There are some who still recommend a Leica M camera for 'street photography'. I've always found this a bit perverse. Since shooting in fast moving situations requires speed, quick reactions and a camera that responds immediately, a Leica M is hardly the best tool, I love my Leica M10, for all sorts of reasons, but quick it's not. Manual rangefinder focusing is far from the best way to capture moving subjects. Sure back when they first came out, they were faster, smaller and lighter than the big cumbersome medium format cameras that everybody used and that's why people like Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa used them. But things have changed.
I'm not even convinced that full-frame is the answer either. People will also go on about the hyperfocal distance but it's far from an answer to cope with the difficulties of focusing accurately with non AF lenses. A few years ago along came m4/3, which for me is a far better way to get images in a changing environment with a high degree of success.
Remember these? The Panasonic GF1 + 20mm f/1.7 and the Olympus Pen EP-1 with 17mm f/2.8 lenses. Small light cameras that helped changed perceptions of what a camera this size could do. I used both and they worked really well. In many ways this what Leica should have evolved to. As the cameras of choice for (well heeled!) reportage and social documentary photographers, Leica never really came up with anything similar until the T and CL ranges. However, those old Leica cameras inspired Fuji and Sony to create small(er) cameras that still produced high quality images.
Now I've never seen any particular advantage in APS-C sensors over m4/3. I certainly don't get better quality images from my Canon M50 over my G9, E-M1X or GX9. In fact in many instances the opposite is true. So for me, my camera of choice for any kind of inconspicuous shooting in public places is the GX9.
The design, like a lot of mirrorless cameras owes a lot to Leica and other rangefinders. But they have moved these on significantly. For example the GX9 has fast AF, more options than I will ever need and most importantly of all it creates high quality images. Below are a series of images I took recently for stock. The idea was to have people in the images, though unrecognisable but not completely blurred out in a 'bokeh mist'. For this I used the excellent Sigma 16mm f/1.4 and 56mm f/1.4 lenses.
The setup worked quickly and accurately. Virtually all shots were wide open at f1.4 and while some see the lack of heavy bokeh as a disadvantage, I see it as the opposite. It is always worth remembering that the gear we use is supposed to support our vision rather dictating to us.
I've already stated in previous posts that m4/3 is the format that works best for me for the majority of work that I do. There are some however who try to make out it's days are numbered. I can't see why that would be. In a recent interview Stefan Daniel of Leica made the same point, that smaller format cameras would always have size and weight advantages. For example Panasonics new full-frame cameras and lenses are big and heavy. Not something I would want to be carrying around all day. As a 'pro' camera my Olympus E-M1X is lighter and smaller and so are the lenses. Plus don't forget that I'm using it to shoot 50MP images as well. I would also point out here that a Leica M camera, with it's all metal construction is not light either. I'm sure anyone picking one up for the first time would be surprised by how chunky it is.
Now I'm not trying to say the GX9 is 'better' than my Leica M10, it's just that for certain tasks it gets me the results I want quicker and easier. And I'm certainly not going to get into the whole 'why buy a Leica?' debate again. But I would say that a lot of what is written about m4/3 misunderstands what cameras like this are good at. No, m4/3 is not as good at high(er) ISO's than (most) full frame cameras, but that difference is somewhat exaggerated. I recently took some images at ISO 5000 on my Olympus E-M1X and struggled to find any noise, so these smaller sensors have got significantly better.
The GX9 is the epitome of a small light versatile camera that seems to seriously 'punch above it's weight'. But for long term m4/3 users that isn't really a surprise. This is now a mature system and one that has seen a lot of innovation. And I'm not one who would put forward the view that smartphones will actually take over. The size of the lenses is a serious impediment to them ever competing with what serious photographers need. And 'artificial intelligence' is just that. Artificial.
Lot's of people will go with the fashionable flow and these days mirrorless DSLR lookalikes are starting to appear from all the manufacturers. I have to say I'm not entirely sure what cameras like the Lumix S1 have as an advantage over DSLR's. Maybe better and easier video (if of course you want that), but balance that against poorer battery life and maybe the advantage isn't that great. Certainly not in terms of size. But the GX9 is a genuine alternative. It IS smaller. It IS lighter. It IS cheaper. And yet it's performance and the quality of it's results stand up to close scrutiny. It's not a particularly fashionable camera but it does the same job that all those 35mm Leica M's did years ago. And it seems to get the same reaction. Many photographers scoffed at 35mm anyway and claimed it didn't have the same quality of the bigger, less user friendly cameras that were in common use. But eventually 35mm became the dominant format. Now m4/3 isn't probably going to achieve that, but it's an incredible useful format.
So, instead of lugging around a camera outfit that gives my back the kind of aggravation it doesn't need, I'm happy to carry my GX9 and a few light lenses. They do the job I require and I don't feel the need for anything heavier. I've actually also found that using my Olympus E-M1X is a much less exhausting experience than many have suggested, so the m4/3 'advantages' extend to all models. It's a system I've liked ever since it appeared and see no reason for that to change in the future.
