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Small Back-up digital for M8 - Minox M3????


wlaidlaw

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hmm, following a recent flying visit to my Dad I seem to have aquired a 75 Summilux-M :D

 

Am I the only one who doesnt get the digi-compact backup idea?

Shooting film I was happy using an XA or a GR-1 as a tiny, pocketable, backup. But now there is such a huge difference in IQ between a DSLR or M8 and a compact. I have tried several, including the GR-D, but I always end up asking myself why I bothered. Either I want to take a picture, in which case I want it to be as good as possible, or I dont.....

Guy

ps Dimage Xg for sale! :p

 

Guy,

 

I was using my back up less and less, which is why I reluctantly was prepared to let my son walk off with my Canon Ixus 850IS. I use the M8 and the Elmar-M 50 when I need a smaller camera. However there are times when you really need something that will fit in a shirt pocket and you would need a damn big one for the M8 + Elmar. I also rather fancied one of those little M3's but the image quality does not look great on that Japanese website. I am not in any rush, so I will wait until I get back to the UK at the end of September and try one of the Minoxes then.

 

Wilson

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Guest malland
...Am I the only one who doesnt get the digi-compact backup idea?

Shooting film I was happy using an XA or a GR-1 as a tiny, pocketable, backup. But now there is such a huge difference in IQ between a DSLR or M8 and a compact. I have tried several, including the GR-D, but I always end up asking myself why I bothered. Either I want to take a picture, in which case I want it to be as good as possible, or I dont.....

This is the type of thinking that I couldn't disagree with more. As far as 35mm film cameras are concerned the results from cameras such as the GR-1 can be very close to that of a Leica-M because they are both shooting with 35mm film. Now, a camera like the M8 is a completely different type of format from a small-sensor camera because the sensot of the latter is so small. Indeed, as Sean Reid has stated in his reviews, the M8 produces results that are like scanned medium-format film; and that cannot be compapred with pcitures from small-sensor cameras that have a sensor the size of the fingernail the size of your pinky.

 

But the best small-sensor cameras can produces picture that are similar to those of 35mm film. And this is the reason that I use the GR-D and the D-Lux 3: I like the "35mm aesthetic and don't want the type of medum-format look that the M8 produces — to use an M8 I would have to shoot at ISO 1250 or 2500 and that is awfully fast for a place with bright light like Bangkok, where I live.

 

Wilson, in terms of what you would want for a backup camera to the M8, it depends on what quality pcitures you wanted and how much you wanted to spend. If you go for the best, you should get a Ricoh GX100 or a D-Lux 3, or a Ricoh GR-D of you like a 28mm lens without a zoom.

 

Here are a few pictures to show that small-sensor cameras are not toys, the first three shot with the D-Lux 3 and the fourth with the GR-D:

 

 

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—Mitch/Potomac, MD

Mitch Alland's slideshow on Flickr

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Mitch,

I think we agree completely! at least in so far as the IQ of the two types of camera are very different (so you prefer one, and I the other).

While I also agree that the M8 (and D2X and and and) files are rather too anticeptic, one big reason why I prefer that type of camera is selective focus (less than FF 35mm, but much more than compacts). If you prefer lots of DOF then you may well have a different opinion!

Guy

ps my GR-D also had a lens which was soft in one corner :(

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Now I have got out of the habit of twisting the zoom control and using my feet, I feel I can do without a zoom lens, especially if that confers added quality and lens speed. I have heard others complaining about QC on Ricoh lenses and that worries me. I am not wholly convinced they are not somewhat overpriced also. I can get a GR-D for £250, which seems quite a bit but maybe compared to a Noctilux - perhaps not. It's only £50 more than I paid for the 1.25X magnifier.

 

Wilson

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Now that a replacement M8 returned from NJ, I have less need for a digital back up, but an interesting thing occurred while it was away, in that while I started shooting an M6 and with the same lenses, I ended up, as a "carry around" using a IIIa with a 50mm coated Elmar. I realized that the real issue was always having a camera with me; something I'd been doing for all of my adult life, but stopped doing with the M8.

 

If anything, since right now I would prefer to shoot digital, the Ricoh is making more and more sense...I wonder if there is really going to be an update with Raw buffer later this year...after all, October is only two months away. Hell...it's begun again.

 

Cheers,

Norm

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Frankly I like my Panasonic LX-1 as a digital backup. Thom Hogan is conducting some kind of survey on pocket digicams and the LX-2 came up tops (so far) with a note that the LX-1 had better DR due to it's larger pixel size. I couldn't agree more.

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One sine qua non for me would have to be an optical viewfinder. I briefly had a Sony T10 before I had a burglary at my house in France last year and I just hated this "holding a camera out at arms length". I can't compose a photo that way - too ossified. I also would prefer to take in RAW, as I have got so used to the C1 RAW workflow with the M8 and I think the images are far superior. Are the little Ricoh's the only small cameras that take in RAW, albeit according to Sean Reid's Review, painfully slowly with no RAW buffer? If Norm is right and one is coming, I would happily wait for that, now that it looks as if I was right and the Minox M3 Plus really is a bit of a silly toy.

 

Wilson

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Wilson, there are some small p&s that can shoot RAW. The S70 that I jokingly mentioned above is one. However Canon dropped RAW as an option with it's successor the S80. I'd have a look around the camera reviews on Dpreview as they usually mention all of the formats that a particular camera is capable of shooting.

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Now I have got out of the habit of twisting the zoom control and using my feet, I feel I can do without a zoom lens, especially if that confers added quality and lens speed. I have heard others complaining about QC on Ricoh lenses and that worries me. I am not wholly convinced they are not somewhat overpriced also. I can get a GR-D for £250, which seems quite a bit but maybe compared to a Noctilux - perhaps not. It's only £50 more than I paid for the 1.25X magnifier.

 

Wilson

 

Another vote for gx100:

faster raw write time than GRD!

24mm + there is a function you can uso se the zoom in steps (I think its 24-28-35-50.70), its a bit like using primes

therefore a little more distorsion than grd

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For real backup I choose a Richoh GX100.

 

Me too. Superb little camera with lots and lots of manual control and a 24-70mm equivalent f2.5 lens! Leave it in AP mode and don't take the ISO over 400 and it's a genuine pocketable alternative to your main kit.

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Me too. Superb little camera with lots and lots of manual control and a 24-70mm equivalent f2.5 lens! Leave it in AP mode and don't take the ISO over 400 and it's a genuine pocketable alternative to your main kit.

 

Can someone explain the battery situation with the GX100. Some sites say 2 x AAA whereas some sites say a DB-60 rechargeable lithium. What does the camera come with and does it have a charger, as again some sites seem to offer the charger as an extra - confusing! Is the EVF any good?

 

Wilson

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They could make an evolution of the D-lux 3. Fixed 35mm 2.5 or 2.8 equivalent lens to get max quality at min size and cost. A really good small fixed optical finder (that will likely add $200 to the cost right there). Some simple chunky analogue controls. A little tilt and swing flash (for the real P&S types) with a simple fill flash mode.

 

There should be a mode for hyperfocal distance and the finder's parallax correction should be set to that distance. Sell it for around $800.

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