Nikon Coolpix A

On the face of it the new Nikon Coolpix A is quite a cool piece of kit. But as much as I admire it, there is one very glaring irregularity, and that's price - a crazy $1,149 in Canada, plus another $450 or so for the optical finder.  Eeek!.  This thing is priced more than double what it should be!  Sure its a cool compact with a huge APSC sensor and an excellent wide angle lens.  But it's been done before, with limited success - the Leica X1 / X2, and the Sigma DP series all show that.

The trouble for me is that I can buy a new, identically sensored Sony NEX5r with an optically nice Sigma 19mm f2.8 lens for less than half the cash.  Sure it isn't quite as compact due to the Sigma lens, but it sure isn't that far off.  To me, the A should be $600-$700 at full MSRP.

The other issue is that 28mm (equivalent) is a little too wide for me.  Personally I prefer 35mm as you can do both portraits, landscapes and other general photography, making this camera a little more specialist than it needs to be.  That's one of the reasons why I like my X100 so much, but the X100 isn't really pocketable like an A will be.

Fuji X100, Coonawarra, Australia

Leica X1 and X2

A friend recently asked me why I hadn't talked much about the Leica X1 or the new X2 on Snapshot Voyager.  Here's the big problem as I see it:  you can get a new Sony NEX5n with an M adapter and a new Leica 35mm f2.5 Summarit M lens and still pay less than a new X2.  Alternatively instead of a new Summarit you could buy a used 50mm Summicron or 28mm Elmarit.  Either way, a Sony NEX5n with adapted M lenses is a significantly better camera/lens combination than either an X1 or X2.  

A Fuji X100 also blows both the X1 and X2 out the water as well.

Rideau Canal, Ottawa.  Fuji X100

X Factor

Have you noticed that almost every Mirrorless camera launched recently has an ‘X’ in it’s name?  Strange but true.  Leica started the trend with the X1 (ie first mirror-less camera with an ‘X’ in the name); then came the X100 from Fuji who then added the X10 and XPro-1 recently.   Sony released their NEX series about 18 months ago, followed by the unusual Ricoh GXR.  Canon just named their fixed lens mirrorless compact the G1X, which looks almost exactly the same as the also just announced Panasonic GX1.

I call it all a bit exxy, pardon the pun; but at least Nikon and Olympus haven’t fallen into the X trap yet, though I am sure it won’t be long.

Kingston, ON - Sony NEX 3 with Voigtlander 35mm f1.4 Nokton

Leica brochure

While at the Dixons Heathrow airport store, I saw and M9 and a 50mm Summicron is a case.  They had some Leica brochures, so I decided to take one to read.  Apart from the M9, Leica really doesn’t have much that I am interested in.  Compact and four thirds cameras aren’t my box and dice, and after this all that is left is the X1, which is completely outclassed by the Fuji X100.  In fact the X100 is what the X1 should have been.

The M9 is really starting to show its age to, with the only key selling feature being that it is a full frame camera that takes Leica’s fabulous M mount lenses.  The rest of the camera is totally out classed by the NEX, Xpro-1 and even some of the micro four thirds cameras. 

However, the brochure is a nice glossy piece.

Sony NEX 3 with Voigtlander 35mm f1.4 Nokton

Looking for a Night Street Shooter - Part 1 - The Need

I really like street photography.   It captures the mood of a place, and what people are doing in their day to day lives.  My wife and I often walk streets together – her looking at interesting shops, me taking photos.

For quite some time I’ve been on the look out for a small pocketable digital camera that was versatile and delivered great image quality.  Such a camera is perfect for street photography, easy to whip out when you need to, and very discreet.

Several cameras have come out that have satisfied some of my criteria, but I dismissed all of them:

Point n’ shoot digitals – very poor high ISO performance, controls too basic, limited depth of field adjustment, shutter lag; but they are small and very pocketable

Sigma DP1 – Too expensive, non-interchangeable lens; but the large APS-C size sensor was interesting.  The same type as most D-SLRs, with good low light / high ISO performance.

Leica X1 – A slightly nicer Sigma DP-1 that is stupidly expensive.

Olympus EP-1 / Panasonic GF-1 – I loved the idea of interchangeable lenses on a compact camera, and being able to use adapter to fit many other brands of lenses, specifically for me, Leica and Nikon.  I also liked the available wide angles – 17mm Olympus, and fast 20mm Panasonic f1.7.  Both very compact, but they have huge distortion when not self-corrected by camera software – not a good sign for a lens purist like me.  The four-thirds sensor is also too small, creating too much high ISO noise.  No good for night street photography where low light / high ISO performance is critical.  It also doubles the focal length of all my Full Frame lenses – again no good for street photography where a wide lens is much better suited.  I also like shallow depth of field effect, and even the four thirds sensor adds 2-3 stops of depth of field compared to a full frame sensor.

Nothing really seemed to work, so lugging a D-SLR around was going to continue.

TO BE CONTINUED......

The photos in this post and the rest of the upcoming posts in this little series are taken at the 2010 Toronto Nuit Blanche (Night time Arts Festival) with my Nikon D700 and a Nikon 50mm f1.2 – an awesome low light combination; and my benchmark for night time street photography. However the size makes it unsubtle, and a little worrysome when you remember the value of the camera that’s very visible in a slightly sketchy area; which is in a large part why this adventure for a smaller camera is taking place.