From Bromley Common yesterday:







This camera is quite a lot of fun!

Cheers,

Jon

Agree with what others have said - the last three (and for me, number 4 in particular) are excellent.

It was sunny when I left the house for this afternoon's dog walk. But normal service had been resumed by the time I got to Dulwich Park a few minutes later.... Here's a quick shot before Harry and I got officially drenched (MX-1 with a fair amount of PP just for fun):




Cheers,

Jon

It's very good for what it is, and you might leave the 18-55 at home. But the 55-300 is more capable and if you like what you get from that lens - especially at longer lengths - you may end up using the super zoom less than you hope.

In your shoes, I'd look for something completely different to enable you to do things your lenses can't. That would mean getting a faster lens for me - either something like the Sigma 17-70 macro (you will dump the 18-55, and the macro capability is very useful), or a proper macro lens that could also double as a portrait telephoto, or - and this would be my preference - a bag full of old manual focus primes. Only when you do the latter will you truly get in touch with your LBA side

Well I view buying the M85 as a money-saving scheme ...it was only a matter of time before I otherwise bought the Samyang 85/1.4 which would have cost more! And the M85 is much more compact so more likely to be used regularly. J

Have had a lot of fun using the MX-1 on today's dog-walks. I love the build, and I find it just the right size for me (I don't love tiny cameras). I've not yet had to delve into the manual as it's pretty easy to find your way around (especially if you have Pentax dSLRs) and the rear info screen means you shouldn't need to dig into the menus terribly often in any case. The live highlight warning is brilliant and the whole camera is very quiet and discrete (shared with most other compacts, to be honest). The tilty rear LCD is very helpful - I actually prefer these to the fully articulated variety.

Image quality is impressive too - and so far I've only been using it for JPEGs: tomorrow I'll try out the DNGs. Pictures taken in poor indoor light last night at ISO800 (I wouldn't expect to get much at higher ISOs but I suspect 1600 would be usable for smaller prints) were far better than I had anticipated - easily usable for something like a 10 x 8, possibly more. And pictures taken outdoors today have been great. Struggling to find any CAs in the JPEGs, even at high contrast edges, colours are quite natural and realistic, and the files require very little processing. Control over depth of field is much better than I'd expected it would be.

I haven't taken any great shots yet, but that is nothing to do with the camera. Some early examples though:













I bought the camera to keep with me most of the time during the week, and I suspect it is going to get quite a lot of use - and be rather fun in the process.

Cheers,

Jon

Nice, especially the last two for me. Do you use a filter or modified camera? Jon

I've not had a compact camera for a while, but the images I've seen from the MX-1 persuaded me that it might be time to try again...especially with the current cashback offers, and the rather nice little free Billingham case from SRS (perfect size for the camera, and comes with a belt-loop but no strap in case you're interested).

Only been playing around at home for a few minutes tonight, but so far I'm impressed at how much control you can get over depth of field, even with the relatively small sensor and not just at telephoto lengths. I'm also impressed at how decent the JPEGs seem to be, at least at ISOs lower than around 800 - exposed correctly, there appears to be almost no work required in post-processing: they're coming out great straight from the box.

So far, pretty impressed.....

HI Kris - £125, which is lower than I've seen for quite a while. I'm hoping there isn't a good reason for that, but have always had great experience with Ffordes in the past. J

Sorry...not any more, there isn't