not again yes again.. not

Recall the short time since my K-5 departed and I embraced the µ43 for the third time, more or less. If you'd rather not click I will stipulate that it was mid-December, six short months ago

Also recall that I am not sane, and occasionally stressed financially.

All set?

No surprise to you then to learn that a K-5 is on the way here, and the gx7 is gone. Yes 'tis true.
Someone had a Want to Buy offer when I had a dollar crunch, and gx7 plus 20mm have departed.

I returned to µ43 for several good reasons, and one important factor was low prices. I could pick up an Oly PEN with 16Mpix sensor for under $250. This time the low prices swung to Pentax: I let the two items go, picked up the K-5 and put $250 in the bank! My 'new' K-5 has over 50k clicks on the shutter, but that's either quarter or half of the rated lifespan - and per the first paragragh I'll likely let it go for some good reason before I've put 5k more on it. Sad.. but true.

This leaves me* with a K-5 and several lenses that failed to leave with the previous camera (including a da18-250), plus the GM1 and a few decent Lumix zooms - and some of that Lumix gear is changing again soon.

..something like this?

I've decided that for me smaller µ43 is better, so the gx7 plus 12-60 are not ideal. I offered the 12-60 in trade for a gm1 or a baby kit lens, and an offer came back for a gx1 and 12-32mm pancake zoom. Not sure yet about the body, but kit lenses come no smaller than that 12-32! I've now read up on several "GM1 or GX1?" threads, and many prefer the GX1 ergonomically despite the newer sensor and a few added GM1 tricks. Plus a viewfinder can be added to the GX1. Perhaps that deal is worth a test drive in any case!
Deal agreed to, GX1 and 12-32 for the 12-60. O what fun!

*Kit update, FWiW:

K-5 + 17-28FE,, 28-80 1:2 and 100-300 Σ, 70-150 Rikenon - 25-450mme

GM1, GX1 + 14/2.5, 14-42ii, 45-150, 30mm Σ, -- 28-300mme

impatience rewarded

The twice-lost GX7 has arrived! I feel no gratitude for the USPS tracking site, which could not locate the camera even as the truck drove up to our mailbox. What a waste of good disk space.

the new all-Black team (taken with GM1 and smcA 50/1.7)

I am surprised by the fine match between the 12-60mm Lumix and 30mm gen-1 Sigma. Black with silver text and fine-ribbed rings look very similar. That's nice.

First images look very nice, as expected.
First handling impressions are great: this body is far easier to hold than the pinch-grip required by the GM1, and plenty of controls at hand. I also like the balance of the 12-60 far better now, as it felt very over-sized on the GM1. Guess that's why the 12-32 and small primes exist!My wife loves tiny though, so we'll both be happy with our GM1/GX7 team!

Now to mess with menus and button assignments, and make it truly mine!

castaways (spousal considerations II)

With the recent appeal of the GM1, my wife and I decided the Samsung NX pair can go.
Easier said than done nowadays, as everyone knows it's an orphaned system - but it is still excellent gear capable of impressive images.  The NX300 has a 20Mpx APSc sensor with PDAF sensors within, so its hybrid CD+PD system focuses quickly. The touchscreen allows for quick selection of where to AF in stills and video. I had tried to sell my copy several times recently with no success.

Today it sold!
I shall miss the uniqueness of the NX system, and how it captured colors just a bit differently from any other system I've tried. Blues and browns were somehow stronger, and images of Duncan may never quite be the same.

So the New Kit XVII has surfaced:

• Lumix / micro43 body (GM1 for now)
• Lumix 12-60 sealed power-IS lens (24-120mme)
• Lumix 45-150 tiny telephoto zoom (90-300mme)
• Olympus 17mm/2.8 pancake prime

clockwise: usb charger, Oly 17, Zuiko 35 macro adapted,
45-150 on GM1 and Lumix 12-60

At some point a few more small lenses will drop in; hopefully the Sigma 60/2.8 and a fisheye type of some sort. The higher-end primes are quite amazing, but my wife isn't the only one here who prefers their gear to be small. Besides, I am not a big user of 50mme so I don't need one of the many 24/25mm lenses. I have fast Pentax primes at 100 and 200mme so indulging in µ43 telephoto primes with few additional features feels unreasonable.

I'd like a weather-sealed body to go with that 12-60 but the GX7 is a good choice for now. Images should match the GM1 but with advanced controls & features like a viewfinder, better grip and tip screen. No rush on a second body though -- going by my track record that means "within a month", sadly. Not sad to own: sad that I'm so predictable! 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Oh yes: the emergency-backup kit remains for now. These lenses can be adapted to micro cameras, but AF is dreadfully slow that way. Still, using in MF isn't all that bad, and it's nice to have a 1:1 macro now and then.. not to mention 400mme for distant critters!
Olympus e500 dSLR (4Thirds)
Zuiko 14-42 zoom gen.2 (28-84mme)
Zuiko 35mm f/3.5 1:1 macro (70mme)
Zuiko 18-180 superzoom (36-360mme)
Sigma 55-200 zoom (110-400mme)

Given the resale value of ten-year-old digital cameras, and that the E500 uses a Kodak CCD sensor, it's hard to find a reason to give it up. CCD sensors have a different 'look' from CMOS; not many can state what that difference is, but many prefer CCD when the ISO setting can be kept at its base setting. Why not have the option? I also plan for it to be my slide-duplication setup, as 8Mpx will be plenty of data without totally jamming up a few hard drives.

switchback

Someone was selling their GM1 to make room for a GX85, so the GM1/12-32 is coming and ePL6 going. So much for plans to 'keep gear until next Christmas' - but Olympus menus are too much for me to bear. Hence the GM1 will hang out until a newer GX can be had, and my wife gets the GM1. Smart? Like a slug in a snowstorm, that's me! Wait that's rather uncomplimentary.. I think?

I really disliked having to let go of the last GM1, so that's a good sign that this one will stick with me.

once more on the merry-go-round

Today the K-3ii left the building, a week after the 20-40 Limited zoom. The debt-reduction strategies were not quite sufficient to change our financial situation. The original plan of buying a new camera at Christmas-time was correct, and buying early to catch the silver model was unwise. It hurts on several levels: poor budgeting, buying too much too soon, and going back to institutions for restructuring of debts. A refinance will happen soon which will 'finally' put us right - but we must watch things more closely.

So the GM1 with its simple looks and talented insides will take charge for a while, with the NX300 on deck. More Pentax lenses will go and a bargain 35-100 or 45-150mm Lumix lens will complete that kit at some point. Depending on circumstances the NX300 team might leave as well; funds outpoint gear right now to ensure no last-minute surprises interfere with the home-refinance process. And that will be fine, for now.

HOW COULD I let go of the K-3ii?
While I was sure the top-level APSc body would serve me well, several factors caught me off guard; combined with another financial crunch, this was easier to decide than I expected.

For one thing, the GM1 has multi-exposure and time-lapse stills & video. I have always liked having those items available but did not expect to see them in the minuscule Lumix. While I believe the K-3 series has more versatile options in the combining of multiple exposures that I could use, that use would not be all that frequent.

Another is the overhead that Pixel-Shifting brings to the table. I have no doubt that it can be used to great effect in many places I like to be (e.g. above timberline where few things move), the truth is I haven't been in those places recently. Also the time expense to get my software in line to accurately massage and motion-correct any issues then deal with other image factors.. well those really aren't my photographic 'thing'. Pretending that I want to do that will not fool me for long.

Finally: 24 megapixels. I find 16 to be more than enough, and usually too big to put online. When I print I feel that's sufficient, but again that's not something I have done in a few years. Having the capability to do things that don't greatly interest me is the wrong path right now. Perhaps in a few years I'll take a road less traveled, but as a homebound caregiver for the past several years it's not a time to overextend my gear. I need to accept that reality.

So 16Mpix, micro4:3, and simplicity will do - for now! And if I must carry something larger I can still pull out the E500 and its chunky 18-180mm zoom and look more like a pro. A pro visiting from 2007 yes, but still..

the 'simple' GM1

The GM1 and K-3ii are both excellent cameras with numerous features that add to their capabilities. Both have intervalometers for stop-action video or time-lapse imaging, sensor sizes are similar (4Thirds / APSc) so enlargements are of high quality, and each is pretty compact for its type. The Pentax adds weather seals, the larger sensor with more resolution, an optical viewfinder and really long battery life; the GM1 is essentially pocket size, can use its own or Pentax lenses, makes great videos with minimal fuss, and its touch-screen allows for precise AF and other rapid adjustments.

The 4Thirds sensor in the GM1 does very nice work; I tested it to iso20k and found it 'acceptable', meaning it looks rather like a phone capture except it's basically shooting in the dark. Studies like those at dXomark show the K-3ii wins for all sensor specs, but how often will I notice the dynamic range is narrower (especially when iA modes or shadow adjustments are enabled)?

The best news is really that the GM1 is so small that it can come along pretty much any time! However I must admit that for over a week the tiny Olympus 9mm fisheye had gone missing - that lens is so small and light that it was found in a day-pack pocket that I had already checked!

Mirrorless options

My greatest challenge with the GM1 is that it wants its own lenses! Such small wonders as the 35-100 would be a great match to my Lumix' 14-42ii (e.g. they both use 46mm filters) and in-lens stabilization would lead to improved telephoto images.

The problem is that I have a Pentax smc-M 100/2.8 that is really small and takes excellent images that are 2 stops faster than the Lumix zoom. The smc-A 50/1.7 can make that same claim. The GM1 has focus peaking so these small prime lenses are easy to adapt and focus with that little body.

So the temptation to buy µ43 lenses must be tempered for now; maybe at a future time I will add a Lumix lens or two. In reality the 12-60mm Lumix is the greater threat with its extended range on each end!

The other mirrorless kit is the Samsung NX300 team. The white one now has the 16/2.4 prime and matching white 20-50mm lens, both quite talented but with no IS. The brown body comes with 16-50/OIS, and a 50-200/OIS is available for both. Since all are interchangeable this is an arbitrary alignment.

Lumix 14-42ii and Pentax DAL 50-200wr w/o adapter
taken by the Sigma 28-80 1:2

Pentax lenses are also adaptable for either mirrorless mount. The Lumix 14-42ii is an excellent and absurdly compact lens, and its 35-100mm counterpart is equally so.  However, the Pentax 50-200 that I own has more range, the same f/4-5.6 range (so it's brighter than the tiny Lumix tele at 100mm) and is reasonably small and light since it's built for the APSc sensor size. My other nice option is the Sigma 28-80 (also f/3.5-5.6) with 1:2 macro. It's very similar to the Pentax lens in bulk but going close up to 1:2 'macro' is very nice to have!

While the AF and especially OIS will be missed for a while (especially for telephoto shots!) these options are good ones. Indoor shot here was at iso8000 which works decently on the GM1.

timetable shift!

As I mentioned in this pentax-forums post, I needed to accelerate my next-camera timetable today.

I planned to update my camera gear around Christmas-time.  First thoughts were a K-3 but the news that pixel-shift images can be corrected with computer software moved me toward the model II instead.  When I learned that silver bodies were available at the Pentax webstore, I was certain I had chosen my next camera..  and the last one for quite a while!

Then it struck me today.  Pentax seldom makes a lot of silver bodies, and when they run out it's over.
Sure enough, websites aplenty announced this was a limited run of 500 to commemorate Ricoh's eighty years in the camera business - and assuming those would last until December just wasn't a safe bet.

So it ends.
All my recent work to acquire some big-ticket items is done, and especially camera gear needs to settle for several months.

• I sought out smaller cameras and ended up with a GM1 and the YoCam
• I sought out a new vehicle for our rural home and found a used Ford Expolrer SportTrac
• We replaced washer, dryer & refrigerator with efficient new Samsung models
• The dream of a Pentax K-1 became a more practical but similarly impressive APSc option -
• and we paid down a bunch of debt!

Now to figure out how to delete those ads for used cars and K-1 cameras..

tiny white cameras

A trio of little white cameras are here now: the GM1 

(shown here with 9mm fisheye 'body-cap' lens), YoCam and Motorola cellphone. 

Image taken with my HUUUGE K∙50.

Each has its place. I really dislike cell phone cameras, but a visit to Mt. St.Helens forced me to give it a workout. In HDR mode images were okay, somewhat - though the brightening haloes in some shots were really annoying. It's definitely the emergency camera.

The YoCam is the miniscule adventure camera. It can do HD+ video, still shots, live feed to the phone (e.g. backup cam for the car), and go 30 feet underwater.  I must test this before we go anywhere important, but for unusual shooting it definitely has its place. Its wide angle f/2 lens is handy too.

The GM1 is smaller than our old Q, most especially with this lens attached - yet it has a full 4Thirds sensor inside, no pinkie-fingernail sensor here. It will be a challenge to adapt to an advanced camera so small, but the touchscreen can handle most of the controls.

Why are they all white ones?  Simply because I'm tired of black (phone, YoCam) and the used GM1 came this way. I'd have taken red or some other shade if the choice were mine, as white items hide nearly as well as black inside a house with papers strewn about.

Oh wait, I forgot my wife's white NX300 - another shot coming soon, but I'll wait for her pancake 16mm lens to arrive later today!