Photographyblog.com have posted a full review of the Canon Powershot G1 X, Canon’s new super “G” high end compact (ish) camera.

There have been high hopes for the G1X especially as it sports a near APS-C sized CMOS sensor and Canon’s new Digic 5 processor. On paper the camera has potential to stir up the established high end compact market and possibly even the Compact Camera System (CCS), all be it at a price.

Amongst the conclusions by photographyblog.com :

“The Canon Powershot G1 X is a very difficult camera to pigeon-hole.Taken on its own merits, there’s little wrong with the G1 X and lots to like. Anyone that’s already familiar with the Canon G-series will quickly feel at home with this new model, while those new to the system will find the plethora of external controls a real boon to their creativity.Likewise the G1 X’s image quality is outstanding for a compact camera”.

Continue Reading

Dpreview have just posted a very comprehensive review of the Panasonic GX1 a camera I was mightily impressed with when I tested one over Christmas thanks to the generosity of Digital Depot (Stevenage).

I concluded that the Panasonic GX1 is probably the best current m4/3rd camera on the market.

Amongst the conclusions from Dpreview:

“The GX1 is an extremely satisfying camera to use. Extensive, and generally well-positioned external control points are coupled with the latest iteration of Panasonic’s highly regarded touchscreen interface. We struggle to think of a camera in this class that offers such an equitable choice between touchscreen and external button control.

Continue Reading

Photography Blog have reviewed the Fuji X-S1

The Conclusion:

“With the new X-S1, Fujifilm have produced the ultimate super-zoom bridge compact camera, with a long list of desirable features, intuitive user interface and excellent image quality.The X-S1 excellent electronic viewfinder is comparable to the best compact system camera’s viewfinder, offering a large, bright and detailed display that’s a veritable joy to use. Fujifilm have also rectified another common fault of typical super-zooms – namely slow operation – with auto-focusing, start-up, shutter-lag and file write times all quick enough so that you don’t notice them in every-day use, even when shooting RAW+JPEG files together. Finally we have a superzoom camera that can boast similar responsiveness to a DSLR”.

That’s 2 recent online reviews of the Fuji X-S1 high end bridge camera and 2 very big thumbs up. Continue Reading

Photographyblog.com have posted an extensive review of Fuji’s new high end bridge camera the X-S1.

Like a recent review by digital camera review the conclusions are impressive to say the least:

“With the new X-S1, Fujifilm have produced the ultimate super-zoom bridge compact camera, with a long list of desirable features, intuitive user interface and excellent image quality”.

“The X-S1 offers the main benefit of being a real all-in-one alternative to a DSLR. with no need to buy or change lenses thanks to the high-quality 26x lens, which is remarkably distortion-free and admirably fast at either end. The manual zoom and focus rings further reinforce that DSLR feeling, as do the external flash hotshoe, command dials, tilting LCD screen, full range of manual shooting modes and RAW format support. Full 1080p movie recording with stereo sound is the icing on the cake, making the X-S1 a viable replacement for your video camera too”.

Before Christmas I treaeded myself to the Olympus 45mm F1.8 mirco 4/3rd lens designed to be used on either Olympus or Panasonic m4/3rd camera bodies.

I’d read plenty of rave reviews concerning this lens and had been waiting for a portrait friendly m4/3rd lens for some time so I took the plunge.

Well am rather glad I did. The 45mm lens equates to 90mm in 35mm terms which is spot on for portrait shots and also so happens to double as a very handy short telephoto “street lens”. Very quickly this lens has joined the Panasonic 25mm F1.4, Panasonic 20mm F1.7 and Panasonic 14mm F2.5 as a must have lens for my growing mirco 4/3rd system, its a really superb lens and one I’d recommmend in an instant if you want a specific m4/3rd portrait lens to accompany your Olympus or Panasonic m4/3rd camera.