by "Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
Published 03/28/2017 at 11:17
by "Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
Published 03/28/2017 at 11:17
Tags: Featured Bag
STARS: 2
Last week I was all ready to
buy some kind of high-end P&S camera
to carry around with me on a regular basis, as a supplement to my
Olympus E-PL5
mirrorless camera and lenses which I don’t carry with me on a regular basis. But then I asked myself:
why
don’t I carry the E-PL5 more often?
I came up with 2 reasons:
While it’s small, the E-PL5 even with the tiny
Panasonic 14mm f/2.5
lens is too big to carry in a pocket.
It doesn’t have wifi for quickly zapping a photo to my phone for sharing.
I looked at all kinds of P&S cameras, and it became apparent that to get the image quality I wanted, I’d need something with a 1” sensor. The cameras with 1” sensors and the other features I want are all $500+, and while they’re smaller than the E-PL5 + Panasonic 14mm combo, they’re not tiny .
I also realized that I already owned almost everything I needed to have a relatively complete mini camera kit: a nice
Manfrotto pouch
that I use to carry the E-PL5 and a lens attached to it, a couple small prime lenses (the Panasonic 14mm and also the
25mm f/1.7
), a
46mm circular polarizer filter
that works on both of them, and a
micro USB SD card reader
to get files onto my phone.
Pulling the SD card out of camera and plugging it into the little reader dongle is a bit annoying, and the E-PL5 does have the ability to control wifi SD cards through its menu system. You can use a wifi SD card but keep the wifi turned off except when you need to transfer files, to keep from draining your battery.
So, I decided to finish out my carry-everywhere kit. I got a Toshiba FlashAir 32 GB wifi SD card , an Op/Tech neoprene lens case to hold the Panasonic 14mm in the Manfrotto pouch while the 25mm is mounted to the camera, and a replacement knockoff proprietary Olympus USB cable for updating the camera’s firmware—it needs the latest update to work with the FlashAir III cards—because I don’t know where the hell I stored the original box with the USB cable.
Now, for a grand total of $59.01, I can upload files to my phone wirelessly, and everything comes together like those Russian nesting dolls. Starting from the pic at the top of this post, observe!
Sure it’s too big for a pocket, but I already have bags I carry with me to the two places I go most often, my job and the gym. The rest of the time, it’s easy enough to grab and toss in the car. Will I bring it in to every store with me when I’m running errands? Not necessarily, but I do love taking pictures of the ridiculous things I often find in grocery stores , so it might be a regular grocery cart companion.
"diplodicus" (diplodicus)
03/28/2017 at 11:27, STARS: 1
Does anyone actually buy the magazines in the checkout lane?
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
03/28/2017 at 11:28, STARS: 1
If you do, you can unlock the secrets of rebooting your thyroid!
"Honeybunchesofgoats" (honeybunche0fgoats)
03/28/2017 at 11:34, STARS: 0
I’m way too cheap to ever buy a Micro Four Thirds camera when I have all of the Nikon lenses I need, but man do I still want one as badly as I did when they first came out. That’s a sweet setup.
"THShorn92 - Left his car in America" (thshorn92)
03/28/2017 at 11:38, STARS: 0
How do you like your E-PL5? I currently have a OMD EM5-MkII that I love and would like to pick up a cheaper m4/3 body for my wife to carry around. I like the size of the Pens but the EM10 is coming down enough in price I might pick up one of those.
"diplodicus" (diplodicus)
03/28/2017 at 11:39, STARS: 0
Next you’ll probably tell me my thyroid needs to be updated.
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
03/28/2017 at 11:48, STARS: 1
I used to be a Pentax DSLR fanatic. I had a succession of different bodies and 5 lenses. I loved the lenses, but I hated shoving my face up to a viewfinder while wearing glasses, the mediocre AF and having to adjust the body for each lens, and lugging around a big heavy bag of gear. So I sold it all off and with m43 I’ve really tried to keep the gear quantity down.
I have the stuff in this little kit, plus the Olympus 14-42 and 40-150 kit zooms that came with the body. The 14-42 is mediocre, I never bring it with me, and have been meaning to sell it for a while. The 40-150 is actually rather nice. At some point I might add the Panasonic 42.5mm f/1.7 portrait lens.
My “big” bag is a Domke F-5XC which is like, as thick as a laptop bag but half as wide. I set it up like this, after cannibalizing some extra dividers from other old camera bags (not my pics but I did the same thing).
It doesn’t come this way from Domke, but most folks use dividers to create a “floor” between the compartment that is accessed by the little flap on the front, and an upper level. It’s handy, and for traveling, it fits inside the middle compartment in my Dakine 101 backpack with plenty of room to spare for other stuff.
I like nesting things: the Manfrotto pouch nests in the Domke bag which nests in the backpack.
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
03/28/2017 at 11:58, STARS: 0
I’ve been happy with the E-PL5. I’ve had it a little over 4 years now. It’s generally snappy and has the same image quality as any of the other 16 mp M43 bodies. The articulated screen is nice and I even use it for the occasional selfie. Video quality is a bit mediocre, but can produce halfway decent results from a nicer lens. I wouldn’t use it as a main video camera. It doesn’t have a ton of external controls but it mostly does what I need after I turned on super control panel and assigned ISO to the Fn button. It doesn’t have wifi.
The E-PL7 and 8 (which are the same guts, the 8 is a cosmetic update) have the newer TruePic VII image processor, wifi, and higher-resolution screens. The control layout is largely the same, but on the E-PL5 the main control dial for changing things like aperture is nested around the 4-way controller, and on the newer ones it’s an actual separate dial on the top. For selfie mode the screen flips down under the camera instead of up over it.
If you think she wants a viewfinder then you’d be looking at an OM-D instead of a Pen. Panasonic makes assorted smaller rangefinder-style bodies as well but the only one that’s relatively small and cheap with IBIS is the GX85 which isn’t all that small or cheap.
"THShorn92 - Left his car in America" (thshorn92)
03/28/2017 at 12:30, STARS: 0
I had forgotten about the lack of EVF on the PEN series....hmm. I would want to use it as a backup/second body occasionally so might be looking for a good deal on an EM10
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
03/28/2017 at 12:44, STARS: 0
The only Pen with a viewfinder is the Pen-F. Otherwise you can add an accessory EVF. You can’t use an EVF and flash at the same time but I don’t even own a flash since the low light performance is good enough to avoid it most of the time. Well I have the tiny little one that came with the E-PL5 but I pretty much never use it. But I don’t really care about having a viewfinder.
Comparing an E-M10 vs. E-PLx with an EVF, the Pen is still smaller, while the E-M10 has 2 control dials and 3 Fn buttons vs. 1 of each on the E-PLx.
"THShorn92 - Left his car in America" (thshorn92)
03/29/2017 at 04:35, STARS: 0
I would love a Pen-F. Mainly because it is beautiful. However it’s more than I payed for my EM5-II. There is a camera shop in town that gets some M4/3 stuff on trade and I’ll probably try to scoop up a deal there.
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
03/29/2017 at 12:02, STARS: 0
The E-P5 is also pretty like the Pen-F, and used goes for about $400. It still doesn’t have a viewfinder, and it’s 16 mp, but it’s got more physical controls than the E-PLx. By the time you add an EVF it’s about the same size as an OM-D.
The new Panasonic GX850 is a hair smaller than the E-PLx. It has a similar level of physical controls and flip selfie screen, and adds some of Panasonic’s 4K and tracking AF features. Unlike the E-PLx it has no IBIS, and no ability to add an EVF since there’s no accessory port or hotshoe.
What it came down to for me back when I bought my E-PL5, it was the second smallest/cheapest m43 body with IBIS and the 16 mp sensor. At the time the older 12 mp sensor was still common and it was way worse in low light. The E-PM2 was even smaller than the E-PL5 with the same guts but no mode dial and a fixed screen.
Now the 16 MP sensor is in everything, but the E-PL8 is still the smallest IBIS m43 body. It’s the more basic 3-axis IBIS and not the 5-axis in the OM-Ds, E-P5 and Pen-F (the original E-M10 had 3-axis, the E-M10 II has 5-axis).
"masiphx" (masiphx)
04/17/2017 at 21:26, STARS: 0
Take a look at a used GM5. I own an E-PL6 (and love it), but I needed something smaller that also had a viewfinder. The GM5 is my day to day camera. The only drawbacks are the OIS in lens instead of in camera, and the flash sync speed is abysmal (1/50th). In silent mode, it is absolutely silent, and even with the viewfinder that sticks out (akin to a camera bump on a cellphone), it’s very pocketable.
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
04/17/2017 at 21:38, STARS: 0
The flip screen and image stabilizer are more important to me than a viewfinder. If anything I’d get some other bigger body with better video and keep my E-PL5 as my little one. But I’m in no rush to do that.