Thinking outside the box.

Olympus may have committed one of the larger accounting frauds in recent years, to the tune of over-reporting income by $1.5 billion, but mercifully no such stupidity pollutes their camera design team which has generally been original and stellar in execution for decades. The Pen F brought a high quality half-frame (72 snaps on a roll of 35mm film) body with interchangeable lenses to the film world and the OM1 and successors saw Oly’s jeweled execution conferred on one of the most lovely film SLRs ever made. When they persuaded famous British bird photographer Eric Hosking to dump his heavy Zeiss Contarex gear in favor of their light and capable system, sales took off. No wonder that they have modeled the OM-D MFT DSLR range on the OM1.

When MFT digital came along both Oly and Panasonic were there from inception, rolling out a succeedingly better body seemingly annually. I went with the Panny G1 which was a groundbreaker, sold well before Oly came to market with its first MFT DSLR body. When I recently moved from a G3 to a pair of GX7s the main appeal of Panny over Oly was the availability of the silent electronic shutter in the GX7, a body which finally added IBIS, another first in the Panny line and something Oly had incorporated all along. Now I could get vibe free images at slow shutter speeds using the 17mm and 45mm Oly fixed focal length prime lenses which are excellent quality, fast, faster focusing than anything Panny sells and very compact indeed. The 17mm resides on one GX7, the 45mm on the other, and they are never removed. I also much prefer the unobtrusive ‘Leica M look’ of the GX7 over the OM-D with its intrusive and purposeless hump.

But let’s give credit where it’s due, for Oly has just announced it’s latest MFT DSLR body and it again reminds us that the mental sloths at Canon and Nikon need a good going over with with a cattle prod to wake up, smell the market and come out with FF mirrorless DSLRs in lieu of their antiquated, senseless bouncing mirror/glass prism, noisy monstrosities. Their continued complacency will see someone do this for them (Sony does not count – no credibility, like buying a Hyundai and pretending it’s German), with Fuji rumored to be working on one right now. Before they know it, Canon and Nikon will be yesterday’s news. Kodak anyone?

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, and the sensor shifting HD technology in Oly’s new body is a variation of that used by Hasselblad in its $50k HD50 body which takes multiple images, stitching them together in post, each image seeing the sensor displaced a tad so that the overlaps fix what ails digital sensors – moiré, color issues, grain. Oly does this in the E-M5 II by combining 8 images which can be processed using an included plug-in in Photoshop. True the technology – whether Hasselblad’s or Olympus’s – can only be used with stationary subjects, but check out this fine analysis by Imaging Resource, clicking through to their test chart images, and I think you will be challenged to distinguish the OM-D’s images from those taken using a 36mp Nikon D810. One easy way to spot the Oly images is by the complete absence of moiré effects in the material swatches even though the Oly sensor, like that in the D810, lacks an anti-aliasing filter. Extraordinary. Don’t waste time looking at the Sony images – the model/mount/lens range will be replaced three or more times by Christmas.

The other appealing thing is that finally an OM-D body includes a silent electronic shutter, something I use exclusively on my GX7s where it really is silent and results in far less mechanical wear than is the case with the mechanical one. (If you want a loud and slow focusing 35mm FFE lens, by all means try the execrable 20mm Panny offering – by the time it focuses your subject has crossed the nearest state boundary). The only sound you can hear when the shutter is released is that of the lens focus motor and the motors in the Oly primes I favor will be audible to you only. And by all accounts the multi-axis IBIS in the OM-D bodies is quite a bit better than that in the GX7 (not that I’m complaining) which otherwise resorts to in-lens vibration reduction, meaning Panasonic lenses only. Until the GX7 came along, the Panny user could only get vibration reduction with Panny lenses.

I don’t need the HD function of the new OM-D or any of the dozens of movie modes, but many landscape and architecture snappers will jump at the HD opportunity. Having schlepped their gear miles into the wilderness for yet another mind-numbingly inane image of Half Dome, these erstwhile mavens of the landscape world will welcome the new found lack of bulk and weight as they try yet again to imitate the famously mediocre Saint Ansel when they are not getting off arguing over hardware at LuLa. For snappers needing FF DSLR image quality from an MFT kit, the new OM-D is just the ticket.

Outstanding.

I first made mention of this camera a while back when it was introduced. The appeal was obvious – a fixed lens with a 24-75mm zoom range comes with a very fast aperture range of f/1.7 to f/2.8 at the long end. The zoom range is ideal, with the short end being very wide indeed and the long perfect for head and shoulder portraits which isolate the background. That’s not easy to do with most MFT lenses where smaller apertures tend to leave everything in focus.

Search the lens range for better quality zooms for Panny and Oly MFT bodies and you can have the Panny 12-35mm f/2.8 for $1,000 or the Oly 12-40mm f/2.8 for a like amount. By contrast, the LX100 with a lens which is 1.5 stops faster at the wide end, and the same speed when extended, runs just $900, plus another $30 for the nifty petal lens cap which opens and closes automatically as the camera is turned on or off. All of this comes in a far smaller package than with a detachable lens, with the added benefit of dust sealing. The lens cap mechanism is purely mechanical, the sprung leaves being pushed open by the front of the lens barrel and while somewhat ungainly looking when open, the petals do not compromise handling. The LX100 weighs 13.9 ozs, whereas the two detachable zooms for the GX7 weigh 10.8 ozs and 13.5 ozs, respectively. So the LX100 complete with a faster lens – a Leica design made by Panny – weighs considerably less than a body plus detachable zoom.

Panasonic LX100 beside the GX7 with the 17mm f/1.8 Olympus Zuiko fitted.
The AF/MF lever is just visible to the right of the aspect ratio one.

The LX100 shown above is my son’s, a Christmas gift to recognize his growing prowess as a photographer. Winston had a chance to wring out the camera over the holidays and every exposure on his first ‘roll’ was perfect. We left the camera as shipped, which means everything on Auto, with the sole change that images would be recorded in JPEG + RAW. The 64GB UD SDHC card will accommodate over 2,200 of such image pairs, and the limitation is the small battery, the same as the one used in the GX7. That’s good – an identical charger is used – and bad – the capacity is not great. Spares are a must, especially if making movies.

There are a couple of differences compared with the GX7. There’s no tilting LED screen or eyepiece (I find the latter of little use), and the flash is a clip on accessory, rather than being built in. That’s a shame. As with the GX7, ergonomics are superb, the body handling well in large or small hands despite its small size. Best of all the lens barrel extends (to 24mm) when the camera is turned on in a very fast 1 second, meaning that by the time you have it raised to your eye the body is ready to shoot. The zoom lever is atop and nicely balanced between speed and control. A manual zoom ring would be even nicer – perhaps on the Mark II version?

Where the ergonomics really excel is in the raft of manual controls – aperture, shutter speed, exposure compensation (so welcome, that one), aspect ratio, focus and shutter speed, all clearly visible in the image above. All the controls are ‘Leica quality’, the detents being engineered just so and a pleasure to operate. Mercifully the ugly black barrel on the chrome version (see the linked earlier piece, above) has been replaced by a chrome one in the production camera and Winston opted for chrome when asked whether he preferred the black body. The lens collapses shut after a couple of minutes of non-use. Engineering quality, fit and finish throughout is as good as it gets, the whole camera having a jeweled precision seldom encountered in consumer products. I would say that it is subjectively a step up in quality from the already excellent GX7 body.

Manual focus has to be the best implementation yet. Switch to MF and as you twist the focus ring the image is magnified making correct focus a breeze. This is further helped by focus peaking, the sharp parts of the image outlined in blue shimmering lines. Perfection and very fast into the bargain. I much prefer AF ‘focus and recompose’, which is an available option, but for the manual focus maven this is as good as it gets.

With the growing complexity of modern digital cameras there’s some sense to sticking with one manufacturer’s products as the chances are that menu designs will be similar. Such is the case here and after years with Panny’s G1, G3 and a brace of GX7s I felt immediately at home, making instructing Winston a breeze.

Optical quality is excellent at all apertures and focal lengths. It’s easy to switch to manual aperture where the f/2.8 setting at 75mm easily isolates backgrounds.

Winnie plays hard to get. At 75mm and f/2.8 – backgrounds blur easily.

Winston is learning to process images in Lightroom, and version 5.7 of that application recognizes and processes the RAW format from the LX100 seamlessly. It’s rally hard to think why any user would not opt for the superior flexibility of RAW file capture.

Pine Inn, Carmel. Image taken on the LX100 and processed in LR by my son.

It’s hard to think of a more capable camera for many genres of snappers. Be it street snapper, manual control aficionado, landscape artist, movie maker, you name it, the LX100 comes with a crackerjack, fast zoom, fluid operation, wonderful ergonomics, outstanding engineering and manual controls, all at a bargain price. For silent operation the superb electronic shutter option from the GX7 is carried over and works every bit as well. The funky lens cap obviates the need for protective filters on the outstanding Leica-designed fast zoom.

Unless you need ultra wide or very long optics, the LX100 provides an optimal focal length range with fast apertures throughout. Until the iPhone comes out with an optical zoom – likely very soon – it’s hard to imagine a more capable camera in so small a body. Large prints from MFT, as oft illustrated here, are a breeze.

For a closer look, with lens comparisons to the GX7 with the excellent fixed focus 17mm Zuiko MFT lens, please click here.