What is your Perfect Camera ? Or have you found it ?

muppetkiller

Maybe this is the wrong forum but I'm awful fussy about cameras and every time I pick one up I find something wrong with it that drives me to sell it lol.

Loved the X100 but Auto-focus was terrible is certain situations. Really like the X-E1 but again the focus is still a little slow.

I keep coming back to my GF1 which I simply love but doesn't have the image quality of the Fuji Cameras. But the Auto-Focus and size of the body are perfect I think. The later versions of the GF series I don't think warrant an upgrade as the 3 and 5 are simply too small and lack the manual controls.

So for me it would be the X-E1 sensor with the auto-focus of the Panasonic GF1.

I'm hearing great things about the Olympus EPL5 which could be just what i'm looking for...has anyone tried that out ?

What is your perfect blend of cameras ? Or have you found the perfect match ?

magicbastarder

a camera with a maximum fps of 1 shot per minute.

dirtyghettokid

love my 5d2. just wish the AF system was better *whinge*

Effects

My favorite camera to shoot with is my Canon AE1 with 19mm lens. It's been on the shelf for a while as I've been using other cameras. It's one that I always love coming back to.

cnocbui

Well I think the Olympus E-M5 is close to perfection. Only one dud out of about 6 1.2 second hand held exposures. Bye bye tripod.

secman

Jeeze,

Canon AE1 !

I still have one of those, somewhere at back of wardrobe, must take it out for a look. Wondering now if it could be resurected !

Secman

DaireQuinlan

Something small, compact, at the very least some form of ranging, either AF/rangefinder/splitscreen if SLR and a meter with ideally some AE mode but also manual. Plus point if it can also work without batteries. I have a bunch of small compacts which don't fulfill all the above, camera that probably comes closest is my FE2 or maybe a Fujica 605 I got recently but I haven't really warmed to it yet.

muppetkiller

cnocbui wrote: »

Well I think the Olympus E-M5 is close to perfection. Only one dud out of about 6 1.2 second hand held exposures. Bye bye tripod.

I was looking at this myself but the EpL5 basically has the same sensor in a smaller body..Looks the business and nearly half the price $599 in the US with the kit lens.

Splinters

dirtyghettokid wrote: »

love my 5d2. just with the AF system was better *whinge*

Much the same here. I love my mkII but thats the one area it falls down on. Ill have my 1DX by the summer so that should take care of any AF issues. I can still forsee plenty of use for the 5D when I have it though, especially for studio work.

dirtyghettokid

Splinters wrote: »

Much the same here. I love my mkII but thats the one area it falls down on. Ill have my 1DX by the summer so that should take care of any AF issues. I can still forsee plenty of use for the 5D when I have it though, especially for studio work.

it's insane to compare the mkII to mkIII.... 61 AF points! jaysis
need more cross type in the mkII also

cnocbui

muppetkiller wrote: »

I was looking at this myself but the EpL5 basically has the same sensor in a smaller body..Looks the business and nearly half the price $599 in the US with the kit lens.

The EPl-5 is compelling for the price, however, it's no smaller, and a whole lot uglier, if you add a Vfn viewfinder. I use the viewfinder for 98% of my shots and wouldn't want a camera without one.

I also wouldn't do without the weather/dust sealing.

The EPL-5 isn't much smaller when you add a 2 kg tripod to it to enable you to take shots like this:

F4.5 - 1.3 sec - ISO 200

The dude in the restaurant - is that an earring he's wearing?


200% crop



Not a particularly good photo, I was just seeing what the IS could do on a recent skiing trip.

I took photos at night, in the rain, and hand held HD video while skiing. The stabilisation of the video while filming someone else while on the move was astonishing.

If you don't need the viewfinder, IS and weather sealing, the Epl-5 is indeed a bargain.

Effects

cnocbui wrote: »

The dude in the restaurant - is that an earring he's wearing?

Looks like he doesn't have any ears to me.

magicbastarder

dirtyghettokid wrote: »

it's insane to compare the mkII to mkIII.... 61 AF points! jaysis

surely the difference between cameras has not come down to how many AF points there are?

muppetkiller

cnocbui wrote: »

I took photos at night, in the rain, and hand held HD video while skiing.
.

Mmmm you've given me food for thought alright....ALthough the Epl5 is less than half the price of the E-M5.

Splinters

Between the 5d MKII and MKIII thats pretty much it (ok there are some other additions but most just slight bumps in spec without much, if any increase in IQ). Its not about the numbers on the page though....the 5d MKII autofocus, as much as I love the camera, is really just average. Its perfectly usable but theres times where I have to resort to manual focus that I probably shouldnt need to with a camera of this standard. The MKIII on the other hand is world class, easily one of the best out there. Id say if they had got the AF right on the MKII there would have been a whole lot less demand and justification for the MKIII.

dirtyghettokid

my point is that 61 af points seems insane, compared to what the 5d2 has. the af system is substandard in the 5d2, IMO. a pro level FF camera should have had a decent system to begin with, which is what they've addressed and sorted with the 5d3.

cnocbui

muppetkiller wrote: »

Mmmm you've given me food for thought alright....ALthough the Epl5 is less than half the price of the E-M5.

Well looking at Amazon in the US, body only, the E-M5 is $949 while the EPL-5 is $549, so it's not less than half price, it's about 57% the price.
Add a VF-2 viewfinder to the EPL-5 and suddenly the price difference is only $149

If you buy the E-M5 before the end of january here, or in the UK, Olympus will chuck in a 45mm f1.8 Zuiko: http://omd-free-portraitlens.sales-promotions.com/

I bought mine on pre-order and they threw in the grip free, which made it the same price as buying it in the US with grip. I would have rather had the 45/1.8 - oh well.

Gregor Samsa

My perfect camera would be a full-frame compact with a 8-500mm f0.9 pancake lens (with no distortion, no vignetting and perfect sharpness at all lengths), 48MP, full time on-sensor PDAF with 150 AF point spread right across the frame, 4K video, a 8 million dot OLED hybrid electronic/optical viewfinder with 100% coverage, 24 fps max shutter speed, user customisable firmware. All for 150 euro (100 after rebate). Did I leave anything out?

Come to think of it, if I had the perfect camera, I'd have to stop trying to blame my equipment for my lousy photos. :P

Joking aside, I think the tri-navi interface on the Sony Nex7 is close to perfection in terms of Shutter speed/Aperture/ISO access. Two wheels on the top, and a thumb one on the back - plus a programmable function button that lets you set all kinds of secondary settings on each of these wheels. I wish all cameras had it. I'm not saying the camera is perfect, but pretty much the only thing that lets that lets it down is the CDAF auto focus system - and I'd like it to have in-body stabilization like the Alpha SLTs. Of course, if Sony added them in, I'm sure I'd think of other things it needs.

But I don't think there can ever be one perfect camera. I have my A77 for when I'm using bigger lenses, using external flash, or taking my time with composition. I have the Nex7 for when I want something with the same quality, but small and discrete. I don't think I'd want a jack-of-all trades camera that tries to do it all, because it would probably fail.

muppetkiller

cnocbui wrote: »

Well looking at Amazon in the US, body only, the E-M5 is $949 while the EPL-5 is $549, so it's not less than half price, it's about 57% the price.
Add a VF-2 viewfinder to the EPL-5 and suddenly the price difference is only $149

If you buy the E-M5 before the end of january here, or in the UK, Olympus will chuck in a 45mm f1.8 Zuiko: http://omd-free-portraitlens.sales-promotions.com/

I bought mine on pre-order and they threw in the grip free, which made it the same price as buying it in the US with grip. I would have rather had the 45/1.8 - oh well.

Actually I'm currently using a GF1 with 14mm and 45-200mm so could use both of those lenses too with it. I might pick one up next month when I'm over there again. How did you find the kit lens ?

thefizz

If I was to be left with just one camera from those I own, my Mamiya 7II Rangefinder would be the one.

magicbastarder

probably the hasselblad or OM1 for me.

DaireQuinlan

thefizz wrote: »

If I was to be left with just one camera from those I own, my Mamiya 7II Rangefinder would be the one.

~Thinly veiled "I have a Mamiya 7II Rangefinder" post

magicbastarder

thinly?

Thinly

magicbastarder wrote: »

thinly?

Yes ?

Brian

I agree with cnocbui on the Olympus OM-D EM5. Either that or the Panasonic GH2 (since it has amazing video and an external mic jack). I have my sights on the EM5 but don't think €1000+ is really advisable for a first camera, so I've just bought an Olympus E-PM1 for ~€150 and will start building a library of micro four-thirds lenses from there, with the hope of buying an EM5 in the future. My desire for the EM5 will increase significantly if it gets hacked for better video output like the GH2.

I have not used the EM5

"Mainstream" as it may sound, the Canon 7D is the perfect camera body, to me. I adore it.

I've shot with a lot of different bodies (mostly Canon with the odd Olympus thrown in here and there, and a Nikon or two aswell) and the 7D is the clear winner of them all to me. Could be just the shape/feel of it, but I've never felt uncomfortable with it, and it has simply never let me down.

Focus system is fantastically good, recent firmware update is handy, and 1.6x crop works in my favour. Canon 7D is far and away the best camera I've used (though in saying that, I've not used a 5D3 yet - but if all it really has to boast about over the 5D2 is a superior focus system then I wouldn't be too crazy anyway, though I'd like to give it a workout sometime in future - just to see).

Also find the 7D is extremely reasonably priced for what you get out of it.

Sleepy

If I could just add a digital back to my OM-2n, I'd be happy with that.