I longed for the simpler times, now I long for the affordable days...

Those are the two M4/3 standard lenses that I can't give up, they are different in their own ways but equally awesome.
I have anoher staple in that range, though - the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 C; another great lens, a longish normal with great rendering. But the 25mm f/1.8 and 20mm are "single-lens" setups - the Sigma isn't, for me (it pairs very well with the 12-40mm; through the Sigma 60mm into the mix, and I'm in reportage heaven ...).

M.
 
I have anoher staple in that range, though - the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 C; another great lens, a longish normal with great rendering. But the 25mm f/1.8 and 20mm are "single-lens" setups - the Sigma isn't, for me (it pairs very well with the 12-40mm; through the Sigma 60mm into the mix, and I'm in reportage heaven ...).

M.
I owned the f2.8 version of the Sigma 30mm for a while - sharp lens, but, as you say, doesn't work for a one-lens setup. The f1.4 version looks a lot more tempting for a short tele portrait lens.
 
Tiny Panasonic M4/3 lenses look so much better in general than tiny Olympus lenses. Panasonic got the focus transitions correct in their lenses, like P20 or the small P12-32.

Sadly I've built myself so much shooter's identity around zone focusing that it is difficult to leave it on the table because the bodies don't have it and the (Panasonic) lenses don't have it.
 
I'm disappointed in most camera brands as they are so afraid of making something simply different.

There are a few 18.3mm 2.8 APS-C cameras; there are more than a few 1 inch type zoom cameras; there are some crappy water proof point-and-shoots; and fortunately there aren't as many 1/2.3 inch zoom cameras these days; and then there are the Sony RX1 series cameras, Sigma Fovean sensor cameras.

BUT, there's really only one name comes to mind when you don't want to be bothered with modes and settings, scenes and art filters, the only one that still looks, feels, and works like a camera, only one that don't even try to please everybody and yet almost seduces everybody, I think we need it to not be the only one.
 
Alongside Leica, there's Nikon Df. It gives me hope there could be more of the same in the future.

If Nikon or Sony (or Panasonic) took a gamble and made an EVF ILC with a very strong focus on retro styling (pretty and compact) and operation (direct controls for exposure, EC, ISO), it could be big. Like the Df, make it a big powerhouse for adapting legacy lenses.

I personally think Fujifilm already produces the best bodies for adapting MF lenses but in the crop factor you lose so much of the character of old SLR glass. I practically would be more than satisfied with an X-T3 but with an L mount and Panasonic's FF sensor on it. But Fujifilm's dual-view screen feature must stay...

And what comes for compacts, Ricoh once made a point-and-shoot with a fixed 21mm lens. I'd like to see a GR3 but with a 14mm f/2.8 lens on it. It could be really interesting...
 
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Hmph. Am I having an epiphany here? Don't sell PEN-F because it's just crazy enough of a camera but don't buy any small, ugly rendering native lenses to it either. Instead I should probably go further with my Leica M glass and then purchase an adapter so that I can use my Leica glass for telephoto, landscape things. Oh my.
Update.

I bought a M-M43 adapter a while back and only today I got around to shoot something.

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I took with me the 35 Summicron on my M, and the CV 50 Heliar on the Pen-F. Liked the combo in theory, go about the world with a 35 mm and a 100 mm view and capture each thing with the option that suits it stronger.

I looked forward making use of Pen-F's strong suits.

  • Remarkably good IBIS that is still relevant and competitive against the newer wave of offerings by Panasonic, Oly.
  • The EVF that is actually underrated. A crisp OLED screen with a smaller magnification actually has been the best EVF in a way I've used. The smaller view helps me see all the corners of my composition easily.
  • The shutter is very quiet and swift at 1/8000 second min.
  • The sensor/image processing is forgiving about some overexposure -- a great thing.
  • The skintones come out of the camera really nicely.

But.

Hate to give such a strong judgment after a quick ~2-hour camera walk but Olympus is not a great platform for adapted MF lenses.

This is exactly how I envisioned things back in June, and previously. The tools that Olympus offers aren't that great for fast-paced work -- how I like to operate currently. I fully acknowledge that on tripod operation, Pen-F rocks the socks out of any of my cameras, with its great tilt/swivel screen, great Olympus features and so on. But on the streets, a manual focus lens of this FL caliber requires a cumbersome circus to get things in focus.

First, the focus peaking slows the display view down to jagged mess, worse than M240 to be honest. It's not smooth and it's not going to be my choice, ever. Not to mention that FP can't ever be that accurate anyway.

When I magnify, the camera won't unmagnify at half-press of a shutter. It becomes cumbersome really quick. Fine for landscape work, unfine for anything fast-paced.

Even if it did unmagnify, magnified view means I've lost the overall composition.

The camera forgets about my selected FL and I have to reset it every time I power on the camera. Infuriating. It has something to do with my custom presets from time times I had Laowa 7.5mm (a dead lens as well). This battling with the menus and custom presets (even if I stayed in A mode) constantly reminded me I'm fighting a fancy little computer here, not really operating a simple camera apparatus.

I think I can cross the pretty little Pen off my list. I still could try my luck with the Olympus 45/1.8 lens for instance but perhaps it's a lost cause.

I made my bed with Leica, I guess I gotta continue lie in it!
 
And now I'm also thinking that if the Olympus experience after a hiatus was this "bad" then Fuji can't be that much better, maybe this helps me staying on the course and not giving up on Leica just because it costs a bit more than the other stuff.
 
And now I'm also thinking that if the Olympus experience after a hiatus was this "bad" then Fuji can't be that much better, maybe this helps me staying on the course and not giving up on Leica just because it costs a bit more than the other stuff.
Using Takumar, Zeiss, Voigt and Nikkor lenses on the XT1 was honestly such a seamlessly fantastic experience, there really was no need to consider anything else for adapted glass. XT1 + Adapted Glass + Iridient Developer equalled magic.
 
Using Takumar, Zeiss, Voigt and Nikkor lenses on the XT1 was honestly such a seamlessly fantastic experience, there really was no need to consider anything else for adapted glass. XT1 + Adapted Glass + Iridient Developer equalled magic.
Like I have postulated a couple of times, Fuji X-T series have that wonderful dual-view screen feature to keep your composition and also your focus point in track. That would probably work very well for me.
 
And of course somewhat unconsciously I navigated to Youtube after a 3-month hiatus (can't/won't fit Youtube time in my new schedule) to check Sam Lintaro's new videos.

Man have I ever been this hot and bothered about Fuji? Probably. But it's so easy to make up excuses and reasons why Fuji would be so much better than Leica. Not just the usual excuses, "own work is crap and check out this one master photographer who uses brand X -- surely X'll solve my problems", but the things that we have tangented here and there. But then again, all my newly invented, "real" excuses wrap back to the usual excuses when I think hard about it. You know, weather sealing and one-handed shooting can partly be explained away by poor technique, that they're just convenience over something.


On an unrelated note, anyone know any good European camera retailers who do big Black Friday deals? :whistle:
 
I personally think Fujifilm already produces the best bodies for adapting MF lenses but in the crop factor you lose so much of the character of old SLR glass...
Speaking of "the character of old SLR glass" - and I realize that there are different strokes for different folks, as the saying goes - the one semi-modern (although retro-styled) digital camera I have found which really seems to be able to render images the same (often wonderful) ways its analog predecessors did -

Is my (APS-C) Pentax KP. It's a DSLR, it's relatively simple to set up, it has a feel that reminds me strikingly of the generations of analog Pentaxes I shot with for decades - but perhaps the best part is the rendering of some of the more modern Pentax lenses. The DA21, to name one, reminds me of a handful of brilliant early Takumar lenses I shot with (including my formerly carry-everywhere 35mm Tak) - and somehow, mysteriously, when mated with the KP body, it has probably come closer to giving me results with remarkable 'character' than any of the other pretty damn fine digital cameras I have been using. (Tyler Monson, a photographer I have admired for decades, shot mainly with a DA21 lens, mounted on a series of digital Pentax DSLR bodies, and looking at his photographs, over the years, finally was one of the determining factors that made me break down and aquire a KP + DA21 ... just to see if they could work as well for me. And...they do : - )

Glass. Body. Shooting experience. They all sound so simple...and they can be.
But...(confession follows)...I have a weakness for complications and diversity as well.
 
Ah, Pentax. The weird gal or guy we never got to know very well. Could have been the greatest, if the time and place was right.

When looking at downsizing, I have a difficult time cutting any of my Pentax gear. It just feels right, to me, and does good with the images if I do my part.
 
I've always been drawn to them, as the odd man out which still produces really fine cameras.
My first SLR was a Pentax(SF7) over 30 years ago , and my first decent compact too (Espio 140). So I have a long-standing association with Pentax. I’ve tried 3 of their SLRs, of which my favourite was the K30. If they did another mirrorless anytime I’d be extremely likely to get one, but I’ve come to realise that I really like EVFs with their full time preview, so I won’t get another DSLR.
 
The older generation of Pentax DSLR's - the K10D, the K20D, as well as the K200D - all featured CCD sensors as opposed to the newer CMOS sensors which took over the world - and for years, many Pentaxians believed that in spite of their relative deficiencies and 'Cons', the rendering capabilities of the Pentaxes equipped with the older CCD ones simply blew away most of the modern Pentaxes and other cameras as well.

But, then again, for the eclectics and the cognoscienti and some weirder optics freaks, Pentax engineers had (or used to have) the reputation for having a gift to create glass which would rival the older, earlier masterpieces from Leitz and Zeiss. These days Pentaxes have a faithful but dwindling following but their photography-first (and the-hell-with-video) philosophy - combined with some truly mouthwatering lenses, still are cool.

They never truly went the retro design route which Fuji has so successfully mined and which the Df either succeeds at (or not quite, depending on one's philosophy), but their recent design concessions of both the smaller (baby brother) KP (which I bought and love) and its larger full frame sibling, the K-1 (and its v II upgrade) are...really fun to shoot with, especially if you've put in some time in the trenches of ancient history, shooting with film SLR's. Kirk Tuck recently picked up a K-1 which he labels his 'eccentric' camera (and he's got a point: Pentax engineers go their own way to the point of eccentricity) and has been shooting with it and commenting about it for awhile lately.

For me, it has taken some getting used to...to remember the many (and tiny) differences between shooting with an optical viewfinder and even the more excellent digital ones (like the large drool-worthy one in my Lumix GX8) - but, yes, it is a simpler way of shooting.

But it's probably all about the glass, as some people like to say....and damn if some pieces of Pentax glass, even in modern iterations, don't seem capable of....some wonderful rendering.
 
The older generation of Pentax DSLR's - the K10D, the K20D, as well as the K200D - all featured CCD sensors as opposed to the newer CMOS sensors which took over the world - and for years, many Pentaxians believed that in spite of their relative deficiencies and 'Cons', the rendering capabilities of the Pentaxes equipped with the older CCD ones simply blew away most of the modern Pentaxes and other cameras as well.

<snip>.

But it's probably all about the glass, as some people like to say....and damn if some pieces of Pentax glass, even in modern iterations, don't seem capable of....some wonderful rendering.

Dammit, Miguel, now I have a serious case of LBA!! I want the 21mm and a 70mm pancakes, and a 100mm macro (although the Tamron 90mm would be fine, too)

GRRRR.
 
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