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My Favorite Camera

Sanjay Vijayanathan Found Something Special with His Panasonic GX8

Chris Gampat
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12/07/2020
3 Mins read
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I’m an enthusiast, not a professional and I embrace that. My abilities with a camera are limited- not false modesty as there are things I’m good at – this just isn’t one of them. I’m completely fine with that though, the pleasure and peace holding a camera and taking a photograph gives me is reward enough. I’d always had film cameras as a kid, my dad had one and I used them for a while when I left home but I never learned to develop film and I stopped using them during the late 90s.

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Seeing a blurry family photo from years ago is still a powerful thing for me: the emotional experience far outweighs any technical limitations.
 
An alpha and an omega got me back into cameras and photography. The alpha: I had children and a phone just never documented them quite the way I wanted them to be documented. The omega – my mother passed away and I realized we did not have a recent photographic portrait of her – never again, I decided.

And so I bought ‘the wirecutter’ recommended Olympus OMD EM10 M2. (That’s not my favorite camera by the way, though I still love and use it.) I read lots of other reviews before buying, including this one.
 
I loved the images and I wanted to take the Olympus everywhere and use it all the time. But England… so rain… lots of rain. The OMD EM5 M2 and OMD EM1 Mk2 were too expensive.

Around this time I read this review I got the whiff of damnation with faint praise. Let’s face it; the site usually picks Olympus in the Micro 4/3 round-ups and for some very good reasons I’ll admit.
 
Everyone seemed to like this camera – no one seemed to love it apart from Dave Thorpe. Which was good because it was then discounted heavily and it was weather sealed.
 
So when it rained or I was outdoors/overseas that’s what I took.
 
Years passed, YouTube was watched, I read about photographers and photographic techniques, and collected photo books. Meyerowitz, HCB, Newman, Heisler, Gampat, Perello, Salgado, Souza, Gorman, Winters, Sontag, Carter, etc. The shelves groaned – my wife groaned louder.
 
I always have the Lumix 35-100mm f2.8 and the Olympus 12-40mm f2.8, a Nissin i40, and I mix in the Lumix 15mm f1.7, Olympus 25mm f1.2, or Lumix 25mm f1.4 as required (all of which I picked up very reasonably second hand and fit into a 10L sling bag with an iPad). I bought other cameras (Fuji! Leica! Medium Format! GAS!), dabbled in film, and tried to learn. But when I traveled, when I was just about being in the moment not trying to learn a new technique, I reach for the GX8. I use Olympus and Panasonic lenses and have never felt I’ve paid an undue penalty for mixing manufacturers.
 
The menu was logical and intuitive to me. Even the feature that many seemed perplexed by, the tilting eyepiece, came to be something I relied on. I still use it and bought a second one when prices hit rock bottom post Panasonic’s full-frame announcement, but prices are slowly creeping back up I notice.
 
The camera seemed so discrete, it wasn’t perfect, but the more I used it, it seemed so ‘sensible’. Every time I used another camera, I would think, “This or that ‘works better on that gx8,” and that, I guess, is when I realized it was my favorite.
 
I’d love another range-finder style Panasonic M4/3 flagship (and yes I know the audience is suggesting I should probably see elephants fly first), and while I’m in wishful thinking territory, perhaps some phase-detect autofocus points. The contrast-detect focus needs help.
 
Thanks for putting up with the ramblings.
 
My current project: I’m doing socially distanced portraits in my neighborhood for anyone who wants one, particularly focused on the elderly/families so that they have something for posterity.
 
Instagram: @sanjayvijay
All words and images by Sanjay Vijayanathan. Used with permission.

camera olympus panasonic Panasonic GX8 Photography Sanjay Vijayanathan
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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