2023 Weekly Challenge Week 34: Panasonic G9

Earlier this year I reviewed my then most current Micro 43rds body the Panasonic GX8.  After shooting it on that trip along with having it as one of my only "good" cameras on me to cover a few events in late July it solidified me on why I liked shooting Micro 43rds cameras.

Prior to that review and several more weeks of shooting the GX8 as my primary camera I was considering selling my Panasonic M43rds equipment in favor to pour everything into Nikon APS-C, but after spending more time with the GX8 again I did a 360 and put my trades and upgrades for the rest of the year back into M43rds instead.  

Why?  Because from everything I have reviewed and used so far this year the GX8 has gave me the most predictable results that even the D7200 and Z50 (yet to be reviewed) have struggled to get that consistency at times.

As such, for how dependable and consistent Micro 43rds is for me it was hard for me to let that go even if it is a system where I only own four lenses for and typically only rely on two or three of those to shoot with. It's a great system when I want to consolidate everything down and use only one camera with 1-2 lenses and just go out and shoot without putting a lot of thought into it.

 

Released in 2018 this was Panasonic's answer to the Olympus OMD-EM1 series of cameras.  Whereas Panasonic was known for having stronger features for video in the GH series; Olympus (and later OM) was more known for the Photography aspect and the G9 was made to bridge some of this gap with a high end Photography focused flagship M43 body.

It has the same 20mp Micro 43rds sensor as my GX8 that I had become to really enjoy, but offers a better imaging processor which means better ISO noise reduction in camera and thus being able to slightly push the ISO higher and still have usable less noisy and sharper results. While my Nikon APS-C bodies still outclass the G9 for ISO noise above ISO 6400; it's still pretty solid up until this point. Paired with quality glass Micro43rds is more then sufficient for indoor flash-less shooting. 

In Spring I had bought an older used Sigma 150-500mm lens for Nikon F mount fairly cheap, and I'm glad I didn't go for the more expensive option the 150-600; because while the 150-600 would have solved the sharpness/quality issues I had with the older lens it would not fix the weight, which made my wrist hurt after about 30 minutes of handhold shooting with it. That's where Micro 43rds comes in.

After using the 150-500 on the bulkier APS-C system I found that I loved the range of the Sigma Lens but not the weight nor the performance; so the Panasonic M43 path seemed to be the best option for me as the Panasonic 100-400mm lens has the same equivalent zoom but half the weight of the Sigma lens I previously had.

I doubled down and traded up my GX8 plus the aforementioned Sigma Lens in for this camera. As such M43 remains my second primary system and workhorse when it comes to Wildlife/Nature photography.

Since this camera is a new addition to my collection, this review will serve as more of a "First Impressions" of it as the review week was also my first full week of shooting it.  

At first glance, there really is nothing "Micro" at all about the G9. It shares a form factor close to my larger Nikon APS-C DSLRs including a large forward swept grip and top LCD screen.  

In the hand it feels a lot more like my D7200 then it does from other Mirrorless cameras I have used (like the Z50) and this honestly is not a bad thing, especially when paired with larger M43 lenses (large still being relative when you compare to what a 800mm lens on Full Frame would bulk out at or even 500-600mm on APS-C).  

The button layout on this camera is pretty familiar, though the AV -/+ button is a little crowded to the control wheel and takes some getting used to (instead of being on the back). Like the GX8 it has a good amount of programmable function buttons which helps you customize controls; though I still wish I could re-program a few of the default buttons. 

Overall the button layout is solid and the AF joystick, a feature I never used before on other cameras is in a position on the where I've found myself using it more as the G9 really shines in one point Autofocus mode, and being able to change the size and location of that point on the fly quickly without the touchscreen is a huge advantage.

The G9 balances perfectly with the Panasonic 100-400mm lens and that combo becomes a long telephoto kit that is so ergonomically agreeable to shoot it feels like the camera is just an extension of my arm.

So aside from Ergonomics of this camera being top-rate what other features does it have to offer?  Since there are so many I'm just going to list the features I like as a bulleted list vs go into each feature in detail:

• 12 FPS Mechanical/ 60FPS Electronic full resolution shooting (which makes it 1 fps mechanical then the Z50 with the ability to go even faster using the E. Shutter (I've found that 12fps is more then plenty even for burst shooting of wildlife.)
• Dual UHS II card slots- I have several other cameras with Dual SD card slots but the G9 is the only that supports UHS II.
• Larger, longer battery life then the GX8 (In the field the GX8 got me around 400-600 photos per battery and the G9 is double that at 1400-1600 per charge; using full mechanical shutter and shutting the camera off when not in use)
• Faster more accurate AF- while the Panasonic G9 still uses Contrast Detect AF which a lot of people complain about it is the fastest CDAF ever created with the Firmware updates. This makes it faster to AF then some older PDAF systems like my D7200 for sure and a major upgrade from the GX8.  You do have to use Panasonic lenses to take full advantage of this newer CDAF system however, which becomes the on Caveat.
• Quiet "shock less" leaf shutter mechanical shutter-  By far the G9 is the quietest mechanical shutter from anything else I own that's not a pocket camera or the Pentax Q10.  Shutter-Shock was an "Issue" on the GX8 (one that I never ran into) that the G9 had since fixed and improved on.
• Improved weathersealing- like the GX8 the G9 is weathersealed and the weathersealing on the G9 is better then what the GX8 had.
• Large EVF with depth adjustment-  The depth adjustment is a new feature I have not seen offered before.  It allows people who use glasses to not only use a diopter to adjust the "prescription" of the viewfinder but also allow the borders of the EVF to be changed so that people like myself who prefer to keep our glasses on while shooting the ability to see the entire frame vs having the edges clipped out.
  

With the First Impressions out of the way (which I admit are also me still justifying the purchase and upgrade and likely sound like a sales pitch) I'm still learning this camera, and a few things like just how sensitive the shutter release is which makes it a lot easier to fire off accidental photos will take getting used to, the G9 is the closest camera I have to a full professional level camera even if it has one of the smaller sensor formats available that still produces high quality images. 

The 2x crop factor is the king of the reason I still shoot Micro 43rds as that boost to optical zoom with lighter weight lenses makes it a lot more comfortable to be out with this camera all day without needing a tripod/monopod or regretting it later.  So enjoy some photos from my first week of shooting the G9, a camera that like the GX8 it replaced will be one of my go to cameras when I want a workhorse that just works without the challenges and sacrifices or testing of my patience when shooting my collection of older equipment.

2023 Weekly Challenge Week 33: Pentax Q10

Like my late Canon 1D Mark IIn the Pentax Q10 is one of the most unique interchangeable lens cameras in my collection; and in that respect it is an absolute polar opposite of the 1D.

Whereas the Canon 1D is massive, high speed and responsive the Pentax Q10 is sluggish but absolutely tiny.  The Pentax Q series Mirrorless cameras are the smallest MILC ever made and they also have the smallest sensor ever put into an interchangeable lens camera which I will go into detail on later. 

The fact that the camera is so small makes it unique by itself and as such its one of the cameras in my collection I won't sell off or trade.  Shooting the Q10 is a mixed bag; I remembered what I loved about the camera and what I really hate about it. After shooting it for a week my urge to use it has been sated and it can go back onto my display shelf for another six months to a year when I want to challenge myself with this camera again.

Released in 2012, The Pentax Q10 was right in the middle of the first real wave of Mirrorless cameras, and it was outperformed by all of its competition including Micro 43rds camera as well as the up and coming Canon EOS-M, Sony NEX, Fujifilm X and Samsung NX seires APS-C mirrorless bodies.

Pentax of course wasn't aiming to make the best Mirrorless camera.  They made the novelty of something small and fun for people to shoot that could go everywhere in fun color combinations to stick out from the crowd (though mine is fairly non-descript with its color combination). At one point you could custom order a Pentax Q of your own made to order in the colors you wanted to slap on it. 

For a lot of these reasons. the Q series cameras still have a cult following to this day from the fact of how unique they are even if they are at times very frustrating to use.

The Q10 has a tiny 1/2.3" 12mp CMOS sensor.  For this size of sensor however, it performs easily as well as a 1/1.7" class sensor (which the higher end q-s1 had). 

As mentioned the camera itself is also absolutely tiny and while the Nikon J1 and several Micro 43rd bodies and Canon M cameras (such as the m100) were still very small the Q10 still edges them out slightly as being the smallest mirrorless camera ever made. Here's how this camera stacks up against the full sized Nikon D7000 DSLR by comparison to further gauge the scale of this tiny camera:

With the size and specifics of this camera out of the way let's start with what I don't like about the camera first, so then we can appreciate what I do like about it to wrap things up and lead into the actually pretty impressive example shots I took with it.

First and foremost the camera has a very noticeable shutter lag; a trait it shares with very early digicams and something that was rather unheard of in 2012.  Meaning when you took a photo the rear LCD would black out and the shutter would fire, leaving you guessing when the shutter actually fired which leads to missing moments of objects in motion and in some cases added hand-shake for those who are used to chimping between shots.  

Next the battery life is pretty meh. It gets roughly 100-200 shots per charged battery so plan accordingly and bring spares. This is a "in field" 100-200 shots not something like a camera review site that rates a camera for 350 shots and in the real world it gets 1,500 photos per battery (like the Panasonic G9- which I will get into soon...).

Burst mode is pretty much non-exsistant and the buffer is very small.  It does help incredibly to shoot this camera in JPEG mode as a result, just like a lot of my bridge cameras, so that is what I did for this review.

The camera writes fairly meh RAW files containing only slightly more information over a JPEG file.  It does however write them in .DNG which is a universal format useable by just about any editing software out of the box.  Once I switched from the "always RAW" mentality and shot JPEG I found I really was not losing anything from this camera at all and actually gained quite a bit.  Which leads me into what I like about this camera and makes me keep coming back to it time to time in spite of its many limitations.

The Pentax Q10 has a remarkably good sensor for its size and class.  While it is a little soft out of the box, with just a touch of sharpening in POST even off of a JPEG file or using the in-camera processing options available and the photos from it really pop. 

I played around with the front wheel and Color presets and with those engaged I found the photos Straight out of Camera to look quite pleasing without having to do any sort of Post Processing (especially with the Vibrant Color filter).

For a CMOS chip the contrast on the Pentax Q10 was very high and vibrant, getting close to that CCD feel like some of the older Canon CMOS chips such as you guessed it the Canon 1D Mark IIn.  While that sensor was much sharper, both had a similar and unique high-contrast CMOS look which made them unique on their own.

So while the Pentax Q10 would be the absolute worst choice to have on a wildlife photo safari or at a sports game, it does a really solid job for taking photos of landscape, still life and even posed photography.  

Don't expect to take photos of anything in motion and be happy with the results from this camera, but with a little bit of patience you can get some really nice vibrant and unique photos off of the Q10; which likely explains its cult following and reason I will still circle back to shoot this camera on occasion in spite of it not being a good choice for anything serious.

2023 Weekly Challenge Week 32: Nikon D7000

My first encounter with a Nikon DSLR (and what got me to eventually switch to Nikon as my primary system over Canon) was my Significant Other's Nikon D7000; The very same camera that was used for this review.  Back when we first met she wanted to learn how to use this camera better, and it was a fairly complex camera with a lot of features for someone starting out.  So I decided to pick up a cheap Nikon DSLR of my own in order to learn it so I could teach her more about her own camera.

The Nikon DSLR I bought to "teach" myself Nikon was not a D7000.  Back in 2017 even though the D7000 was seven years old it was still worth a fair bit of money considering the Nikon D7200 just came out (which I will be reviewing in a later article). 

At the time I had to start with something cheaper that had a lot of the same controls to learn how Nikon DLSRs worked, which was the Nikon D90. That camera was later traded in to get my own D7000 at a more reasonable price a year later which I would later trade up for my second D7200 that I own today.  

Since I don't have a D90 and they have went up in value (whereas the D7000 keeps going down) it likely won't be a camera that I'll get to review for this project unless I get really lucky and find one for sale at about half of their current going rate.

Released in 2010, the Nikon D7000 has a 16mp APS-C CMOS sensor, that was also used in the D5100. At the time the D7000 was designed to be a partial successor to the D300 as a D400 with the upgraded 16mp sensor was never made. 

Canon would in turn split the Prosumer and Pro Digital bodies between the 60D and 7D and gave both a different feature-set, whereas Nikon would consolidate both into one camera the Nikon D7000; a strange hybrid-successor of both the D90 and D300 in one camera.

The D7000 was Nikon's pro level APS-C body that would continue with the same feature set until the D500 split the line between Prosumer and Pro APS-C cameras back one last time. 

The D7500 would be the last camera of this line but would be drastically scaled down to be more of an "Pro-sumer" model just above a D5XXX series body to not compete with the new Flagship APS-C body the Nikon D500. Nikon removed many of the the features the D7XXX line had over the D5600 other then the top screen which stayed. In this regard the Nikon D7500 was actually a successor in the D70/D80/D90 line more then it was for the D7200.

The D7000, D7100 and D7200 would become one of the most popular APS-C DSLRs on the market due to the Dual Card slots, drive mode toggle switch, top display, and weathersealed construction competing and outperforming the Canon XXD line and competing directly the Canon 7D. They provided great value in features for the cost.  

While the 60D and 7D sensor was two megapixels more in resolution then the D7000's sensor, Nikon made up for this in having superior Dynamic Range.

In 2018 my SO shot as a backup photographer at the one (and only) outdoor wedding I have/ever will shoot and the Nikon D7000 to my surprise did a lot better with harsh shadows then even my much newer Canon 80D.  This event made me start to gain interest in Nikon which was sealed by my less "weathersealed" Canon 80D getting water damaged during a rainy day of shooting at the State Fair in 2019.

Shooting this camera again after using faster more responsive DSLRs like the D7200 I started to feel a few things that did really show the age of this 13 year old camera.  First and foremost while the D7200's liveview Autofocus is the one weak spot that camera has, the liveview AF on the D7000 is even more primitive to the point where it is practically unusable.  

The PDAF through the OVF is a lot faster and more accurate then the live view; but it still struggles to lock on focus in some situations the D7200 does not struggle with using the same lenses.

Overall this camera is still fun to shoot and gets a lot of good results; but after shooting both the D7200 and D7000 in the same week (as I had both at the time) I was able to compare the differences between the two and there were quite a few things I missed not having that the D7200 has; and they otherwise feel and shoot almost identical. There isn't enough "Retro charm" or look to the photos the D7000 takes over the D7200 to have it hold a special place in my heart for that reason either.

This camera will go back to my GF, and since my D7200 has a lot of the same controls and menus carried over from the D7000 I can still use that camera as a teaching aid to help her out should she ever decide to get back into photography.

At any rate it was a good idea to take this camera out and test/use it again as she has not used it in three years, so I'm glad to report that her DSLR works and takes solid photos just as well as I remember from the first time I used it. The love I had for this camera has since been replaced with the D7200 that I am glad to have back, which is still on my list of cameras to review later this year.

Don't be "That Guy" - How not to be a Gear Snob

 Recently I've been discussing photography clubs/groups/etc and some of the "people" it attracts with another friend, and while we have slightly different angles and takes on the matter, it turns out we are both correct.  The more I think back I at one point in time did fit the mold of one of the types of Photography snobs and therefore was a little hypocritical in my "Fight to save APS-C from being erased".

There are several different types of photography snobs:  The Gear Snob, The "Only Film" Snob, the Composition Snob and the "I don't tell my "secrets" to anyone!" Snob.  

The Gear Snob is by far the most common and the one I have struggled with the most.  So this is what I will focus on for this post.  I may someday post about the other types of Photography snobs another day, but I have more then enough for a wall of text just about the subject of Gear Snobbery. There are multiple types of gear snobs but I am going to focus on three.  

The first is someone who buys into Photography with the sole purpose of using this hobby as a status symbol to flaunt their wealth. We will refer to them as "Gear Chasers" going forward.  This is the one I have strongly had issues with and turned me off about photography ever since I started more then once, as well as gave me a lot of stereotypes and misconceptions about anyone who can afford/shoot with high end gear which ironically put me in another type of less common gear snob which I will get into in the last part of this post.

These high-end gear chasers are very detrimental to photography. They will openly go after anyone with lower-end gear and try to convince them that they need to deplete their life savings to buy a camera kit that costs more then their car or else they are just a lowly pleb and noob and their photography is never going to be any good. They will also belittle people for being "too poor to afford Good Equipment" (See Status Symbol).

Additionally, a lot of these gear chaser snobs actually don't get that great of shots, especially when you match them against a Veteran Hobby photographer who has decades of experience.  A Gear Chaser's solution to "getting better photos" is simply to throw more money at equipment which doesn't do as much as you think. A veteran hobbyist photographer with a 15 year old DSLR and cheap 50mm lens will get better shots an un-expereinced gear snob with a $5000 body and $3000 lens.  Every. Single. Time.  Experience over equipment.

Gear Chasers are often the reasons that camera companies can and will push Full Frame cameras at every chance they get; because there's a huge pool of gear snobs that think the only way to be good at photography is to have an expensive full frame camera.  So camera MFG are a bit predatory on this concept and sadly it works. 

Fuji and Micro 43rds shooters know a deeper truth to the "Full Frame is God" myth but honestly, this is only one part of Gear Chasing (I could easily write up an entire article about the FF vs Crop battle which I might do at some point.)

Gear Chasers are often the first type of Photography snob you will likely run into and likely will be the first to leave a bad taste in your mouth about other photographers. 

To new photographers they are very influential in getting them to spend thousands of dollars more then they have to for getting into photography and "have the right equipment to Get Good!" which I have seen happen numerous times.

The next type of gear snob is the "Brand Loyalist".  This person shares a lot of similarities of a gear chaser and very often the same people who are Gear Chasers are also Brand Loyalists.   

This type of snob will look down on anyone who doesn't shoot the same brand as them, and its sadly the most common in the Canon and Nikon shooters (a "debate" which has gone far beyond absurd for decades).  

In their mind the only "Valid" photographers are those who shoot the same camera brand as them.  Some Brand Loyalists will be a little more receptive of new photographers with Entry Level gear then Gear Chasers so long as that entry level gear is on their brand of choice. 

This type of snob is very elitist and often scares away others; and while I have personally ran into more "you need to spend X and be Full Frame to be Good!" there are plenty of other photographers in my circle who state they have been bashed by Brand Loyalists (IE Canon/Nikon/Sony/Etc Sux) the most often especially when they run into one of a "Rival" brand.

Then the last type of gear snob is, I hate to say it, the "Budget or DigiCam Snob".  This is the category is the one that I once fell into and am trying my hardest to not fall back into.  

DigiCam Snobs are often created as the byproduct of interaction with one of the other two aforementioned types of gear snobs and find themselves as the "Defenders of Real Hobby Photography" and "The Underdogs".  A lot of M43 or Fuji APS-C die-hard shooters will fall here.

This is the type of camera snob I have personal experience with.  After being bombarded by both Gear Chasers and Camera MFG bombarding me with "You need to get Full Frame good gear to be good!" early on I started to fall into a crusade of finding reasons that APS-C was actually BETTER then full frame to fire back and would even at times go after gear chasers to laugh and ridicule them for wasting money. 

This was what got me down the path of collecting Digicams which has become my biggest hobby, and I touched on this concept a bit in a previous post. If you read my "Digi-Cam Reflections" post (which for the record, was solely my own personal opinions) you can probably pick up a little bit of this "Looking down on Gear Chasers" I speak of.

However, DigiCam snobs can be very Hypocritical.  In their mind the best camera you can use is the cheapest you can find that can take decent photos with. While there's merit to this it can lead to a mentality where they will label anyone with equipment more valuable then what they shoot as a "Gear Chaser" and this is where the ugly side of things comes into play.

It can get to the point where "I can't be friends with someone who shoots a camera kit they spent more then $1000 on!" because of the stereotypes that get ingrained into our head that gear chasers are bad and detrimental to the hobby; and we often blame them for a lack of entry level APS-C cameras being made ETC.  It's a rabbit hole that I was down for years and am only starting to claw my way out of.

There are still plenty of times that seeing someone on the street with a high-end camera and lens (especially if they have multiple of them on) provokes a feeling of unease and makes me shake my head and want to avoid that person. Call it an ingrained DigiCam instinct?

This said, what really helped me get out of this void was making some good friends with people who do shoot High End equipment but are not pushy to others or jerks about it.  Said friends may have better income then me, may not be a homeowner (Its something I do not recommend to everyone...) or have as much debt as I do and they can both afford and shoot "nicer things".  At the same time they don't rely on having a "Nice Camera" as a crutch either.  I can respect this, and start to draw the line between what a gear chaser is and what a gear chaser is not.

I will always be a defender of the Underdogs when it comes to photography, especially with used equipment and sensor formats that are not "Full Frame".  However over the past few years I have relented that yes, shooting Full Frame is a perfectly Valid choice and preference to have.  If I had a bigger camera budget, I would still buy more unique and underrated DigiCams instead of investing it in "The Best equipment money can buy!".

I've been collecting "DigiCams" and other "Underdog" cameras long enough that I could easily sell my entire camera collection and have enough to buy One modern Flagship Full Frame camera and 2-3 high end lenses for it; but that wouldn't be for me. I have a very niche hobby within photography in that regard

A lot of photographers feel more comfortable with the "eggs in one basket" approach and I get it.  Not everyone enjoys all the whacky differences between cameras that I do. They want to have the same camera same lens same everything so they can quickly pick up their camera and get the results they want and expect.

To sum this whole post up the true moral of this post is twofold:  First don't let anyone belittle you for what brand, sensor format, age of camera or overall budget you have for Photography.  Whether you have a 20 year old APS-C DSLR and a kit lens you found at a pawn store for $50 or a latest greatest Full Frame Camera system that you invested $10,000 into go out and have fun with it.  Learn your camera.  Learn composition. Learn Photography.

Secondly, let other photographers enjoy what they have. Don't go after another hobby photographer simply because they have a different brand of camera then what you enjoy shooting or they have a different budget then you do. Instead just enjoy that you met another person who shares the same passion as you do for taking photos regardless of what camera he/she/they shoot.  

Some people will use Photography as a status symbol but it doesn't apply to everyone, and I know that truth can be a hard pill to swallow.

2023 Weekly Challenge Week 31: Canon 1D Mark IIn

Up until the advent of the EOS-R mount the Canon 1D was herald as the King of Professional cameras.  While Nikon would like to say otherwise with their D# series, the Canon 1D was a far more common camera visible at almost every major Professional Sports event from College Football to the Olympic Games.

If there is something that's been consistent about my camera review is that it has been done with entry level to enthusiast level up to "Entry Pro" level gear.  The closest camera I've reviewed to a professional camera thus far was the Nikon D200, a camera that was used in the field a lot for Wildlife but not in the same niche as something like a 1D.

Of course, this all comes down to budget. While I could ask some of my friends who have higher level equipment to borrow newer, higher end equipment the point of this whole challenge is to prove to my readers (the very few of those that actually read these wall of texts) that you can get great photos on older cheaper equipment which many photographers would sooner throw in a e-waste dumpster then be caught using.

True, I will be reviewing some little bit higher end/newer stuff (as I already have done with the Panasonic GX8) that I own and shoot, but many of these cameras still are in the "underdog" or budget friendly class and don't attract near the amount of attention that something like a 1D, D5, D850, R5, R3 or Z9 would get (or Sony a7/a9 for those Sony shooters out there).

That said, the 1D Mark IIn has a story of behind how I got it, and is being passed onto another owner who has better lenses, patience and desire to shoot this very unique camera then I have.  But before I let it go, I got to take it through one last week of shooting after having sat on a shelf for three years.

The Canon 1D Mark IIn is an absolute unit of a camera.  I previously reviewed a Nikon D200 and noted how big and beefy that camera was but the Canon 1D has that thing beat. This thing was built for mounting huge, massive lenses on it so even the biggest Canon lens I own (the Canon EF 70-300 IS USM lens) looks absolutely tiny on it.

Before we get into specifications because it is really unique for any camera, especially one from 2005 I'll go over the unique story of how I acquired it, which made me reluctant on letting it go since I'll likely never lay my hands on one again any time soon for a "reasonable price".

It was the Summer of 2020.  The Midwest US was in a very brief "Maybe the Pandemic is Over!" moment.  A narrow gap where people actually got out of the house and did stuff before the second and third effective lockdowns hit. I was unemployed between contracts, and needed a way to pay my Mortgage for another month (after that summer luckily I did get on another contract and I was able to stabilize from desperate to treading water again on my finances).

I was therefore forced to sell my Event workhorse camera, a Nikon D7200 (which I later re-bought another for less then I sold it for) since there was no telling when or even if in-person events would ever come back.  

The buyer of the D7200 met in a public park outdoors to make the exchange threw in this Canon 1D Mark IIn to sweeten the deal that was not tested much past that it turned on with what juice was on the 3rd party battery he had for it because he was lacking a charger (which I would later have to buy off an auction site from a seller in the UK).

I charged the battery and used this camera for about a week in 2020, before making a few realizations of why I did not like it (which I will get into after I go over its features). After which it sat on the shelf for three years as I dreaded having to recharge the NIMH battery for it; a battery that is supposed to be used and drained regularly to keep up the battery health.

So when I decided to do this review I of course added it to the list.  To my surprise the battery went through its discharge and charge cycle just fine; and lasted me the duration of this challenge on a single charge.

With the story of how I got this Full Pro camera from 2005 out of the way; lets move onto specifics.  The Canon 1D Mark IIn was the third in the Canon 1D series, a revision of the Mark II that added a blazingly fast 8.5fps mechanical shutter which still holds at about the same rate as a lot of enthusiast and pro level cameras almost 20 years later.  It also had a revolutionary 45 point AutoFocus grid; where most cameras at this time only could reach 3-5fps continuous drive and had anywhere between 5 and 11 AF points.

In order to balance speed with "Professional Quality" Canon introduced a 1.3x "Professional Crop" sensor the APS-H.  Close enough to Full Frame that most people looking for that "Shallow Depth of Field" to be happy while allowing for a shutter that could fire faster because it had slightly less travel time between mirror flips.

The Canon 1D series would be a Unicorn, that is the only camera ever to use the 1.3x crop factor in a digital camera. The APS-H sensor would be fully abandoned four years later by Canon with the Canon 1D Mark IV to be the last camera to carry on the APS-H lineage.

In spite of technically being a crop sensor the Canon 1D did not take EF-S lenses, though the question becomes why would you want to.  It had a very specific purpose of giving high end professionals that little bit extra reach without degrading themselves to admitting they shot an APS-C camera.

So the early 1D series had an interesting history and just like the D200 this was a camera that went everywhere and saw everything.  They were used and abused and finding a Classic 1D that is in anything but "Beat up but still ticking" condition is nearly impossible.  Mine certainly had its battle scars as you can see more clearly on this closeup shot I took of it:

So with the unique personal story and unique history of this camera, why wasn't I totally enamored by this camera?  Why did such a Unique camera sit on my shelf for so many years without getting the use that it deserved and just collecting dust?  Well there is a couple of reasons for this:

One it was huge.  The Nikon D200 is on the very upper edge of cameras I feel that are reasonable to hold. This thing is a Monster.  Even for someone who's 6'5" it is excessively unwieldly for me to handle none the less use.

The second thing was the controls themselves.  The 1D was the Space Shuttle or DC-10 of cameras:  meaning it had so many different buttons in layouts that didn't make sense to anyone who has ever flown a different aircraft or in its case ever used any other camera then a Canon 1D.  To acess these functions even something as simple as navigating menus required you to hold down a combonation of buttons to do anything.  Because just having to hit one button or dial?  Psh, that's what Amateurs want!  Shooting the Canon 1D Mark IIn was like playing an arcade fighting game where you had to remember the button combos to press in order to pull off attacks.

Another thing that made this camera sit on the shelf was the charger and NIMH.  Every other interchangeable lens camera I own either uses AA batteries or Li-Ion battery packs (with the exception of the Fuji S2 Pro but more on that when I review that camera).  Having to go through the battery discharge process felt like I was a member of the Adeptus Mechanicus performing some arcane ritual to the Machine god in order to just charge the battery.

Ok, maybe discharging and recharging a NIMH battery isn't that bad. But it was enough of a difference to the routine and the charger having an exposed wire that slotted into the battery vs the battery sitting neatly on a cradle was enough to make me not want to charge and use it.

The last factor that made me not use it was honestly the lenses I own for Canon EF.  Back in 2019 I sold most of my Canon lenses minus a few of the cheaper ones that were not worth much as I switched to Nikon after my Canon 80D died. 

Had I had some of the lenses I owned back then like the Sigma 70-200 2.8 lens or the massive Tamron 150-600 EF mount lens I probably would have felt like this camera was getting the treatment it deserved.  But slapping on a cheap "nifty fifty", film kit lens, or cheaper Telephoto (which was the lens that paired the best with this camera) just felt like I wasn't really doing this camera justice by sticking on lenses that were more suited for my Canon Rebel collection.

But that said, once I could get past the arcane charging, controls and sheer mass of this camera I did have an enjoyable time using it.  Just how fast and responsive this camera was for what could qualify as a vintage digital camera at this point was way impressive. Since this camera is old, its still very much an outdoor shooter AKA don't raise the ISO above 800 or you will regret your decision.  But what an outdoor camera!

In conclusion the Canon Rebel series has a special place in my heart because of how lightweight and simple they are to shoot. The Canon 1D is neither of these two things. So I'm happy to let it go to another Digi-Cam enthusiast that is just as passionate about these old cameras then I am.  It may not be a camera that is a good fit for me but it certainly was a camera that was a good fit for many, many Professional Photographers in the mid 2000's.

2023 Weekly Challenge Week 30: Olympus PEN EPL-1

Much like the Canon Rebel XTi the Olympus PEN EPL-1 brings me back to the roots of another personal first in my evolution in digital photography and that was my first Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens Camera. 

Technically my first MILC was an Olympus PEN EPL-2; but try as I might I was not able to re-purchase that camera for a reasonable price. The PEN EPL-1 is far more common and is similar enough to my first MILC that shooting this camera defiantly takes me back.

When I first got the EPL-2 I was amazed at how small the lenses were. True, the Canon Rebel and XXD cameras I was used to using the lenses were not huge (as I only owned entry level glass at the time) but the fact that I could almost fit the PEN EPL-2 in my jacket pocket with a lens attached was mindblowing for me in 2012.

Micro 43rds is a compact and great system for travel while still providing excellent image quality that trounced my pocket camera and phone.

This started me down the road of buying into Micro 43rds as a secondary or backup system, a camera that would see me upgrade to a Olympus PEN EPM-2, Olympus PEN EM5, Panasonic GX8 and eventually to the Panasonic G9 which is my current Micro 43rds workhorse (as it is a recent purchase this year made after this was first posted I will be reviewing the G9 later this year.). 

Released in 2010 the Olympus EPL-1 was the first true "Entry Level" Micro 43rds camera that Olympus made. Prior to this Olympus released the PEN EP1 and EP2 but these were more mid-range models. The higher end "Professional" line the OMD EM series would come two years later with the third Micro 43rds camera I owned, the Olympus OMD EM5 in 2012 (though I didn't buy my EM5 till 2015).

The EPL-2 added a control dial around the 4 way pad to quickly and smoothly change settings such as aperture, shutter and exposure compensation.  That said the controls of the EPL-1 were still quite decent and useable to change what I needed to change without having to dig through a lot of menus.

Both cameras featured the same 12mp CMOS Micro 43rds format sensor and shutter mechanism which is an even 2x crop from a Full Frame sensor.  

This made the Micro 43rds system very powerful for Nature and Sports photography even if they would remain a niche underdog system to this day within the shadow of Full Frame and even Pro APS-C bodies.

The biggest draw to the Olympus PEN series was the size.  When paired with smaller lenses (such as the 25mm f1.8 seen in my example) they made for nearly pocketable interchangeable lens kits.  And this is what drew me into buying the EPL-2 (Though the GX8 and G9 I would buy into later would be significantly larger).

Another key feature was that the EPL-1 had In Body Stabilization, a feature which only Sony offered in their "Mirrorless Hybrid" SLT cameras at the time.  This made Olympus PEN and other Olympus Micro 43rds bodies extremely popular for adapting old vintage lenses since you could get IS without having to have it in the glass.  

It would take Panasonic a few generations until the Panasonic GX7 (the predecessor to mine) to add in IBIS, whereas Olympus had this feature since their very first Micro 43rds camera the EP1.

The PEN EPL-1 had some downsides even compared to the DSLRs of the time.  For one if you wanted an EVF you needed to purchase it separately and it took up the Hotshoe mount to do so, albeit this also made the camera somewhat modular.  

Additionally the camera would have a "black out" period after taking a photo when the shutter reset; so liveview would be unavailable for a moment which made the EPL-1 a very poor choice for any kind of action or sports shooting (and its slow burst rate didn't aid to this either).

The lack of control wheels was another thing that would be improved upon on later PEN models but wouldn't really be perfected until the OMD EM series.  

A lot of people complain about the early Olympus PENs having slow Autofocus and I really don't see that. I think this stems from people comparing them to something like an OM-1 or Panasonic G9 and that is like comparing apples to oranges.  For its time the Olympus PEN series had perfectly decent autofocus systems and often times the CDAF of the EPL-2 out performed my Canon Rebels Phase Detect Auto Focus due to a drawback known as "Focus Hunting" that was common in early Canon Rebel cameras up until the Canon T2i.

For Street Photography I found the Olympus EPL-1 more then adequate as a solid performer even 13 years later.  Its startup and shutdown times weren't instantaneous like most DSLRs but it was still fast enough that I really didn't notice it and it didn't cause me to miss many shots.  The rear LCD is bright enough that it's more then capable of a viewfinder even under fairly harsh lighting (I had a clip on shade for my EPL-2 when I owned it as I didn't own the EVF for it).  That said yeah there were a few times I missed not having a built in EVF which became a similar issue for my Canon M3 that I no longer own.

The EPL-1 and EPL-2 have a max ISO of 1600 which was pretty low even compared to pocket cameras of the time.  However this is a Hardware ISO and photos taken at 1600 are actually quite useable; so Olympus cut the ISO off instead of extending it like pocket cameras would to give you crisp low noise photos no matter what ISO the camera was set at.  

Shooting the EPL-1 eleven years later from when I owned a very similar camera was still a very enjoyable experience overall. The images were very clean and sharp.  It has a lot of limitations that my newer M43 bodies overcame (like ISO 1600 limit and a very slow burst rate) but shooting it as a casual camera is still very doable even today.  

Even if the EPL-1 was a lot slower and took some patience to use, it certainly was not the most challenging in that respect from other cameras in my collection and it never reached the level of frustration that I had reached with some of the other cameras in my collection; including some of the older bridge cameras like the Minolta DiMage A2 and Canon Powershot Pro1.

Along with some street photography I managed to get some Nature photos using this camera that turned out quite well; one shot in particular really stood out which is posted in my example photos below.