keepreal

I see. You judge the quality by the zoom range and maximum aperture. Clever stuff! And on this basis the G1 X jusitifiesd a higher price than an entry level DSLR, even a good one.

DP Review, you are wasting your time with your reviews of equipment. Just do a little bit of arithmetic based on these two criteria. Everything else is a waste of time your checking out and us reading.

Also, so many people commenting here seem to have decided what a wonderful camera this is already. DP Review, why bother with a review at all?

I have had more than enough of this stupidity. I am saying goodbye, logging out, deleting my RSS feed and abandoning this website. This is not the first time but finally forever.

The goal is to quickly capture as many shots as possible to show what the equipment is capable of. None of them do. I agree with Michael Thompson.

DP Review's review of cameras is still pretty good and their lens reviews too although their use of new "scientific" methods to convey results make them less easy to read and come to conclusions over. Almost everything else is a complete waste of time including many of their previews which now overwhelms their site. For some people, judging by their comments, this is quickly becoming more and more annoying, including me.

Spot on. Give the suckers what they're willing to buy!

DonnyHiFi Almost everyone. Says who? Lemmings, you mean?

I would like to see some of the photos of these wise guys whose logic, IQ and invented evidence (eg. almost everyone) are about as advanced as a child. I expect their pictures are too.

M Jesper When you look at a picture, what you see is what you see. It makes no difference how many megapixels there are, you are still seeing what you see. And, if the result is better or worse it is better or worse regardless of anything. With or without a whole lot of ignorance. Yours.

In your last comment, proxy , at last a lot of sense and I mostly agree . The concept behind the G1 X is excellent but it does need to have a good enough lens and, this sample at least does not. If it did I would be interested as my D300 with 12-24 mm Sigma weighs 1503g, a lot too much to carry around all of the time.

slncezgsi "nowhere near what the G1X puts out"On whose say so? If it was as good as it should be, but the lens is not...

In good light at low ISO the C-5060 was fine, still is. I suspect you are right at higher ISO not so, where I agree the G1 X appears to be good up to about 1600, may be more. In that respect at least, we do have progress. Who told you the C-5060 no longer is good? What makes you think so? I happen to like landscapes which generally have strong light. Maybe in poor light the C-50560 is awful, no idea! However if a lens is bad in decent light, it is not going to improve in bad light, is it? I would not be satisfied with the lens in the G1X in any light.

"better lens than any kit lens"

Really? Where did you get that information from?

You are the one who is dreaming. I talk only of the lens. The rest of the G1X might be excellent but who cares?

If you set the C-5060 to lower than the default contrast and saturation which, like a lot of cameras are far too high, the results are consistently excellent. No perceptible colour fringing and no blown highlights except in HDR conditions. I have scores of shots with it that prove both. Anyone can look up the reviews and I did and then bought it not for keeps but to see what was possible with digital.

Then I was using film in my Nikon F80. Later, I sold the Olympus to my son at a hefty discount, waited awhile and bought a DSLR, partly because I wanted a far wider angle, wanted to use my three lenses which include a 12-24 mm on APS-C and partly because I wanted the best dynamic range.

People like you are perfect fodder for the manufacturers. New models every few months, unnecessary extra megapixels, progress hugely exaggerated but you fall for it hook, line and sinker.

Exactly. The Olympus is a few years obsolete, has only 5 mega pixels and a tiny sensor but does much better than this. I have done a 16 x 20 from it which is much sharper than the G1X and is also sharp into the corners.

That's my point, proxy, what's yours?

If the lens in this sample is typical, then it is dreadful, certainly for any camera at this price, even at half the price. I cannot comments on anything else, not have I.

And you, douple. Don't you understand? An 5 mp true compact of 2005 vintage with a better lens than a very new camera with a hugely bigger sensor and costing a lot more. Given that, this comparison makes a great deal of sense.

Richie Beans - amazing.

I have three lens on my Nikon D300 - 12-24mm, 24-85mm and 70-300mm. On holiday recently I took 768 shots and 87% were at 24mm or wider. It would be nice to have a smaller lighter camera as an alternative to the Nikon D300 with 12-24 but your stitch-up is not the answer.

Given what I think (see above) your decision shocks me! Why did you not wait for a proper test? Can you get your DSLR back?

In two parts:

Part I

We have had bright sunny weather in London for the past few days so I would have expected enough umph at least for the outside shots to draw some conclusions from these samples even before a rigorous test. I decided to home in on wide angle shots and I think they are very disappointing:

Judging from a number, what follows assumes that sharpening has not been applied in camera or if so only very slightly:

1679997 taken at f/4.5 at 15mm (the wide angle)

The top corners are quite sharp and the chromatic aberration is reasonable but the bottom left corner is very unsharp. Not sure if this indicates decentering but the performance a stop down from the maximum is rather poor IMO.

1679548 was taken at f/5.6 and 15mm but it is more even but not especially sharp!

1679995 taken at f/6.3 is uniformly sharp to all the corners so by that aperture the shortcomings of the lens at the widest angle have disappeared.

Part II

1679550 was taken at f/3.5 and even at this large aperture the definition and lack of chromatic aberration to the corners are very good, so it appears that the lens improves a lot increasing the focal length to 19mm.

This is fairly good performance from a compact sensor for a camera at a fairly modest price. The Olympus C-5060 I bought and passed onto my son is better than this and does have a compact camera sized sensor!. If these shots are truly representative then for a frame approaching APS-C and a price of 700 GBP this camera is rubbish.

Also, the DP Review studio test images are very, very poor. There is next to nothing to judge fine detail anywhere, let alone the corners. Why did they not use something similar if not identical to those before? Maybe a commission from Canon?

I look forward to a proper test, of course.

Continuing from immediately above …

Before Leica started marketing relatively for them rubbish compacts made by other companies there was no doubt that a Leica was Leica worthy of the name. Once they started allowing their name to be used in Panasonic Lumix compact zoom lenses, one could not avoid the question which Leica are we talking about and does the original Leica still exist today?

As I said elsewhere a prewar Leica IIIa with an uncoated Elmar was so well made that it held its own even years after the war and against film cameras would still do pretty well today. That's is nothing to do with old technology and heavy metal lens assemblies. It is about three things only - quality, quality and quality.

Today even the best, while they do deliver will be on the scrap heap in at most 10 years time. That is partly because science will have advanced by then but also because profit is the driver not the pursuit of excellence and quality that will still hold its own 30 years hence.

Zvonimir Tosic - What you say is extraordinary.

"Leica's lenses are prehistoric in concept compared to these new Fujis." I do not think anyone takes pictures with concepts. Those Summicron's were superb years ago when they first came onto the market and still are today.

"Leica's M9 is as impressive as an 18th century mechanical clock — a fine example of human engineering in mechanics we can admire, and applaud for its own sake. But far and away from any everyday use for everyday people today." Leicas were not built and hopefully still are not built for everyday people. That's is what made them special. They were made to be the best possible regardless of their affordability. If the Fuji X-Pro 1 were to be that good and long term engineered to last several decades then I would want to applaud them except the fact that they also make cameras for everyday people today would have to leave the doubt are they really good enough still to be around and worth using in 30 years time?

... continued

The Contaflex was made almost to Leica standards. Included in the price was service which they explained when I carelessly dropped the tele lens onto a wooden floor from chest level and badly dented, causing the cement between some the glasses also to fail but fortunately no actual glass shattering. Returned absolutely perfect, like new for only 5 GBP.

Moreover in the 1950s my father bought and I sometimes borrowed his prewar Leica IIIa with uncoated prewar Elmar 50mm, also postwar 90mm Elmar. That prewar equipment was a match for anything of 1950s or 1960s vintage except another Leica, Contax and one or two other cameras. Even today it would hold its own as regards the quality of the result with film with many of the few contemporary film cameras still made. Only the user interface would be better, not the results.

I had a Tele-Rolleiflex in the 1960s. Beautifully made and beautiful to use. If I were still using film, I would love to have one today.

FeignPhoto - I should have said this before:

The C-5060 is so good that I was able to print a beautiful shot my son took with it in China to 16 x 20 and you would have to look at it very closely from a few inches away to tell the difference had I taken it with my Nikon D300. That is surprising even for a top quality compact with 5 mb but it does prove that increasing megapixels is used as a marketing ploy by the manufacturers except for those who genuinely need them.

One of the cameras I had in the 1960s was a Contaflex with interchangeable lenses but only that part in front of the iris and Compur shutter. The director of a course I went to at the then famous Ealing Polytechnic said it was impossible to get top quality in a 16 x 20 from 35mm and he was a renowned photographer. He admitted he was wrong when he saw what I was able to achieve with Pan F in Beutler.

Continued...

FeignPhoto - answers to both questions yes. Your point about consumer grade cameras is valid but who can afford only flagships cameras. I have one now, the Nikon D300. And the C-5060 was prosumer grade.

Francis Carver - not all old-time cameras were clunkers but your last point is the clincher, isn't it? And you only are repeating what I said where I started!

As a smaller, lighter camera the Nikon D5000 with 18-55mm VR at 825g must seem absurd. However, that saves me 678g against my D300 with Sigma 12-24mm. It is the best compromise for a second camera, since I am not prepared to use one where I have doubts the quality is good enough to make fine prints as large as A2.

One magazine described the D5000 as having the best dynamic range of entry level DSLRs. I like HDR lighting in most of my landscapes, so that was a factor. I decided against compacts because their sensors are too small to give good dynamic range and sharpness. Lenses for compacts and mirrorless cameras with interchangeable in APS-C and Four Thirds all have too much distortion, especially in wide angle. I expect the Canon G1 X will too. I shoot RAW and want to have no constraint on which RAW developer I use, so distortion correction would be an issue, probably not for the Fuji X-Pro 1. I also wanted an optical viewfinder but the X-Pro 1 is too expensive as a second camera.

You are absolutely right. Trouble is with so many idiots prepared not only to spend an arm and a leg but also then to do the same time and time again for a miniscule upgrade, not only cameras and lenses but Photoshop too. The manufacturers are quite ready to fleece those of us like that.

Hey! Does anybody out there take decent pictures? Or is there not enough time after concentrating on keeping up to date with the latest equipment and choosing between the alternatives, time and time again?