The Little Camera that Could

Camera Body and Screen

First thing that strikes you is this is a small dense camera. It is beautifully built and feels like a step up from cameras of a similar size such as the Panasonic GF1.

It's all metal besides the controls and lens casing, and feels solid and cool to the touch.

The screen is beautiful and arranged with vestigal 'tabs' along the top that make it very easy to hunt through the clear and logical menus.

Shooting

The camera, just, fits in my jacket pocket so I have had it handy the last couple of days since it arrived in the mail, and been able to shoot a little with it.

Powering on takes about a couple of seconds, and once powered up it is quite responsive. Focusing is quick and positive, and about on a par with say an LX3 in decent light. I had some persistent issues with close focussing until I discovered an error in my menu settings, and had inadvertently set the AF range to 1m-inf, instead of the full range. Oops, my bad.

When an image is capture, the screen will black out momentarily, then the red light on the back with go solid, then flash fast for about 5 - 7 seconds whilst an image is written to the SD card. You can still shoot whilst this is happening, but it does give an impression that the camera is working very hard.

Controls

Buttons on the back include a AEL, quick settings button, 4-way controller, menu button, ok button, image review and TV button.

Top controls include power button, mode, shutton release and spinny dial.

When shooting in A mode, aperture is adjusted with the dial, and exp. comp is very quickly adjusted with the left/right of the four way controller. All other key controls are accessed either through the menu, or quickly using the quick set buttons. I own a D70, D750, GF1, LX3 and have used various other cameras, and bar none, the DP2M is the easiest camera to adjust quickly. It really feels like it was put together as a labor of love.

Image Quality

I'll include one of the first images I've shot with this camera, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. It's from some near parkland near my office that was formerly a pecan orchard, and includes some old and dying trees, and all the colors and textures you'd expect.

Old stump and bush. Please view at 100%.

Conclusion

I LOVE this camera. Image quality is spectacular, and I just really want to go an make beautiful pictures with it. It's that simple.

Fully agree with your review, DP Merrills are amazing cameras and IQ still to challange by other cameras

The "little camera" is a wonderful beast, but to continue the analogy, it has to pull SPP as the tender and that makes it short of breath.

After having an original DP, for which SPP performs just fine, I found it a bit of a shock when I processed my first Merrill files.

It's a good job that I'm picky about what I take and take my time taking!

I can just about live with it as a fussy amateur, but if I was taking high volumes it would just drive me crazy.

For all that I agree with your assessment that it is a brilliant camera and just wish I had more time to spend with it.

Figs

There is nothing quite like the feeling you get when you open the files from these little gems is there