The two camera kit 7 October 2018

As I looked through the list of new and refreshed products announced at Photokina this year I realised that I have no interest in buying any of them.

Why ?

1.1  I hate the whole clumsy, clunky business of having to change lenses. I did this for 50 years and never want to go back to it. I have found the process of changing lenses to be the most ergonomically disruptive aspect of camera use that I have encountered in my 65 years of making photographs. 

So I have no interest in any of the interchangeable lens models being proudly displayed by the various makers.

1.2  I hate lens mounts. They are the curse of modern camera design. The argument for lens mounts is that they enable interchangeable lenses. What is less often mentioned is that they substantially make multiple lenses necessary.

Fixed lens models can utilise zooms of highly efficient optical and mechanical design which can be much smaller or have a wider aperture (or both) than lenses separated from the body by a mount.

By removing the lens mount Canon was able to fit into the G1X3 a lens of the same focal length range as that on the M5  with a slightly wider aperture. My copy of the G1X3 lens is sharper all round than the ILC 15-45mm. The size difference is obvious.

Same story with these Lumix models. On the left the G9X with 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 lens. The LX100 Mk2 on the right uses the same sensor but cropped to about 90% of the linear measurement. The lens aperture on the LX100Mk2 is two stops wider than that of the 14-42mm even though the package is much smaller.

2. I hate focal plane shutters. They are loud, they sound like  little jack hammers in burst mode, they limit camera performance and can produce shutter shock in some situations.

Most of  the interchangeable lens models announced still have a focal plane shutter. (some of the medium format models offer lenses with a leaf shutter)

If the sensor makers have not yet gotten global shutter technology ready for the consumer market I will go for cameras which use a leaf shutter in the lens. These are almost silent and have very low inertia.  Thus they can respond very quickly when the shutter button is pressed  and as far as I am aware have not been reported to produce shutter shock.

3. I have no interest in single focal length lenses be they fixed to the camera or interchangeable. Zooms are now so good I use them all the time.   So I am not interested in any camera which has a single focal length lens.

4. I will not buy any camera which lacks a built in EVF.   I live in Sydney and travel around Australia and have found cameras without a built in viewfinder pretty much useless in bright sunlight.

I also have long ago given up using optical viewfinders. These simply do not have the WYSIWYG capability of a good EVF.

5. I hate big cameras. They are heavy, they attract sometimes unwanted attention to themselves and they are generally expensive.

6. I hate the appearance of pictures made with on-camera flash. So for low light/indoors work I want a camera with a wide aperture lens.

I prefer bridge cameras and compacts.    These form the basis of my two camera kit as described below.

I base my camera kit on an indoors/low light-vs-outdoors/action paradigm.

For my purposes the best type of camera for indoors/low light is an advanced zoom compact.  Some of these have a wide aperture lens giving good low light capability.

My picks in this category are:

* One of the Sony RX100 variants. I have the Mk4 which does a good job. The Mk5 is also reported to perform very well although the high speed sensor seems like overkill for this type of camera and better suited to the RX10Mk4 (see below).

* Panasonic Lumix LX100, original or Mk2. I sold my LX100 and pre-ordered a Mk2 which has not yet arrived. The Mk2 is a Mk1 with the sensor and processor from the GX9 plus a touch screen.

Nothing else really appeals. The G5X might if Canon ever decides to release a Mk2 version with a faster processor and better lens than the original.

I have a G1XMk3 which is a decent camera but not best suited to low light/indoors work due to the small aperture of the lens which is 1.5-2 stops slower than that on the LX100.

For outdoors/actionI prefer an advanced bridge model.  The list of suitable candidates here is even shorter.

* I prefer and use the Sony RX10Mk4. This thing delivers super-camera performance, has an excellent lens and good image quality. It is best suited to outdoors work but is not bad indoors due to the decently wide lens aperture. The only aspect of the RX10Mk4 which I find less than fully satisfying is the ergonomics which could easily be improved with some minor changes to the design and user interface.

The RX10Mk4 can handle just about anything outdoors from landscape to birds in flight.

* Next best I rate the ageing Panasonic Lumix FZ1000 which is still a very good camera but the performance, lens focal length range and continuous AF capability are not quite up to that of the Sony.

Unfortunately R&D in both these types of camera appears to have stalled in recent times with a sharp decline in the rate of new models.

This is a big disappointment to me. It seems the camera companies have (almost) all decided that their fortunes lie in the full frame mirrorless ILC sector in which I have no interest at all.

I can make excellent big prints of any desired size from cameras which use the so called “one inch (15.9mm diagonal) and “four thirds” (19.4mm diagonal when cropped as in the LX100) size sensors.

You may read pontifications from armchair experts claiming that only a “full frame” sensor can deliver good pictures. This is complete nonsense and likely a case of someone trying to justify having spent more money on a camera kit than was necessary.