I’ve been a fan of the 14mm pancake since I got mine with my GF2 last year. It is surprisingly good, amazingly compact and unobtrusive. I find this lens on the front of my camera about 50% of the time. I tend to use it as the default when storing my camera in its bag, mostly because it’s compact, and keeps a lens on the camera for shooting if I want to snap something quickly. The other half of the time, I revert to the 20mm F1.7. It’s hard to talk about a micro-four-thirds system without mentioning one of these two lenses they are so canonical to the system.

Reading the reviews of the 14mm made me realize something though: It is a fantastic little lens.

Maybe because of the low price or diminutive size or plain old utility of it, it never reached out and struck me as a real attention-grabber. It sort of quietly does its job, lets you shoot great pictures and all the while doesn’t draw attention to itself.

It’s also a focal length I really love. At a full-frame equivalent of 28mm, it is a medium wide-angle lens. You can get quite a lot of scenery in a single shot.

I was in London last week and when I was lucky enough to do some walking about, I kept this little lens on the front of my camera. It really shines in a street setting, giving you enough room to take in some of the scenery around your subject if you want to. If you want to fill a frame with something, you have to get in close which can be fun (or a little daunting).

If you have a micro four-thirds camera and you don’t have one of these little gems (I believe we’re calling them “the pocket rocket” now), you owe it to your camera to pick one up. They really are amazing.

The GF2 served me well. It’s a great little travel camera, but the lack of dedicated hardware controls made it feel a little toy-like, despite the excellent implementation of its touch screen controls. The GF2 also lacked an external shutter release, a feature I use constantly for macro shots or when on a tripod. Long exposures take as long to process as your shutter release time – a 30 second exposure takes 30 seconds to finish recording – that’s pure waiting time when you can’t take another shot. It makes the GF2 useless for some types of time-lapse photography.

Which brings us to the GX1. Announced late in 2011, the GX1 promised to be the true successor to the now cult-status GF1, the origin of the micro-four-thirds species. With the updated 16MP sensor replacing the now aged 12MP LiveMOS sensor and a processor that’s been tweaked and upgraded from the top-end G3, the GX1 is probably the fastest m4/3 camera in Panasonic’s lineup.

The camera starts up and is ready to fire in just over a second (depending on lens). DPReview clocked power to exposure time at around 1.4s in their excellent review. Subsequent shots are a mere 0.2s including auto-focus. Long exposure shots are recorded with very little delay regardless of exposure time. Touch screen controls feel responsive and snappy for the most part, the exceptions being a few animated UI elements that feel a tad sluggish (the touch tabs interface, for instance). Fortunately, for most of these touchscreen features, there are now dedicated hardware controls to access functions directly.

Construction-wise, the GX1 is a solid little camera. The addition of the extra chunky rubber grip on the front feels good in the hand, though it does feel like there isn’t a lot of space for your thumb on the rubber grip surrounding the command dial. That said, I don’t think I’ve accidentally hit any of the controls with my thumb during shooting. It’s a fairly comfortable camera to hold with one hand if you need to. Shutter release feel is excellent with good feedback on half-presses.

Controls

The controls are comprehensive. Two hardware Fn buttons are assignable and an additional two are available in the touch tab interface. By default they’re set to Auto Exposure for Fn1, AF/AE Lock for Fn2, and Fn3 and 4 are set to adjust display paramaters (level guide and histogram respectively). These are pretty sane defaults and I like the positions of Fn1 and Fn2 for auto exposure and AF/AE lock well enough. Astoundingly, the button labeling on the four-position buttons are silver on silver guaranteeing they’re impossible to read in any light. Fortunately, you’ll get to know them pretty quickly. I chose the “silver” body for my GX1 and the other button labels are white on the somewhat dark silver body. Also not super-easy to read, but I still like the nearly titanium color of the aluminum body.

One slightly surprising change is the single control dial (referred to as Rear Dial in the manual) has been made slightly smaller on the GX1. This means you need more rotations to accomplish the same change as on previous models. A minor point but one that makes the control dial feel a little bit clunky. I’m also not a huge fan of the feel of this control. I’d prefer something more solid with better feel. As probably the single-most heavily used control after the shutter release, it’s a control I’d prefer had better tactility. This does however encourage use of the auto exposure button on Fn1 when shooting in any of the manual exposure modes. The rocking power switch next to the excellent mode dial on top has a somewhat cheap feel to it as well. I’m worried that I’ll break it off someday. The battery and memory card door on the bottom is the only other piece of plastic on the body that feels like it could break if I weren’t careful. I’d probably have to be a complete ass to manage that though as when it’s closed, it’s fairly tight.

My only other quibble with this camera is the inclusion of Panasonic’s iA button. iA stands for “Intelligent Auto” and is a feature for novice shooters who just want a point and shoot. Dedicating a full button on the top plate for this feature is pretty annoying on a camera aimed at enthusiast shooters. I’d far prefer it were programmable. Your only option is to set the iA button to “click and hold” to eliminate accidental presses. If you’re into iA mode, it lights up in a garish blue when activated letting the world know that you don’t know how to use your camera.

Video

Other fun features on the mode dial are various scene and creative modes that let you alter the colors and shooting characteristics if you’re into the whole instagram thing and shoot in JPEG. One nice feature of these modes is that they work when shooting video. This gives you an easy way to shoot in sepia or black and white without requiring time-consuming post-processing on your computer. More-importantly, the custom white balance modes also function in movie recording. If you want to shoot with a cyan or orange filter or green up your fluorescent lights like you’re in an episode of CSI, you can do it.

These are great little cameras for video and honestly one of the main reasons I became interested in micro 4/3. They take a bit of getting used to. Some lenses have different focusing characteristics and if you’re shooting in continuous auto-focus they tend to hunt a bit. This is where the touch screen auto-focus really comes in handy. Setting yourself in single shot auto-focus and using the touch screen to pick your focus point mid-shot (called “rack-focus”) or using face or target tracking autofocus modes let you shoot a scene with impressive results. Something I still need more practice with.

The GX1 has returned to offering a stereo condenser mic on the top, a feature missing from the GF3. I don’t believe it’s possible to attach a hot-shoe mounted stereo mic as is possible on the more video-focused GH2 though for my needs, the built-in mic is just fine.

Conclusion

So there you have it! The GX1 is a superb “little” walking around camera. With the 14mm pancake lens or the 14-42mm power-zoom, it’s quite pocketable. Having traveled with it a couple of times now, I have no qualms about carrying it in a small camera bag, you can pack a surprising amount of photo gear into a compact carrier. Would this replace my Nikon DSLR? Probably not (14 bit color in the Nikon, multiple exposure capabilities, a whole different range of high quality lenses, etc.). But for travel or street shooting, I think the GX1 and a couple of hot primes fits the bill nicely.

A high ISO test shot, cleaned up in Light Room.

Camera Pron with the 45mm Leica 2.8 Macro.

This was very distressing to me. Especially as I’m going to be going to a photo workshop very soon now.

I called Ivan’s, our local camera shop and asked them about the chances of getting it repaired. “Not very good,” was the gist of the reply. Apparently there’s a backlog and some cameras are taking several months to get fixed if it needs parts that aren’t in Canada. And there is apparently a bit of a parts shortfall these days. Not good at all.

He did give me Nikon Canada‘s number though and suggested I give them a try. “Maybe if they get a call from a customer, they’ll be able to help you out.”

This gave me a bit of hope. I called The Canadian Source of All Things Nikon and was shocked to hear a human answer the phone after the first ring. She transferred me directly to customer service who then sent me directly to the parts department. I explained that I had a broken release switch, and did they have another? “Let me check,” the parts tech said and put me on hold. She came back promptly and said she’d have to call me back. I left her my details and hung up.

Hunh!

She didn’t call back that day so I ordered a USB cable from Amazon. I could still get about 300 14-bit RAW shots onto my 8GB CF card before I filled it up. More if I shot in 12-bit, which I usually do anyway. My hopes of hearing back from Nikon were not great at this point, but I held on.

The next day, Deb asks me if I’d seen any results on the web for my broken button. I said I hadn’t. My search string was weak, but she managed to find this thread on the D200/D300 Users Group on Flickr almost right away. Apparently it’s a pretty common thing. Deb also read through and discovered that by prying the rubber grip back, it exposes a catch release slot over the door. With her fingernails and a toothpick, she was able to pop the door open. Nice, though repeated applications of this hack would almost surely destroy the rubber grip on the back and compromise the dust seals there.

Later, I downloaded a D300 Repair manual. It’s easy. Just search for that and grab a PDF.

Then a little after noon, the phone rang. I recognized the 905 number and greeted the parts technician. “We have your part!” she said, excitedly, then paused. “… but we can only ship it via Purolator”. I laughed and said I didn’t mind paying $15 dollars shipping for what must be a pretty cheap part (it’s 5 bucks). She sounded relieved and I gave her my shipping info. She said it’d be there in a couple of days.

Wow!

I am so used to having dismal customer support experiences that I was totally unprepared for how awesome Nikon would be to deal with. In fact, I expected nothing to come of this and was considering all kinds of crazy options. Deb kept telling me that I should “just go and buy a D7000″ but I was pretty uninterested in doing that. My 4 year old non-S D300 is such a familiar machine that I didn’t want to give up on it. I don’t care that it doesn’t shoot video or has fewer megapixels. I love the control layout and I can pretty much run the whole thing in my sleep. Or at night. In the dark.

I’ll take some pictures when the switch arrives and document the repair for others in case they need it. I probably should’ve ordered two replacement switches for when this one fails in another 4 years.

And, as I was writing that last sentence, the Purolator guy rang my doorbell with the switch. Honestly, I’m a little amazed at just how awesome this is. Total time to receiving this part is under 48 hours since I placed the call. All done over the phone, no internets clogging up the communications. Just humans. Thanks, Nikon!

And then things started getting interesting. I heard about the Fujifilm X100 around CES (or was it Photokina?) earlier this year and it sounded pretty special, even without any actual units capable of producing images, people were going nuts over it. Sporting a proper Fujinon 35mm-equivalent F2 fixed lens, this was a totally different point and shoot. A range finder camera with an innovative prism allowing it to work as either a straight optical or an electronic viewfinder. And man, it looked great.

Unfortunately, once the hardware started shipping, the reviews weren’t off the charts. With a $1200 price tag, I’d kind of expect this little gem to be the best thing short of a Leica M9 you can fit in your jacket. While the image quality is great, the performance seems a little average. Noticeable shutter lag and some confusing controls make for a fiddly experience and more than likely, some lost shots. Then again, I’ve been eating up CoffeeGeek‘s reviews of his X100 and he’s making it sound pretty sweet. They’re also, apparently not available due to manufacturing shortages in Japan. If you’ve got one, consider yourself very lucky.

Enter the GF2. I did a bunch of reading, comparing some of the different available cameras like the Olympus E-PL2, the Canon G12 and the S95 as well as the new Nikon P7000 and Lumix LX5 and the Sony NEX3. The Micro Four Thirds (m4:3) cameras were looking more and more interesting. Despite an aging sensor, the Panasonic GF2 had some very innovative features. Not all reviewers were keen on the touch screen, but I was willing to give it a shot (or several thousand).

One big advantage over the fixed zooms was the interchangeable lens format. I wanted to keep the camera as compact as possible while providing a solid, fast lens. My primary focal range when I’m walking around with my D300 is a 24mm (38mm equivalent on full frame) which mapped very closely to the Panasonic 20mm F1.7. As a pancake lens, it’s quite compact, though not quite as svelte as the 14mm F2.5 pancake that came with it.

In addition to some processing improvements over the GF1, the GF2 eschews many of its predecessors’ hardware controls in favor of a very well-implemented touch screen system. This was a concern of mine and something some reviewers haven’t been too kind about, proclaiming the GF2 a  “dumbed-down” camera. In practice though, I find the touch-screen both very intuitive and surprisingly fast to access frequently-used controls. The touch screen controls are very customizable via the Q-menu functions allowing you to set your preferred controls on a dock-like, scrollable menu. Augmenting the touch screen is a command dial which does dual-duty as an extra selection button. In manual mode, the command dial toggles between F-stops and shutter speed. In aperture priority, between aperture and exposure adjustment.

It is also Very Fast. Not just for a point-and-shoot, either. The GF2 is under a second from power-on to recording a shot. Shutter response is instantaneous with no noticeable lag. Focus is quick and intelligent. The 23-point AF system has a bunch of features I haven’t really played with yet. I did play a little with the focus-tracking system where you select a subject on the touch screen and the camera magically keeps it in focus as it moves around.

My one beef is the Q-menu button does double duty as a programmable Function button. There’s one other button on the top of the camera that serves as a “noob” button for novices, the GF2′s “Intelligent Auto” button would be a lot more useful if it were programmable to something else. I don’t see myself ever using iA mode. Maybe a firmware update will provide a programming option. Please. In any case, the one programmable button means having to use the screen to access the Q-menu feature if you want to program the button to do something else.

Image quality from the supplied 14mm lens is excellent. The optional 20mm pancake lens is even better, providing great low-light performance and impressive bokeh. Lens distortion on both lenses is surprisingly minimal. Noise-levels at ISO 800 are stellar. Even up to 1600, you can take a decent shot – the Foveon X3 sensor giving a nice film-like grain. Color noise is acceptable and easily removed in a decent image editor.

Yes. I like this camera a lot. Having spent a week with it in a bunch of different lighting situations, I’m more than happy with the pictures that come out of it. I’m really happy to have a portable, well-built camera to carry around.

See some more pics here.

Great tips and a couple of App recommendations from Phil Coffman on taking great pictures with your iPhone. At a minimum, you should get yourself Mill Color and Adobe Photoshop Mobile. (iTunes links)

Phil Coffman – Art Director + Photographer » iPhone Photography.

So, I snapped and put in a megabag order at B&H. I ordered the F-4AF and a bunch of wraps for my lenses. Then I added a Gripper strap to replace the stupidly-flashy “Nikon”-emblazoned strap that came with my camera.

I will admit that I’m a sucker for bags. I have more bags for my laptop than is really sensible. Especially now that I have an F-808 messenger bag to go along with the camera bags.

Already, editing text in this is proving to be an exercise in patience. Deleting text does funny things. Positioning that picture is awkward and unintuitive. I don’t think I could replace ecto with this, but it does have a Firefox extension which I haven’t figured out how to access yet.

More reviews of Adobe CS3 Web Premium Addition to follow…