Challenge! March Symposium: The Small Sensor Look.

But gear lust is fun though, right?

"I'd be a ____ photographer if only I had ____!"
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I've fallen repeatedly for this false premise. And it's sometimes hard to discern lust from need. And the hunt is fun!

To end the month, a couple of photos where the gear does matter!

July 21, 2020
Went out in search of Comet Neowise but the northern skies were cloudy. Turned around and saw Saturn. Pentax Q-S1, 55-300mm zoom @ 300mm (1395mm eq), ISO100, 0.5s

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Saturn in the Southern Sky (cropped) by John Flores, on Flickr

January 21, 2019
Went into the backyard to capture the Super Blood Wolf Moon with the Pentax Q1

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Super Blood Wolf Moon (Pentax Q-S1, 55-300mm zoom @ 200mm (940mm 35mmEQ), ISO1600, 0.5s) by John Flores, on Flickr

Ended up with more than I bargained for! Look closely at around the 8pm position:

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Meteor impact during Super Blood Wolf Moon by John Flores, on Flickr

Pentax Q-S1, 55-300mm zoom @ 300mm (1410mm 35mmEQ), ISO800, 0.25s

Total dumb luck that I photographed a meteor impact on the moon!

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Meteor impact (closeup) during Super Blood Wolf Moon by John Flores, on Flickr

Fun challenge - I enjoyed seeing everyone's photos!
John, the first time I saw this post I must have had my glasses off and wondered why you posted that first shot with the smudge. As someone who has used a Q with a telephoto, I salute your efforts and results.
 
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Thank you, Matt. Maybe we can resurrect the symposium format with another theme in the future. Maybe a normal lens challenge . . .
Steve, you are more than welcome to propose something like that again - and your idea is already resonating with me (even if it's a bit close to a Single In - no problem for me but maybe for others). I'd be in on one of those, anyway.

M.
 
I don’t have any photos of 80 foot radioactive snakes, alas, or I would post, I promise! Instead, just a fisherman and some flying cockroaches.

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I get it what you mean 🙄

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I too had an LX7 for quite awhile, John - and your take on it is spot on and closely parallels mine: a really nice small semi pocketable camera with a fast lens and not only a decent zoom range but also a zoom whose optical qualities really impressed. But the sad truth is: I don't think that camera exists, or has ever been built. The closest Panasonic came was with the LX100 - a camera which nearly has the same height & width dimensions as the LX7, but a much 'fatter' lens (which sticks out more). It also has a micro4/3 sensor which is roughly five times larger than the LX7's 1/1.7" sensor - but, honestly, I rather liked the LX7's smaller sensor which, among other things, gave its lens superb close-focusing macro capability. True, it added an EVF also, but not a great one. (The LX100 also weighs nearly a quarter more than the LX7 did.)

I actually spent quite a few years searching for a camera which would do everything that my old LX7 did and my solution was to buy not one but two cameras, neither of which are quite as pocketable as the LX7 was. One was the Fujifilm X30. It's a tiny bit wider than the LX7, but has a fast (f/2) lens, a nice zoom range, and a brilliant small 2/3" sensor which is actually significantly better than (and a bit bigger than) that of the LX7 - but at the same time it's also a brilliant macro camera. Like the LX100, the X30 also sports an EVF - but though it's small, it's a very fine one. Problem is, you need a slightly bigger pocket.

The other camera - also a tad bigger and fatter and heavier than the LX7 - but one which nonetheless manages to be surprisingly pocketable - is Canon's G1x Mark III - which has an APS-C sensor and a fine zoom lens - and is totally weather-sealed, a huge plus. Unlike the LX7, it has a tiny SLR-style hump with an EVF but it's a superb small EVF, further increasing the general take-everywhere-do-everything utility of the camera. Its only 'downside' is a slower f/2.8 zoom lens - but the quality of the sensor more than makes up for that. (It also doesn't have the macro capabilities of the smaller-sensored LX7, sigh.)

But...there is good news, or light at the end of the tunnel: there is a superb and tiny smaller-sensored LX7 replacement - it look like a near-clone of the aforementioned G1kMkiii - Canon's G5X camera. It's smaller than its APS-C sibling - its dimensions are almost identical to those of the LX7, and it weighs just a tad more than the LX7 - best of all, it has a fast f/1.8 lens - and a larger and excellent 1" sensor. I think if I didn't already have (and love) the other two aforementioned cameras - and I wanted a pocketable LX7 replacement - this would be it :)
I posted a rather negative viewpoint of the G5X a year ago. I have been reconsidering it recently, though. I've read some reviews with very favourable impressions of the lens, and others that mention variability in the lens quality. It's entirely possible that my copy was a poor one, in which case there's a good chance that any other copy should be better. I may well just take a chance on one again, as I haven't found another camera with the handling of the G5X. Watch this space....
 
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