Technology continues to amaze.

Two press releases from Panasonic today, detailing the features of their latest superzoom, the FZ100 and their newest ‘luxury’ compact the LX5 shows how the state of the digital hardware art continues to progress.

But does it make toast and coffee?

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The FZ100 offers a startling zoom range of 25-600mm (FFE) in a one pound body, movie mode and built in flash. The multi-position LCD from the G1 is included, as is 11 frames per second sequential shooting and a 15 megapixel sensor. You get all of this for $500. Whether anyone will ever get sharp pictures at 600mm absent a tripod (how many buyers will spend the necessary $200+ for a really sturdy one?) is debatable, but it’s an awful lot of camera for awfully little money.

At the luxury compact end (meaning you pay up for a Panny lens with a Leica sticker) the LX5 is no less impressive. The camera’s ‘Leica’ lens retains its f/2 maximum aperture but the zoom range is now a truly useful 24-90mm and you can now fit the so-so clip on EVF designed for the GH1.

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That adds bulk and ugly, but you can see how the design experiences from the G1 range are reflected in both cameras.

Which leads me to the inevitable conclusion that the GF2 – a GF1 with the much better G1 EVF – will be here any day soon. A Leica shaped body with superior G1 range lenses and, finally, no faux prism hump.

So until that super zoom adds an f/2 aperture and a big sensor, the GF2 may be the next to see a home chez Pindelski. But the days of interchangeable lens DSLRs are surely numbered.

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Strange.

There’s an old Wall Street mantra of which I have long been a fan.

The subject is Loyalty and it goes like this:

“If you want Loyalty, get a dog.”

So when a new way of thinking in camera design comes along, I am more than interested. And I have no loyalty.

In this regard, I am worse than the common whore. If it works for me, I’ll go for it and dump yesterday’s infatuation.

What’s that, you say? You were with Leicas for over thirty years? Yes. Guilty as charged. They worked for me, for what I wanted to do, which was to take street snaps.

But then along came fast, small and automatic, with better image quality to boot, and like the street scrubber of old, I crossed the road to the better lit lamppost.

That lamppost was the Panasonic G1 for me. You can choose your own poison. Suffice it to say that there is no way I am going back to manual-anything. No, siree. I just want to press the button and get the instant gratification that we street denizens crave. A sharp moment of time.

So when Sony announces the NEX-5, I pay attention.

The Sony NEX-5 – APS-C in a very small box.

It’s an interesting piece. No viewfinder, of course. And an APS-C sensor. Though they still don’t get it – to make the lenses small you have to make the software fix the defects, not the gargantuan hardware they have opted for. But it is thinking outside the box as regards the body. Well done!

Sony may have lost its way in the last few years as their core competencies have become mass marketed and readily available. “It’s a Sony” now largely means “It’s overpriced”.

I rather doubt whether this ugly duckling will catch on, but I laud Sony for trying.

…. someone will get it right.

Another interesting product announcement from Samsung, the TL500, following on from their new APS-C DSLR:

The lens is fast at f/1.8, it does RAW and the zoom range is an incredibly useful 24-72mm. Just about perfect for street photography.

But, but, but …. there’s still no eye level viewfinder. I doubt it’s lost on the likes of Samsung and Panasonic, etc. that there’s a profitable and prestigious market segment waiting for a small, fast camera like this with a proper finder, not some dumb ass LCD screen, at $8,000 less than the crazy-priced Leica M9.

I doubt the day when we will see something like this is far away. F/1.8, 24-70mm or so with a manual zoom ring, a bigger sensor than the 0.6″ one in the TL500, low shutter lag and no earthly need for interchangeable lenses. All that’s needed in addition is an eye level EVF. Panny has most of this in the G1/GH1 and just needs to redesign the container, but if someone else beats them to it, so much the better. And forget the poncy built-in flash, for heaven’s sake. The technology is out there, it’s robust and my money is waiting. I would even settle for a smaller sensor than the one in the G1 – who is going to make huge prints from street snaps anyway?

A strange idea.

Let me preface my comments by saying that I have yet to handle the newly announced micro four-thirds Olympus E-PL1. Only journalists who will say nice things about it get advance copies and I am neither journalist nor toady.

The Olympus E-PL1

The camera will likely retail for $500 compared to the $660 asked for the E-P1 and the outrageous $1,100 for the E-P2, even if the latter comes with a clunky clip on EVF. Cost savings are accomplished by dropping the turn wheel and replacing it with slower buttons, more use of plastics and mounting the kit lens in a plastic rather than a metal body. Conferring value added, the E-PL1 has a built in electronic flash, like the E-P2, whereas the E-P1 has none.

So for $160 less than the E-P1 you get more plastic in the body and lens and a flash gun. Not bad. As none of these cameras is intended for use in war zones, I see no problem with the use of plastics and for many the flash is worth having. Stated differently, Olympus has just cannibalized the E-P1 into obsolescence, especially when you realize that the E-PL1 accepts the clip-on EVF denied to E-P1 users. The lack of the thumb wheel for street snappers is no big deal – there’s no time to adjust anything in the urban jungle so it would not be missed by this user. And with any other subject you have all the time on earth to mess with the buttons.

The lens remains interchangeable and there’s still no built-in viewfinder. The clip-on EVF destroys the compactness concept of the design by adding bulk and weight. So, in summary, I see the E-PL1 as a replacement for the E-P1 at lower cost but still a very expensive point-and-shoot restricted by its adherence to an LCD screen for composition, with all the attendant problems those bring. I would guess that E-P1 users are none too happy about Oly’s confused marketing move here.

Olympus 9-18mm wide zoom

At the same time Olympus announced two micro four-thirds lenses of interest. One is a $600 9-18mm wide zoom (18-36mm full frame equivalent) which depends on the camera’s in body image stabilizer, meaning that Panasonic G1/GH1/GF1 users have no IS as those bodies depend on in-lens IS. No big deal with such a short and useful focal length range, and the price is more appealing than the $1,100 asked by Panny for its wider 7-14mm super-wide zoom.

Olympus 14-150

The other newly announced Olympus zoom is the 14-150mm (28-300 FFE). At $525 it offers an appealing value but, once again, comes with a big negative. Without in-lens IS, use at the long end with the Panasonic bodies will require firm support to avoid shake. Olympus body owners benefit from in-body IS but have you ever tried to use an LCD for composition with long lenses, holding the camera two feet from your eyes like a real dork? Another dud, I’m afraid, especially for Panny micro four-thirds aficionados.

From a personal perspective with over 5,000 exposures on my G1, I remain delighted with the crackerjack 14-45mm kit lens (rough zoom ring apart) and find that I pocket the 45-200 IS for those few occasions where I need the reach. And what a reach it is at the long end! All I need to round things out is a pancake 10mm f/2.8 or so for really wide views and I will be a happy man. No sign of such a lens in Panny’s currently announced lens plans. There’s a 14mm f/2.8 coming but the very small kit zoom starts at 14mm and f/3.5 so I simply don’t understand Panny’s thinking here which seems about as clear as Oly’s mistake with the E-P1. The current 20mm Panny adds a fast aperture, true, but it duplicates what I have with the kit zoom and I do not need fast lenses for my kind of work.

Now in quantity production.

A reader sent me a link to Epson’s press release with details of their new Electronic View Finder. What’s significant about this is that smaller camera makers like Ricoh and Pentax who lack the capital to develop something similar will be able to buy the part at reasonable cost.

Click the picture for more.