the small camera kit..er kits

I like my camera gear to be small. Cheap and incredibly talented is nice too.. but let's not get greedy. Well one can be greedy.. with the right gear.

My K-5 with the 18-50re is really compact for aps.c, and now the compact 50-200wr has arrived. That's a nice 27-300mm∙e kit that can go out in the rain and shoot quietly from 27-75mm∙e.

Maybe I meant the GX1 kit? With 14/2.5, 30/2.8 and 45-150mm zoom it stays small & does many things well. The 4:3 sensor does not show off to K-5 level but it's a fine 16Mpxl sensor. Its video specs definitely outperform the Pentax; it was hacked to produce 36MB/sec video with better audio too.  It could be set higher still, but then the camera cannot play back the video :(

Hm, how were these two small-kit pictures taken? That was done with the YI.M1. Yes it's also my small kit: with 12-40mm XiaoYi and 45-150 Lumix it can manage 24-300mme. It can go to 4k with its video specs and has a nice 20Mpx sensor. It does not 'do' stabilization with my current lenses but is still a talented little camera!


Any of these kits can be made larger with current lenses  (e.g. Lumix 12-60 or K-mount 100-300 or fast primes) but for small gear I'm in a good place.. and when more is better I'm good there too!

P.S. it should be noted that my wife's GF2 plus 12-32mm Lumix out-smalls all my kits!
It uses older tech but raw images are very nice and for size it is hard to beat.

some times I surprise myself

I had a chance to pick up a Sigma 60mm for an excellent price.. and I didn't. A tempting 14-140 Lumix f/4-5.8 also was shunned, a lesser surprise but still: well done.

I'd been sure for quite some time that my new kit would include that 60. So why did I decline? The fact is I already have a nice little 50/1.7 Pentax-A that has not even been tried yet, and being 2/3 stop faster is no little thing. The Lumix bodies have focus peaking for such lenses so their occasional use is hardly painful. Both my zooms include 60mm (with less light grasp) so it's redundant three different ways.

And yet..  a few short hours later I bought the 30mm Sigma EX DN! (the Old One with a grip - shown here)

So why did I make this deal for a lens that must compete with the 4thirds 35mm 1:1 macro? Unlike the 60mm it's less redundant, faster than the 35/3.5 and the 12-60, and also creates a fine little 17/30/45-150 kit for days when the 12-60mm is less appropriate. I don't always need to reach 12mm after all, the 17 and 30mm lenses gather more light, and weather seals on the zoom are less useful on an unsealed body. The 12-60 is still a fine lens though and will get plenty of use!

The 35mm may still win out for image quality.. but with the adapter it becomes a lot larger than the Sigma, so it could win but still lose.

Note that the same arguments can be used for the Pentax 50 vs the Sigma 60mm! To that I suggest that the size difference is smaller between those two, and light penalty greater. 
We shall see if the 60mm eventually forces its way back into contention..

more gear shifting

The former owner of the ePM2 also had a few other lenses to sell, so I relieved him of those this week.  The home equity loan went through, so while things aren't fantastic financially at least they are more clear!  With that last bit of gear I'm ready to stop for a while, since the missing piece in my mind (Samyang's 12mm f/2) is not on supersale now anywhere and it's too new for owners to let go of their copies.

Left to lower right: Sigma 30 and Oly 40-150r, Oly 17/2.8, BCL9 body-cap fisheye, and 14-42rII on the ePM2.
This 18-300mme kit can fit in a lunchbox, and I can choose primes or the 14-42 for the wide range!

While I find the Samyang 7.5mm fisheye appealing (as I did with the G7) the bargain BCL9 is a 9mm f/8 fisheye that will stand in just fine for most applications. I had figured on 7.5/14/20/30 as the primal set but I've had a soft spot for the 17/2.8 for several years, so its return makes the 12mm a better fit.

On the Pentax side the kit has slipped away.  I still have the 10-17 fisheye which hopefully will find a new home soon.  The micro4:3 replacement set has taken most of the Pentax funds so taxes and medical bills still await - but some improvement has taken place with the gear swaps. I still have the 28, 50 and 135mm primes also; the 28 isn't needed for the Oly kit but fast 50 and small 135 could see some time there.  The 300mm mirror lens might be quite fun as well!

deciphering the New Red camera

New Red is a complex little camera. It's not that much different from any advanced camera, but its size dictated the absence of a mode dial - so many more items in menus, and Olympus has a reputation for menu obscurities that is well deserved. Even after reading and watching a video, I had to watch again just to enable the Super Control Panel, a screen that allows me to mimic my Pentax info screen (but with touch control!). Even then I didn't know to press OK to bring it up - so it's quite possible that I had already enabled it correctly..

Nevertheless, the camera has worked very well even in my ignorance!

With Sigma 30 and Oly 40-150 (60 and 80-300mme) I don't have any wide-angle options right now; however the NX300 only has a 24-76mme lens so they are very complementary! I also have mic4:3 extension tubes so ePM2 closeups are straightforward - though a tip screen like the NX300 would be nice (that's an ePL5 feature).

My hike to the mailbox is just under 1/2 mile, so I find plenty of chances to capture images.  The trillium are opening, the skunk-cabbage ripe, and plenty of new shoots to shoot :^) With the Σ·30mm attached the ePM2 does very nice work in a very small package!

Each set of test shots shows me something new to work on, and more menu effort follows to correct it.  My focusing efforts were not paying off (especially on complex things like the yellow-flower shot, where I pressed AF several times) but now it's set to center-square only so I'm using focus/recompose mode. It also has magnifying MF override, I need to practice that more! The ePM2 is able to set the Fn button as focus - but my attempts have not paid off yet. At one point I enabled HDR shooting because I thought it was asking what setting I'd choose if I wanted HDR but the camera felt I wanted it ASAP; once discovered & disabled I've been quite happy with the s·CPanel access. I have not found a touch-AF mode that does not immediately take a picture, so more reading to come soon!