I’ve finally admitted it to myself – I don’t get on with my X-E2.
It can and does take beautiful pictures, but I’ve just not gelled with it – I miss shots, seem to have it in the wrong mode perpetually and the final straw was at my kids birthday party this weekend when someone used it for a few snaps and must have knocked the front selector to manual focus mode – I didn’t notice so all photos from the second half of the party are massively out of focus.

So – it’s going on ebay / classifieds here shortly along with the 27mm pancake lens I bought for it.

What to replace it with – what’s good and available for similar money? I reckon around GBP600 tops – second hand is fine.

I really liked the EOS40D I previously had, especially with a 50mm prime lens. I’m half tempted to just buy another one, or maybe a more up to date equivalent. Smaller would be good, but not essential.

Any ideas ?

The logical answer to the above is “Whatever Canon you can get for 600 quid”

With a couple of quid to spare towards a lens

I really get on well with the Olympus OM-Ds for small – also really robust and capable of stunning results (I had a double page spread in Outdoor Photographer magazine from an OM-D E-M5 mk I, the newer version is a bit better… but not much).

Otherwise whatever Canon, Nikon or… my current hot tip – Pentax K-50 – fits the bill! Very impressed with the current Pentax range.

Not had much to do with the Sony offerings, some people rate em so could be worth checking out.

I do love my Ollys though!!! (I have 2)

I’ll have to get to a shop and have a look at some Olympus, Pentax’s etc.
The used 70D option is tempting though – going back to a 40D but with video, improved low light performance etc is appealing.

Imo, the camera you take with you will be best. That is to say, lots of us have lovely cameras but they sit in camera bags, unused.

At that point, it’s totally irrelevant how good it the camera is.

Think carefully about what camera would get used most. For me it’s either my Olympus Tough. TG4 or my Canon G9x which is just lovely.

Meanwhile my Sony A6000 sits in its bag.

This is why I rate the Olly so much Mr Coolhand – I take it everywhere as it is small, light and inconspicuous whilst the D800E only comes out if I am off to take photographs as the primary reason for being somewhere.

However, whatever I take needs to produce the goods hence why I moved to the micro 4/3 over a compact (that isn’t to say that there aren’t really good compacts, but I felt I was giving up too much versatility and functionality going down that route).

OM-D + Pancake lens = teeny (coat pocket size), and a set of primes giving a nice spread from an ultrawide to a mid tele macro fits in the other pocket 😉

I’d really quite like an XE2 but suspect even second hand will be out of budget for me 🙁

Never had an issue with the front selector on my Pro 1.

The 27mm pancake is a bit meh though, slow to focus etc.

The 18mm wide prime is pretty good though, even with the Pro 1’s older AF.

I’d like their new 35mm though.

I just keep the Pro 1 in aperture priority 95 percent of the time, the ISO performance is good enough so that I just set that fair high and let it do it’s thing – with the odd correction on the exposure dial.

If you decide that M4/3 is the way to go then have a look at the Panasonic range – I recently picked up a GX80 with 12-32 zoom and I’m pretty much blown away by it. Quality is probably better than my (admittedly aging) DSLR, portability is almost as good as my (also aging) S95 and the stabilisation is crazy good. If I could only have one camera it would be the Panny. I will be adding a couple more lenses though. Obviously 😉

Thanks all.
Yep, the portability thing is important – the 40D didn’t get used much as it was just too large to lug around, hence the X-E2 – much smaller. With the 27mm lens on it it’s just about perfect size-wise.
The problem for me is that whereas with the 40D I got good pictures “most” of the time, with the X-E2 it’s “some” of the time. Maybe I should give it some more time and go practice taking pictures not snapshots to get used to it, although after a year that shouldn’t be an issue surely.

The other issue is that as a camera to give to others to use (kids parties etc, which I find a great way to get party pictures) it’s just to easy for someone to accidentally move it off “full auto” mode (e.g. the focus selector, also the exposure compensation dial – I wish there was a menu option to lock all that stuff out temporarily).

I do also have a Canon S90 which barely gets used since I got a phone with a good camera – there’s little difference between the pics so the Canon really should go on ebay too.

I’ll go take a look this weekend if I can – I’ve added Panasonics to the list of toys to go play with.

Pentax k30 for me love the fact ive lens from the 80’s as well as 2 bang up to date primes although i just get the odd fluke really good pic that i like. I can take it out in all weather as its fairly well sealed.
Anyone got any pk lens they want rid of i may be interested.

If you decide that M4/3 is the way to go then have a look at the Panasonic range – I recently picked up a GX80 with 12-32 zoom and I’m pretty much blown away by it

Me too, and you share pretty much my exact thoughts. The GX80 is excellent . Very customisable from a usage point of view too – four dedicated customisable buttons on the back and customisable function of the rotary wheels.

Great image quality too.

M4/3 folks – check out the Olly 12mm f2.0 and 45mm f1.8 LOVELY!!!! The 45mm is remarkably cheap too, and sharp as a sharp thing.

Yeah din’t get a fuji if you shoot in full auto…..they arent very smart….full auto defeats the point of them.