Well after months of umming and ahhing I finally decided to compromise and get a Ricoh GX100. I nearly always have a compact camera with me and until recently I had sterling service from a Casio Z750. It had most of the things I needed and was compact and tuff. It took great Jpegs in good light with a good selection of manual controls but they were fiddly. It also served quite well for family snaps etc. I'll just explain what I wanted in a replacement, and where it’s not obvious, why. Within reason money was no object.
1. Raw file capability and at least 9mp (This was the main reason as I find myself shooting a lot for stock these days I needed to be able to do this with my go anywhere; it had to have this)
2. Sharp lens and good image quality
3. 28mm-70 equivalent or better. (I missed far more shots that a 28mm would get over a 35mm than a 200mm would get over 70)
4. Optical viewfinder*
5. Manual controls
6. Not much bigger than the Casio to go in a trouser pocket*
7. IS, a hotshoe, a decent built in flash and even a movie mode would all be nice.
*The GX100 is not ideal in these areas.
This narrowed the search down to none
It took me a while but I had to compromise in at least 2 areas. The Cameras that came close were the Leica/Panasonic Dlux3/LC2 the GX100 or the Canon G9. I was able to try friends Panasonic and Canon and they were both excellent in their own way. The G9 went first as it’s very bulky and the 35mm wide just was to limiting but the pictures were excellent and it does go out to 210mm. The Panasonic put up a good showing but no optical viewfinder only 28mm at 16-9 ratio and it’s fiddly to operate. All three can produce the results I want but considering the Canon is 12mp it’s a real achievement in a compact (Although calling it a compact is stretching things slightly).
In the end I went with the one I couldn’t try the GX100. It has a cracking 24-72 lens which goes to 2.5. It takes great pictures (But no better than the Canon) it has an optional EVF which in use is probably better than the optical finder of the Canon as it’s accurate and has shooting details displayed which is ideal for manual shooting, on the other hand it makes the camera bigger and costs more money. But the main reason for choosing it is the way it handles especially in manual mode and the ways to customise it. In this regard it is streets ahead of the competition. The downsides are it was bigger than I wanted (But smaller than the Canon), it has no shutter priority it takes 4 Seconds to write a Raw and JPG fine file on a fast card and for quality use I need to keep it at a maximum of ISO200; IS and a 24mm 2.5 lens help with that. There is an optional 19mm adaptor that I am in 2 minds about.
I do like the camera but the real test is I have just uploaded some shots to Alamy so let’s see if they get through QC.