Comments on: Small Camera Overview

By: robin

robin — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 21:57:41 +0000

Quite a useful compendium. We can each apply or own criteria, extrapolating price. So, If I require body stabilisation, a good selection of compact glass, wide mount compatibility, a decent sensor size, and a viewfinder (at least as an option) then I am left with… Olympus! Seems I made the right choice then.

By: Roger Cicala

Roger Cicala — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 22:02:48 +0000

Thank you, Craig. I absolutely meant “aren’t” and typoed it. Fixed now.

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:52:33 +0000

Mistake? “Most of us are going to do studio work or shoot an epic video with this type of camera.”

I would have thought you meant “…aren’t…”

Craig

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 03:07:28 +0000

Yes, people who are serious about photography at some time will demand camera/lens that will fit in their pocket and have been doing so for years. The designer of the camera below is said to have been inspired to build the XA because he wanted a small camera to take on his vacation. I just gave mine to a collector and bought an NEX 7.
FYI from a few sources:
Olympus XA 35mm Film Rangefinder Cameras
Won over by its sharp lens, compact dimensions, sturdy casing and exposure controls, the XA camera quickly found favor among fellow enthusiast with many ending up as the camera ‘professionals carry on the vacation.’
The Olympus XA was a 35 mm rangefinder camera built by Olympus of Japan. It was one of the smallest rangefinder cameras ever made, together with the Contax T.
It was designed by Yoshihisa Maitani who had joined Olympus Optical Co Ltd in 1956. He was the chief camera designer and managing director of Olympus Optical Co Ltd., having developed a number of legendary cameras during his career. These included the Pen series, the OM series, the XA series, the IS series and the [mju:] series of cameras.
The original model, the XA, was sold from 1979 to 1985. The original XA features true rangefinder focusing, a fast 35mm f2.8 lens, and aperture priority metering. Later cameras, models XA2 to XA4, featured scale focusing instead of rangefinders. Model XA1 used a fixed-focus lens. The Olympus XA is small and light in weight, made with a protected lens for pockets.

By: Chad

Chad — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 22:27:25 +0000

BTW, what about adding the Leica M9 to the list for comparison purposes?

By: Chad

Chad — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 22:18:21 +0000

Excellent summary, thanks! Very happy to see you have plenty of M4/3 gear as I’m about to make the plunge with the Olympus OM-D.

If you want to help get a sense of camera sizes in relation to each other, I highly recommend playing around on this website. You can even compare different camera/lens combos.

http://camerasize.com/

It can be a bit of time waster fiddling around with all the combinations, but in a good way.

They’re looking for more sample pics of various cameras and lenses and I bet you could help them immensely. Cheers, -C

By: Carl

Carl — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 04:53:49 +0000

Pancake primes exist now, even for full frame DSLR’s. If the market asks for even more, that would be fine. I assume the optical compromises outweigh the demand though, and are more apparent when used with a larger sensor having more resolution.

It goes back to my point from another section: Do people who are serious about photography, demand a camera/lens that can fit in a pocket? Isn’t it really just more about convenience than quality? Mass market appeal doesn’t always deliver a product with the best quality, rather more nearly the opposite. A compromise…so why put a compromise lens on a body that isn’t designed or sized, for compromise? If you really only want the middle third of the image to be good, then why use a big DSLR to take the shot at all?

By: Chad Kirkpatrick

Chad Kirkpatrick — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 20:02:14 +0000

Roger, thanks for the excellent post! I find myself in a similar camp. I would also like a capable/compact camera to compliment my DSLR kit, and I have also evaluated the many offerings with a similar analytical/critical eye. Would you consider updating the list to include lenses for CSC and DSLR bodies sense CSC/DSLRs are not capable of producing an image without lenses? Two lists would be needed, one for fixed and and the other for zoom lenses, with CSC and DSLRs showing up in both lists. Lens selection would have to be somewhat subjective but could use measurable criteria such as the lens that best balances the optical quality, length and weight. Once size and weight has been determined for each camera kit then sensor size can be added to the mix. At this point you can generative an image quality to size/weight ratio.

If you completed such a review I suspect you would come to the following conclusions: If size/weight is most important and you don’t want to carry extra lenses then large sensor point & shoot cameras look like a good way to go, for example Sigma’s DP1/2m for a fixed lens camera and Canon G1X for a zoom lens camera. In the CSC realm, if cost and ultra compact size isn’t a major consideration and the best image quality is needed then Leica’s M9, Fuji’s X Pro 1, Sony’s NEX and Samsung’s NX200 are all very good. The middle ground includes lots of excellent options, but the best two look to be Panasonic’s GX1 for overall versatility and Nikon’s J1 for ultra compact CSC.

It seems that Sony would have a slam dunk with the NEX system if they offered a high quality compact zoom and high quality AF pancake prime, such as the excellent lenses currently available for micro4/3′s cameras. And a final observation, with the CSC market place getting increasingly larger and heavier, CSC camera systems start to compete more closely with DSLRs. Compact pancake primes for DSLR would bridge this gap.

By: Chris Nichols

Chris Nichols — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:54:21 +0000

Roger,

Good article; thanks. Another minor mistake, I think. I just rented the Sony nex 7 from you, so I know that in manual focus there is either 4x or 10x maginifcation.

Cheers

Chris

By: Carl

Carl — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:16:16 +0000

I like my Sigma DP2, mostly because of the unique sensor. But I admit 2012 is looking to be an interesting year for quite a few of the manufacturers. Makes me wonder if Roger might carry the new Fuji and Pentax cameras for rent (lack of an EVF, or not…).