I've been a Nikon shooter since 1998, when I looked at getting back into photography to document bands. At the time I was into Polaroid snaps, and even with 3000 ISO film, the limitations of the old Automatic Land cameras and their F8 lenses for low-light work were obvious. I had previously been into SLRs via an old Zeiss Contaflex S, and that camera's limitations made me determined to go with a quality modern Japanese system camera. This criterion constrained it pretty much to Nikon or Canon, and at the time there was no real used market for EOS whereas Nikon F had 40 years of lenses that could be had for good prices with a bit of patience, so I bought a Nikon F-501 with a 50/1.8 AF for $A350 and away I went.
A Nikon E 100/2.8 was soon added (crap flare and pincushion distortion), followed by a Vivitar Series 1 135/2.5 (much better magnification for live work, still some pincushioning), and finally an ancient Sigmatel 135/1.8 that weighed a ton, flared in daylight and had a sticky diaphragm-but as I never used it beyond f4 and it had a preset stopdown switch, that was fine. It was also very sharp and had zero distortion. By that point (about 2000) I had acquired an F-801s body, and that along with the Sigmatel was my main carry for live band work.
I held off digital until I could get a full-frame Nikon for $A2000-and that was the D600. It was a good purchase, as it represented a point where technology had largely matured, in fact its 24 megapixel resolution is still a decent offering today. Problem was, it was an ugly, heavy, bulky piece of plastic, so much so that when I went to Vietnam in 2013, I left it behind, and the cameras I took were a waterproof Olympus 8 megapixel point and shoot, and an old OM-1 with the 50/1.8 lens I bought with it, and a 28/3.5 I bought cheaply soon after. It did magnificent service, as can be seen here.
As my band photography had never broken even due to film and processing costs, and I had acquired a mortgage in 2001, I largely stopped doing it by late 2002. By then my staple film was Fuji 1600 Press-I had tried the Konica 3200 colour but that was almost comically unusable for its prominent grain and unrealistic colours, and Fuji 100/1000 slide film at ISO 1000 had good colour but grain like pebbles, so that too was a one-and-done experiment. With the D600, it was beyond brilliant to finally be able to shoot high ISOs with actual shadow detail, (relative) colour fidelity, and very low noise by comparison, as can be seen here. In Japan in 2017, I picked up a pristine Nikkor 135/2.8 AIS for about $A30, and it has served me really well for event photos, even at an underground noise show illuminated only by the light of a video projector.
The D600 went with me to Tokyo, Berlin (twice) and to Uganda for my brother's wedding, but nonetheless it's fair to say I never really liked it that much. The bargain Nikomat EL that I found in a "not working" bin in Osaka for $A13 (that only needed a new battery and a small strip of light-seal foam to work perfectly) was a much more practical walkaround camera than the D600, and the OM1 and OM2 bodies with prime lenses were even better, and made great companions for cycling. Nikon's optically fine, but bulky and heavy G-series motorised lenses (I have the 50/1.4 and 24-85/2.8-4) didn't help any.
In 2024 I took the D600 to photograph a family friend's 50th, and the mirror refused to budge. After realising it would not be worth the cost of repair, I took stock of my options. I had stopped paying attention to Nikon's mirrorless line after its introduction, when the $1000 50/1.8 standard lens had made it clear that they were treating mirrorless digital as a cash grab to restore profitability. Looking at it anew in 2024, the affordable Z5 was effectively a mirrorless version of my ten-year-old D600 with the same sensor, and I was unenthusiastic about giving Nikon more money when the D600 had failed after very little use and careful handling. There was something though....
On Tuesday July 23 2019, on my lunch break from work, I went to a St Vincent de Paul and found a pristine white Olympus Pen E-P1 Micro Four Thirds camera with all of the connection cables and accessories, and bought it out of curiosity. It was a fun camera to use, looked great, and had the same nice handling and solid feel as my OM-series SLRs, honestly feeling like a worthy successor to Maitani's vision. I took a few fun pictures with it, and lent it to my father, who was impressed by its small sensor's capabilities and therefore bought an APS-C Sony instead of a full-frame to "go digital". After he returned it, I kept it to one side, but after the D600 failure, I picked it up again. It really was everything the D600 was not-ergonomic, unobtrusive, and light enough to carry all day. The ancient 12Mpx sensor could give lovely colour rendition with plenty of nice shadow detail for RAW processing if the ISO was kept low, and the modern OM Workspace software still fully supports it and can give excellent results. A tiny M.Zuiko 45/1.8 prime I subsequently picked up for $A160 was also astonishingly good, plus there are tempting lenses from Panasonic...
In casting around for full-frame alternative systems, I looked at the Panasonic S5 II, which is affordable and high quality, and also has official multi-vendor support for its lens mount, even if it is the (really) odd couple of Leica and Sigma. Only problem was that once you got past the 20-60 zoom and the 50/1.8 prime kit lenses which are readily available cheaply, L-mount lenses get horrendously pricey. At time of writing, Panasonic's S 50/1.4 lens is $A3400-ouch!
Therefore I was back to 1999, and making the same decision-Micro Four Thirds has a good used market, with affordable, quality glass from two "on-brand" manufacturers (Olympus/OM System and Panasonic) plus others, so it was the way to go. Time to get another body.... (to be continued).
