There is always the potential for mistakes  when a camera maker makes the transition from the familiar realm of DSLRs to the less well understood world of mirrorless interchangeable lens models (MILC).

Panasonic and Olympus made plenty of ergonomic mistakes with their first MILC cameras but that was 12 years ago.

Panasonic has a substantial history  with travel zoom and compact consumer superzoom cameras dating back to the FZ1 in 2002.  Even then Lumix designs were quite sophisticated. The FZ1 had a 12x f2.8 zoom,  built in EVF and abundant controls for the enthusiast photographer.

The first FZx00 series model was the FZ100 released in 2010.

Last month  Chris Nicholls and Jordan Drake from DP Review TV presented their light hearted and moderately intoxicated opinions as to the best and “wurst” “kamras” of 2019. Although they clearly did not expect this little piece to be taken seriously I was intrigued to see what they selected as their  “wurst” three ‘kamras”.

The one which rated “wurst” of all was the “Cannon” Rebel SL3 a.k.a.

In 2009 I bought my first and as it happens the world’s first mirrorless interchangeable lens digital camera, the Panasonic lumix G1. 

Panasonic, Olympus and eventually all the rest realised  that mirrorless technology was the way of the future.

Unfortunately in the process of moving from DSLR to Mirrorless (MILC), all of them made many mistakes particularly with the ergonomics of the new type of camera.

I have the opportunity to use  many different types of camera covering most of the spectrum from high end to budget consumer models. One thing which has impressed me over the years is the lack of any great difference in output quality between them.

Just for fun I ran a simple test yesterday. I photographed the same scene with each of  five cameras:

Nikon Z6 with Z 24-70mm f4, Lumix G9 with Lumix 12-35mm f2.8, Sony RX10.4, Lumix FZ1000.2, Lumix FZ300.

It’s the silly season  so maybe readers will forgive me the occasional  post expressing what I would like a camera maker to do in the year(s) ahead.

This time I lay out what I would like Panasonic’s camera division to do over the next year or so. Well, maybe it could take a bit longer……….

I have great sympathy for product development people at any corporate enterprise which makes stuff  for consumers who can be notoriously fickle and unpredictable.

The rise and rise  of smartphones has seen a dramatic fall in compact camera sales. Many internet sages have predicted that compacts will disappear altogether.

Many camera industry commentators make no mention of compacts at all, suggesting that for these people the extinction event has already occurred.

But wait:  Leica’s best selling model is the Q, Fujifilm’s X100 series sell well to a niche cohort and the Ricoh GR series compacts have a loyal following of supporters.

This is Camera Ergonomics annual review of the camera industry. Camera Ergonomics is completely independent with no affiliation to any entity in the business of making or selling photographic products.

As I see it there are now and have been for over a hundred years two groups of people who seek to make photographic pictures.

These are the snapshooters and the enthusiasts  (and some professionals but they are a numerical minority).

The full name of this lens is Panasonic Leica DG Vario Elmar 100-400mm f4.0-6.3 Asph Power OIS for Lumix G Micro Four Thirds cameras.

It was announced in January 2016.

The initial response to this lens was mixed. Some reviewers praised its optical and mechanical performance. But negative feedback appeared on user review sites around two main issues, a stiff zoom action and inconsistent quality control.

The full name  of this lens is Venus Optics Laowa Compact Dreamer 7.5mm f2.0 Ultra wide angle lens for the Micro Four Thirds mount, standard weight.

Spoiler alert…..this is a very good lens.

Read on for the details…………

As described on the Venus Optics website, Anhui Changgeng Optics Technology Co was established in 2013. The growing organisation has 131 employees at the time of posting, located at Hefei China.

There are currently 10 Laowa lenses in production with more promised soon.

The number of photography websites  confidently predicting the total demise of the compact camera has risen sharply in recent months. The purveyors of this view are not prescient or even particularly clever. If one simply projects the recorded downward trajectory of compact camera sales year-on-year the line will hit zero tomorrow. Or next month. Or next year. Sometime, anyway. Soon say the savants.

Smart phones have won the battle, compact cameras are done.

Maybe they are right.

Lord Howe is a small (about 10x2 kilometres) rocky island in the Tasman sea about 550 kilometres East of Australia. It was listed as  a World Heritage area in 1982. It has the most southerly coral reef on the planet.

I recently spent a week there enjoying the sights.

As I knew birds and BIFs would be prominent photographic subjects I elected to take my Sony RX10.4 bridge camera. This has more reach and speed than the Lumix FZ1000.2.

Each year Sydney hosts a sculpture festival with works displayed on the pedestrian path from Tamarama beach to Bondi Beach. Many of the sculptures are elaborately conceived and constructed to fit a precise location on the rocky headland overlooking the sea.

I thought this year’s entries might have lacked a little of the extravagant style seen in previous years.

Nevertheless there was plenty to interest the huge crowds which always show up for this event.

When I reviewed the Canon Powershot G7X.2 in April this year I wrote:

“Between the G5X and the G7X.2 Canon has potentially got the makings of a good compact camera. They just need to gather all the elements together in one device.

Instead we have the EVF and better ergonomics in the G5X and the faster Digic7 processor in the G7X.2.

With a bit of redesign to the handle and controls, the Digic8 processor and a better lens a G5X.2 could be very appealing.

Current model Panasonic M43 and fixed lens cameras have a feature called 4K Photo. This can be used for a range of purposes including pre-burst and focus stacking which is the subject of this brief post.

When photographing small things which are not flat it can be a challenge to render sharp all the parts of the subject which we want to appear sharp and clear in the photo.  

This is because when working in close the depth of field becomes very shallow.

The Lumix G9 is Panasonic’s top tier camera for still photos with an emphasis on performance making it suitable for sport/action and similar subjects.

One might expect this model to achieve a high ergonomic score and it does. But the final score is only just ahead of several other Lumix models indicating that there is a group of Lumix cameras each providing the user with a very good operating experience.

Over the last few years Canon has released a succession of boring, underspecified models which have received their share of criticism on this blog.

Now we have  the G5X.2 which comes as a welcome improvement over Canon’s previous Powershot compacts with much improved performance and usability.

In fact I am finding I actually enjoy using this camera which is not something I could say about most of the many compacts I have used over the years.

My wife and I recently joined a conducted tour of 4800km from Perth to Broome in Western Australia, the highlight being visits to locations in the Pilbara region.  Fortunately someone else was driving. It’s a long way from everywhere to everywhere else in Western Australia.

I took my Sony RX10.4 with no backup camera. I rate the RX10.4 as the most versatile and capable all purpose model  on the market today.

I was a dedicated Canon user until I wasn't which was about ten years ago when two things caused me to look elsewhere.

The first was chronically unreliable autofocus in Canon’s DSLRs of the time.  By the way Canon appears to have fixed this problem with the dual pixel AF system which now operates on many models.

The second was the arrival on the scene of the Panasonic Lumix G1, the first mirrorless interchangeable lens camera with autofocus.