Choosing a new Compact Camera

Canon Powershot G16

 

A Frustrating Exercise

Preparing for a Holiday  I have recently been preparing for a holiday which involves packing light. Weather conditions could be severe so changing lenses is not on the agenda. I selected for my main kit a Panasonic Lumix GH3 with Lumix 14-140mm  "travel zoom" lens mounted for the duration.  But I wanted a compact as backup in case the main camera or lens failed, got dropped in the ocean, eaten by a seal or some such misadventure.

What Kind of Compact  I like cameras onto which you can get a decent grip as opposed to those onto which you can only place the fingertips. I like cameras which have good viewing arrangements, a user friendly interface and well executed ergonomics. Image quality sufficient for A3 or even A2 prints and good performance would be a bonus.  A zoom lens with about 5x zoom range would be required to keep one's distance from large creatures with teeth emerging from the sea. The facility for RAW capture is essential.  Also essential is that the RAW files are supported by Adobe Camera Raw. I have no interest in Video, Wi-Fi, touchscreens, art filters or Scene Modes.

A superzoom might seem the obvious answer but these generally have a very small sensor to the detriment of picture quality and most are as large as a micro four thirds camera with lens mounted.

What's on offer ?  There are many compact cameras on the market with quite a few  in the upper range, suitable for the expert/enthusiast photographer and potentially of interest to me.

With so much apparent competition for the discerning buyer's dollar you might think that finding a suitable one would be easy.

I say "apparent" competition because unfortunately, I found all of the cameras on my short list had significant deficiencies, mainly with regard to performance, ergonomics and the user interface.    On the basis of published reviews, all appeared to have sufficient picture quality for my needs, so that was not a deciding factor for me. 

Canon Powershot G16

 

In Alphabetical Orderthe cameras on my short list were:

Canon G16  I have a history with Canon G cameras, having owned over the years the G7, G9, G10 and G12. Each had it's strengths and weaknesses, but worked reliably and had  a good lens. None was a wonderful camera but none was a disaster. 

The G16 is like many recent Canon products: cautiously delivering minor incremental upgrades to an existing product line but  bringing very little innovation to the genre and failing to make worthwhile ergonomic improvements.

The G16 has a good lens with nice wide aperture and 5.1x zoom range. The body is large enough to get ahold  of  and there is a reasonably comprehensive suite of  direct controls. The 12's articulated monitor has been deleted so the camera could be made slimmer. That should have been the trigger for replacing the antiquated optical viewfinder with an EVF of reasonable quality. But no, Panasonic and even Nikon got there ahead of Canon.

At the time of purchase the G16 was priced competitively which was a significant factor for me.

Fujifilm X20  Some years ago I bought a Fuji X10 and used this for several months. Fuji cameras have a history of innovation in sensor technology and user interface design. This tends to  make their products  interesting for techno- enthusiasts but not always successful as cameras. The X10 had a multitude of problems and issues including the infamous "white orbs", labrynthine complexity of  controls for the EXR sensor when shooting RAW and many ergonomic problems. The X10 did not last long in my camera drawer.

Fuji promises the X20 is "much improved" .............well they would say that.  But I am wary of Fuji.  The company has a history of producing innovative new cameras which are loaded with bugs, faults and foibles. The problems are somewhat rectified over the next two or three iterations of that model sequence.   Then Fuji drops that model line and moves on to the next new big idea with a new round of  bugs and faults.

The X20 body and control layout is basically the same as that of the X10 with a couple of  button functions switched around.  The much vaunted optical viewfinder has only about 85% (linear) coverage and is subject to parallax error as usual with "rangefinder" type OVF's. 

Also, it's a somewhat largish expression of the compact genre.

Nikon P7800  On paper, this one looks like the bees knees. Or to be more specific, the embodiment of my ideal  Proper Camera.   It has a handle, full suite of hard controls, fully articulated monitor, very nice lens with  7.1x reach, wide aperture and very good sharpness on all the tests I could find.  Picture quality appears to be at least up there with most of them.

But it's sloooowwww  Slow to fire up, slow to write files to the card, RAW shot to shot times are excruciatingly slow. The P7700 and P7100 were grindingly slow. Nikon keeps snatching failure from the gates of success. To make it worse, the control layout was described  by one reviewer thus...."it feels as though the ........controls have been piled onto the camera at random".

Oh, yes, and for a compact, it's not all that.......you know.........compact.

Nikon P330   Here is another potentially nice and genuinely compact camera rendered useless to me by it's tediously slow shot to shot times especially with RAW capture.

It is an enduring source of wonder to me that the same company which makes the super fast 1 Series V2 (the rocket camera) can at the same time turn off  buyers with the unbelievably and in my view unacceptably slow P7800 and P330.

Olympus XZ-2    My only experience with Olympus is of the OMD-EM-1 Micro Four Thirds camera, which I found  "interesting" but in some respects incomprehensible. So I am wary of the Olympus way of doing things.  There is  no inbuilt eye level viewfinder. I had also read some very unflattering reviews of the XZ-1 user interface which did not bode well for the XZ-2.

Panasonic LX7    At one time I owned a Lumix LX5. It was a rather nice little compact which really was compact and punched above it's weight for picture quality. I made some nice looking photos with that camera. The LX7 appears to be more of the same, with an even better, wide aperture lens. But there is no inbuilt viewfinder and one reviewer found the rear control dial hard to operate. In addition the buttons and 4 way cursor are small and difficult to operate by feel.

Panasonic LF1  Yes! The small compact gets an EVF, at last. If the lens had a wider aperture at the long end I might be interested. But then it would be larger of course.

Sony RX100/RX100Mk2  These cameras have generated an amazing amount of excited comment from reviewers and bloggers. Their main claim to fame is that they have the largest sensor and highest technical image quality scores of  all the compact cameras (Largest sensor, most pixels, highest DXO Mark score).  But there is a lot more to a camera than technical numbers.

I recently tested the RX100 which had been purchased for a family member going on an ultra long hiking trip solo with full pack. So it was probably the right choice for that person. But image quality outdoors was indistinguishable from the G12 (although the RX100  was much better at high ISO levels indoors). The lens was acceptable but closed to a small aperture at the long end and was unable to reveal all the information potentially contained in a 20 Mpx sensor. Handling and ergonomics were unimpressive. The thing is so small it is hard to hold properly. There is no built in viewfinder.  You can buy one as a clip on for the RX100Mk2.  But with the (expensive) accessory EVF fitted the unit is no longer particularly compact.   The price, even without the EVF  was substantially higher than the other cameras. After using the RX100  for a week I was not inclined to buy one for myself.

My Selection of the Best advanced Compact Camera is.......................None of them.   Every one of them has one or more serious deficiencies of ergonomics, user interface or performance which I suspect drives even more people to smartphones for their photographic needs. 

So, what did I buy?  Which was the least worst of the bunch for my purposes ?

I bought the Canon. Not because I think it is a wonderful camera because that is not the case.

But Canon G cameras have in the past been  reliable tools for me and that, together with sharp pricing and a cashback deal from Canon Australia,  got it over the line. Just.

The G16 desperately needs a decent quality EVF plus several performance and ergonomic improvements if the G lineage is to survive. I will post a review of the G16 in due course.

 

 

Lens Review Panasonic Lumix 14-140mm f3.5-5.6 OIS

Powered By Zooperman

 

a.k.a. 14-140mm Mk2

Another little gem from PanaLumix

Panasonic  has been rolling out some very appealing zoom lenses under the Lumix label in the last two years.  The 12-35mm f2.8 and 35-100mm f2.8 have set a new standard for others to follow. The standard kit zoom 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 Mk2 has been very well reviewed as has the even newer and remarkably diminutive 12-32mm f3.5-5.6.

The Superzoom  From the early days of the M43 system PanaLumix had a 14-140mm f4-5.8 10x zoom which delivered decent but never inspiring performance. This year (2013) a Mk2 version was released. This is smaller, lighter and better optically than the original, making a much more convincing case for the "all in one" travel zoom lens.

I have had one for several months and made about 2000 exposures with it in a wide variety of conditions, mounted on either a GH3 or G6 body.

14-140mm on Lumix G6

Description    The 14-140mm Mk2 is a very light compact superzoom lens for the M43 system. It is compatible with Panasonic Lumix and Olympus M43 cameras.

Dimensions  I thought just for fun I would compare the M43 14-140 Mk2 with the lens which provides near equal angle of view and aperture range for a "Full Frame" camera ie. one with a sensor having a diagonal of 43mm. This actually exists in the form of the Canon EF 28-300mm f3.5-5.6.

Lens	Diagonal Angle of View	Zoom Range	Length mm	Diameter mm	Filter mm	Mass grams	Box Volume cc	Price in Aust AU$	Comment
Canon EF 28-300 mm	75-8.2 degrees	10.7x	194	92	77	1670	1642	2931	Push Pull zoom Trombone type
Lumix 14-140 mm	75-8.8 degrees	10x	75	67	58	265	336	765	Rotating zoom collar

 

The EF lens for full frame has 5 times the volume, 6 times the mass and 4 times the price of the 14-140 for M43. 

If we compare the 14-140mm on a Lumix G6 with the EF28-300mm on an EOS 6D, the Canon kit has 3.7x the mass and 3x the price.

The photo below shows the massive difference in size between the Canon EOS kit and the M43 kit (using a GX7).   The actual Canon lens is not black but ivory color as with other Canon L series long lenses.

On the left, small Canon EOS body with mocked up EF 28-300mm to show relative size. The actual lens is off white.  In the center, Lumix 14-140mmm on Lumix GX7. On the right, Sony RX10 mocked up to show relative size.

 

 I included a Sony RX10 in this photo.   The Sony representation is a bit rough but is accurate as to scale.   With this interesting new release Sony is going after the all in one, high performance zoom market. It uses a smaller (15.9mm) sensor than M43 (which is 21.5mm). The  lens has a smaller zoom range (8.3x) but a wider aperture (constant f2.8) so they are not exactly comparable. It is interesting though, that the are almost exactly the same size and the Sony is heavier than the 14-140 on G6 or GX7.  

Here is a table comparing the two:

Camera Kit	Width mm	Height mm	Depth mm	Box Volume cc	Mass with batt grams	Diagonal Angle of View Degrees	Zoom Range	Lens fstop	Price AUD in Australia
Sony RX10	129	88	102	1158	813	84-12	8.3	f2.8	1449
Lumix G6 + 14-140mm Mk2	120	84	126	1270	670	75-8.8	10	f3.5-5.6	1537

 All this is by way of putting numbers on the fact that the 14-140 lens on any M43 camera provides a very light compact 10x zoom, easily carried all day. 

The 14-140mm fits easily (with the smaller bodies) or snugly (with the GH3) into a Lowe Pro Apex 110 AW shoulder bag.

 

Other Physical/Mechanical Characteristics

The 14-140/2 is, like other Lumix M43 lenses of varifocal design which means it has to be refocussed after zooming and cannot have a distance scale.

It feels very well made (in Japan, if that is relevant), with a metal mount. It is not weather sealed. The zoom action is very smooth without creep. The front element does not rotate. The lens extends 44mm on a single inner barrel when zooming out. The manual focus ring (which activates focus by wire) is nicely damped so it does not spin too easily and rotates very smoothly.

The lens is supplied with a reversible petal type lens hood (which I use all the time) and a soft pouch.

 

There is an OIS  On/Off switch on the lens barrel. I did not formally test OIS effectiveness but it is certainly useful for steadying the EVF image preview particularly at the long end of the zoom range.

With AF single the lens focusses very fast on any recent Lumix M43 camera. It is also very accurate with very few shots showing missed focus. Any time focus is missed it will be due to well known types of subject which pose a problem for any AF system.

With AF Continuous the lens performs very well on the GH3. It can easily follow focus on cars approaching the camera at 60kph at about 4.5 frames per second with almost all frames sharply in focus.

 

Optical Performance 

Resolution  I test this mainly by making lots of photos of different subjects at various focal lengths and apertures. I also use a local grove of casuarina trees with very fine foliage to test sharpness/resolution. Overall the 14-140mm does a very good job at all focal lengths and apertures. Many zooms lose sharpness and contrast at the long end but this one holds up well at 140mm. There is some corner softness at the wide end and the long end, which cleans up if the aperture is closed down about one stop. As with other M43 lenses loss of sharpness due to diffraction begins at about f9.

I rate this lens as slightly below the 14-45mm and 45-150mm in optical performance, but better than the 14-42mm Mk1 and 45-200mm. I have not tested the 14-140mm Mk1 but all reports which I have seen rate the new version to be a  big improvement over the original.

 

Aberrations  Chromatic aberration is corrected on Lumix bodies so is absent in most frames. Distortion is also corrected in camera.

Purple fringing can occur at light/dark boundaries with strong contrast at the edges and corners. This is correctable in Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw but the process may leave double imaging artefacts with some subject elements.

Contrast  Superzoom lenses in my experience tend to low contrast particularly at the long end. However this one does better than most with good overall and local contrast across the focal length range.

Flare  Flare can be induced with the sun just inside or outside the frame edge, but is not severe or prominent.

Local flare can be an issue with subjects having dark structures such as foliage against a bright background such as a cloudy/bright sky. This can induce bleed over flare at the dark/light boundaries. In general however I had to deliberately provoke this in order to find it.

Close up  Closest focussing distance measured from subject to focal plane is 210mm (at 14mm) and 490mm (at 140mm). One easy way to get closer is to fit a screw on 58mm close up lens. Mine is a Hoya +2 diopter which gives good image quality in the central region of the frame but unsharp corners.

Defects and Decentering  In my experience zuperzoom lenses with their complex internal structure, tend to be more prone to decentering and other assembly errors than lenses of more simple construction. My copy has mild evidence of asymmetrical corner softness but you have to be pixel peeping to spot it. There were no dust specks or other foreign material in my lens on delivery or since.

Bokeh  Out of focus rendition in front of and behind the focal plane is very nice with very little evidence of tramlining or optical nervousness.

Shutter Shock  I have found that most M43 zooms can exhibit signs of shutter shock at some focal lengths and shutter speeds. So I routinely use the E-Shutter at shutter speeds slower than 1/250second with all my lenses. Using this approach there have been no problems with the 14-140mm.

Summary  The new 14-140mm superzoom is a very appealing addition to the Lumix M43 lens range. It  provides a more than acceptable solution to the requirements of holiday/travel/walk around photography, where you want to travel light and compact without the need to change lenses. Highly recommended.

 

Calling Them Names

Fire's Out

 

The importance of naming cameras and their characteristics

What kind of camera is it ?  I was recently visiting with family. One person got a beaut new white Nikon 1 V2 camera with a 10-100mm superzoom lens for her birthday. She loved it. And it was stolen a few days later. Ouch.

Anyway, back to my story........Another family member asked  "What Kind of camera is that ?"  Is it a DSLR ?  .....Well....no.....it's one of those other ones....It's a ...............oh,  heck........... it's a nice white one................good for the boys' soccer.................

The Importance of Naming  Ideas, principles, medical conditions and devices all need a name. Until the idea or thing has a name it has not yet acquired a recognisable identity. People cannot identify it, ask about it or conduct a discussion about it. Something without a name hardly exists.

Names of Camera Types  The names of established cameras have historical roots. So we have the "View Camera" so named because you directly view an  image of the subject on the focussing screen.  Then someone invented the "Twin Lens Reflex" [TLR] camera, which made it possible to preview the subject without having to look through the taking lens and without requiring the dark cloth. The "Rangefinder" camera was so named because it had a ........yes you guessed it......an optical rangefinder (messsucher with 3 s's in German) for estimating focus.  The Single Lens Reflex [SLR] camera found a way to eliminate the upper lens of a TLR and was perhaps the best camera idea of the 20th Century. Small film cameras with a simple optical viewfinder and mainly automatic controls were called "Compact", for obvious reasons.

Fast forward to the 21st Century and things have become a bit more complicated. Compacts are still compact so they keep the name. SLR's got digital sensors so they become DSLR's.

The new Camera Type

But now we have this new (well, new since 2008 anyway)  type of camera with interchangeable lenses but which is not a DSLR. And so far there has been no general agreement as to what we should call it.

Let us review some of the contenders for naming.

CSC, Compact System Camera. This was initially adopted by several groups but has not  gained universal acceptance.  I think this is because the name does not really convey a sense of the nature of the device. Any such camera might or might not be "Compact" but so might any other kind of camera. "System" is a bit non specific. Any particular camera of this type may or may not be part of a recognisable camera/lens/accessory system.

DSLM,  Digital Single Lens Mirrorless is Panasonic's recent attempt to name the beast, but has not been well accepted even in Panasonic World. I notice on various Panasonic National websites MILC, ILC and CSC also being used. Calling a digital camera "Digital" in a world where 99% of cameras are digital is just redundant. Calling it "Single Lens" in a world with no new "Twin Lens" cameras is meaningless.  

ILC, Interchangeable Lens Camera.  Some of Sony's recent model releases have been advertised with this prefix. Some of the same cameras have also attracted different prefixes so I think you could say things are in a state of flux at Sony, or maybe total confusion.

MILC, Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens Camera.  Much as I dislike naming something for a component which it lacks, this name conveys several things  meaningful about the nature of the device. One day when interchangeable lens cameras with a mirror (DSLR's) have become a minor or absent player in the camera world, we can drop the M and just call them ILC's.

So, MILC is my preferred name for the reasons given.

Bridge Cameras  Several manufacturers brought these onto the market about ten years ago.    Presumably they did not sell very well because they slipped into the background until recently. Sony is trying to revive the type with it's RX10 "all in one" camera.  The name "Bridge" was a reference to the idea that this camera type might be a bridge between compacts and DSLR's.
Recent improvements in the performance of small sensors and mass production of aspheric lenses have made these cameras more viable than they were previously. I think they could suit many photographers very well. But we can't keep calling them bridge cameras because they are not really a bridge from somewhere to somewhere else. If well executed one of these cameras could be all many photographers ever need.  So we need a meaningful name for them.  "All in one" sounds like some kind of kitchen appliance.
After some doodling on the back of an envelope I came up with HPZ,  High Performance Zoom.  I think this encapsulates some of the characteristics of the type.

Sensor Sizes  Once upon a time, way back in the good old days we had film sizes. There was 4x5 inch large format, various kinds of medium format and the ubiquitous 35millimeter double sprocket size which was actually based on  movie film. There was a bit of confusion with medium format film sizes and there were some "Half Frame" sizes on 35mm film but I think most camera users understood their film sizes pretty well.

Fast forward to the early part of the 21st Century and we now have a profusion of sensor sizes.  Various naming attempts have arisen in haphazard fashion. Some are named for the cathode ray tube diameter which in 1950 might have been needed to deliver that particular size of light sensitive device. I could hardly think of a less relevant way of naming sensor size 60 years later but that is the basis of the Nikon 1 and Four Thirds/Micro Four Thirds sensor size names  The 24x36mm size which used to be known as "Miniature" is now called "Full Frame".

Fortunately there is a simple, useful and consistent way to describe sensor sizes. That is by measuring and quoting the diagonal of the sensor. Easy. The table below gives the most common ones.

Type	Aspect Ratio	Dimensions in mm Exact dimensions may vary	Diagonal in mm	Area in squ  mm
Traditional 35mm	3:2	24x36	43	864
APS-C Nikon, Sony etc	3:2	15.6x23.5	28	367
APS-C Canon	3:2	14.9x22.3	27	332
Four Thirds/Micro Four Thirds	4:3	13x17.3	21.5	225
One inch, Nikon 1, Sony 1"	3:2	8.8x13.2	15.9	116
2/3inch, Fuji X10/20	4:3	6.6x8.8	11	58
1/1.7 inch, many compacts	4:3	varies but about 5.6x7.5	9.35	42
1/2inch, some Fuji cameras	4:3	4.8x6.4	8	30
1/2.3 inch, many small compacts, superzooms	4:3	varies but about 4.6x6.1	7.72	28.5

 

Lens Angles of View  Once upon a time, when lots of photographers used 35mm cameras there was widespread understanding that a "28mm" lens was a wide angle lens and a "24mm lens" was even wider. A 600mm was a real super telephoto. Today very few people learn photography (if they ever learn it) on a camera with a sensor measuring 24x36mm. Most cameras have a  much smaller sensor.  But camera makers and reviewers persist in referring to the angle of view of the lens in terms of focal lengths which would give the same angle of view on a camera with 24x36mm sensor.  In fact some even inscribe "Equivalent" focal lengths on the data panel of compact camera lenses.     This is totally irrational and confusing to absolutely everybody.

Thankfully, as with sensor sizes there is a simple and  robust solution to this problem. In fact it is so simple I am at a loss to understand why it has not already been widely adopted.

The answer is to quote the diagonal angle of view of the lens and in the case of zooms the maximum and minimum diagonal angles of view.  You can see some of these in the table below.

In this table I have given some focal length equivalents for 43mm and 21.5mm sensors.

Focal length for 43mm sensor (so called full frame)	Diagonal Angle of View	Focal Length for 21.5 mm sensor (4/3 and m4/3)	Description of angle of view
14	114	7	Ultra wide
24	84	12	Wide
28	75	14	Wide
35	65	17.5	Moderately wide/wide standard
40	57	20	Standard
50	47	25	Standard
70	34	35	Portrait
150	16	75	Short telephoto
200	12	100	Moderate telephoto
300	8.2	150	Medium long telephoto
400	6.0	200	Long telephoto
600	4.1	300	Super telephoto

 

If this convention was promoted by photo websites,  publications and manufacturers I think it would  be accepted readily. I think camera users will easily be able to visualise an angle of view stated numerically together with a one or two word verbal description of the angle of view.