On Deciding . . . Better 3.0

Tuckermans Ravine Trail, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

I’m back from 2 weeks in New England, mostly staying in our favorite campground, Glen Ellis in Glen New Hampshire.

My single most important goal was to climb Mount Washington with my 15 1/2 year old son. It was a cool day and I took the Sigma DP1 as a light, landscape capable small camera. It performed well.

My photographic output wasn’t very prolific, but there are still about 800 images to sort and rate.

Facing Wall, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

My eyes seem to need a break from these summer colors. So I went back into the archives. This was captured in Georgetown near Washington, DC.

The “micro 4/3rds” news is very exciting. Olympus and Panasonic announced that they are working together on a new specification for a lens mount which uses the same sensor size as the DSLR 4/3rds mount but does away with the mirror box for more compact cameras.

This opens up the possibility of a compact with interchangable lenses and a large sensor. Leica could use it for a rangefinder focusing camera, perhaps even with automated rangefinding. There’s the possibilty of autofocus based on infrared or other optical systems as the film Olympus Stylus Epic or Contax G2 used.

I would probably give up the Sigma DP1 for a new camera with a more responsive operating characteristic as long as the image quality was at least as good as the current crop of the 4/3rds DSLRs. Of course, I’d rather have a similar compact from Nikon that would slot into my current workflow and provide Nikon image quality.