Photokina is now underway, Panasonic made a lot announcements, mainly compacts including a 1 inch sensor compact that I am sure is going to get rebadged by Leica.
The rumoured Fuji medium format made an appearance which will be interesting. For users wanting a small good handling medium format camera you just really had the Leica S to choose from but now we have the new Hasselblad X1D-50c and the new Fuji GFX 50S. Its a tough to say which is best, I think the Hasselblad may just come top, and at 51 MP the Fuji is certainly a megapixel king, but the Leica S system may still hold on to second place with the selection of lens available.
Certainly with these offerings the Leica S needs upgrading soon as at £13,165 and only 37.5 MP the competition is coming.
We have now had the first Leica announcement and it really came from left field. No Leica T replacement or the much waited for M; no but a film camera, an instant film camera. Basically its a rebadged Fuji Instax, and at £250 I expect it may do well for some people wanting a fun party camera.
Personally as most people have smartphones this days you would be better off adding a battery operated wireless printer which would cost about half of what this would.
Canon have released their best mirrorless yet, we now have very good bodies from Leica, Sony, Panasonic, Fuji, Olympus and Canon are slowly getting there. Note a major manufacture missing, yep Nikon, come on Nikon get your act together.
If I had no cameras at all then I would likely buy the Leica S for my medium format solution, Leica M for my full frame mirrorless and I am hoping that the new Leica TL will be a cropped sensor sensation. If I had to buy a mirrorless now it would be between Panasonic and Olympus.
On the Leica front we have rumours of a new zoom for the SL and new primes bringing the range to 35mm, 50mm, 75mm and 90mm so a good range of primes and zooms of 16-35mm, 24-90mm and 90-280mm. With adapters for Nikon and Canon SLR cameras plus the ability to shoot with any Leica lens made its now quite a system.
So there we have it, the new iPhone 7. I actually found it quite impressive, better colour gamut for both screen and camera, colour management, and the ability to shoot in RAW using Adobe DNG, not a proprietary format like Canon and Nikon.
With phones now getting this good, the small sensor compact is dead.
The watch also I thought was a good improvement, thinner screen, 30% bigger battery, nearly twice the performance. With waterproofing and gps, I can now log my walks, runs, etc without having to carry my phone and not worry when I swim, kayak or sail.
Not long now to Photokina, and the latest Leica rumour is definitely two cameras will be announced including the Leica T replacement, possibly called the TL but the second will not be the M.
Looks like my wallet can take a breather.
Will the other camera be the new X, and will it be fixed lens or Vario. Hope its the fixed lens with built in viewfinder, basically a mini Q would go down well.
Native Leica TL LensWhen the Leica T was released, a unibody DX cropped sensor compact, it was quite a revelation, it showed Leica were into pushing technology forward, and while it had issues (slow and no built in viewfinder), as each new firmware was released it got better and better.
The Leica T with its T mount did interest people because the mount was huge, yet the sensor in the T was just DX, people hoped that this meant a full frame version was coming. Well that arrived with the Leica SL and the T mount was renamed the L mount, with the lens for the T re-branded TL.
The T has now become officially discontinued but this week saw the release of a new TL lens, a DX crop 60mm macro. I think its safe to say that the T system will continue for now in both DX and full frame forms, with a new T coming soon and the SL its mirrorsless big brother giving people the choice between 35mm crop DX and full frame autofocus cameras and lens and the equipment size and depth of field options this gives.
I was reading Thom Hogan website and his thoughts on mirrorless cameras. His view is that Sony, Olympus and Canon are now the big players and that Nikon are dropping fast.
While I find the Nikon Series 1 system interesting its never going to compete against the other mirrorless options, its because of that I have always considered it my ‘compact’ camera and less of a real mirrorless solution. When I want small and mirrorless I always grab my Leica M and its in this vain that I think Sony are likely to be top of the mirrorless pile.
The original Nikon V1 was overpriced (I got a good deal and all the lens thrown in), but had some nice features. It was the first fast focusing mirrorless camera with dedicated photo sites on the sensor to improve focus performance, and had a built in viewfinder, which I found actually better then a Sony Nex-7 at the time.
The ergonomics of the camera were terrible but I could forgive that for the small nature of the system, good quality images and excellent viewfinder.
I kept hoping for the issues to be fixed but it never did really get much better, certainly not good enough for me to spend any more cash on.
The V2 never really improved things, but the V3 did make a number of improvements but they lost the built in viewfinder which was what stopped me from buying it.
Thom thinks the Series 1 system is now dead and with Nikons recently announced large sensor compacts offering far more its really hard to justify spending any more cash on them.
Coffee and Cameras – Nikon V1 10mm f/2.8
If I was advising someone now what mirrorless system to buy into, I would say get microfourthirds. The Olympus and Panasonics are hard to beat and offer a good compromise on size and performance.
What will I get next? I keep thinking about a Panasonic GX8 or Olympus OM10, but having a selection of Leica M glass (and M glass does work well on microfourthirds), I keep wondering what Leica will replace the Leica T with. If it ends up like a mini SL with viewfinder I would be extremely tempted.
This is an old shot from back in February. I am currently going through my back catalogue and making sure the keywords and metadata is correct before getting finally filed away.
I recently changed my filing system so its a good excuse to check my older photographs.
I try and go for a walk round Lincoln at least once or twice a week and a trip up to the cathedral and Bailgate region at least once every couple of months.
If any of you were up there this August bank holiday you would have had quite a treat as it was the annual steam punk festival.
We decided to take it easy this bank holiday and just potter around the village making chutney and jam from the glut of marrows we currently have in the garden and frequent long walks with Timmy together with the odd trip to the village pub to check out this weeks guest beer.
I was reading a long term review the other day of one of the current state of the art high megapixel full frame mirrorless cameras. The article linked to another photographer who as a bit of fun had published a few old shots from fifteen years ago taken on medium format film.
Fuji Velvia Film Scanned & processed in LR4
He had recently taken again the same shots with his new mirrorless camera and there was not a lot in it, but the new digital state of the art mirrorless did just pip it.
We are now in a new golden age of photography where kit costing a fraction of the tens of thousands of pounds professional photographers used years ago, can produce better images.
Even better, those of us who like using old classic film cameras like the Ebony, and Hasselblad V (see the first two shots above, third shot is cropped sensor mirrorless), can pick them up a fraction of the cost as people get rid of them to upgrade to digital.
