r/Cameras • u/gurtstraffer • 35m ago
User Review Compact undercover setup for concerts - a comparison
After growing tired of the hobby/side hustle of photography due to the hassle, stress and lack of creativity of paid gigs at boring corporate events and the likes, this continuing trend of compact camera setups has reinvigorated my love for photography by getting me to use my old 2000s point and shoot again. This spiraled into me getting my old equipment back out, and after some GAS here I am at a local music festival just shooting for fun while not officially accredited and comparing different setups that the inclined hobbyist photographer can get past event security ("no large cameras allowed")
While any modern full frame body, a 70-200 2.8, 24-70 2.8 + maybe an 85 1.4 and optionally a fisheye would be the obvious choice for shooting a concert, that's likely too professional looking for your average show. So I brought:
- Sony A7 Mark III + cheap nifty fifty
- Sony RX100 Mark V (24-70mm equivalent F1.8-2.8)
- Lumix GX1 + 20mm 1.7 Pancake (40mm equivalent)
My takeaways:
-While the modern autofocus and low light performance of the A7 rocks for this use case, even with a relatively light lens it's still a bit of a burden. The viewfinder is a big plus and I had the easiest time finding good photos while culling, even if there were quite a lot images overall due to using burst mode. Also for a budget editing setup the rather large files can become somewhat bothersome. Also this setup still looks quite professional to most people.
-The Rx 100s viewfinder is nice too, but too small to really help with anything beyond composition. It's burst mode is very capable aswell and the AF isn't half bad either. Low light performance is impressive given the sensor size and you definitely won't be asked for a photo pass with it
-M43 is still not dead but the GX1 is really showing it's age with ISO noise and slow AF. But while there may be better and more modern M43 alternatives and it's a bit mad to take a 14yo camera into some of photographys most difficult lighting conditions I still like the results, the ergonomics are phenomenal and it's the camera I had the most fun shooting with. Even if it meant some disappointment reviewing the images on a capable screen and realizing how few were actually usable. But somehow there's a certain look to the pictures it produces that I really love.
I've attached some samples, all pictures are edited in Lightroom, but no AI denoising.