The Online Photographer

...And About the Camera

...And about the camera, I just really want an A6600, but I can't do it. I already have an X-T1 and an X-H1, and they'll do everything I need a camera to do, and, therefore, I can't pull the trigger on a $1,400 camera I don't have the lenses for and don't need. Just can't do it. Just. Cannot. Do it.

It's a psychological problem more than anything else. It just seems too wasteful and impractical. I have a whole Fuji system—two bodies and six lenses. If I sold the bodies and bought an X-Pro3, that would make enough sense, I think.

Do you ever run into problems with this? The most common one, I suppose, is buying too much, spending too much, indulging yourself too much. But I often have the opposite problem...difficulty letting go of the money. When I started teaching photography in 1985 and I suddenly had an income and a place for an enlarger, it was still very difficult for me to buy the enlarger. It took me months of struggling with it before I managed to place the order.

Ninety percent of this stuff is half mental, Yogi Berra allegedly said. The image that usually comes into my head is of the great golfer Ben Hogan, whose yips took the form of not being able to draw the putter back to make a putt. He would stand there at address, frozen, unable to move. Very, very mysterious, the way the brain sometimes works. 

Mike

Product o' the Week:

Ringlight for Zoom, Facetime, vlogging, streaming, video recording, remote working or remote learning. Holds a phone, or you can set it behind and above a desktop computer with a built-in camera. The following image is also a link: 

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Dan Gorman: " A few years back, I suddenly developed a near-complete inability to hand-write the capital letters W and M. Only with great effort could I make my pen/pencil move. Once the first stroke was finally under way, it took tremendous concentration to form the rest of the letters, and generally came out pretty badly mangled. A year or so later the problem disappeared on its own. I still have no idea what caused the problem, or what caused it to go away. All good now, but the episode did give me a new sense of my own vulnerability."

Mike replies: Wow, that's fascinating. I'm very interested when I see things like that happen in myself. For example, when I was 45 or so I started occasionally transposing letters as I typed. I had never done it before. Then, for a few years, I'd be typing along, and just one random word would come out with all the letters mixed up...the proper letters and the proper number of letters would be there, but jumbled. If I were trying to type "mixed" what might come out was "dxemi." And just one word amongst all the rest.

Now that never happens any more. What the...?!

Have you ever read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat? It's Oliver Sacks' engaging recounting of a wide variety of neurological disorders. A fascinating, memorable book, I thought. 

Mike: "Take the stuff you have, all of it that you don't or won't ever use, and trade it in for the stuff you want. Simple. Take the hit, get what you like and stop whining.  ;-)  Seriously, it's only money. Use what makes you happy. Then go out and take some pictures with the new stuff that you want to have and use. It's not like you want a Leica SL2 and a 50mm Summicron!"

Mike replies: I almost never allow any form of the word "whiner" in the comments, but in this case I have to allow it.  :-D

Jamie Pillers: "Mike, have a look at the Fuji X-S10. It has all the guts of the X-T4, including IBIS. Thus, better performer than the X-H1. And it's tiny! Have a look at CameraSize.com and be surprised. Another feature I like about the X-S10 is it has the type of flippy screen I like...you can fold it around so that the screen doesn't face out. Thus the camera has more of a feel of a film camera and it promotes 'anti-chimping'. And...the cost is very nice! And...it's lighter than the A6600.  :-)  "

Sroyon: "Yes I know the problem you describe. In 2011, a camera store in Tokyo let me handle a film Leica (I had already told them I wasn't in the market for one, just wanted to see what it was like). I had never handled a Leica before, nor even a rangefinder. Of course Leicas are beautiful and finely-engineered and all that, but what I remember most vividly is focusing on a shelf across the room. I was used to focusing with an SLR, but seeing the double-image come together, the rangefinder suddenly felt like the easiest, most natural way to focus.

"I could afford it—I was a finance lawyer at the time, in fact I was earning more than I currently do as an academic—but I just couldn't bring myself to buy it. Photography is just a hobby for me; I had a perfectly good film camera and a perfectly good digital camera already, and spending that much on a camera just felt...wrong.

"Anyway seven(!) years later, my girlfriend finally got tired of hearing me carry on about how amazing it was, said 'Right, let's get you one for your birthday.' And we got an M3 and 50mm Summicron from an estate sale (she paid half, most expensive birthday present ever). I will always be grateful to her, because I unreservedly love that camera, and if not for her prodding, I would never have got it for myself."

The New Nikon Z fc

If I had a dollar for every time I've heard someone say some variation of "Why can't they just make a digital FE2/FM2/FM3a?", it would pay for a Snowflake.

Well, maybe not quite. But I've heard that a lot over many years, starting two decades ago and more.

Have you ever said it, or something like it? Be honest now.

So now that it's here, what are you going to do about it? This is it, the new Nikon Z fc, and it's exactly what all y'all were asking for.

The top plate is the most "FE/FM" thing about it. Beautiful!

Back down to earth
Of course, it's another retro Nikon. And the last retro Nikon, the Dƒ, was an absolute horror. I mean, it was a pretty good camera—it did a few useful things, like work with manual focus Nikkors, and it had a very nice sensor. Owners actually tended to like it. But they had to avert their eyes to buy it. The factory hit that thing hard with the ugly stick. Conceptually, it was a Frankenstein—retro styling cues troweled on awkwardly all over it, with exactly the authenticity of a very bad fake Elvis, toupée and all. On a camera that looked like its designers had no freaking idea what it was supposed to be, or to whom. (I'll be honest, the Dƒ permanently changed my feelings toward Nikon. I still have respect; just not quite as much as I used to.)

And dammit, Nikon, you just can't throw us a bone, can you? Not even when you're throwing us a bone!

Because there it is on the top plate, in the upper right hand corner, that little red video button. The marketing materials show the allegedly retro thing being used on a selfie stick as a vlogging camera, on a mini tripod for web streaming and conferencing, and with an external mic—you know, just like an intrepid PJ back in the day. Not.

With watches, there are things called "time only" watches. They just tell time. Three hands, sometimes just two. Nothing else. And you know what all the other bells and whistles are called? The things time-only watches don't have? "Complications." I love that. Could we possibly have just one simple "picture only" camera, no complications?

The answer is, of course, no. The bottom line is that you can't escape the age you're in, and you can't escape the fashions of the day. That's life on life's terms. There's actually no such thing as retro.

'She's a Rainbow'

...Except maybe in the realm of style!  :-)

Climbing Mt. Fuji
On the good side, maybe it's intended to be a Fuji X-T4 killer—a knobs-'n'-dials APS-C of agreeable size. (Here they are side-by-side at Camerasize.) I'm not going to close my mind to the Z fc. It could be great. I certainly like the direction.

Takashimaya Historical Museum

Mount Fuji by Takeuchi Seiho, 1893

Although it's a long way to the top of that mountain.

So what do you think? What's your initial reaction to the news? Boy, I am looking forward to hearing what you have to say about this. Unless all those guys who used to pine for this very thing—this very thing—have all suddenly mysteriously up and evaporated.

Hold up!
Tomorrow, the lens. If you have a comment about the lens(es) you may want to wait.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

GKFroelich: "For what it's worth, I've shot with Nikon single-digit F models since the F2 (never had an F nor an F6), and with their digital counterparts since the D2 variants (no D1 nor D6). These days I shoot primarily with Nikon D5s, D500s, and D850s (and I have a couple of D7200s lying about here somewhere). The essential (to me) controls have for the most part been consistently placed, and have operated in the same manner, across all of these models.

"The only mirrorless camera I currently own is a Nikon Z50, with its two kit lenses (I had the V1 back when it was current). The image quality is great, the camera and lenses are small and lightweight, and they provide a compact 'rig' that covers lots of contingencies (I add the now-discontinued 5T and 6T doublets for macro capability with the tele-zoom). But the controls are scattered all over the place, and many are buried in the menus or behind some inscrutable tiny icon on the rear touch screen. The whole experience is very un-Nikon, and I've missed a few photos as a result. As long as I shoot in fully (or mostly) automatic modes, it's not much of a problem, but at times it can be frustrating, even infuriating.

"The new Z fc appears to be a Z50 packaged in a more Nikon-like body, with actual Nikon-like controls on its exterior. I won't pull the trigger until I've learned more about it, and maybe read (or viewed) a couple of reviews, but based in its appearance, I'm a future owner of one!

"Now let's see what they do with the Z9."

Christopher May (partial comment): " I think this will do better than the Dƒ did. That was a quirky camera but I think it would have been a bigger seller had the price been lower. The Z fc comes with a price tag that's going to make it a lot more popular than the expensive Dƒ."

Doug Chadwick (partial comment): "If I could have gotten this instead of my first digital, a D80, I certainly would have. The control layout would have eased my transition somewhat. However 2007 is now a rather long time ago."

Al C.: "I dunno. The front wheel, the ridiculous name (huh? Z-fc?), and the non-serious fonts ruin it for me. And that's in black, never mind the rainbow! I am sorry, but frisky is not in the Nikon gene. This is embarrassing."

Thomas Rink (partial comment): "As I see it, the nostalgia for film cameras like the Nikon FM2 is due to their simplicity and ease of use. This camera, on the other hand, is as complicated as any mirrorless digital camera, but with an even more complex user interface—in addition to the retro-style dials, it also has front and rear command wheels. My Fuji X-T20 suffers from the same flawed design, but at least there is a lens lineup for it."

Alex Mercado: "Without a Prontor-Compur connection; nor a threaded shutter button; and the sensor is below 100MP—this has to be tHe WoRsT nIkOn EvAr!!! Okay, all joking aside, I like it a lot."

Yoram Nevo: "They forgot the 'Auto' setting on the ISO dial. Well that's a real bug. I should know since I'm a software engineer and write bugs for a living."

Stéphane Bosman: "I'm sure there is a market for it, but it is not the people who have known and taken pleasure in using the FM, FE, FM2 and FE2 cameras. As you said, those were simple and a delight to use. My current handheld cameras are an FE2 and an F3, and this new Nikon leaves me much colder than my Fujis."

almostinfamous: "It has everything I want in a camera except IBIS. I am interested in the colourful ones too, actually—might get a few of my former students to actually consider Nikon."

Hugh: "Retro camera. APS-C, therefore limited use with my Pre-AI Nikkors. Complaining about it shooting video is missing the point entirely. Thirty seconds with some superglue would fix that red button so it never shot video again, and you could even stick black tape over the red button like a cool kid with a Leica. Fortunately Canon make the RP, which is full frame, costs about the same, and works beautifully with manual focus vintage lenses…and Fuji make APS-C cameras with matching lenses."

Steve C: "In plain sight Leica is staking a monopoly on simple user interfaces. The Typ 240 brought video, but let you render the button completely inoperable. (Love!) The subsequent next model removed it completely, and the one after struck two more buttons from the camera. When their product director was interviewed about the S and SL's spec-sheet competitors he said 'Yes, but they're covered in buttons. If you want only four, this is the only one.'"

Fujifilm GFX System: We Hear From Tokyo

A while ago I sent several questions about the GFX 100S to Fujifilm, and yesterday afternoon received answers from the company in Tokyo.

I should mention that I have to be a little careful with my wording here, so as not to imply that the company said anything it didn't...no playin' around here, Mikey! 'Kay.

If I refer to larger-than-FF with fly-by-night names, for instance, that's me, not Fujifilm. I'm just not liking the status quo on that, is all. The middle format already has its settled name, which is "full-frame." Then, the conventional term for larger-than-FF is medium format, which makes sense exclusively in legacy terms. It was in the middle between small, 35mm cassettes, and large—sheet film—hence medium. The term applied to digital makes sense no other way.

As George Lakoff eloquently and simply explained, how you frame an issue (frame in the sense of formulating the concept and defining the terms) is a large part of the debate. Full-frame currently wins the framing sweepstakes, hands down.

To my way of thinking, legacy terms are irrelevant now. The past is past. Medium format was a niche even back in the old days. Now, calling the smaller middle format "full" and the largest-sized formats "medium" is actively misleading. It makes no sense at all.

I'm digressing already here, but if it were me I'd call anything larger than full-frame some name like "maximum format." Max format? "Large-format digital" serves the purpose pretty well I guess. In any case, I'd be stomping out the brushfire of "medium-format digital" like a mad dervish. I think Fujifilm is trying.

But enough of that—on to GFX!

How it's going
First, the GFX system as a whole is doing great—selling much better than Fujifilm initially expected it would. The latest body in the system, the GFX 100S, is the best-selling body in the system, and it experienced much larger initial demand than Fujifilm anticipated. In fact, the GFX 100S is supercharging (my word, there) the sales of the entire system: for example, the average number of lens sales per body is still three, but lens sales are up across the board because of the high numbers of sales of the GFX 100S body.

Second, the success of the GFX system is not regional or driven by any particular market. It's selling well everywhere across the globe, including major markets such as China, the U.S., the Euro Zone, and the home market of Japan. (No ranking implied in that list.) This matters because sometimes cameras will do better in specific markets than in others. I've heard of many examples over the years—for example, rumors that a certain high-end product was particularly in demand in China or that a certain product was much more popular in Japan than elsewhere. Not the case with the GFX stuff, Fuji tells us.

Fujifilm thinks the GFX 100S ($6,000 at B&H) might be be getting part of its boost from its dramatically (my adjective) lower price-point than the GFX 100 ($10,000).

Big nugget
But the big nugget, so to speak, the key takeaway, seems to be this: sixty percent of GFX 100S buyers are either new to the GFX system or new to Fuji as a whole. That indicates that many photographers are shopping the GFX system against the proliferating full-frame alternatives and are taking the plunge into Max format in appreciable numbers.

(You see what I did there.)

In other words, the GFX 100S is making converts.

In a big way. (Ooh, did it again.)

Rational
This all pleases me, by the way, because I just love the thoroughgoing rationality of Fuji's choices. To me, being fully committed to a large and complete system in the practical size of APS-C yet balancing it with large-format digital is a sensible and thoughtful—and above all a practical—solution. It just makes no sense to me for any company to be in APS-C and yet not be committed to it and not offer complete systems. Smaller formats make so much sense for so many tasks—as pocketable walk-around or backpacking cameras, for macro, for supertelephoto. Yet when ultimate image quality and ultra-large print size are wanted, you want to be able to go after that too—and nothing currently beats 102 megapixels in a larger-than-FF sensor. I could go on at some length about the advantages—to us—of Fujifilm's balanced approach. But it's a post for another day.

Anyway, I put in a call to my friend Izzy at B&H Photo and requested a GFX 100S and GF 50mm ƒ/3.5 (40mm-e) lens for review. If they can't provide it, Fuji says they can send me one soon. (When new products are hot, smaller outlets have to wait in line for review units.) So hopefully one way or another I'll have a review before the end of the Summer. It won't be the first camera I've ever reviewed that I can't consider buying. I'm looking forward to the education—to acquainting with Maximum format. (Am I calling it that now? I dunno....) It's one of only a few photographic formats I have almost zero experience with so far.

My thanks to Fujifilm for its assistance with this post.

Mike

P.S. No new post tomorrow, I don't think (lots of posts in the past couple of days) but I'll be actively moderating comments.

Book of Interest this week:

Ralph Eugene Meatyard: American Mystic (Fraenkel Gallery, 2017). An excellent introduction to Meatyard's quirky, spooky worlds. "Photography is a dream of awaking to a world still dewed in sleep." And Fraenkel Gallery's productions are always a cut above. The link is a doorway to Amazon.

Also sponsored by...

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Sharon: "If we lived closer, you could try one of ours. I absolutely love the 100S. It is a heavy system but I walk around town with the 110mm on a lot. It's a beast but I forget all about the weight when I'm shooting, and I have serious issues with my hands. The in-camera stabilization is amazing. We shot after sunset, handheld, and the files are sharp. What I love most is that any failure of the photograph will be an artistic one on my part, not because of any technical shortcoming of the camera."

Rob de Loe: "The data from Fuji on new adoptions make sense to me. My anecdotal evidence is the wave of new members to the DPReview Medium Format forum. People seem to like posting there that they are now in the club, and why. The why part is the GFX 100S, almost without exception."

Thom Hogan: "Not sure '60% new to GFX system or new to Fuji' is a meaningful statistic. GFX is a relatively new system to start with, so that number would be high no matter what.  ;~)  . And it's down from the 100% that would have happened with the first entry four years ago. To make sense of any such statistic, we'd need volume numbers, both past and current. Makes a big difference as to whether they've sold 50,000 units or 150,000 GFX units so far."

Peter: "Here's my vote that 'Maximum Format' will be your second addition to the worldwide photographic lexicon (#1 being Bokeh, of course)."

Jim Simmons: "Oh come on, Mike, you're a wordsmith, you know better. 'Large' format worked because the word is flexible. 'Maximum' implies it's the biggest, and that is impossible to know."

Christopher May: "Sometimes a point of reference remains the reference point long after it's been swept away into the dustbin of history. Witness railroaders saying they're 'highballing' when they receive clearance to move their trains. This stems from a type of signal with large balls raised and lowered by pulley. When the ball was raised, the train was clear to go. This type of signal was already mostly obsolete at the turn of the 20th century but 'highballing' is still an almost universal term in railroading today. I think the fate of 'medium format' may be similar. It originally made some sense when digital backs were attached to medium format film cameras like the Mamiya 645AFD and Contax 645. The Fuji cameras may have little to do with those cameras or their associated film format but the terminology remains."

John Dougan: "I'm an American living in Russia, and I just got rid of my Sony A7R IV to get this camera. I was so impressed, that even though I bought Sony's 135mm ƒ/1.8 just three weeks before the purchase of the GFX 100S, the image quality was enough to convince me to take the loss. And my God, is this an amazing camera. One thing that I learned though, for long exposures on a tripod, make sure you shut off the image stabilization or you'll be left scratching your head wondering what went wrong. Here's my first night of night photography with this camera."

Kirk Tuck: "Why words? Why not numbers? Start with 35mm (full frame) as 1X and then everything bigger is whatever the size difference might be. Such as a 1.25X, 1.50X, 2X etc. And, in the other direction an APS-C would be a .5 and smaller sensors a .25 etc. I'm sure camera makers will eventually make an array of image sensors bigger than the current Fuji ones and it's a quick and easy way for people to understand the difference in sizes."

darlene: "After 30+ years of shooting professionally, people ask me what I currently shoot with, so I started slowly working on a page that will show the gear. The categories go like this: Large Format (Sinar, Linhof, Cambo) Medium Format (ALPA, Hasselblad, Mamiya) Small Format (Fujifilm, Nikon, Minolta). Most pro shooters I know refer to camera sizes as Large, Medium and Small. The lenses covering the formats make us distinguish things even further when need be. Currently I have three digital backs in-house; (2) 44x33 sensors and (1) 49x37 sensor and they are for my Medium format and Large format cameras. If I had a Fujifilm 50R (want one), it would fit into the medium format category. Why? Because of its real estate. I like the KISS principle!"

richardp_london: "Full Frame goes up to Fuller Frame. Beyond that are Impressive Frame, then Excessive Frame. In the other direction Full Frame goes down to Sufficient Frame, Adequate Frame, Scant Frame, Inadequate Frame and finally Insufficient Frame."

Mike replies: That actually does about nail it! I've shot with Insufficient Frame, and an 8x10-inch sensor would clearly be Excessive Frame. I usually shoot with Sufficient Frame and Adequate Frame.

Spectacular Dud

Figures. The alleged "new Sony APS-C flagship" will be nothing of the sort; and it won't be coming in May as originally expected, either. Sony Alpha Rumors now predicts that it will be called the "ZV-E10." They say journalists have had it in their hands for a long time now and are just waiting around for the NDA to expire, that it will have no viewfinder and the same old 24mm sensor (Seinfeldism: not that there's anything wrong with that), and is to be positioned as a vlogging/streaming camera.

In other words, nothing to see here, move along. By the way, did you know that the venerable RX100 series 1" point-and-shoots have morphed into the ZV-1 (below), a version specifically made for vlogging?

More videos of me!

Bleh. Maybe I'm crotchety this morning*, but I'm tired of camcorders oppressing cameras. I don't want a camcorder. I'm a photographer. I like "stills cameras," previously known throughout most of history as "cameras." It might be old-fashioned, but I grew up pointing cameras away from my head.

Sorry, I'll stop now. Nothing against vloggers; it's a cool thing to do and it's a dynamic arena right now. My only gripe is that I don't want my bow-and-arrow to also shoot bullets. At least not all the choices. Actually, what's probably happening is that Sony wants to push serious photographers into its full-frame product lines, and not-so-subtly discourage buyers from thinking that "little" 1-inch and APS-C sensors are appropriate for anything but video.

Anyway, so much for my attempts to soften the ground for a review of the new top-o'-the-line.

And by the way, this is a good example of why I don't typically talk about products that aren't here yet. There's plenty of time to talk about products after they're out in the sunlight. 

Dogs and Dawgs
Most people know the expression "Pavlov's dog." Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov was studying in the 1890s how dogs salivate when presented with food when he noticed that the test animals began to salivate when they heard the footsteps of the assistant approaching with the food. He became fascinated with what became known as "classical conditioning" and spent the rest of his life studying this kind of learning.

We Photo Dawgs are not above that...we've been conditioned to salivate, figuratively speaking, over the next new thing, the enthusiasm for which I once called neomania. I don't know about you, but I'm actually kinda tired of neomania and the constellation of conditioned behaviors surrounding it in Internet culture...all the breathless speculation, wish-lists, ultimatums in advance ("It better have x or I'll..."), arguments over what the coming product will or will not have (when all you need to do, all you can do, is wait and see), and the inevitable let-downs. I don't know why I still get snared every once in a while...it was a lesson I learned in the early '90s waiting for the Nikon N8008s! Boy, how I admire people who just find a box, learn to make it do what they want to do, and get on with it. It ain't the golf club, it's the swing that counts.

Anyway, I'm getting an A6600, because I want to explore the Sigma Contemporary Trio on APS-C. But that's a different subject, about which more later. Sorry for the wasted bandwidth earlier in the month.

Mike

*I used to call myself a "curmudgeon in training," but I finished my training and got my certificate....

Book of Interest this week:

Ralph Eugene Meatyard: American Mystic (Fraenkel Gallery, 2017). An excellent introduction to Meatyard's quirky, spooky worlds, and Fraenkel Gallery's productions are always a cut above. The link is a doorway to Amazon.

Also sponsored by...

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

John Krill: "Re 'I don't want a camcorder. I'm a photographer.' YES. That's why I love Fujifilm. When I read reviews of the Fujifilm X-E4 that mentioned poor vlogging experience I knew I made the right choice. Because I'm a still photographer not a videographer or whatever they call themselves. P.S. The X-E4 has turned out to be a better camera than I thought it would be."

Stephen Scharf: "Camera companies, YouTubers, and as audio reviewer Hans Beekhuizen calls it, 'the social media,' spend an incredible amount of time and resources to convince you that if only you'll buy the latest and greatest camera, you will be a better photographer. This is bullish*t.

"As you mentioned in an article you posted back in 2008 entitled 'Big Sticks' (remember that one?), it's not about the size of the bat you use, it's how hard you swing it that matters. At the end of the day, you're gong to find that an A6600 doesn't take photos that engage with your viewers any more than your X-H1. Or your X-T1, for that matter.

[Ed note: Jeff S. and DavidB found that post—here it is. Featuring Stephen's great shot of Chris the V. Thanks, Jeff and David.]

"Just give me a camera with excellent shutter life, a fit-for-purpose AF system (Canon 1D MkII-level), a proper-sized grip, and a stiff and strong lens mount on a durable and rugged body, and I'm good to go. How successful my photographs are is overwhelmingly due to how well my vision and execution can realize my intention, rather than having eye-AF or 30 FPS. And, having the discipline to show up for the shot."

Mike replies: But Stephen, the X-H1 is no longer new. (Kidding.)

My Fujis are not going anywhere.

Albert Smith: "Re 'I don't want a camcorder. I'm a photographer. I like "stills cameras," previously known throughout most of history as "cameras..."' Yes, yes, yes! I have several Swiss Army knives and Leatherman multi-tools, and if you need a screw driver or a small file in a situation where you don't have a proper tool box, they can really bail you out. But you wouldn't use them for serious work under the hood of your car or home repair. Why use a Swiss Army camera?

Mike replies: Ah, I'm going to steal that term, if you don't mind.

Thomas Walsh: "Amen to Stephen Scharf's comment."

Sony A6600: Is the Price Premium Worth It?

First, I know I joke about how it rains every time I get a camera to review, but it's a little freaky and I really don't like it. I have the A6600 here for a week, and the last three days have been more or less constant rain. I left my tea mug outside yesterday morning and this morning there's an inch of rainwater in it. I've still been shooting every day, but dang, cut it out.

Sony is just about to replace its high-end APS-C camera. According to various rumors, none confirmed, the new camera will resemble the A7C in design and have a higher-resolution sensor. Can we assume it will sport the latest Bionz XR processor, and therefore inherit the overhauled menu system that debuted on the A7S III? Don't ask me; there's nobody in here but us chickens. But that would certainly be a sound move, as the current menu system is of the HM type. (HM: hot mess). My guess on price: $1,598. Just a guess.

The A7C has a PASM dial on top of the top plate, which makes more sense than an inset one, and it has a secondary control wheel tucked into the back which allows the main control dial to be dedicated to exposure compensation.

In the not even two years since its introduction, however (it was announced in August of 2019), the A6600 has commanded a hefty price differential above and beyond its lesser siblings. The series has several tiers: the A6000 has been a price leader for years and is still available in kits; the new base model, the A6100, is currently $750 at B&H Photo, while the intermediate A6400 is $900, or combined with a kit lens for $100 more. The A6600, meanwhile, is back up to its regular price of $1,400 from the recent sale price of $1,200, although the price might differ on Amazon.

I'm here to tell you that in my opinion the A6600 is absolutely worth the price disparity. It's not a perfect camera (despite a myriad of attempts over 182 years, that hasn't been accomplished yet), but the build quality is special. Everything about it exudes quality and care in construction. In fact, the "gestalt" of the camera reminds me of nothing so much as the day I unwrapped my much-awaited Leica M6 in the parking lot of a Post Office many years ago—it has that same super-solid, overbuilt, quality-foremost, carved-from-a-single-block feeling. The grip is wonderful, I really like the card slot position (which on the A6000 is fiddley for my large fingers) and the knobs 'n' dials 'n' buttons are smooth, tactile, and pleasing.

These kinds of things matter on a camera, to me. The A6600 is similar to the other A6xxx-series camera, present and past, but it's really a different camera, because of the build quality.

Now as to the new one just being loaded into the starting gate: it will no doubt have some changes I would like, and it will get some things wrong. I ran into a fellow on a forum who was just ranting and railing about the fact that Sony would launch a new APS-C camera when what he is waiting for the A7 IV (I think...I get them mixed up). He was very bitter and couldn't stop perseverating on his disappointment. I really felt like giving him a paternalistic lecture, but then I realized we each have to learn our own lessons. If there's one thing I've learned about the camera marketplace over the years, it's this: never put your faith in vaporware. Any new camera that comes out is never going to be exactly what you think it should be. I'm sure a few of the things I like about the A6600 will be missing in action, or (needlessly, in my opinion) changed, on the new one. That's just the way it always is.

In fact, it's almost like it's a law: every new camera introduction will have some feature or other that you are convinced the manufacturer got wrong, or some conspicuous (to you!) weakness. (That's the "If only it had..." rule.) Just like every old retro camera will have at least one feature that would have to be modernized to make it fully usable now. It's always something.

The best thing about the A6600, though, imperfect as it may or may not be for any given user, is its absolutely deluxe feel and build. I love it. It's up to you whether that would be worth paying for, but it's a perfectly good reason for it to cost more.

Mike

Book of Interest this week:

The Education of a Photographer, Edited by Charles H. Traub, Steven Heller, and Adam B. Bell, Allworth Press, 2006, 256 pages. A small but rich gold mine of short essays and interviews by and about photographers. Also available from The Book Depository with free shipping worldwide.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

JOHN B. GILLOOLY: "I've been using the A6600 alongside the A9/A9II since it was released. I like to have the two form factors as they have different strengths and expand my lens versatility. The A6600 operates and performs parallel to the A9II—you don't feel like you are going to a 'lesser' body when you use it—just a different body."

Dan Khong: "Mike, I think you will eventually evolve into a test driver of weather-proofed cameras and lenses. Just sayin'."

Mike replies: There ya go. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, right? Anyway the sun is shining now.

Eric Rose: "Exceptional build quality seems like such a waste these days since digi cameras generally don't stay in the hands of the first owner for more than five years. Unless the owner is shooting professionally the average digi owner can get away with something that's less elegant and not built to withstand a nuclear attack. So IMHO the price differential is a waste of money and does not increase the likelihood the user will take any better photos than a cheaper model."

Mike replies: A fair point, but to me build quality is about more than longevity. It increases my pleasure when I'm using the camera.

Huw Morgan: "I had an A6600 for a year before succumbing to GAS and buying an A7c. The A6600 was a gem. You've mentioned the build quality, but the battery life and the autofocus were also superb. My only complaint was that Sony dropped the useful built-in flash."

Canon v. Canon

The other day in the "Competition from Used" post I said, "It's almost like we're in the exact opposite situation of the one we were in at the turn of the millennium." Which got me to thinking.

Back then, Canon had just introduced the D30 (not 30D, but D30) a "reasonably priced" digital SLR that had a three megapixel sensor. It was bigger news in the photography world then than anything at all is now. Photo writers across the globe breathlessly ventured the holy-grail claim—that the D30 it was almost as good as, or as good as, or a little bit better than, the results you could get with 35mm film! This was hotly and happily debated far and wide. I was Editor-in-Chief of Photo Techniques magazine at the time, and at the magazine we offered a selection of "Collector Prints" taken with the new D30 by a guy from Canada I had met a few years earlier by the name of Michael Reichmann. Michael's prints were meant to show off the new Canon and make the case for digital as something that might actually be viable for enthusiast non-pro photographers, an idea to which there was still a lot of resistance at the time.

Now cut to today and compare that situation to this: the Canon EOS M6 Mark II is in its second iteration already and it's hardly even made a blip on my personal radar screen...even though I prefer small cameras and tend to pay attention to them. Lens options are limited, but paired with its standout 32mm ƒ/1.4 normal prime lens, its capability compared to Y2K norms is just insanely good. It's a small carry-around camera no bigger, really, than an original Barnack Leica. (Strange that Leica would let another company call any camera M6, but maybe some kind of statute of limitations has run out.) The little lens, which is about two and a quarter inches long (56.5mm) and weighs just slightly more than eight and a quarter ounces (235g), is nevertheless a no-apologies fast normal with superlative performance—and very nice bokeh I might add. The little camera has a spectacular 32-megapixel sensor (more than ten times as many pixels as the D30, n.b.) and is reputed to be very fast. Any way you look at it, the little M6 Mark II runs rings around the hot news from October 2000.

Despite all this over-the-top goodness, though, the M6 II barely moves the needle in today's world as far as consumer excitement as concerned, at least that I can tell. Certainly nothing like the frenzy of interest in the D30 in 2000.

The lens and camera together cost $1,328, which might be somewhat of an impediment to interest, but then, it's neither a compromised camera nor meant to be a budget alternative. And consider that, adjusted for inflation, that $1,328 would have been only $866 in 2000, the year the Canon D30 came out at $3,000 and DPReview called it an "unbeatable" value for money. Put the other way around, the D30 would cost $4,600 today. That was cheap compared to the digital SLRs that newsrooms were paying $25,000 for only a few years earlier. And by the way, DPReview calls the M6 Mark II "a good bit cheaper" than the Sony it competes against (they must mean the A6600). Of course, you might also want the M6's removable $199 EVF-DC2 viewfinder, but that's up to you.

The M6's only problem? Odd, but it might be a little too old fashioned. Not enough bigger/better than its biggest existential threat and wannabe competitor, the smartphone.

Mike

Book of Interest this week:

How Photography Became Contemporary Art: Inside an Artistic Revolution from Pop to the Digital Age, by Andy Grundberg, Yale University Press, 296 pages. A longtime critic and observer attempts a synthesis. Good reading. Also available from The Book Depository with free shipping worldwide.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Ken Bennett: "Back in the fall of 2000, the university where I work hosted a presidential debate. I was going to cover it shooting all film, of course, but Canon Professional Services offered to loan me the as-yet unreleased D30 digital camera. So I got one and shot some test images, figuring they would be okay for maybe a website, and I was amazed at the overall quality of those photos. I ended up shooting most of the events surrounding the debate and some of the debate itself with that D30. Had a double-truck image in the alumni magazine from one frame, and it looked great. Nothing like today, of course, but easily comparable to or better than the Fujicolor 800 color neg we were shooting at the time.

"Then I had to send it back, which turned out to be a huge blessing. I had shot 1,500 frames and had no idea how to handle them; editing, viewing, captions—none of it. I was used to shooting film and scanning individual images for print reproduction (or making actual prints in a darkroom). So I spent the next couple of months figuring out how to manage all the digital files. Then we got our first D30 that winter, the second one a few months later, and a pair of the original 1D bodies the following year. (Four megapixels! Eight frames per second! Amazing autofocus! Seriously, they were da bomb, and the later 1D Mark II was my favorite Canon ever. Shot a lot of good photos with those.)

"Kudos to Canon for the D30. It changed my life and my career in so many amazing ways. I could go on at length.  :-)  "

Tom Burke: "I use Canon cameras and have for many years, so the M line ought to interest me. However, it doesn't—there aren't enough good lenses (and none from third party suppliers that I know of) and a lot of the cameras are missing viewfinders—I need a VF.

"I was however attracted to that sensor, so I bought the M6's cousin, the 90D, which has the same sensor in an APS-C DSLR body. Yes it's bigger and heavier than the M6 but it's lighter than the full frame camera I had previously. I'm delighted with it, and given the price of Canon's R series, I suspect I've bought my Final Camera. The 90D and my iPhone 12 Pro will do me for the foreseeable future.

"I never had a Canon D30, but I did have its successor, the D60, which I bought used. That was my first DSLR and was the game-changer for me—previously I'd had EOS 35mm SLRs."

R. Edelman: "The Canon D30 made me think of Bill Biggart, the photographer who was killed at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He had some film cameras and a D30. The only images that survived were from the D30. Even though the lens was ripped from the camera, the compact flash card survived. That's one tough camera."

Ed. note: Bill Biggart's website is still up, and contains a picture of his ruined D30 as well as a small selection of his recovered 9/11 images. 

Srsly? The New Pentax

I have to admit I was shocked when I found out the price of the new Pentax.

For those of you not following along with DSLR news (more and more people, lately), Pentax has introduced a newly designed camera that unfortunately has an iteration naming convention because of where it falls in the lineup. And an awkward iteration it is—the K-3 Mark III, or K-3 III. I gather that should be pronounced kay-three-three. Pretty soon Porsche will get to the 911th version of the 911, I guess. I would love there to be a Porsche 911 Mark CMXI. (That's the roman numeral for 911 as you've probably guessed.)

But it's not a refresh, not the old model warmed over. It's all new.

Some intriguing improvements
What's so special about it? Well, I've not seen one, but according to everybody's go-to site for nutz 'n' boltz, Amazon's DPReview, it has a new sensor. An MB sensor. That stands for mo' bettah, which as far as I can tell is how every new sensor is trumpeted on release. Or 90% of them anyway. Maybe I've become inured to marketing hype.

The best glass pentaprism viewfinder ever on an APS-C DSLR. Okay, they've got my attention.

MB autofocus. Goes in the "I'm jaded, show me" bin.

MB IBIS. Okay, that tweaks my GAS a tad too. Wouldn't take much to beat the SR (shake reduction) in the old K-20, but then, that came out in April of 2008, Grandpa. (I was around back then, sonny!)

Big honkin' battery that lasts forever. I admit that this always appeals to me.

All-new, better, longer-lasting (300k actuations) shutter. Okay; like the sound of that.

There's video-y stuff. Don't care, don't care.

The camera looks the absolute business. Reminds me of the Jeep Gladiator somehow. Or the new Bronco. I am not supposed to care how a camera looks, but of course I do. This has always been a strength of Pentaxii; they tend to look like cameras are supposed to look.

It's Ricoh's flagship APS-C DSLR. DPReview thinks it's clear that a lot of genuine clean-sheet engineering effort has gone into this camera, and that is worthy of some respect unless and until we find out differently.

Maybe I should check that out
So I was just thinking, hmm, I used a lot of Pentaxes a decade ago, I should really catch up with them and see what they've been up to recently, maybe I'll request one for review. It can't cost that much, right? It's got a fixed viewing screen. As in, doesn't articulate at all. You know, like Grandpa's DSLR. Hey, at least you won't have to fret about flip-up vs. flip-out.

But then I got grumpy. I caught myself thinking, bah, they'll probably want fourteen or fifteen hundred for it, the way things are going these days.

Then I looked.

Two grand.

TWO GRAND?!? What? Seriously? That's the exact same price as a brand new in-the-factory-sealed-box K-1 II! Full frame, half again as many megapickles, fancy hydraulics all over the viewing screen so you can contort it however you want it K-1 II! That one. It's three hundred dollars more than a Fuji X-T4! That's like John Starks trash-talking Michael Jordan. Same price as the pro Nikon D500! Same price as the full-frame Sony A7 Mark III! Help, I can't stop typing !'s!

Corporations are not actually people, so they cannot actually lie around in the rec room feeling sluggish and useless and puffing one too many joints, but: Ricoh must be high.

Two grand.

Down boy
Well, calm down, hoss. I need to stop applying my price sensitivity level to cameras. It's a bad habit. And it's dumb. There are plenty of people out there for whom the difference between $1,200 and $2,000 for a camera body is not especially meaningful.

Pentaxes look the way cameras are supposed to look.

It occurred to me when I was contemplating the meaning of Erwin Puts's work and relationship to Leica yesterday that my primary allegiance isn't to brands, it's to the people who use the brands. Just because I've only ever owned one Canon doesn't mean I don't like Canon, because I think of Josh H. and Tom B. and all the people I know who have shot with and loved their Canons over the years. My primary attitude toward Leica doesn't link directly to the corporation or even the legend or the lore, it links to Jay B. and Jack M. who both love their very different Leicas. The meaning of Nikon isn't "what do you think of the D850," it's "just think of all the great work that's been done with Nikons by so many different people over the years" from Eve Arnold to Galen Rowell to Peter Turnley.

I haven't always liked Ricoh. (They stiffed me for $2,500 worth of advertising when they bought Pentax. Just said, nah, we're not honoring that, go stuff yourself. Refused to pay the bill.) But I've always really liked people who use Pentaxes. They're the nicest people. It's the users that matter, not the name on the top plate.

So I should just chill out. Two grand means it's out of my price range; it doesn't actually mean it's too expensive.

Here's the K-3 Mark III at B&H. So tell me, how do we feel about the concept of a "flagship APS-C DSLR" in April of 2021, in the era of full-frame mirrorless? Does it feel a little like "most popular mid-size sedan" in the era of SUVs and pickup trucks?

Mike

Book o' this Week:
Accidentally Wes Anderson, the group-sourced book of the Instagram trend, endorsed by the director. Go read about it! <—This is a portal to Amazon; also available at the Book Depository for global delivery with free shipping.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Speed: "Broadly speaking, camera buyers come in two flavors—those that are already in the system and those that are new to the system. Low prices are designed to lure newbies while high prices are designed to net those with a bag full of lenses who don't want to start from scratch. Exception that proves the rule...useful new features and outstanding performance can demand a premium from everyone. A friend and life-long Canon user sold everything (Canon DSLR plus a bag of heavy lenses) and spent a boatload of money for small and light Sony mirrorless products. His chiropractor was the loser."

John McMillin: "Yes, it's a fearsome price. I paid that much for the K-1 when it came out, and was happy to do it, because other FF options were considerably more. For me, the big draw of FF was getting a full-sized OVF again. This new K-3 III promises a view almost as big, and possibly brighter. It will certainly be faster than the K-1, which suits itself to leisurely contemplation of the scene while the buffer writes to the card. So it will be a more versatile camera, for sure.

"The image quality difference between the two doesn't concern me; I can barely tell my K-1 photos from those of my old K-3 (v.1). Good enough is good enough. As with your truck analogy, we're all awash in excess capacity, with pickups that are too tall to load easily, sporty cars too powerful to ever drive hard, and cameras so rich in detail capture that we need to enlarge to ridiculous sizes to find any differences between them. There is something satisfying about doing the job with less, of having just enough and using it fully.

"The key spec I'm waiting to learn is just what the crop option does on the new K-3 III. The K-1's three-way crop gives me fast access to normal, 1.5x [? I don't know what this means —Ed.] and the classic, elegant 1:1 aspect ratios. I suppose the K-3 offers only a square crop, but if it gives 4:3, the artistic choice, I might sell my Micro 4/3 gear and take the plunge. But in a year or so, when prices have declined due to discounting."

Michael J. Perini (partial comment): "It is just so late to the party. I wish them well."

Steve Biro: "This is Pentax trying to do with DSLRs what Leica did with rangefinders. Leica could not compete with modern cameramaking, so they focused on their heritage at increasingly bespoke prices. And now Ricoh is taking a page out of that playbook. I fully expect the replacement for the Pentax K-1 II to be even more money. I wish Ricoh good luck but I'm not sure that it's going to work. They need a lot of conquest sales because the traditional Pentaxian (and I was one for a very long time) is a skinflint."

robert e: "I think the sticker shock is that much greater because Pentax used to be the value brand for the savvy student or amateur. Seems to me that pro-build SLRs are a niche market at this point, so shouldn't we expect niche prices? The price tag may be more harbinger than outlier. I imagine pentaprisms and mechanical shutters aren't getting any cheaper to make, especially at best-of-breed level. 'Why?' is a different question, and perhaps more salient, but not one I can address.

"The thing I miss most about DSLRs might be decent battery life."

Bill Skones: "Milking the faithful with deep pockets. They almost all do it, and Pentax needs to do it. The price of the Pentax KP dropped almost 20% in the nine months from when it was introduced to the following holiday season. It's probably true most enthusiasts don't need a camera costing more than $1,200 and many would be fine with one costing half that. But every manufacturer needs premium, high-margin products, and for Pentax that includes an APS-C DSLR. I plan to buy a K3 III, after the price drops some if I can stave of the GAS. I like the appearance, operation and handling of Pentax cameras. Hope you will get a review copy and let us know what you think. Of course that would not be time well spent on your part, since it would not interest most readers or get many click-throughs to purchase."

Bill Pearce (partial comment): "If the difference between $1,200 and $2,000 is trivial to you, it's god's way of saying you have too much money."

Alex Sarbu (partial comment): "For me the difference between the $1,200 and the $2,000 camera is very meaningful: the $1,200 one would not give me what I want. Yes, the $1,200 camera would be 'cheaper' but it would be money wasted; the $2,000 one looks like a more cost-effective option (YMMV)."

Zyni Moë: "Think someone at Ricoh realises the end is coming and is trying to extract last profits from declining sales: GR III price was also much higher than GR II."

David Dyer-Bennet: "I guess maybe for an APS-C $2k is expensive. Nothing I've looked seriously at in 10 years has been that cheap, though, certainly isn't today."

Andrew Kochanowski: "You know I'm your Pentax guy, though this comment is late. I must have missed this yesterday.

"The K-3 III was obviously designed just for me. I can't wait to get one. I also think it's a pretty good move for them. With all the talk of DSLRs dying, I think I saw that they still accounted for half of all interchangeable lens camera sales last year. Half is a lot.

"I'd put the $2k price tag in perspective. They aren't going for the working press pros or the sports shooters who already have all the Nikon and Canon gear they need. They are going for the age 45+ amateur and occasional pro who grew up with film SLRs and who know how nice a proper SLR feels. They are selling a premium product like Leica at a still-significant discount from the Leica price of entry. I think the target audience can afford $2k, and think the price point is not a barrier at all.

"I've had the K-5, the K-3 and the KP since 2015 or so, and lemme tell you, they all feel great. Their viewfinders are nice and bright, and I can only imagine how nice the K-3 III will be. They get great battery life, even the smallish KP. If you care about such things (and boy, I do) the rubberized, knurled, and positive tactile feel knobs are great. All of them feel dense, like you're holding a chunk of magnesium covered in nice fake leather (because you are).

"The only knock against these that I ever really saw was the AF. I'm not a sports shooter, and imagine that you'd want the best tracking you could get if you were, but for me, on the street and doing candid stuff, the AF was fine. The new one is supposed to be far better; we'll see."

News Flash: $1000 Off Fuji GFX 50R

This just in—B&H has announced a price of $1,000 off the Fuji GFX 50R body, which they're selling for $3,499 with a free bag and 64GB card. Thought you'd want to know.

Mike

Gear o' The Week:

If I could shoot with any 50mm focal-length-equivalent lens, it would not be unobtanium: it would be the relatively modest, relatively slow, relatively older Pentax 35mm ƒ/2.8 DA Macro Limited on APS-C. I don't know how it measures and couldn't care less. If you care first and foremost about pictures, especially prints, this is one beautiful lens. Luverly. As a normal too. This link is a portal to Amazon, through which most anything you purchase will be credited to TOP. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

B&H Photo also has the Magic Macro, naturally.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

You Just Won!

[Insert yourself here]

Good news! You just won a contest. The prize is the exclusive use of any Fuji GFX camera and any three lenses of your choice, for five years. You have to turn the equipment in at the end of that time.

Which body will you take?

As sweet as the 100S looks, I'd have to go for the GFX 50R. Something about the layout of that camera promises the kind of simplicity and directness that I've craved. And as much time as I've spent thinking about it, I just don't know why I would ever need the extra ~49 MP of the 100 cameras.

I really need to read some reviews of the GFX 50R to see if that simplicity is real or just an illusion. Oh yeah, wait, I was going to request one for review.

If all my wishes come true, someday my entire camera arsenal will consist of a GFX, the latest iPhone, and a 35mm film camera. (Regarding the latter, I'm not going to say which one because I don't want to risk making it more popular than it is!)

But I reserve the option to keep other film cameras around as showpieces. (I like cameras. Does it bum out anyone else that they hardly ever show cameras on "Antiques Roadshow"? They'll show photographs every now and then, but they obviously don't have a "Camera Table" or any experts on hand. What are we, chopped liver? You'd think that if they have not only a toy person and a plate person and pottery person but a doll person, they could at least have one camera guy. What's that Ben said the other day? About "camera gearhead and amateur photographer" being "pretty invisible culturally"? There are certainly camera collectors out there in the world. And newsworthy collectibles. And interesting and compelling stories. Maybe it's just that collectible cameras just aren't sold in antiques shops, but are the province of specialist dealers.)

The GFX 100S seems like a camera of contradictions to me. It's bleeding edge! But it's also niche. It's remarkably cheap! But also extremely expensive. It's innovative and forward-looking! And tailored to a contracting marketplace. It's a clean-slate new system! But it doesn't have any legacy lenses available. It's small! But it's big. And so forth.

It seems like there are three good reasons to get a GFX 100S, only the first two of which are commonly acknowledged: 1.) If you make prints larger than five feet wide. 2.) If you want the freedom to crop down to even just a quarter of the image area. 3.) If the camera really appeals to you and you can picture yourself using it with great pleasure and getting a lot of joy out of owning and using it.

Point 3 doesn't seem difficult to me, but then I'm a big dreamer.

Because let's face it, all cameras are a combination "I need it" and "I want it" in some proportion or another. This one looks to be pressing the "I want it" button pretty hard. Just sayin'.

Mike

Book o' This Week:

André Kertész, On Reading, the lovingly crafted reprint of the lyrical 1971 classic by an early master of the small camera. (Would make an excellent Valentine, for a person who reads.) The above link will take you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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:

Herman Krieger: "Here's an 'Old Camera' table for you, with the expert on hand."

Stephen Scharf: "I'd take the GFX 50R. In fact, I was just looking for used ones on Fred Miranda today (and there aren't any, FWIW). I have a photographer buddy who has produced some beautiful photos with his GFX 50R. The depth and resolution of the tonal range and the fineness of gradation of contrast with both the 50S and 50R is exemplary. Especially on black-and-white photos. The large pixel area on the 50-megapixel sensor GFX cameras don't hurt, in that respect."

Ronny A Nilsen: "100 is not enough.  ;-)  "

Mike replies: Thank you! I meant to include that link somehow.

Frank: "For a hobbyist, reason 3 is the only reason to purchase camera gear. The other two are really extension of number 3—e.g. you want to make five-foot prints or want the freedom to crop. As a hobbyist, this is always a want, and never a need.

"Years ago I went on one of those Pop Photo photo treks—brought along a lower level canon SLR and maybe one out of my three lenses was an L lens. Of course most of the others in the group had professional-level gear. But during that weekend, I saw that some of my photos stacked up well, and the ones that didn't were my fault, not the equipment's. One of my main takeaways from that weekend was that an amateur's camera kit was not a reflection of his/her skill as a photographer, but a function of his/her income, budget, and buying priorities. For a hobbyist, that is all there is to it—to get equipment we love, can afford, and fulfills our desire to make the photographs we want to make."

Mike replies: One of my sly little ambitions when I was young was to photograph with only a beginner SLR, a 50mm lens, and Tri-X, and make better prints than most of the guys who fretted interminably about the latest and best equipment and films. Would have been nice, but as it turns out I'm the worst gearhead I know. But there's something very cool about using basic gear and shooting rings around the toffs with all the latest.

Yonatan Katznelson: "Point #3 is what finally pushed me over the Fuji edge on which I had been teetering for years."

Short Take?

You've probably already seen this. But just in case you haven't...

...Lest you think the companies aren't aware of the fuss about leaks and rumors and so forth.

Very creative. The actors are clearly having fun and do a good job. The line at about the 45 second mark especially (not to give it away) cracked me up.

So tell me, what's your "hundred words or less" short take on the GFX 100S so far?

Mike

Book o' This Week:

Eyes Over the World: The Most Spectacular Drone Photography, by Dirk Dallas. The above link will take you to Amazon.

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:

Rodolfo Canet Castelló: "As a GFX 50R owner, to me the new camera means a reassuring commitment by Fujifilm to the GF system. More pixels I do not need, that's for sure. More lenses, who knows? This is my very short take on the GFX 100S."

Crabby Umbo (partial comment): "Meh...a major error? Trying to make $5,999 seem like three bucks. Might be 'cheap' as medium format cameras go, but more than one-third the cost of my new Kia Soul. This and three decent primes will be more than two-thirds the cost. Not cheap in relation to anything else.... And, if it's like everything else digital I own, probably not more than a five year professional life. Is this targeted to professional photographers, or the upper 10%?"

Edwin replies: "Hi Crabby, Not cheap, yeah. But think Leica S and Leica SL2. And Leica Q2 Monochrome."

Ken Bennett: "The GFX100s is a terrific replacement for the 50S. Slightly smaller, increased resolution, slightly lower intro price. It's not a GFX100 upgrade, no matter how many folks have their knickers in a twist. I won't replace my GFX100, but if I didn't have that, I'd want the 100s."

Kirk Decker (partial comment): " If you want a GFX, get one, but your long term satisfaction or dissatisfaction will come from the camera, the lenses, and the format, not the pixels."

Kenneth Tanaka: "A long-predicted-but-still-astonishing product development accomplishment at such a relatively low price point. Fujifilm continues to hit three-pointers as well as layups. And to more persistently support owners with true-value firmware updates than any other manufacturer. And let’s also not ignore the remarkable newly-announced Sony A1. How much future can PhaseOne or Hassy H have at their price ranges now? Their value propositions as professional commercial tools hang by, what, a leaf shutter? (I’ve no plans to sell my XF/IQ160. It’s a unique full-645-frame CCD beast. But I’ve no intentions on ever upgrading it, either.)"

Peter Wright: "Not needed."

Steve Biro: "The Fuji GFX100S is a lovely camera that delivers fabulous results. More power to those who buy it. But, alas, I cannot afford it and—since I don't print really large (or often)—don't really need it."

c.d. embrey: "How about a fool and his money are soon parted."

Speed: "Not for me but it's good to have choices."

Luke: "It's just what I've been waiting for! But...when is the 200 megapixel version coming?"

PaulW: "<100 words: Want one. Can't afford one."

Tex Andrews: "Clearly the new camera is an excellent digital medium format option at a great price for this sector. I don't see how there's an argument about that. The main issue remains the cost of the lenses you will need to go with it which will quickly bring you to $10K and beyond if you need more than two lenses (the used market for Fuji lenses is small and also expensive, unlike Pentax). So it's not the camera cost, it's the system cost."

Benjamin Marks: "I laughed out loud at the ad for two reasons. The first is my narrow slice of the universe: camera gearhead and amateur photographer is pretty invisible culturally. The humor of the ad is so calibrated to that segment (my segment) that it took me by surprise, which is the essence of humor in my opinion.

"The second thought is that the ad also pokes fun at the ad-hype machinery in the camera world, which I have been saying for years has become more like the fashion industry in its cycle than what it was when I grew up: durable goods. The utter nonsense of 'leaks' and 'rumors' stoking a popular appetite for consumer electronics is, at last, laughable—a mockery of itself. So in that sense, the ad is like a postmodern short film that, once again, is aimed squarely at me.

"As for the camera, I am delighted. I can't afford it, but I feel like I am gaining ground on a camera of this overall capability just be standing in place and watching the world swoosh by. I have written here before that I comfortably occupy the trailing edge of tech innovation. When the 'standard' shifts to 100 MP, it makes the 12-MP Nikon D3's out in the world that much less expensive. And, eventually, I will upgrade to the 100 MP standard—when it has become boring and reasonably priced.

"Keep in mind that every photograph you have ever loved has been made at a lower resolution than this new Fuji provides. To quote our host: just sayin'."

longviewer: "What other comments say is sad but true. The top 20% can now buy a 1% camera, as the Leica reference suggests. Quite clever and clearly geek-driven ad but I'm like many readers here: a priced-out spectator."

Getting a Grip on the New Fuji Offerings: X-E4

Yesterday Fuji introduced five new products, and I spent the day writing an "Open Mike" on a ridiculous subject that, in the cold gray light of morning, made me think what were you thinking? A hoary, stereotyped baby-boom-generation topic. Younger people would have thought, sheesh, you're livin' in the past, boomer.

Many years ago I had a student with the flat-out wonderful name of Lely ("lay-lee") Constantinople. Once, when she stuck her head out of the gang darkroom to look at her print in the light, I overheard her say to herself, "Lely, get a grip." The door swing shut and she disappeared back inside.

Get a grip, Mike.

Fuji has re-introduced the X-E series, which had been discontinued some time ago (had you noticed? I didn't think so). This series is Fuji's miniaturized "rangefinder-style" (no SLR hump, viewfinder window in the upper left as you face the camera from the back) cameras that are the same size as, and were meant to compete with, the Sony NEX cameras, which became the Sony A-6000 series, currently embodied by the high-tech A-6600 and the price leader A-6000. For some odd reason, the Sony cameras, which have never had a very complete or sensible APS-C lens line, sell well, whereas Fuji's competing offerings, which do have a complete and sensible APS-C lens line, do not sell well.

On the other hand, the X-E series is basically the interchangeable-lens variant of the celebrated X100 series, and that does sell well. So maybe it all balances out even though it doesn't make any sense.

Anyway: the new rejuvenated X-E4 is almost the same size as the old X-E3. Elsewhere on the Internet you will read that the X-E4 is the "smallest E-series ever," because that's how Fuji's plugging it, but c'mon, Internet, it's one millimeter shorter and has had its vestigial handgrip shaved off, that's all. (TOP serves it up straight, not filtered.) It's also 27 grams lighter, OK, but no one needed an X-E3 to be lighter. (Fuji doesn't give the weight for the optional MHG metal hand grip, but I bet it's more than 27 g.)

As with Fuji's last redesign of the X100 series, the design of the X-E4 is sleeker and cleaner. Fuji seems to have been influenced somewhat by Leica's small-camera aesthetics recently.

The usual range of incremental improvements have been applied; everything's the latest and bestest. It's got 18 film simulations, so this is a camera ideally suited to shooting out-of-camera JPEGs. However it does not have the new "Nostalgic Neg" film simulation that the new GFX 100S has. (Boomers like the sound of "Nostalgic Neg." All people older than 60 are either nostalgic or liars. It's been that way since the invention of human consciousness. Things aren't better because you're young when you're young, but things were always better when you were young once you're old.)

The X-E4 will be available with the new, redesigned 27mm pancake lens for only $200 more. That's in contrast to the longtime "normal" lens for the Sonys, a Zeiss-labeled 24mm that is exceptionally long for its spec and has never not been uncommonly expensive. I love that Zeiss 24mm, but it costs more than the new Fuji lens and this new Fuji camera together, which seems fairly nuts. Oh, and that now-missing grip? There's an add-on grip for the Fuji, so it's your choice. Of course, Sony's A6xxx grips are free; Fuji will soak you for an extra $90 if you want to get a grip on the X-E4.

(You see what I did there.)

On the good side, the grip has a built-in Arca-Swiss plate for your tripod. And no, it's not ridiculous to tripod the X-E4: this camera will be fully capable of providing objectively very high-quality results despite its diminutive size.

There's also a spiffy matching thumb rest.

The new 27mm ƒ/2.8 Mark II pancake lens (41mm equivalent) has an aperture ring. The original one didn't. The new lens is also weather-sealed, and has a new AF motor. Did I mention yet that you should buy the lens with the camera and the camera with the lens? You should.

Will the X-E4 be more popular than Sony's six thousand series? Should be. Probably won't be. That's the way the cookie crumbles.

Mike

Book o' This Week:

Eyes Over the World: The Most Spectacular Drone Photography, by Dirk Dallas. The above link will take you to Amazon.

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:

Dillan: "That X-E4 looks pretty sweet! Why do I want every Fuji camera that comes out? I'm supposed to be a Canon guy. Get a grip, Dillan!"

JoeB: "One thing the new X-E4 does not have is in-camera image stabilization. For this coffee drinker, that, I'm afraid, is what the web calls a deal-breaker. Checks all the rest of the boxes though."

Chris Bertram: "I'm confused, Mike. I though the X-Pro series was the interchangeable lens version of the X100, but you have it as being the XE. Was I wrong?"

Mike replies: Well, I think "wrong" is too strong a word. That sort of thing is all open to interpretation. To me the size of the X-E[x] and X100[x] is very close, and the X-Pro series seems more like the "rangefinder-style" equivalent of the X-T[x] "SLR-style" cameras. But this is just my take on it. I haven't got any special authority.

Kenneth Tanaka adds: "Chris Bertram is correct; the X-Pro camera line is the interchangeable lens answer to the X100 line. Both the X-Pro and X100 have that distinctive and complex hybrid reverse Galilean viewfinder, versus the XE camera line which features a simple off-center EVF located roughly where a Leica viewfinder would be. I also agree with Huw Morgan that Sony's Alpha 6000-series / NEX line was a master stroke. I still have two in a drawer along with a few lenses. They're brilliant, very capable hybrid design forerunners. And indeed, opening the mount for third party lenses made it far more durable in the marketplace."

Mike: Yes, I forgot about the similar X100/X-Pro viewfinders.

Richard Parkin: "Some possibly more interesting Fujifilm news is that in the U.K., the Novavax vaccine, which has just successfully passed its trials, will be manufactured by Fujifilm Diosynth in Billingham, Teesside. (I don’t know where it will be manufactured in U.S. and elsewhere.)"

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.

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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.

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(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."