Digital P/S as Travel-companion for M8 anyone?

The only Rangefinder cameras I have are the M4-P and M2. Because I shoot mainly film it is uncustomary for me to carry a digital camera but I did buy the Canon G10 and I'm glad I did.
I'm a little surprised at the good quality of the images in daylight, it is small, and has a viewfinder. Not a bad idea.
 
I have an LX3 and I like the physical size of the camera as opposed to the Nikon or Canon equivalent.Luminous landscape has some nice reviews on these.
 
I went to a shop just to look at the cameras and to hold them in the hand. And the winner is: tataaaa.......the Canon G10.
This was quite a surprise for me. I had in mind buying the LX3 because of the lens and overall image quality. After playing around with the LX3, GX200 and G10 I wasn't comfortable with the small cameras. Too small, didn't like the feeling.
Couldn't wait so I took it right away (could trade-in a rarely used lens so the overall price was reasonable).
First impression: handling is superb. I like the exposure override dial and the iso-dial. monitor is great. Got used to the tourist-style shooting (looking on the monitor) very fast.
Image quality: hm. mixed. Only used raw files so far, but you have to do a lot of postprocessing (compared to M8 or Canon 40D). AWB is Ok, but directly out of Lightroom the pictures look rather dull. But all information is in the picture. With a little tweaking pictures look really good.
Noise? Oh yes! I knew the limitations of noise before had some situations where there is significant noise in indoor shots especially on white walls at ISO 100. Perhaps I have to overexpose here? No problems outdoor, even ISO 400 is usable there.
Used it for one day intensively. I think as a companion to another camera this is a good choice.
 
Some pictures I took with the new G10

The first picture was taken with ISO 100. To get this clean and artificial look I had to do a lot of noise reduction.





 
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Both G10 and GRD2 will do the trick. The latter is very compact, no zoom, great interface. Neither is great above ISO800.

Examples in my gallery.

Cheers,
Kirk
 
Honestly, you'll be underwhelmed with a p&S. Get a 21mm voigtlander for your M8 and be happy. No one will want your silly looking M8 (unless it's chrome!) (p.s. i have a black m8).
 
I see that the OP has already reached a conclusion with the G10, but I figured I'd add my 2-cents anyway.

I carry a GRD for backup, and for "can-you-take-our-picture-for-us" snapshots. But I wouldn't choose the P+S *instead* of a wide-angle lens for my main camera. Tossing in a VC21 takes up little extra room. Well, plus I'd usually throw in a 12 too.
 
Gary Sandhu said:
Honestly, you'll be underwhelmed with a p&S. Get a 21mm voigtlander for your M8 and be happy. No one will want your silly looking M8 (unless it's chrome!) (p.s. i have a black m8).
Click to expand...

I don't think right now I will be underwhelmed. There are P/S Cameras and there are P/S Cameras. Out there are many really good photos taken with the "high-class" P/S like G10 and LX3. Of course above ISO 200 it's pretty hard to achieve larger prints. I know that I have to do more postprocessing with the G10. At 28mm barrel distortion is very noticable especially at the picture border with straigth lines. Correction with PTLens works fine as it already has a G10 profile. Dfine does a good job on noise reduction. That sound like a lot of computer work but only a small fraction of the pictures get this extra treatment (ptlens + dfine). For most pictures the normal lightroom-work is enough.
Next month I will go on a weekend trip with my vacation equipment (M8 + 1.4/35 + 2.8/50 + Canon G10). There I will test if I am happy with this combination. Then I will try a larger print (60x40cm) to see if the quality is ok. At that point I could adjust my equipment before the next larger vacation.

I know that this camera will produce a few picture I won't be happy with. But on the other hand in the past I left out some pictures because I didn't want to change lenses due to crowds of people around.
 
I use a Ricoh GRD I with external viewfinder (LCD blacked out) and 'snap' mode focus. Lift to eye and click. No delay. The lens is high quality. Also takes very good macros.

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Cheers - John
 
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