First, I must apologise for the visual pun and poor quality of my humour. I also must admit to a rather strange fascination with rock and a desire to photograph rock. I can’t put my finger on why but I just love the texture and sometimes the colour of rock. The image above is typical of what I like to shoot, where detail and texture are all important. The ability of my camera and lens combination to capture this detail is therefore very important to me. In this example it was a Panasonic GX1 and Panasonic 14-45mm lens (this by the way was the old kit lens for the GF1 and is a real cracker in terms of the image quality it can produce).
As some of you reading this will know, I recently made the decision to sell all my DSLR equipment and switch completely into Micro 43 format cameras. This lead to the purchase of an Olympus OM-D E-M5 which I am very impressed with but leaves me with a Panasonic GX1 doing very little. I had been contemplating selling the GX1 body given that it is pretty similar to the OMD. It produces the same size images and has nothing about it that elevates it beyond the OMD. I can’t however bring myself to sell it.
The GX1 has now come down to such a low price that I don’t feel it’s worth my effort to sell it and that I may be better keeping it. The body is pretty tiny and fits neatly in my pocket or camera bag as a backup. The build quality is very good. And when I look at images such as the one above it amazes me what quality the camera can produce (when shooting in RAW format). Take a look at this section viewed at 100%.
So for now at least, I think it’s going to stay in my camera bag – it makes an ideal travel camera.
So, that was the blog I had originally intended to post. The only thing is, the image wasn’t shot on a GX1 at all. It was shot on my Sony RX100 but I had copied it to the wrong location. That’s right, it was captured on a compact camera. WOW!
I wanted to end this blog with a question. Which image is better, the colour one above or the black and white conversion below? I can’t make my mind up but I’m interested to know what others think. I think I prefer the colour image but it’s a close run thing.
The Lightweight Photographer 
I vote black and white, But I am a little obsessed with mono, so I may not be a far judge:)
Thanks. I think most people prefer the black and white. I will agree you are biased but then again your Cathedral work really suits the medium so fully forgiven.
I prefer the color version.
Monochrome for me
Really love the black and white.
It’s incredible what you can get with a Micro 43 format cameras. I prefer black & white. Contratulations. Both are beautiful pictures.
Thanks. Don’t forget the RX100 isn’t even micro 43, it’s a compact camera. Thanks also to everyone who has indicated a preference so far.
My vote is for the B&W. I think the sandstone colour is just a little too much overall, whereas the tonal range of the mono works very well
Thanks. Black and white seems to be the favorite.
The colour has it for me in this instance.
Thanks Stephen. I was starting to feel like the only lover of colour.