2015 was a big year for me.

I marked my 40th year on planet Earth. My son marked his first. I bought more comic books in 2015 than in any other year of my life combined. I guess it was kind of my nerdy midlife crisis.

I also became interested in photography. Film photography, to be specific.

My Grandad, who passed away at the age of 90 in 2014, left me a collection of his old Pentax cameras and lenses. Actually, he’d given them to me years ago, but I only really started looking at them as I was preparing a documentary for his memorial service. There were 3 Pentax cameras and a small collection of lenses, all tucked away in a worn leather camera bag. The oldest Pentax was a beautiful black, all metal camera made some time in the 60's. The other two, an MX and ME, were from the mid to late 70's. These were the cameras that captured the majority of my childhood, and it was the MX in particular that I was instantly drawn to.

The greatest feature about the MX is that it has almost none. You set your shutter speed, you select your ISO, you set your aperture, and you focus. That’s it. I think it also has a timer, but that might be the ME. Anyway, there isn’t an automatic function to be found, and I love that. The only part of the camera that needs battery power is the built in light meter, and after 40 years, it still works like a dream.

At the time I had this re-discovery of film, I owned a Canon 70D, which I mainly used as a video camera. As a still camera, I wasn’t very fond of my Canon. I found myself thinking about too many technical options rather than what I was taking a picture of. It also didn’t help matters that most of the options were buried in a menu.

The biggest problem I had with the 70D was that it was giant. It’s not something you can just casually throw in a bag and go. With the zoom lens attached, the camera is a beast, and not exactly comfortable to carry around for the day.

The MX, on the other hand, is beautifully simplistic. Not pocket sized by any means, but designed to carry with you. I remember my grandfather carrying this camera with him on all of our family outings. He was always snapping pictures. He left our family with the amazing gift of a tangible visual history that I am incredibly grateful for. In a way, I felt as though it was somehow my responsibility to carry on his work, to document the history of the next generation.

And I knew I wasn’t going to do that with the 70D.

In the summer of 2015, during a family beach vacation to Florida, I briefly flirted with the idea of going all film. I brought the MX, some Ilford HP5 black and white film, and a 50mm lens. I even bought a Holga 120 for the trip, which I loved using and turned out some great photos. What I learned from this exercise was, as great as it is to shoot film, I live in a digital world, and I needed to find a digital camera that made me feel like I was shooting with my Grandad’s Pentax.

That’s when I discovered the world of mirrorless.

For three months, I learned everything I could about this interesting new class of camera. I made my list of requirements, studied the popular websites, examined the pros and cons of each brand, and ultimately discovered that the camera I required didn’t yet exist, at least not exactly as I would have liked it to exist.

What I wanted was a camera that could be as simple and straight forward to use as the Pentax, yet packed to the gills with all of the latest tech, including the ability to shoot 4k. The camera had to be small, not exactly pocketable, but light weight, something I wouldn’t mind carrying around with me if I was out for the day with my wife and son. It it also needed to have interchangeable lenses.

Of course, there are a number of mirrorless cameras that shoot 4k, namely the Panasonic GH4 and the A7R II and A7S from Sony. In the case of the GH4, it’s not much smaller than the 70D, and the Sony cameras were a few thousand dollars out of my price range.

Another strike against the GH4 was the micro four-thirds sensor. I was coming from an APS-C sized sensor in the 70D, and it was hard for me to stomach paying more money for a camera that not only had a smaller sensor, but a 16 megapixel sensor at that.

The camera that really caught my attention was the Fujifilm X100T. In my research of film cameras, I’d become quite partial to the rangefinder form factor, and the X100T screamed old school film. Even though it had the same sized sensor, although smaller megapixel count, as my 70D, it had a fixed focal length lens, and crummy video capabilities. As as beautiful as the camera was, it was a no-go for me.

Which brings me to the Panasonic LX100. In my hours of exhaustive research, this little fixed lens point and shoot came closest to what I was searching for, despite the lack of interchangeable lenses. Tactile dials for shutter speed and aperture, a fast lens by Leica, and 4k video that looked a hell of a lot like its big brother, the GH4. I’d found the camera to re-awaken the digital photographer within.

So, I did what any insane person would do. I traded in my big Canon DSLR and its 3 lenses for a little point and shoot with a little zoom lens and a little sensor.

I’ve had the LX100 for almost a year now. Do I like it? Did it get the photography juices flowing my Grandad’s Pentax did? I’ll save that for my next post.