New Camera purchase - some friendly advise needed !

harjtt

I've had my Pana FZ10 UZ for nearly two years and its been a good learning tool but I now want to upgrade the camera. I've got my eye set on the new Pana DMC L1+Leica D 14-50mm(equiv 28-100mm f2.8-3.5) which should hopefully cost about £1200 (fingers crossed even cheaper) and depending on how it performs (IQ, DR, etc etc) I will go for it. However, its at least 3 months away from its Uk release and possibly longer and I'm getting a serious itch to do something till then - I mainly want to practice shooting portraits and may be do some fashion photography too. I think I have the following choices:

1. Sit tight with the FZ10 its still a good lil cam and it ain't broke, and wait till the L1 shows up in Sept2006 and save all my $$$ for the cam. As I've already been waiting for the last 12 months or so another few won;t hurt.

2. Pick up a new Oly E1 and a Zukio lens for around £500 and use this to learn how to work with a DSLR and either sell it on when the L1 arrives or keep it as a possible backup 4/3 cam. I know its a pretty dated cam and is only 5.5MP but it was a pro level cam and as a stop gap at dirt cheap prices I can;t go wrong. If so what lens would you guys recommend for portraits - I like the look of the Zukio 14-55 f2.8-3.5 which is priced at £380(about $600) but thats also pretty similar in spec to the L1's kit lens.

3. Ignore the DLSR's and go for another digicam, this time the SONY R1@ £500. That way there's no getting locked into a specific system in this case 4/3 and I'd end up with a 10MP APS-C cam with a very nice 24-120mm lens too boot which again I could either sell on to get the L1 or if the L1 isn't all that I can keep as my main cam.

I'm not too keen on the Canon/Nikon/Sony DSLR's as theyre not really me but I'm still pragmatic and open minded enough to keep all my options open.

Cheers

HarjTT

:thumb:D

Art Scott

personally I would wait on what I actually want and my back up camera would be the exact body model as my main camera or at least the same brand so the lenses would work on back up body...ie jsut for example: Nikon D200 main camera......back up eith another D200 or D70s......
Since I shoot Konica Minolta.....I have 2 KM 7D's.......none are a back up per say...but one is fitted with a 70 - 200 f2.8 and the other is getting a 24 - 70 F2.8..........so basically I should aLmost never have change lenses....unless I need to go Ultra wide with a 10 - 20........

When shooting film I had a main camera and a back up - 2 totally different systems and that was a hassel.

Good Luck

ziggy53

HarjTT,

From the "Preview" on DPReview, it would appear that the Panasonic L1 is a feature reduced Olympus E-330. They appear to take the same lenses, so if that's what you're after, the Leica lens, you could buy the Olympus E-330 now and pick up the lens later. (Although Olympus lenses are pretty fine in my book.)

The following, in particular, is a feature difference I would be highly sensitive to:

"What the DMC-L1 shares with the Olympus E-330

As mentioned above the DMC-L1 shares its lens mount, mirror box, auto focus and auto exposure sensors with the Olympus E-330. In addition of course they both share the same Panasonic sensor. Unlike the E-330 however the DMC-L1 does not have an additional small live view CCD on the top of the viewfinder chamber ..., so only has one live view mode. Disappointingly this means that in normal viewfinder mode you're actually looking through a half-mirror with a dimmer view for no actual gain."

In particular, low light is going to be a potential viewing problem (high ISO is already a problem with these cameras), but more significantly, auto-focus speed with live image view is likely to be greatly affected.

Best,

ziggy53