It's time to replace the carry around camera

Louis_Dobson wrote:

Kit lens is simply too slow for me.

Been there and done that,  in my old age and wisdom I have come back to quite liking good slower lenses.  The kit lens on the GM series is actually quite a surprise package and a real bargain when it comes attached to the camera.  It would have taken up little space in a gadget bag and in use might have surprised. But everyone makes their own choices.

For example the old 200mm Takumar comes basically in three size formats - the huge heavy f3.5 with a built in tripod mount, the more acceptable sized f4.0 and a seriously slimmed down and useful f5.6 version.  In good light the f5.6 provides reach and quite capable images in a compact and relatively light shell (for an all metal and glass construction).  Not that you will be interested in one of these old but quite capable legacy lenses made for 35mm film, but they are a handy scale of reference for the extra size necessary to get that extra light in.  Moving down the stop scale the Canon 200mm f2.0 is even faster but it now becomes nearly 2kgs to hump around.  Luckily M4/3 lenses are smaller and lighter by nature of their format.  But I don't think a 200mm prime has arrived for the M4/3 that fast as of yet.

I suggest that if ever Panasonic got around to making a 200mm f5.6 OIS prime it would be both compact and light of very high quality and make very good images.  Olympus still generally seems to prefer metal with their glass and not the quite acceptable lighter industrial plastic shells of most if not all their lenses.

Tom Caldwell wrote:

Louis_Dobson wrote:

Ah, I missed the lack of IBIS. That's a major PITA, but still you can't have everything.
Short battery life too.

You might also have missed that some have bought one of the GM series simply to get that tiny but very effective stabilsed kit lens.

The lack of IBIS and battery have never worried me with my GM bodies. They are small enough and cheap enough to have one dedicated to each lens and to be able to treat them as individual cameras and not replaceable lens cameras.

The only think they are short of is a quick and easy way to keep their firmware setup synchronised, but they are not alone there in that regard.

papillon_65 wrote:

Louis_Dobson wrote:

Thanks all for the discussion.
I had not seriously considered the GM5 because I didn't realise it has a built in viewfinder.
Perfect camera on paper. Why does anyone buy anything else? What have I missed?

-- hide signature --

www.flickr.com/photos/acam
http://thegentlemansnapper.blogspot.com

Probably the main reasons are that it doesn't have IBIS and for some people it's too small and fiddly. I have the GM1 and think it's great with the tiny but excellent pancake zoom, truly pocketable, and its a stabilised lens.

-- hide signature --

667......neighbour of the beast...
http://bit.ly/1K1oqkv

-- hide signature --

www.flickr.com/photos/acam
http://thegentlemansnapper.blogspot.com

-- hide signature --

Tom Caldwell

-- hide signature --

www.flickr.com/photos/acam
http://thegentlemansnapper.blogspot.com