Nikon V1 - Massive Price Drop

The Nikon V1 certainly isn't the best mirrorless on the market, but at the recent price drop to $299 with the 10-30mm zoom, it makes a compelling case.  What this camera would work really well for is macro, the small sensor creating large depth of field even at 1:1 full frame equivalent.

With a Nikon 60mm micro, this would make a focal length of approx 165mm, and with loads of resolution, it would be great on the V1 high resolution sensor.

Other deals are out there too.  I see Henrys had an open box Pentax Q for under $300, and a Pentax K-01 with the ultra slim 40mm Pancake lens can be had for just over $400.  I love the Q for its tiny size and the K-01 because it can take regular Pentax lenses, with the excellent Pentax21mm f3.2 being a real treat for this camera.

 All sound like a bargain to me.

Lunenburg NS - Nikon D90 with Sigma 10-20mm @ 10mm

Pentax Limited Pancakes with the K-01

The Pentax K0-1 mirrorless camera is definitely a weird beast, but if it makes sense for anyone its Pentax users, especially those with a large pancake lens collection.  The K0-1 allows the Pentax user to retain full autofocus and full electronic exposure controls on a mount native to the camera.  For me, I see the Pentax 21mm f3.2 as being especially useful, as this would be the full frame equivalent of 31.5mm on the K0-1 APS-C sensor, so a very good focal length for street photography.  

Other Pentax pancakes that would also be useful include the incredibly small 40mm f2.8 that is often sold as a kit lens with the K0-1, the Pentax 15mm f4 and the Pentax 70mm f2.4.  The Pentax 35mm f2.8 macro is also very small for a macro, though is larger and has some cross over with the 40mm lens.

Very unusually Pentax have overlapping pancake lenses, including the 43mm f1.9, the 77mm f1.8 and the slightly larger 40mm f2.8.  The later, while having exactly the same aperture and focal length of the K-01 kit lens, is larger and better optically.

If I had a Pentax K-01, I'd probably look at purchasing the following as a kit:

- Pentax 15mm f4

- Pentax 21mm f3.2

- Pentax 35mm f2.8 macro

- Pentax 40mm f2.8 kit lens with K-01

- Pentax 70mm f2.4

 All these lenses are very small and extremely compact, so would make and excellent companion  for this camera, and keep the compact philosophy intact.  However, given that the K0-1 isn't that cheap, and the Pentax pancakes are expensive and hard to find, I doubt I'll ever make such a purchase.

Fuji X100 St Lawrence Antique Markets

Rating the lens systems on Mirrorless cameras

My Sony NEX 5n is a terrific camera, but the native lenses available from Sony for the E mount is quite limited.  Of all the mirrorless systems, here's my quick ranking of the lens packages available.

1) Micro-four thirds

This mount has been around the longest and Panasonic and Olympus have focused on building up a complete range of lenses for these cameras.  The availability is very wide, from wide angle to telephoto zooms, a range of specialist primes and quality pro level zooms.  There is truly something for everyone.

2) Samsung NX

While I don't like the fact that there is very limited compatibility with Leica lenses for NX mount, Samsung have launched a range of primes that are cheap and good quality.  The recently launched 85mm f1.4 was quite a surprise, and its excellent quality levels more so.  Not much in the way of pro zooms or specialist primes (other than the 85mm), but I believe there will be more to come.

3) Fuji X mount

Fuji took a very interesting approach with launching only fast primes with the new X-Pro 1.  This certainly gave the camera enthusiast credibility, and allowed Fuji to focus on coming up with other lenses.  This is one to watch.

4) Sony E mount

Aside from the Carl Zeiss 24mm f1.8, there's not much to get excited about in Sony E mount.  This is a shame, as the NEX series are truly excellent cameras and arguably the best mirror-less camera from an image quality perspective.  Most of the Sony lenses tested haven't performed well, especially on the demanding 24MP sensor in the NEX-7.  However, if you shoot adapted lenses, the focus peaking feature makes it the best of the lot.

5) Ricoh modules

This is system is either very innovative or very weird, depending on where you sit.  I sit on the weird side.  Ricoh's lens modules incorporate sensors directly into them, rather than into the camera, meaning that a different lens could come with a completely different size sensor.  I think this would spin me out when trying to use it.  However, they do offer an array of different modules, with probably the Leica lens module being the most interesting.

6) Nikon 1

So far only consumer zooms are available, so not much to get excited about.

7) Pentax Q and K

The Pentax Q and K are truly at the complete opposite ends of the spectrum.   The K mount is basically a mirrorless D-SLR that takes Pentax K mount lenses, while the Q is interchangeable lens compact, featuring mostly toy lenses.

It really depends on what you need in a camera.  If a wide range of native lenses is very important, then get a micro four thirds camera.  If you shoot adapted lenses, then get the NEX.  If you want to do both, and don't mind a little extra size and cost, then and the Fuji X Pro1 would be perfect.

Pentax Mirror-less mysteries

You have to admire Pentax, they are small enough to come up with some hair brained ideas, some great and others daft, but something you would never ever see from Nikon or Canon.  The Pentax Q is one of those great ideas (the price tag less so), however I am not sure how this new K-01 will go.  

On paper it looks promising – a mirrorless camera with an APS-C sensor that takes the legendary and plentiful Pentax K mount lenses.  But there-in lies the problem.  K mount lenses have a sensor (or film plane) to lens mount distance of about 45mm to get around a traditional SLR mirror box.  To put that into perspective, this is 6mm GREATER than the entire depth of a Sony NEX-5!  So even without looking at the dimensions, you know this mirrorless camera is gonna be big.  In fact the K-01 is 20mm taller and 20mm deeper than a NEX-5, and almost twice the weight, and this really defeats the whole purpose of a mirrorless camera. 

The only way around this would be to use a body mounted optic to shorten the effective sensor to lens mount distance, but this would result in all sorts of potential optical issues to overcome.

The really interesting point though is the joint release of a new 40mm f2.8 pancake lens.  This lens is truly the smallest I have ever seen – it protrudes less than 1cm in front of the camera.  A quick look at the profile of the lens suggests that the optics have been moved back into the cavity in the mirrorless body where the mirror box on an SLR would normally be, thus creating the tiny size (and likely inability to be used on any other Pentax SLR).  This does make the total depth of the camera a manageable 61mm, which compared the 72mm of my NEX-3 with the Leica to NEX adapter and the compact Voigtlander 35mm f1.4 Nokton attached, doesn’t seem so bad.  However the NEX-3 with the Sony 16mm f2.8 attached is tiny at just 54mm deep.

The other issue is that just as the 16mm Sony lens is a bit too wide to be used as a standard lens, the 40mm Pentax lens is a bit too long; and this limits its street shooter appeal.

Sony NEX-3 with Leica 50mm Summicron M