Mike Broadway – PhotoBlog

Arboretum parking lot 6, Austin

The Panasonic GF1 is the light and discrete camera I carry for street photography and grab shots; it is my ‘affordable by mortals’ Leica M9-P substitute (see Panasonic GF1 – Two Week Report from May, 2010 for a full review).

I continue to be delighted with the camera but Panasonic the company has me a little worried. Between them, Panasonic and Olympus blazed the trail for mirrorless, interchangeable lens, cameras and with the GF1, I bought into the Micro 4/3 architecture. Now the GF1 is discontinued and there is no replacement. Come January, 2012, I will have the funding for an upgrade to address the GF1’s several deficiencies but neither company has yet shown me that it will have a worthy successor in its stable when I have the money in the bank.

Yes, there has been a GF2 and now a GF3 but they represent a sleight of hand change in direction not an upgrade path. To quote DP Review from its February, 2011, GF2 review:

These changes all signal a clear repositioning of the GF series in the market. Whereas the GF1 was unashamedly a camera for enthusiast photographers, the GF2 is now aimed much more at compact camera owners looking for an upgrade.

The GF2 took away controls and the GF3 took away even the ability to mount a viewfinder attachment – that is not progress. Good for profits perhaps, but a serious dissapointment for the likes of me. Meanwhile Olympus is doing no better; the EP3 is barely treading water by way of being an improvement and the new Olympus VF3 viewfinder is a lower resolution, lower magnification, retrograde move.

What I want is:

• An integrated EVF viewfinder that won’t be damaged knocking around in my book bag
• A high resiolution EVF that is close in quality to looking through the glass
• A form factor that does not attract unwanted attention (it should not look like an SLR shrunk by an encounter with an over-hot washing machine)
• A flip up rear display for waste level shooting
• A Micro 4/3 lens mount

In fact, what I want looks disurbingly like a Sony NEX-7 with its built in 2.4M pixel EVF (more than 10x the resolution of the GF1’s EVF). If the Sony was combined with the kind of user interface consideration that the Samsung’s NX200 Smart Panel exhbits then my loyalty might really be stretched come the new year. Perhaps it is a good thing that Sony continues to prove itself clueless with its menu designs?

Sony NEX-7 - rear view

Here’s hoping Panasonic or Olympus has something better on the shelves by, say, February of 2012. I won’t be holding my breath though.