahem!—compact lenses (for an accurate value of the word "compact"). Sony's odd decision to match its Alpha 7 and 9 cameras with size-no-object optics seems to have defined the trend that others will follow. Maybe I'm just contrarian, but I just don't want to lug around a 500-gram medium-speed medium-telephoto, nor a lens the size of the Zeiss FE 35mm ƒ/1.4 as my short-normal prime. They just seem to me more like Veblen goods for the purpose of bragging rights than useful daily drivers. (Exhibit: compare two premium 35mm ƒ/1.4 lenses for full-frame.)*
• Y'all know how much I love IBIS. Eight stops seems like hyperbole, but we'll see.

Yamaha A-S3200 integrated amplifier

Two societies
Re pricing, we could talk about this seriously. There is plentiful evidence that wealth inequality is leading to a specific reaction in the marketing of goods, namely, the gradual creation of two distinct tiers—one on the low side for the increasingly impoverished middle class AKA "normal people," and another at the high side for the top 20%. We're seeing it in all sorts of things. Take as a random example Yamaha's line of integrated amplifiers. It looks like only one line of similar-looking products, but there are essentially two full lines with a gap in the middle: one that tops out at $900 with the A-S801, and the other that starts at $3,000 and goes up to the A-S3200 at $7,500. (The identifier is that the higher line has illuminated meters and the cheaper line doesn't.) The span between $900 and $3,000 is a dry desert. This is merely responsive marketing; it reflect the fact that the wealthy are increasingly price-insensitive to the cost of minor purchases such as electronics, but the average joe doesn't have the scratch to even be tempted. We're seeing the same thing in cars: a withering in the middle (even the Honda Accord isn't selling well), and proliferating offerings at what would decades ago have been considered the preposterous supercar level, meaning, today, cars that cost in excess of $100,000.

Or perhaps the cost of the new Canons merely reflects the fact that in the fast-declining camera market, lower sales mean that the development costs are are going to have to be spread over fewer total sales, meaning that the price of each unit has to be higher.

In either event, the new R's seem too expensive to me. But that judgment might be tainted by sour grapes; if I had a much fatter wallet I might feel more sanguine about it, who knows.

Those slow, slow teles
The other real development here is something that seems to me to have been an awful long time coming: the development of slower lenses (i.e., with smaller maximum apertures) to adjust to the reality of increasingly higher usable ISOs. That's just smart. Superfast lenses were developed for an era in which a fast film was ISO 400 and even at that came with penalties in the form of more visible graininess. Now ISO 1600 (two stops faster) usually has no penalties, and sensitivities two stops more than that often shows only minor degradation. A lens that's four stops slower than the feasible maximum can be so much smaller, cheaper and lighter that it's astonishing more cameramakers don't go that route. So Canon's new slow teles for the new R cameras are really the most significant news, in my eyes anyway.

Of course, you could also argue that they're just trying to wring the best out of a bad situation, because anyone who chooses FF for long telephoto work maybe has a contrarian streak themselves. Micro 4/3 and 1" sensors are getting so good these days, and make so much more sense for long tele work, that it almost seems a little addled to build up a supertelephoto arsenal for a FFM camera.

It might make me sound like a fanboy (a word I almost never allow in the comments, have you ever noticed?), but I increasingly approve of the position of Fuji X in the marketplace. They seem to flourish in the sensible middle path, with balance all around. I would not want to be stuck being pulled between FFM and smartphones myself. At least not until there are a lot more slower and truly compact lens choices for the former, anyway.

Mike

*Although Geoff Wittig loves his size-no-object Sigma ARTs for his landscape work, and he's a sensible no-nonsense guy.

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Vince: "I agree on the slow(er) Canon teles, but I think ƒ/11 is a bridge too far."

Tex Andrews: "OK, re: Fuji. Please, please please remember Pentax. Digital medium format? Check. FF DSLR's that are very reasonably priced? Check. Excellent full featured APS-C cameras, also very reasonably priced? Check. Darn good lens lineup? Check. Ability to use lenses from the higher format on the lower ones via a native adapter? Crazy, and check. Even some sub-APS-C cameras, especially if you throw in Ricoh. Also the Theta—it's excellent. The only thing they don't do well is video. But here on this site that's mostly not what we're talking about."

PaulW: "If your thoughts on the R5 and R6 are idiosyncratic, then mine must be too, because you've echoed my thoughts completely with this post. Perhaps I've been shooting micro 4/3 for too long, but big lenses are so off-putting to me that for the past few years I've based all my camera buying decisions on lens size and weight. Thanks to you, I've now dipped a toe into the Fuji waters. We'll see where this goes. Stay idiosyncratic!"

Ross Attix: "On your point about the new Canon bodies being too expensive, I have to ask 'compared to what?' For 20 years top- of-the-line cameras have been in the $4,000–$6,500 range. Mirrorless a bit less. Right now, just looking at the Sony brand, an A7R Mark IV is at $3,200, and the A9 Mark II is $4,500. Now that is only one other brand, but it happens to be the one which has been gobbling up the market the past few years, so I’d argue not a bad choice for comparison. I wish the new Canons were less because they are out of my budget for sure, but I think they are priced where I would expect.

"As to your comment about the two societies, I think you have made a good point, but using the Honda Accord sedan as a reference is a bad example. All sedan sales have declined in recent years. But it isn’t because of the price point, it is because more and more people are moving toward an SUV of some sort. Staying with that brand, they can't produce CR-V's fast enough, so there are plenty of buyers in that lower price range."

David Dyer-Bennet: "In your telephoto analysis, you don't seem to notice an assumption you're silently making: that the old fast telephotos were fast enough. Yeah, if those were fast enough, then being able to use two stops higher ISO means we can get by with telephotos two stops slower; that's incontrovertible. But the old telephotos weren't fast enough. I find lowest acceptable shutter speed is most often set by subject movement; a tripod (or IBIS) doesn't help with that. Bigger apertures or faster films/sensors are the only things that help."

Geoff Wittig: "Thanks for the shout-out, Mike! I suspect Canon is just doing what Canon does; their marketing guys by now have things down to a science. After several years of pent-up gear lust from their very large customer base, and the frankly disappointing Canon R, the R5 is finally the camera we all wanted a year or two ago. The price point is surely based on their estimate of what their market will bear without recoiling in horror. It's $400 more than the price of the 5D Mark IV at its initial release, so it might seem almost reasonable, if you knew nothing about Nikon's Z7 or Sony's a7R IV. I have zero interest in video, so many of the R5's headline features are pointless for me. I'm used to carrying a heavy load of lenses and tripod so the modest weight reduction is of limited relevance. But if the new sensor does indeed have better dynamic range and noticeably cleaner shadows than my very well used 5DSr's, I might have to bite the bullet."

Mike replies: I assume because you would be able to continue to use your existing lenses via adapters?

Rob L: "It has not escaped my attention that I can get a Sony RX10 Mark III and have a pretty good 600mm for a lot less than 400mm in Fujiland. It seems like there is almost enough interest that a dedicated, fixed lens 600+mm 1" sensor camera could be made for a price that would be hard to beat. I got out of Canon after the Digital Rebel, but the new R's, although far too high in price, make me smile. These are machines meant to set the standard and the new lenses are interesting—the 600mm and 800mm especially so."

Crowd-Sourced Post: Canon R5 and R6 Introduction

Tell me, what is your reaction to the announcement yesterday about the new Canons?

Short summary:

Canon R5:

• 45 MP full-frame CMOS sensor
• 8K 30p RAW/4K 120p video
• Dual-pixel CMOS AF II focusing
• 8-stop in-body image stabilization
• High-resolution 5,760,000-dot electronic viewfinder
• Up to 20 FPS continuous shooting with electronic shutter
• Touchscreen
• Top-plate status LCD that stays on when the camera is off
• Dual card slots, one CFexpress and one SD UHS-II
• WFT-R10 wireless support (WRT-R10 is Canon's wireless file transmitter)
• 5.43 x 3.84 x 3.46 inches / 138 x 97.5 x 88 millimeters
• 1.62 lbs. / 738 g (body with battery and memory)
• $3,899 body only
• Canon's pitch: "Better than a 5D"

Canon R6:

• 20 MP full-frame CMOS sensor
• 4K 60p video
• Dual-pixel CMOS AF II focusing
• 8-stop in-body image stabilization
• 3,690,000-dot electronic viewfinder
• Up to 20 FPS continuous shooting with electronic shutter
• Touchscreen
• No top-plate status LCD
• Dual card slots, both SD UHS-II
• No WFT-R10 wireless support
• 5.43 x 3.84 x 3.48 inches / 138 x 97.5 x 88.4 millimeters
• 1.5 lbs. / 680 g (body with battery and memory)
• $2,499 body only

Here's the body size compared to a couple of existing FFM cameras.

Here's the body size compared to a couple of full-featured but smaller-format cameras.

Here's the R6 body size compared to two direct competitors.

What are your thoughts? You don't have to be in the market for a camera, and you don't have to be a Canon shooter. You can say anything you want, from your opinion of Canon's marketing decisions, to whether you personally find the products to be appealing or not, to what you think of how these offerings stack up to the competition's. I'll add selected comments to the post.

Oh, but one thing though: Make just one or two points per comment. You don't need to give us a long rundown of your reaction to every aspect of the cameras. (Remember, past about two reasonably-sized paragraphs, the shorter the comment, the more people will read it. The longer, the fewer. Wait, is that also true of blog posts?!)

Each time I took a run at this yesterday, I found myself being way too...me. That is, I couldn't be objective enough, couldn't seem to help interpreting them in light of my idiosyncratic reaction as a consumer. I figured it would be better to let you do that than to pretend my opinion matters more than anyone else's. As a reader recently said privately, "The strength of your reviews is that they are personal reactions, not attempts at neutrality. A weakness of your reviews is that they are personal reactions, not attempts at neutrality."

Looking forward to hearing what you have to say.

Mike
(Thanks to Moose)

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Dogman: "I really don't pay much attention to new camera announcements anymore. So my reaction is mostly 'meh.' What did catch my attention is that the R6 is 'only' 20MP. To me that's a Good Thing. I'm kinda burnt out on more pixels jammed onto sensors. Just keep it functional, simple and useful. Otherwise, I don't see anything that excites me."

Mike replies: The Nikon D4 sensor also found in the Dƒ was only 16MP, but it was a beaut.

Kenneth Tanaka: "My reaction: I bought an R5. Sony has been my main system since, what, 2014 or 2015? It’ll probably remain so for certain technical work. But the fact is that Canon was my first, and main, camera system since 1973. Although I’m down to just a single DSLR, a 5D Mark IV body, I have drawers brimming with excellent Canon glass. Late last year I rented the R and didn’t like it. But I did like the R concept, so I bought the RP. I love that little 26MP full-frame camera! Light, small, has my favorite color richness that I love so much about Canon. And the new RX-mount lenses I’ve been using are sublime, not to mention becoming reacquainted with my old EF glass. So I sold some gear in February in anticipation of the new R5.

"As I mentioned already I am a purely color guy and a real fan of Canon’s color science. (Sorry Sony, but you’re not quite there.) Every Canon digital camera I’ve ever owned (from the venerable 1D-series to the lowliest p&s) has given me superb, rich color. So I expect no less from the R5. (Sorry, I’m not a video guy so the 'groundbreaking' 8K capture facilities will remain lost on me.)"

Benjamin Marks (partial comment): "I don't know about you all, but I am getting a 'Nikon F6 End-of-Concept' feeling. Once prices come down to $1,000 per unit on these [full-frame mirrorless] puppies, you'll buy one and be set for the next 10 years, just like you were with your F3 or F1."

Steve Biro: "The R5 is way too expensive for me and battery life in the R6 makes it a non-starter—again, at least for me. Nonethless, I'm sure Canon will do well with this line because, well, because Canon."

Dave Van de Mark: "Compared to my brand new camera, the Panasonic S1R, the R5 looks to claim quite a list of 'fastness' and 'moreness' goodies in its specs while staying on the lighter and smaller side of my camera.

"But those high-end specs are about things that I would never need nor use, which is why the 'mere' contrast focus and tracking capabilities of the Panny doesn't bother me. And video isn't important either.

"I think Canon was smart not going after Sony in a pixel race—45 to 47 MP may be a nice sweet spot for FF. What I can't compare at this moment is the overall ergonomic character of the Canon R5, but I will say right now my S1R is an absolute dream to control and use, weight notwithstanding. And that's being said having had extensive experience with other ergonomic champions like Nikon and Fuji."

Trevor Johnson: "Excellent news. Over the last few weeks, Canon UK has very kindly lent me some cameras and lesnses, at no cost, with free courier delivery. Last weeekend I had the RP, the 15–35 ƒ/2.8, and the 'R' adapter. I was mainly interested in the lens and how good the adapter was with all my current EF lenses. The lens and adapter were excellent, but what surprised me was how much I liked the RP body. So it will be either the R5 or R6. For what I do the R5 makes the most sense of all the 'R' series."

SteveW (partial comment): "I can't justify the investment to a new system since I don't use video at all and I'm satisfied with my Nikkor F-mount lens set. But I won't lie, it's fun to see these new releases."

Mike: "Nikon Z 6 shooter here. Both are real nice, especially if you’re a Canon shooter. Will be a hit for Canon.

"Finally, IBIS.

"The R5 seems to be competitively priced for what you get. $500–700 more than a A7III/Z6/S1 for an R6 is kinda a hard sell. I would think $2,200–$2,300 (price of EOS R at introduction) is more realistic. Why exclude 5 GHz WiFi? There’s that Canon nickel and diming again."

Fred Haynes (partial comment): "I’m not impressed. But I’m certainly not in the market, there’s that one spec, the price! I think that’s going in the wrong direction."

Michael J. Perini (partial comment): "Well, if there is anything the whole camera industry needs, it's buzz. I haven't seen this much buzz in a long time, especially from Canon. That has to be good whether you are a Canon fan or not."

Stan B.: "Do they have something against...aesthetics?"

Ned Bunnell: "Rather than comment on the cameras, I’ll tell you what their presence means to me about Canon’s future.

"I worked for Canon prior to Pentax [Ned retired from the position of President of Pentax USA —Ed.]. If you remember, Canon was late to market with a DSLR. At one planning meeting I was at in Tokyo, a very senior executive took me aside and basically said 'Don’t worry, we’re going to be number one. You’re doing a great job marketing the PowerShot. Keep at it and don’t mess up the brand while we finish the project.'

"Canon is still a conservative company with very long-range plans. Just conjecture on my part. But if I had a similar meeting today in Tokyo, the senior executive would likely be telling me 'Don’t worry, we’re going to be the last man standing.'"

Steve Greenwood: "I'm not in the market for a full frame body—still enjoying the Panasonic GX9—but if I was I'd be looking at the Sony A7 Mark II at $1,398 for the (555 gram) body instead of the R6 at $2,499 for the (680 gram) body. The Sony is still very capable for stills (my only interest) and the selection of both native and adapted lenses is huge."

Thomas Rink: "Sorry, but my opinion is probably of little use here. Because for a lot of features, I don't even know what they mean. For instance, what is '10-bit 4:2:2 C-Log raw,' or 'hybrid dual pixel phase detect/contrast detect'? I guess I'm too technically challenged for these cameras."

Andy Munro: "Overall a positive mirrorless splash. I have not been looking at new cameras so this latest feast from Canon is very positive. Lots there to like, and it made me look. But isn't this just more of the same? Where is the SIM card slot and while you're at it, make that 5G. Let me auto (or selectively) offload to Dropbox (or your choice of destination) and auto tag the EXIF. Let me log into WhatsApp/Facebook/etc. and send the photo."

Aaron (partial comment): "For me personally it's size, size, size. No, not sensor size (my Micro 4/3 and APS-C bodies do a fantastic job for my needs). And no, not body size (A Panasonic G9 is about the same size). It's body + lens size."

Jon S: "I spend a lot of time, about eight to 10 hours a day, looking through a viewfinder shooting e-commerce images. I can't for the life of me imagine wanting to spend that much time looking at a tiny screen millimeters away from my eyeball. It's a shame because the 100% AF coverage, eye-detection AF, and the faster USB 3.1 gen 2 protocol for tethering means it is an ideal camera for me otherwise."

John Abee (partial comment): "Short answer = Too Expensive."

Doug Vaughn (partial comment): "Best feature = IBIS for my classic Zeiss, Olympus, and Nikon lenses."

Stopping Shopping

I used to consider 'stopping shopping' to be an essential bit of advice. Of course, it's not something you will read on photography websites very often, including this one, as we all make money encouraging people to shop. We are all what used to be called, in the 1970s, "co-opted." Involved and implicated in the great cultural project, namely, encouraging each other to buy and spend. I don't excuse myself, nor can I pretend I'm above it.

Sounds absurd
Aaron's comment in the previous post (the fourth Featured Comment) reminded me of the usefulness of stopping shopping. In film photography days, when the firmament was much more stable and progress more staid and incremental, I used to advise students to a.) set a predetermined limit on the period of their shopping, and then b.) set a time period for stopping shopping...a period in which to abstain. This simply acknowledges that eternal, obsessive shopping can become a waste of time. I don't tend to remember numbers, but I believe I used to recommend shopping for a new camera for three months and then using whatever camera you chose for five years. In this regimen you'd set a "no-later-than" date for making a decision—for deciding what to buy—and then resolve not to shop again until a defined future date. (I do that with cars.) For instance, if you were doing this now, you'd say "I'll make my purchase before October 6th and then not shop at all any more until October 6th, 2025." If you get the gearhead urge during that time, just console yourself with the idea that on October 6th, 2025, you get to buy yourself a new camera. And you'll dive into it then. Something to look forward to.

Until then, though, no second-guessing yourself, no returning to the shopping phase, no reading reviews, no gear talk, etc. This sounds absurd now, doesn't it? But back then, magazines (and books) were most of what we had, and shopping and gear talk weren't nearly so much a part of the hobby. It was known in the publishing industry that the average car magazine buyer would read magazines for up to two years before a car purchase, and then stop buying and reading magazines after the purchase. In photography that wasn't so clear, but it was somewhat similar. Nobody but photo-writers in magazines cared what brand you allied yourself with, or what format you used. Nobody but photo-writers in magazines concerned themselves with the business problems of cameramaking companies, and "testing" things was considered a sort of eccentric sidelight, a way of diddling around and distracting yourself. People aspired to actually create photographs. At the least, they pretended that they aspired to create photographs. I remember how weird I thought it was when people started making a big deal online about "switching systems." It seemed odd, at first, that people imagined that anyone but themselves would care about such a thing. To the inevitable question "should I buy a Nikon or a Canon?", my answer was: Yes. In other words, sure, buy a Nikon or a Canon. One or the other. Or something else. Whatever. Then get down to work.

Let's not get crazy
Shopping for three months and "stopping shopping" for five years was probably idealistic, and hence unreasonable. So I resolved to try it. I was big on putting my money where my mouth was and experimenting with taking my own advice. But I gave myself five months to shop and determined to then use whatever I chose for three years. (I mean, let's not be too crazy.)

I needn't have been quite so lacking in faith in myself. I settled on a camera (an Olympus OM-4T) in less time than five months, and managed to use it for four and a half years. Almost my original prescription. During that time, I managed to quiet the gearhead shopping urge...sort of. During that whole time I still shopped for lenses, and I was just as obsessive about that as I used to be about cameras.

In the digital era, my typical time with a camera has been roughly three years. Not really so unreasonable, given the pace of progress in 2000–2015. But there have been a number of false starts, when I bought something and just didn't like it once I started to use it.

Anyway, the notion that continual shopping might be a distraction and a diversion—and thus worth taking a rest from—seems as quaint and old-fashioned as Kodak D-23 or an Eastman 2-D now. It's antithetical to the hobby as it has evolved. For the past twenty years, in the online culture, it's most of what we're on about.

Virtuous?
There's a thing I've learned about recently called "virtue signaling." Definition: "the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's good character or the moral correctness of one's position on a particular issue." I don't mean to suggest that "stopping shopping" is virtuous. For me it's really only a way of calming down my gearhead tendencies, which, as Aaron suggested in his comment, can get in the way of focusing on pictures and lower my Satisfaction/Gratification Index. Because I am, as you know, a nut. Of course, I've personally dealt with that by writing about photography, so now I "need" to try all different kinds of gear because I write about it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. But I cannot lie—that arrangement is, in part, merely making an advantage out of what is really a weakness.

As with almost all photo writers (and vloggers) online, it's to my pecuniary advantage to encourage you to shop and spend—I ain't gonna lie. But really, the most important thing is what's best for your own satisfaction and gratification. Sometimes that's new gear, but it just as easily might be giving shopping a rest for a while.

Mike
(Thanks to Aaron)

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Dave Stewart: "I like the timing of this post...just as the rumour websites, and their regulars, are getting excited about several new camera and lens announcements coming soon (allegedly)."

s.wolters (partial comment): "What also helps is to force yourself to wait three months after you made your choice. In most cases you will change your mind."

Mike replies: That is also an essential skill in both eating and with addictions...dealing with things by putting them off. If you get into a ravenous state while eating a meal and you feel impelled to keep going after you've just finished, simply wait twenty minutes first. It works wonders. We often find that the ravenous, craving state of mind will pass. In early sobriety, if you just can't stand the cravings and you make up your mind to drink or use, just tell yourself yes, I'm going to...but tomorrow. Put it off till tomorrow and you'll find that the crisis has passed by then and your resolve is renewed.

Sometimes procrastinating tendencies can be turned to advantage.  :-)

Panny Fan (Good Grief, It's Tough Being a...)

Why don't camera companies ever do what I want? Don't they know they're supposed to? Obligatory LOL.

I happened to notice the other day that you still can't buy a GX9 "body only."

As Charlie Brown says, AAUGH! (I actually remember learning to spell "Aaugh!" like Charles Schulz did when I was about nine. Reading all the way through a Peanuts Treasury one weekend at the house of some family friends was an important facet of my childish education.)

I still own four Micro 4/3 lenses (the 20mm, the 12–35mm, the 45mm Macro—all Panasonics—and an old Oly kit lens). I figured I'd hang on to them for when Panasonic came out with a Mark II version of the GX8.

But then the camerapocalypse happened and sales started to plummet almost as radically as they once soared, and it became obvious that a GX8 Mark II was not in the cards. I'm not blaming the company.

Still, it's frustrating being a Panny fan. The camera that got me into the fold, the GF1—beautiful, solid little brick, not the greatest sensor—was never updated. When that died I got a GX1, and tried to like it but didn't. My second-favorite Panasonic, the GX8, which I liked a lot but which also had a few problems, was replaced with an updated GX7, a camera I had also owned but hadn't bonded with. (Reading between the lines, you can see I was sticking with Panasonic but not batting 1.000.) They updated my favorite lens, but failed to improve its flaws. What? All they did was change the cosmetics and add a shiny little surround to the front element, as a fake way to make the front element look bigger—a dubious move at best—but they didn't improve the too-slow autofocus. When I finally decided okay, okay, there's never going to be a GX8 Mark II so maybe I'll just go along with the program and get a GX9, dang it all—well, that wasn't going to work either, because you couldn't buy the camera without buying the kit lens too.

I hate being forced into things like that. I already have a Panasonic Micro 4/3 midrange zoom I like, thank you. The 12–35mm ƒ/2.8. And it was expensive, too, bub. I don't want to buy another zoom. Yeah, I know I could buy the kit and sell the kit lens, but what a hassle. Besides, you know me...I'd have to compare the two lenses before I sold one on. More work for me. And then I'd probably get lazy and neglect to sell the kit lens and then I'd have another extra Micro 4/3 zoom in my camera closet next to the old Oly. So I figured I'd just wait until the GX9 was available all on its lonesome, and maybe I'd pick one up.

Never gonna happen, apparently. (You can get a card and a grip for an extra two dollars, though.)

I don't need a camera, so I guess this doesn't involve me. (Although I haven't actually needed a camera since 1980, so I don't know what that's got to do with anything.) But it seems strange that Panasonic wouldn't sell me a camera the way I'd like to buy it if I did want to buy one. Guess now I have to figure out if I should sell my Micro 4/3 lenses. I hate to leave the system. I love the system.

I have only one thing to say:

(Here's the link to that.)

I wonder if other people have love/AAUGH! relationships with camera companies.

I did stumble across a nice 3-D printed grip for the GX9 on eBay. Oh, it's $21 and fifty bucks for shipping...yeah, that figures!

Charlie Brown Mike

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Kylian: "Hey Charlie—never paid too much attention to the spelling of AAUGH, but I can draw Snoopy in less than 30 seconds. This has not gotten me as far in life as your orthographic skills have gotten you. Camera companies sometimes come sooo close to getting it right (using my parameters of course) that the miss can be particularly frustrating."

Wes Cosand: "And many of us who have been Panasonic users for years already have a copy of this kit lens which we don't use but were forced to buy with a previous camera. I would have purchased a GX9 but then I'd have two unused 12–60mm lenses."

John Camp: "There's nothing wrong with the GX8. It's the most nearly perfect camera ever made.  8-) "

The Viewfinder of the New Pentax

Next week's crit print is gorgeously well crafted. I picked one that came in a stout box thinking it wouldn't be damaged this time. Another picturesque subject, but still, good things to talk about.

I really like it that I got to launch the "Print Crit" with a "lo-fi" black-and-white inkjet print made from a digital image of the groundglass of a camera obscura—an image cast by a single-meniscus lens in a brass barrel. That tickles me with its radical combination of now and then. And what nice serendipity—it really was the first package I opened. Thanks again to Frank.

A camera obscura is really just a viewfinder, when you think about it. It's a way of looking at the image cast or projected by a lens. A slide projector in reverse, essentially.

I've always been fascinated, and somewhat preoccupied I guess, by viewfinders. They're a crucial feature of almost all cameras. They dictate how precisely we can see what the film is going to capture, and with what kind of fidelity to the scene. Almost all cameras have some sort of way to "find the view" and how they do it determines to an important extent how the camera operator, the photographer, is able to interact with the scene in front of her. 

Dorothea Lange with the camera she used to take "Migrant
Mother." I've looked through one of those.

I've experienced a very large number of camera viewfinders over many decades. Peering through the tiny, dark tunnel of a 1940s rangefinder is very different from looking at the groundglass of an oversized view camera under a dark cloth, which is very different from lining up your eye with the rectangle of a wire "sports finder," which is very different from looking at the screen on the back of your smartphone (which is often a very nice viewfinder, I have to say. Except in sunlight). A viewfinder has a big impact on the character and "personality" of any given camera.

Pentax, an old friend
That's why I was pleased to learn that Pentax is paying special attention to the viewfinder of its upcoming new APS-C flagship camera, as yet unnamed. Bad luck for Pentax, which doesn't release very many truly new cameras, that it planned to launch its new flagship reduced-sensor-size DSLR at CP+, which normally would have taken place at the dual venues of Pacifico Yokohama and Osanbashi Hall in Yokohama, Japan, in February. Of course it was cancelled this year, so the introduction is on hold.

A video's been released that indicates something pleasing, though, which is that Pentax has paid special attention to the viewfinder. It will reportedly have a magnification of 1.05x (that's magnification, not coverage), making it as generously and luxuriously sized as a full-frame camera's viewfinder. This is particularly smart now that DSLRs are in decline and EVFs are proliferating—the one thing an EVF can't do is give you a direct view of the real world, letting the photographer see the real colors of the subject and the subtleties of the actual light.

I reviewed a number of early Pentax DSLRs and owned a couple, up to the K-5 of 2010. My problem with it wasn't with the camera...it's just that I'm pretty set regarding the focal lengths I like to use. Historically I characterized my lens use as follows: a ~35–40mm-equivalent prime, 80% of the time; an ~80–90mm-e prime portrait lens, 15%; and a wide-angle, 5%. If money was tight for people, I advocate spending the most money on the lens you use the most, and the least money on the one you use the least—assuming you have a good idea of how much you use what. I also think it's important that, in any given product lineup, there should be a lens you really like as your main lens. Pentax had a lens I absolutely adored optically, the 35mm Macro (full-dress name, the Pentax HD Pentax DA 35mm ƒ/2.8 Macro Limited, designed by Kato Koji, which Hoya later licensed to Tokina [thanks to Mistral75 for this information—see the first Featured Comment]), but, while I like ~50mm-e lenses and have used them a lot, they're a tad long to suit my preference for all-the-time use. The Macro, at ƒ/2.8, is a little slow as well—no real problem of course, but, for your main all-purpose lens, there are just going to be times when you'd prefer to it be a stop or two faster.

To make a long story short (unless it's too late for that), by 2012 I had just gotten weary of waiting for Pentax to come out with something in the neighborhood of the ~24mm ~ƒ/2 APS-C lens that I wanted. I've been very happy since then with wonderful lenses like the Zeiss Sonnar T* E 24mm ƒ/1.8 ZA, the Panasonic Lumix G 20mm ƒ/1.7, and my current Fuji XF 23mm ƒ/1.4 R. (Fuji has not one, not two, but three primes in my "sweet spot" range.)

(My departure from Pentax was discussed at the time, as I discovered while researching this post, in a six-page thread on Pentax Forums. One forumer, trying hard to be cynical, said "In all reality, it probably comes down to the fact that he makes more money promoting more mainstream cameras...," to which the OP, a Pentaxian called panoguy, answered, "If it was a camera review site, or some up-and-coming blogger trying to get lots of advertising and links, you might be right. However, this blogger is known for writing what he thinks, admitting his (and other's) faults, and basically not trying to be an opinion leader. Perhaps that's why he is an opinion leader!" I never saw that at the time, but what a nice compliment. Made my morning. Belated thanks, panoguy.)

'It's not you, it's me' —George Costanza
Of course, the world doesn't owe you what you want just because you want it. But I'm glad I didn't keep waiting, because today, eight years later, Pentax still doesn't offer a prime lens option in the 35–40mm-e range. Our failure to align is not Pentax's fault; it's my fault. Theirs is a business decision and I'm sure they made the right choice for the company. At the same time, it made no sense for me to stick with a brand that doesn't offer the focal length I use the most, so I made the right choice too. Simple as that.

I had a beef with Ricoh (which owns Pentax) for a while, too. They advertised on this site, and when Ricoh took over, they stiffed me on the bill! Walked away with $2,500 worth of advertising and refused to pay for it. What, too much for you, Ricoh? It was a lot to me. Scoundrels.

However, I would still review the new Pentax APS-C flagship, to catch up with an old friend and to relate the new camera to their historical offerings. But mostly to see how they fared in optimizing the optical viewfinder for the format. That's exciting. To me, at least, it's enough to distinguish the as-yet unnamed new flagship and give it an identity. Congratulations to project managers Tetsuya Iwasaki and Shigeru Wakashiro for attempting to make the most of the most important of a DSLR's advantages over mirrorless...it is a wise choice for right now.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Mistral75: "Hi there. The HD Pentax-DA 35mm ƒ/2.8 Macro Limited was not sourced from Tamron. It's an original Pentax design from the Hoya era. Japanese patent No. 4874852 published on February 15th, 2012 (patent application filed on April 9th, 2007; application No. 2007-101302). US patent No. US 7,715,118 B2 published on May 11th, 2010 (patent application filed on April 4th, 2008; application No. 12/062,721). Link. Inventor: Kato Koji. Hoya licensed the optical formula of the 35mm ƒ/2.8 Macro Limited to Tokina (not Tamron). Tokina used it for their AT-X 35mm ƒ/2.8 Pro DX Macro.

Mike replies: Thank you for that. I corrected the error.

Albert Smith: "It is not only Pentax, Nikon lost me when they failed to fill out their DX lens line. They came out with a petite 35mm ƒ/1.8 giving a normal lens angle of view that performed very well. I was sure it was the start of a system of DX lenses to parallel the full frame range, but no. They have terrific DX cameras, but if you have to mount full frame lenses to get the lens you want, you might as well go full frame. The full frame 35mm ƒ/1.8 G lens on a D750 is smaller than mounting the full frame 24mm ƒ/1.8 on a D500...so why use Nikon DX for the moderate focal lenths? Today I use only FX Nikon and went elsewhere for DX. I went all Fujifilm for my DX system and have way too many choices for my favorite range of focal lengths."

Aaron: "Upon my return to film photography recently I discovered and fell in love with the old all mechanical Pentax MX—and one of the main draws for me is its huge viewfinder. Pure joy to look through and bigger than any of my other SLRs digital or film. As I’ve played with various digital and film systems, I’ve found that a lot of my personal evaluation of a camera depends on the viewfinder. When actually out taking photographs I spend more time looking through a viewfinder than doing anything else with the camera, so I want a good one. Another bonus of the MX is that it’s such a small SLR that when paired with the old Pentax 40mm ƒ/2.8 pancake lens it’s hardly bigger than an old fixed lens rangefinder. (The 40mm 2.8 pancake doesn’t seem to get much love online because of its image quality—but if I’m after absolute technical quality I’m not shooting a 40 year old 35mm format film camera anyway, so it doesn’t bother me in the least)."

Did GoPro Steal My Friend Kenny's Camera?

This is my friend Kenny's experience with trying to buy a new GoPro camera.

He heard that there were unscrupulous people on eBay, so to be safe he decided to go directly to GoPro to buy his new camera. The camera he wanted retails for $399 and is on sale for $299.

There was also a $100 trade-in offer for older cameras. He had an older camera that he paid "three hundred and something" for. So he assumed that the offer would mean $100 off the sale price of $299, making the total price of the new camera $199. (Note that his old camera still works and is still useful, and he would have been happy to have it as a backup, or to give to his brother.) So he sent in his old camera and waited.

To his surprise, when GoPro received his old camera they charged him $399, minus $100 for the old camera, making a total of...$299, the exact same price the camera is available for even if he didn't trade in his old camera.

He, er, complained. Kenny is an ex-Marine who served at Guantanamo and in Iraq, so he doesn't take a lot of, you know, shit.

GoPro's response was that only one promotion is available per sale. So Kenny demanded his old camera back and said he would pay the $299 sale price straight up for the new camera.

GoPro refused to return it.

So then Kenny asked what would happen if he wants his money refunded, no deal, no purchase. Fine, Sir, we'll return your $299.

But not your old camera.

What? Right. Even with no transaction, they refused to return his camera to him!

He said, "[expletive deleted] you are [expletive deleted] STEALING MY CAMERA!!!" But of course the Customer Service person didn't have any power to make the situation right. Fuming, Kenny spent hours trying to reach someone who could set the situation right, and got nowhere.

My opinion is that he's correct—GoPro swindled him out of his old camera, giving him zero value for it in return and not allowing him to undo the deal once he realized he'd been ripped off. They're effectively confiscating his personal property for no other reason than that they already have their grubby paws on it and he's powerless.

He told me he got online and found other people complaining about the same double-cross.

He was so angry he was losing sleep over it, so he decided to let it go just for his peace of mind. 

But other people should be warned.

Be careful. Don't assume GoPro will be responsible or ethical just because you're dealing directly with the company.

Mike

P.S. I asked GoPro for comment via an email to pr@gopro.com (PR = public relations). If and when I hear back, I'll Update this post.

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

Benjamin Marks: "Kenny should explain to the customer service representative, and any manager he can reach, that his very next call is going to be to the Attorney General of the state where Go Pro is located to report an incident of fraud. 'Cause when you take somebody's property for nothing and refuse to return it, that's theft. And when you induce them to enter into a transaction that is intended to enrich with a false promise, that's fraud."

Moose: The old camera came in and was dumped, without ceremony or ID of source, in the bin of old cameras of no value to GoPro. It's the same as a coupon, to them. Even if the bin hadn't already gone in the dumpster and on to landfill by the time he complained, there's no way to identify his particular 'trade-in.' Just a guess.  \;~)>  "

Gordon Lewis: "I went to the GoPro offer website to see the fine print. At the bottom of the page are two footnotes:

1 Any GoPro or digital camera with an original retail value of at least $99.99 USD (or equivalent value in local currency) is eligible for trade-in.

2 Trade-in transactions are final; after you trade in your Eligible Used Device, you cannot get it back.

"This doesn't mean that I have no sympathy for your friend's predicament. I'm only pointing out that because GoPro's website offered full disclosure, he unfortunately has no legal recourse."

Mike replies: I'm not sure the issue is that they didn't cover their asses with the fine print; he realizes that now, and actually he realized it before he got angry about it. The issue is whether their advertising was deliberately misleading, and did not fairly reflect the caveats in the fine print. He ordered the camera off his phone, and this is the page he saw:

And as I understand it, he called them first to make sure the cash price was $299.99 before he proceeded. I think he can be excused for not realizing, from that, the caveats in the fine print that you cite.

And by the way, to add insult to injury, his new camera arrived yesterday, and guess what? The "Free 32GB SD Card Included" was not included!

Iran: "GoPro is near dead and I can see why. I wouldn't do business with them and I say this as someone who lives two miles away from their headquarters. They're all about themselves."

Roger Overall: "GoPro had a loyal customer in Kenny and they've turned off the tap of any future revenue from him (I'm guessing). Not only that, I'm in the market for a GoPro-like device. Now I'm a little less attracted to them. The damage this kind of behaviour does to GoPro's future sales is remarkable. Imagine if a very popular photography blog got wind of it...."

Bryan Geyer: "A large, well established, highly reliable, and ultra-ethical retailer is always your best source. In most cases, they will also prove to be the cheapest supplier as well, and the fastest to process and ship your order. Nobody meets that criteria better than B&H Photo. See their Go Pro listings."

#$%! Fuji

Irascible aside: I've been shooting raw for years, ever since Bruce Fraser's Real World Camera Raw changed my life. However, I think I might be done trying to convert Fuji raw files. The out-of-camera (OoC) JPEGs seem to always look better than the raw conversions, and don't seem to be that much less correctable. Even comparing Capture One conversions, which are supposedly among the best, the OoC JPEGs look better.

There's been an awful lot of argument online over the years as to what the best Fuji raw conversion software is. Maybe the best Fuji raw converter is simply the camera.

Or maybe I'm rusty in more ways than one, and just have more work to do.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Jamie Pillers: "To confuse matters even further, you could think about trying Fujifilm's X Raw Converter software. To use it, you plug your camera into the computer; then the software uses the raw processor in the camera to make the conversions. I haven't tried it, but it sounds interesting. Like you, Mike, I've been happy with Fuji's JPEG output for years. But the constant online chatter about 'best RAW converter for Fuji files' has kept nagging at me."

Tim Bradshaw: "I'm not sure why it's surprising that the best raw converter for a camera made by company x is...made by company x. It is really more surprising that sometimes it isn't made by company x. And of course, if company x is sensible, then rather than dealing with the crawling horror of incompatibility involved in making their raw converter work with whatever tangle of partly-broken software people are using this week, they will ship their converter in a powerful, special-purpose computer system every detail of whose hardware and software they control."

Albert Smith: "I am currently shooting with an X-Pro2 and an X-T2 and after fine tuning the multiple parameters within each film simulation, I am enjoying the SOoC JPEGs as the end item for my photography. To be sure, this required multiple shooting sessions in real world conditions to get the highlight and shadow settings the way I like, but I can now cycle through the finder after hitting the Q button and bring up the best simulation for the situation. Both these cameras have identical settings and I entered a narrative into the menu display so that I need only read the top of the Q screen for, 'general color,' 'high contrast color,' 'outdoor B&W,' etc. During three decades of slide shooting, there was no post processing. I use this same approach with the Fujifilm simulations...expose and compose correctly and it's like getting a box of slides back from the lab when I dump the images into the computer."