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After my adventures with a couple of compact cameras, and seeing a very good discount offer (we use Google Fi as our phone carrier) I decided to use some of the money I had saved for an EDC camera to buy a new phone instead.

It is the new (ish) Pixel 9 Pro, which, as well as being a fabulous, flagship phone, has a triple camera set up (ultrawide, normal, telephoto)…

… that gives you manual controls and lets you download the RAW files, so you get all the sensor info so you can play around with them in Lightroom …

Surprisingly it lets you get some bokeh (though it is a little harsh), but these are not bad at all, and it lets you switch to saving as 12MP for normal, everyday use so you don’t use up all your storage, and takes nice panoramas too- it is also IP68 dust and weather-sealed!

I shall miss the folding convenience of my Z Flip 5, but I suspect it will go to another family member 😉 And while this is in no way as good as a proper camera, it is about as good as a phone camera gets- you can either let Google process the pics with their excellent algorithms, or do it your self with the RAW files- and this will be with me at all times.

It will be fun to see what I can get out of it as I get more used to it- and of course I will still take a real camera and glass when I want to go on a “photo walk”.

So, I’ve spent a little more time with the RX100 this weekend, and I like it better than I did.

Sunday at church was a little too busy to do too much with it, but I did grab a couple of shots in the church to see what it was like. It has a very nice reach (200mm equivalent), but even with our new church lighting it’s still kinda noisy:

But as you can see above, with some AI magic from Lightroom it’s quite a usable shot.

And this shot from the same spot (not cropped in) shows how nice it is to have the reach (and the image stabilization)!

And this lunchtime it was finally a little brighter out, so I took it to the woods to take a few shots of the emerging flora:

It is very nice to have a proper lens that opens up to a decent (f/2.8) aperture to get some nice shallow depth of field so that you can isolate your subject a bit- you can’t really do that with a phone camera unless you fake it (though I do hear the camera on the Pixel 9 Pro can do it for real).

I have it for another couple of days, so we’ll see if it grows on me any more (though I still think the lack of weather/dust sealing is a dealbreaker)- it’s a shame you can’t rent cell phones for a week or so to try them out before you have to drop all that money on them!

So, this week I’ve rented another compact camera, the RX100 vii. This as the latest (though introduced in 2019) of the RX100 series of Sony compact cameras, and it certainly is compact (again, dollar for scale)- this one certainly is pockatable, or it would be if it had any weather or dust sealing- I can’t believe that they come up with a camera this small that would fit perfectly in a pocket, but Reddit is full of people saying that you need to carry it in a sealed case otherwise you’ll end up with dust on the sensor in pretty short order!

It does have a very nice little pop-up viewfinder, and a 24-200mm equivalent f/2-8-4.5 lens, but it does have a very small 1″ 20MP sensor, though it does have image stabilization and a very good auto-focus system too.

Sadly the weather has been pretty lousy the last few days, so I haven’t been able to do much with it, but I have to say, with the little shooting I have done I’m a little underwhelmed 🙁 The problem is that the cameras in phones have gotten so much better that it’s really difficult to justify buying a compact camera if it can’t perform at least as well.

Looking at the three images above, the first (Holly) is with no noise reduction, the second (June) is with some light AI NR in Topaz Photo AI, and the third (Walter) is with Lightroom’s AI NR.

You can see the noise in the shot of Holly, and though it is taken in pretty low light with no flash, the Android system on my Samsung Z Flip 5 (with an OK, but not stellar camera) actually does a better job without looking too processed (right). The pics of June and Walter are OK after a little processing, but I fear that after years of shooting full-frame Sonys this sensor would just drive me crazy.

Get outside and things look a lot better, though even then, pixel-peep at your peril.

In the woods it performed quite nicely, even creating some quite pleasing bokeh (though the auto focus does not like to get in close- manual focus is needed), and I got some shots I quite liked once I’d played around with them a little.

So, I have this little camera for a few more days, and I will continue to play with it, but again, it has not grabbed me enough to make me want to spend north of $1,000 on one( even used)- though perhaps this is a good thing as since the tariffs came in their availability new has disappeared from most of the reputable online retailers! And, again, for this price the lack of some kind of moisture and dust resistance is crazy!

I’m beginning to think perhaps I’ll just stick with my phone (perhaps upgrading to the Pixel 9 Pro, which has, supposedly, the best camera yet), and use my X100F for fun and my main Sony bodies for “work” and when I want to mess around with my vintage glass 😉

So, I’ve had the little Leica D-Lux 8 for a few days, and as I get ready to pack it up to send it back tomorrow I have a few thoughts…

It’s a lovely piece of kit, don’t get me wrong, but it just didn’t “grab” me as I’d hoped it would. It is responsive, has a lovely lens with some quite nice bokeh and a nice macro feature, the color is nice, and the small sensor has actually not bothered me at all. Some of these pics have benefitted from Lightroom’s AI denoise feature or from being put through Topaz Photo AI, and with these tools at my disposal the slight lack of details and extra noise from the smaller sensor is less of an issue.

One of my questions was whether I could shoot a Sunday morning with this camera- and yes, I certainly could. Would I get better results with a full-frame Sony and my Tamron 35-150? Yes, and that is what I would use if it was a more “important” Sunday, but for posting on FB these are more than adequate 🙂

So, would I buy it? Probably not. It’s great and I have certainly enjoyed playing around with it for a few days, but for $1,600 I need to feel more for it- and for that price the lack of any weather-sealing is a pretty criminal omission! It has rained for a couple of the days it’s been with me, and so I did not feel comfortable taking it on all my daily dog-walks.

So, I think the search for the perfect EDC camera goes on, and I have rented another contender that arrives later this week- the Sony RX100 VII, which has a better zoom range but an even smaller sensor and also, sadly, no weather-sealing. But it gets rave reviews from a couple of photographers I respect, so we’ll see if it can live up to them, watch this space…

In my never-ending search for the perfect EDC (every day carry) camera I have come across this baby Leica, the D-Lux 8.

Now Leicas are known for being amazing (and expensive), but this one is actually almost affordable, so I have rented one for a few days to see how it handles.

It’s pretty tiny as you can see (dollar bill for scale), almost pocketable (in a jacket if not in pants), though it extends when turned on; it has a 21 megapixel (though only 17 usable), micro 4/3 (slightly smaller than APS-C) sensor, which worries me a little as I am used to my lovely Sony full-frame sensors, but it is super simple compact and and has a leaf shutter, which I love! My Fuji X100F made me fall in love with leaf shutters, and though that is a camera I still love using, this has a few advantages- image stabilization, a 24-75mm equivalent zoom lens, and a more compact body.

I have this through the weekend to play with and try out, and so far I am quite impressed. I ended up doing a very late dog-walk with Faith this afternoon, so I took it with me, and, though I need to do some tweaking to make the buttons etc. work best for me, so far it’s a joy to use.

There was no light to speak of, and the woods are still pretty bland, but these are all pretty much right out of the camera, nothing other than just choosing a color or B&W preset, and no noise reduction- so it looks like that little sensor is fine.

I’m hoping there is some more interesting light tomorrow when I’m off, and I’m looking forward to exploring how some of the in-camera jpeg presets perform, as well as trying out the baby flash that comes with this camera (hopefully good with that lovely leaf shutter), so watch this space…