…. 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.

From Samsung, unsurprisingly.

Samsung is rolling out its NX10 mirrorless DSLR any day now – much the same concept as the Panasonic G1/GH1 but with the larger APS-C sensor and using superior rear LCD screen technology. Boy, if anyone knows about LCDs it’s Samsung as they are one of the largest manufacturers of these in all sizes.

Sadly it’s still modeled, like the Panny twins, after the conventional DSLR silhouette, with that silly prism hump, but that will not last long, I am sure. Overall it seems about as small as the G1.

I can only applaud. It’s another nail in the coffin of the flapping mirror/pentaprism design which has seen its day in the sun. The user gains compactness and a quieter tool with less weight. So the tool gets used more as a result.

Can a full size sensor variant with no prism hump be far behind?

Now Sammy, where’s the British Racing Green version, please?

Shorter and shorter.

I used my Leica M3 for some 35 years. It had everything I needed in a street snapper, being small, quiet, sharp and fast. Add a lens or two and you had enough to travel the world. I mostly used it with the 35mm Summaron with those ghastly viewfinder ‘spectacles’.

My M3

My Rollei 3.5F made it through 10 years. Truth be told, I seldom did it justice, never getting comfortable with the reversed waist level image (you were always looking up at people’s chins) but the large negative was nice and the camera even quieter than the Leica.

My Rollei 3.5F

It’s successor was possibly the most accomplished medium format film camera ever, the Rollei 6003 Pro. The designers obviously took pictures and the choice of shutter or aperture priority automation was better executed than anything before or since. The lenses were to die for and the controls near perfect. Too bad it weighed several tons. Five years.

My Rollei 6003 Pro

One other attempt at medium format came and went in a year. The Pentax 6×7 was so loud that there was basically no environment in which I cared to use it.

It made the sound of a gun when the button was pressed

By contrast, the diminutive Pentax ME Super with its sweet 40mm Pancake lens was a dream and served me well on the streets of a tough New York during most of the decade of the 1980s when I lived there. It started as a ‘steal me, I don’t care’ substitute for the Leica and ended up my daily snapper. I left it behind in New York when I moved to Los Angeles. Street snappers were safe there as no one walked.

ME Super with pancake in place – as good as 35mm SLRs got

But my all time favorite of the film years was my Leica M2, which I bought in very sad shape in 1993. I got a dozen very hard years out of it and it always made me regret having bought the M3 back in 1971 when I really should have got the M2. The 35/50/90mm viewfinder was just what the doctor ordered and no bespectacled bulky 35mm lenses were needed, just the wonderful 35mm and 90mm Asph Summicrons. Parting with that one really hurt when I sold it.

My Leica M2 with the 35mm Asph Summicron

My general drift here, however, is that there are no more 5, 10 or 15 year cameras. The rate of change in technology is so startlingly high right now that if you were to tell me that I would be using my Panasonic G1 as my “go to” tool of choice five years hence I would laugh myself silly.

No sooner do I write that, though, than I am given pause by the superb Canon 5D. I see no earthly reason to upgrade to the Mark II as the images seem every bit as perfect as anything from medium format film and maybe it will just enjoy a double digit anniversary here. Provided it doesn’t blow and die for lack of digispares. I have recycled a couple of the poorer lenses made by Canon for this body but the rest soldier on as sharp as the day I bought them and newer arrivals preserve backward compatibility so far.

Life’s too short for brand loyalty. I wonder what the Panasonic G2 will bring? Or the Samsung XYZ3? If it works for me you will find it around my neck or, more likely, in my pocket.

“Rich sod” I hear you thinking. Nothing could be further from the truth. My M3, bought in 1971, was the results of My years in retail. The Rollei 3.5F was a real beater which cost very little. Now, film Leicas and Rolleis are super collectible, of course. Pretty much everything else was from trading gear, and I never bought new until digital came along. The reasons are simple. ‘Used’ and ‘digital’ equals ‘obsolete’, as in parts are not available no matter how competent the camera, and repairing them makes little economic sense. Further, digital gear is so much cheaper than the machines of old that it has become very affordable. That $650 G1 would have cost some $100 in 1971 currency when I got that Leica M3. It never ceases to amuse me that the proceeds of my M2, M3 and a small handful of lenses paid for everything I use today. Like with investing, timing the exit right makes a big difference. And loyalty is for dog lovers.