I honestly had no intention of buying a new camera until the day I was looking around B&H Photo's website. Work was slow and I was curious what was out there since I've been content with my Fuji XT1 for a while now.
Fuji XT1 after a day at the speedway
I'd purchased a Micro 4/3 camera years ago, a Panasonic GF1, one of the first that helped spark the M43 revolution. A compact system, retro styling, cheaper smaller lenses that didn't sacrifice on quality. I was sold. Having been raised on Canon and having owned an XT1, 30D, 7D, L series lenses etc, I know how heavy and expensive that can get making your way downtown for a day of shooting.
I bought my GF1 looking for something new, something smaller, something I could take anywhere with minimal weight and pack size and it fit the bill for non professional work at the time. it was a great camera and I still have my 14mm and 20mm pancake lenses which I now use on my GX8. I later sold all my canon gear and switched to Fuji, a camera with a similar sized sensor as my old 7D, and picked up 2 lenses that covered the range I needed for motorsports and event photography.
Fast forward a few years and here I am sitting at work staring at a Panasonic Micro 4/3 camera I had never heard of. Hey, it was released a few months ago, looks pretty sweet, especially in SILVER. I was already sold on the looks, I really dig the styling and aesthetics taken from old rangefinder cameras. Feature wise this thing is jammed packed and it had everything and more that I wanted.
I'll take a second here to express my annoyance with Canon, they seem to be turning into the Apple of the camera world. Each new camera they bring out MIGHT have a "new" feature that everyone else has already included in previous camera models. In camera time lapse? my GX8 has that, but when I was rocking my 7D, Canon would rather have you purchase a $130 plus intervalometer which Chinese companies already cloned for less than $20. And that's just one example.
I spent several hours checking reviews of the camera, and then I went back to B&H Photo and did a double take on the price. It was:
Not as expensive as I thought it should be.
Came with a free 12-60mm lens.
Came with a free $150 gift card to B&H Photo
Came with a free extended 3 year warranty on both the lens and camera body.
Free Shipping
Interest free payments for 6 months through paypal. ($0 down and I would have a camera to use for 30 days and if I didn't like it, whatever)
At this point I kinda knew I was going to be buying this thing in the near future until I realized after talking with B&H Photo customer service that this sweet deal ended that night. (never mind the fact I saw the same deal 2 weeks later... but hey. At the time It was a deal you don't see very often, at least for me.
So I clicked Buy Now.
A few days later and I had myself one damn fine looking camera arrive from the man in the brown truck. I now had a camera that I felt comfortable taking with me everywhere, and I do. My Fuji workhorse stays at home and now I have a second body in case something goes amiss during event coverage. Only thing that is a bit unfortunate is having to build a lens collection for 2 different formats, but I digress.
I'm going to use this thing for a bit and come back with my initial impressions, which so far, have been great.
