Jock Elliott
Hall of Famer
- Location
- Troy, NY
Since the spring of this year, I’ve been going through a strange odyssey. One day, in a fit of pique, I sold all my Olympus M43 gear: 3 bodies, 4 lenses. Poof . . . gone. I had noticed I wasn’t using them. I had all this nice stuff, but when it came time for me to go out the door, I would invariably grab one of my compact cameras.
So I was sitting on a small stack of “mad” money, thinking I should replace the now-gone M43 gear with a something else, maybe big and serious, maybe not. I tried of bunch of different cameras:
Sony HX90V – Small, really small. Performs above its weight in delivering punchy images in almost all conditions. But it’s really too small for my hands, and I didn’t like having to deploy the viewfinder every time I used it. I tried a Panasonic version of a similar pocketable travel zoom (ZS50) and found the manual focus to be unreliable.
Pentax K5S – Big, serious, heavy. Massive dynamic range. Astonishing low-light autofocus. Lovely images. But too big, too heavy, and I didn’t like the mirror sound in quiet settings.
Canon M6 with optional viewfinder – Ultimately, I liked the images from my Sony HX400V superzoom better.
Panasonic GX8 – This was strange. On paper, this camera looked awesome, but I felt no connection with it once I had it in my hands.
Panasonic GX85 with 12-32 and 45-150 – I wasn’t sure about this combo. On paper, it looked pretty good, and the Christmas markdowns were astonishing. So I checked with our own John Flores, and he said that he had just recommended that particular combo to a friend, and I knew that John had been using a pair of GX85s professionally as a motorcycle writer and photographer. I have posted my initial impressions elsewhere, but this particular combo reminds me of my old Honda all-wheel-drive Civic station wagon: it wasn’t the absolute best at anything, but it was very, very good at almost everything. If you want the absolute best, there are certainly better choices than Panasonic GX85 with 12-32 and 45-150. But this combination seems to deliver creditable results in almost every situation with a package that is small, light, and easy on the wallet and shoulder.
So now I am down to four cameras:
- Panasonic GX85 with 12-32 and 45-150, my go-to when I get an assignment to cover an event.
- Sony HX400V, the obvious choice for walks with the Better Half (aka spotter-in-chief) where we might encounter wildlife.
- Canon G12, always in a pocket when I am running errands.
- Fuji XP90 “rugged” camera, reserved for kayaking or when I might drown my camera. Why anyone would design a camera without a viewfinder is beyond me.
Cheers, Jock
So I was sitting on a small stack of “mad” money, thinking I should replace the now-gone M43 gear with a something else, maybe big and serious, maybe not. I tried of bunch of different cameras:
Sony HX90V – Small, really small. Performs above its weight in delivering punchy images in almost all conditions. But it’s really too small for my hands, and I didn’t like having to deploy the viewfinder every time I used it. I tried a Panasonic version of a similar pocketable travel zoom (ZS50) and found the manual focus to be unreliable.
Pentax K5S – Big, serious, heavy. Massive dynamic range. Astonishing low-light autofocus. Lovely images. But too big, too heavy, and I didn’t like the mirror sound in quiet settings.
Canon M6 with optional viewfinder – Ultimately, I liked the images from my Sony HX400V superzoom better.
Panasonic GX8 – This was strange. On paper, this camera looked awesome, but I felt no connection with it once I had it in my hands.
Panasonic GX85 with 12-32 and 45-150 – I wasn’t sure about this combo. On paper, it looked pretty good, and the Christmas markdowns were astonishing. So I checked with our own John Flores, and he said that he had just recommended that particular combo to a friend, and I knew that John had been using a pair of GX85s professionally as a motorcycle writer and photographer. I have posted my initial impressions elsewhere, but this particular combo reminds me of my old Honda all-wheel-drive Civic station wagon: it wasn’t the absolute best at anything, but it was very, very good at almost everything. If you want the absolute best, there are certainly better choices than Panasonic GX85 with 12-32 and 45-150. But this combination seems to deliver creditable results in almost every situation with a package that is small, light, and easy on the wallet and shoulder.
So now I am down to four cameras:
- Panasonic GX85 with 12-32 and 45-150, my go-to when I get an assignment to cover an event.
- Sony HX400V, the obvious choice for walks with the Better Half (aka spotter-in-chief) where we might encounter wildlife.
- Canon G12, always in a pocket when I am running errands.
- Fuji XP90 “rugged” camera, reserved for kayaking or when I might drown my camera. Why anyone would design a camera without a viewfinder is beyond me.
Cheers, Jock
