Shopping Adventures

I’m fed up with lugging my Canon 7D around. Walks with 2 small children, spare clothes, nappies, snacks, drinks – not to mention one of them often being carried. I need something smaller that I can shove in a jacket pocket, but I still want to take lovely pictures – I still want to be a photographer.

So the hunt for my first compact system camera (CSC) – a mirrorless interchangeable lens camera – has begun. As you might imagine I have a pretty good idea of how much things cost, but before using my own price comparison I need to decide what I want to buy! I’ve given it lots of thought and done some research.

Given that pretty much any decent CSC from the well known manufacturers will take good quality pics and probably decent video, I’m focussing on a few features:

• It must be suitably small.
• It must have a viewfinder (I’m a photographer!). Electronic is fine, I certainly don’t want an optical one with parallax error. Built in, not clipped on – I’m going to use it most of the time.
• Weather sealing: This is going to be used outdoors a lot, don’t want to have to worry about a bit of rain.
• Built in flash would be a bonus for occasional indoor use.

I want something that is going to feel nice in the hand, something to put a smile on my face. So, to try to satisfy this requirement, I headed off to my local town centre to get my hands on a few cameras (actually, I was already going into town for an appointment, so decided to take advantage). Good chance to see what customer service is like.

First port of call was Jessops, the only specialist camera shop in (my) town. Strolled in at 9:30 on a Tuesday morning, large number of CSCs on display, all security wired to the shelves. Had a good look at them all, fiddled with some controls, waited for one of the staff members to come over and talk to me (their only customer!). I was a bit reluctant to pick them up and set off an alarm. The Olympus M5 II and M10 II both looked really nice in real life. After about ten minutes of looking, I gave up and walked back out. One shop down, no help offered. Hmmm.

Off to John Lewis. They had quite a lot of cameras on display as well, but not all of the latest models. Deciding to ignore the security alarms, I just picked up and played with as many as I could. About half either had no battery power (possibly no batteries, or more likely someone has nicked them) or no lenses, but I tried out the rest within the confines of the security tethers. Managed to rule out the suitably tiny Panasonic GM5 – the quality of the viewfinder was really poor, compared to the GX7 alongside it. Really liked the feel of the GX7, and the viewfinder was pretty good. Also tried out a Fuji X-T10, but found the viewfinder poor compared to the GX7 – edges of shop signs etc seemed really flickery, and when moving the camera it seemed quite jerky.

None of the Olympuses they had were working, and they didn’t have either the M10 or M5 Mark IIs anyway. Last up tried out one of the Sony’s – but it felt quite plasticky and looked a bit ugly – maybe the cheap kit lens was not helping. And then the alarm on that one went off – lights flashing, sirens wailing, me standing there not knowing what to do now! Took a couple of minutes for a staff member to turn up, turn off the alarm, apologise and leave again. Still no actual help offered, but then they appeared to have had a burglary overnight (lots of broken glass around) so maybe it was a bad day.

One more shop to try, Currys. Normally you can’t even get in the door without being offered help (a good thing, I think). Not today though. Wandered around, found the camera isle. Guess what? They did not have a sinlge CSC on display – just normal DSLRs and compacts. Really? What is going on? Left the shop feeling annoyed – it takes a bit more effort to get to where Currys are, away from the other shops.

That makes 3 shops and no assistance offered. I’m not impressed! (Is it just me, do I look scary?!) I’m also not much further on in making my decision. Currently, the old Panasonic GX7 is on my short list, but it may not be around much longer. Don’t want the new GX8 with its shutter vibration problems that I’ve read about (completely unacceptable, and trying to work around it by disabling the physical shutter is not good enough). The Olympuses are an unknown, but looked great. Disappointed by the viewfinder on the Fuji, not taken by the Sonys (so far).

Now, I know I could have asked for help in the shops, I just wanted to see what their customer service was like without me demanding help (it is their job to engage customers, that’s how you sell stuff – right?). Tomorrow I’ll be in town again, and I’m planning on giving Jessops another go – they had the best selection after all. I’ll write some more after that.

One last thing – you may be wondering if I’d actually buy the camera from one of these local shops? The answer is maybe, depending on the price. If I could get the same thing from Wex for £100 less, then that is what I would do. But if it was £20 difference, I’d buy it locally and support my local economy, and walk out with a new camera in my hand. A price somewhere in between, I guess it just depends!