Category Archives: Micro Four Thirds

Micro Four Thirds Cameras and Lens Correction

Picturing Zanzibar – Advice for Photographers

Welcome to Zanzibar!
Camera: Panasonic DC-G9M2 | Date: 04-12-2023 13:37 | Resolution: 2628 x 2628 | ISO: 640 | Exp. bias: -1 EV | Exp. Time: 1/500s | Aperture: 11.0 | Focal Length: 12.0mm (~24.0mm) | Location: Shangani Lighthouse | State/Province: Stone Town, Zanzibar City, Zanzi | See map | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 12-35/F2.8II

With my Zanzibar trip now firmly behind me, I’ve looked back and tried to condense what I experienced into guidance for future visitors and photographers.

This was my first trip to East Africa, and I came away with a lot of positive feelings. This appears to be a happy, vibrant place with lots of friendly people. Most of the practicalities worked fine, albeit sometimes a bit slowly, in a way familiar to anyone who has travelled in the tropics. I never felt the slightest issue in respect of personal security, and all my commercial transactions were honest and straightforward, although there was inevitably some haggling with shopkeepers to agree a price.

Dhow at BuBuBu (Show Details)

Photographic Subjects and Practices

I did get some great shots of people, beaches and boats, and the snorkelling was easily the best I’ve done in about 20 years. For those happy in a relatively small boat I would thoroughly recommend a dhow trip, and a snorkelling trip with Safari Blue.

Snorkelling near Kwale Island (Show Details)

Beaches aside, there’s no scenery to speak of. The island is as flat as a pancake, covered with either very generic tropical vegetation or small-scale agriculture, broken intermittently by what are described as "villages" but many of which are in reality small towns of several thousand people. The historical area of Stonetown is home to some fascinating old narrow alleys and tall buildings, but away from there the vernacular architecture is either 1960s communist blocks, or nondescript smaller constructions of concrete blocks and corrugated iron. Both are, let’s be honest, just ugly. In some parts of the world buildings are at least cheered up by being painted in bright colours, but most in Zanzibar are left unpainted in drab greys and browns.

Stonetown does have a wonderful tradition of impressive, studded timber doors. These were present, but unfortunately at the time of our visit almost every one was covered in complex sets of numbers scrawled in chalk, the legacy of a recent census. Hopefully when the process is complete most will be cleaned and returned to their usual photogenic state, but I’ve come away with relatively few shots of these vaunted features.

We didn’t see any wildlife except fish, a few birds, a couple of impressively large rats, and some amazingly colourful dragonflies which frequented the hotel pool but were impossible to photograph. An occasional rustle in the trees or roadside vegetation suggested some slightly larger fauna, but it didn’t make itself obvious.

That brings us to the people. Most were pleasant and interesting, but not all were willing photographic subjects. They seemed to split down into a few groups (albeit with lots of borderline cases):

  1. Those who are happy to be photographed without immediate reward. A lot of people in direct tourist-facing roles are naturally in this group, however they are not the majority.
  2. Those who can be persuaded, especially if you engage with them first and take a genuine interest in their activity or situation, and then ask permission. This is down to your powers of persuasion, or those of your guide.
  3. Those who are happy to pose on the transactional basis that they will be paid. As well as entertainers working for tips you will find a number of the general public who operate on a "dollar for photo" or similar basis. Stallholders who have either just made a sale of who have a real prospect of one are also usually willing.
  4. Those who really don’t want to be photographed. I reckon this can be 50% or more in some cases. Some will make it very obvious with a "no photo" or covering their face. You have to acknowledge and honour this.

Ladies happy to be photographed, for a fee! (Show Details)

The reticence of many of the people seems to be down to a combination of the standard Muslim concern about images of people, more modern concerns about publishing one’s likeness, and an annoyance that their daily lives are being scrutinised by foreigners. It has to be said that most of us would be the same if the situation was reversed. I started to feel a bit uncomfortable tramping around the villages, and after a while focused photography on those in groups 1-3.

You also should be alert to those who due to peer pressure appear to be in group 2 or 3, but are actually in group 4. You may detect unease, or just poor poses and expressions – these are passive expressions of the same unwillingness. A good example is where we were invited into school classes, but some of the youngsters were obviously much less comfortable than others. Again, there’s no point in pushing with an unwilling subject.

Finally you have to be aware of the psychological aspects of the photographic process on willing but inexperienced subjects. In a couple of cases we found a great model, but the first photographer in the group thrust an enormous camera and lens into her face and insisted on taking dozens of images, and the rest didn’t get a look in. That’s unfair on both the subject and the other photographers.

If you do have to pay a subject it won’t require much – 1 US dollar is a good reward for a some shots of an adult, and you can scale up to maybe $10 for a group. Carry lots of $1 notes. However it’s not a good idea to pay kids directly – this is clearly driving a lot of poor behaviours.

Tumblers on the beach (Show Details)

Photographic Kit

There’s not a great deal to say here. Any good camera should serve you well, and unless you’re going underwater the practical demands are limited. The beauty of Micro Four Thirds allowed me to take a range of lenses covering from ultra-wide angle to long telephoto without breaking the luggage limit, but the longer lenses got very limited use, and a standard pair of zooms covering the equivalent of 24-70mm and 70-200mm or similar would cover the vast majority of subjects.

My new Panasonic G9ii behaved faultlessly, and like its predecessor proved an ideal camera for travelling "light but fully equipped". I took 1662 images on it, about 110 on the Sony Rx100 mk 7, and about 316 using the waterproof Olympus TG6, across about 8 days of "active photography" (as opposed to lying by the pool). The count was lower than many trips, but reflected the limited need for multi-shot techniques or high frame rate action photography. About 50% of the shots have been retained for further processing after an initial edit, higher than usual for the same reasons.

Make sure you have a circular polariser for each lens. I just left mine on most of the time, as the light frequently demands it, and it’s good protection against the dust and moisture. Alternatively you might want to take clear or UV filters, but that’s arguably overkill. My ND filters didn’t come out of the bag, and I didn’t catch any of my companions messing about with square filters, ND Grads and the like – the subjects really didn’t call for it.

Underwater the TG6 worked well enough, and avoided the literally fatal failings of its predecessor. However the images are not that sharp, and battery life is very poor, as I found to my cost when I lost power halfway through the second snorkelling session. If you are doing a trip with multiple snorkel or dive sessions in the water, change the battery after each one, and accept the risk of opening the camera in a less controlled environment.

Sea star on Nungwi beach (Show Details)

You could get away without taking a tripod. Mine never left the suitcase. Obviously it depends on your style, and your tolerance for higher ISO for evening shots, but I worked exclusively handheld. By and large it was too cloudy for genuine night photography, and otherwise the light levels and subjects were always workable.

If you are travelling to that part of the world with significant photographic kit, avoid Emirates as an airline. They have a ridiculous 7kg and one piece limit on cabin baggage which they enforce quite enthusiastically. My work-around was to wear a photographer’s vest which ended up almost as heavy as my bag, but I shouldn’t have to be forced to do so.

Otherwise that’s about it. The phrase which sums it up well is "f/8 and be there…"

Practicalities

This section does need a significant "your mileage may vary" warning – it reflects my experiences and others may be different. For example all the advice beforehand warned that insects might be a major issue, but I was sufficiently untroubled that by the end of the trip I wasn’t even putting repellent on, just making sure the mosquito net was secure overnight. However another member of the group did get a very nasty bite on the first night…

Zanzibar is well set up for tourism, and a lot of things "just worked". With one ultimately amusing exception, I didn’t experience any major hotel room malfunctions. Toilets were uniformly clean and functional. Transport arrangements were unproblematic.

Money is straightforward. Take lots of small US dollar bills for tips and small purchases – these are uniformly acceptable, the locals are well versed in applying a pragmatic exchange rate and rounding up or down as required, and it keeps your wallet simple. You can also get Tanzanian Shillings, or you might receive some in change, and that’s not a problem apart from the fact that the exchange rate is about 2500 to the $, or 3200 to the £, so you need to be careful with the number of zeroes! Larger bills will be presented in USD and can be settled with a credit card – just live with the small surcharge.

You will need a guide unless you’re just sticking to the environs of the hotels, and you will need a driver if you’re moving around. The main roads between towns and around Stonetown are very good and I’d be perfectly comfortable driving them, but get 10m off them and they are biblically bad. Both services are readily available at reasonable cost, so let them take the strain.

It is hot – in the 30s Celsius during the day, low 20s overnight, and humid, often without much of a breeze. Wear high factor sunscreen and be prepared to change your clothing fairly regularly. Be respectful with your clothing, but I didn’t find it necessary to follow the "cover up" guidance you get from some sources. A T shirt and shorts should be OK.

Try and adapt to the temperature. In your hotel room turn the air conditioning off, and the fan on. I slept like a log, but then I am used to the tropics and run a warm house at home. This is one of those YMMV bits.

One complaint we did have is that not enough water is served in hospitality settings. In most warm countries the first thing that happens in a restaurant or hotel is you get a glass of cold water, served from a freshly-opened bottle when required. Not in Zanzibar, you have to ask for water at meals, and you may have to manage your own supply in the hotel room. It’s not a problem – bottled water is readily available and inexpensive, but you do need to be alert to the issue and make sure you don’t accidentally get dehydrated.

Be absolutely religious about sticking to bottled water for drinking and tooth-cleaning. One of our party made a mistake on the latter and was then ill. I did try filling a kettle from the tap, but the cloudy fluid didn’t look like even boiling it would necessarily remove everything untoward, and I switched back to bottled water even for tea.

We all suffered from some measure of "tummy trouble", some, as in my case, fairly minor, some less so. My suspicion fell on the attractive salads and ice cream served by the Z Hotel, and I switched to the "bottle and burger"™ diet. This is very simple: don’t drink anything you didn’t see come out of a bottle – water, wine, beer and spirits are fine, but no cocktails. Don’t eat anything which hasn’t been baked, grilled or fried immediately before serving. Hot drinks are OK, as are boiled vegetables but only if they are still steaming – cold rice and similar are a no-no. It worked for me.

After the trip we did share our concerns about the salads with the hotel manager who assured us that all vegetables were washed using boiled water. As they say in the British Parliament, "I refer the gentleman to my earlier statement."

I mentioned that in most respect most of the hotel rooms worked quite well. However we did get one new entry for the dysfunctional hotels blog. In my first room at the Emerson Hotel in Stonetown the active and spare toilet rolls were strung on a rope from the ceiling, conveniently positioned for when required. In principle this is a good design, however in a tropical downpour on the first night water got in from outside, ran down the rope, and soaked both rolls. Annoying, especially as this is not an obvious failure until your need is unavoidable!

Coconut weaving (Show Details)

Service and Sophistication

Service was always willing and helpful, but occasionally annoying despite the good intentions. Paying or signing for drinks at the hotels is a good example. The staff don’t want to bother you while, or immediately after, consuming your drink. That’s great, but it can turn into either an interminable wait when you’re ready to go, or to your being pursued around the hotel with an unsigned chitty at shift end. Being proactive doesn’t necessarily help: I got a great cup of coffee early one morning, but while the barman could work the coffee machine to good effect, neither he nor any of the other staff on duty could work the till. I had to come back later.

More complex services are a mixed bunch. I had absolutely outstanding service from Safari Blue who not only provided a snorkelling trip but also arranged my travel, meals and changing facilities for my final day.

On the other hand I was also hoping to get two additional side-trips into the last few days: a deep sea fishing trip, and a catamaran cruise. I have done each many times in the Caribbean, you just ring up, book your place, turn up and pay. Often they even provide a taxi from your hotel. Not in Zanzibar. You can’t walk 100 yards down the beach without someone pestering you about a fishing trip, but it’s a completely different commercial model. They will happily charter you a boat, for anywhere between $400 and $1000, but it’s then your job to fill it. There’s no such thing as a "shared" trip where they do that work, apart from the dhow cruises. I couldn’t interest my companions, so the week came and went without fishing or a catamaran trip.

It’s apparent that the challenges in the educational system are failing many Zanzibarians. The inability to work the till was one example, but in fairness that was obviously a "training" hotel. However I found quite a few examples of limited reasoning skills or "learned stupidity". For example, The Z Hotel will make you a nice latte and serve it in a tall glass as per custom. So far so good. They have two sizes of saucers in their crockery set: a larger one with a dimple the right size for the latte glasses, and a smaller one where the dimple is too small and the glass wobbles alarmingly on top. You can guess which one they had all been told to use, and no amount of demonstrating the issue to the waiters every day for a week made a blind bit of difference.

Compared with some other tropical locations, there does seem to be a genuine intention to try and reduce the environmental impact of both general living and tourism. Waste was minimised and well-managed, with impressive recycling or reduction of most plastics. I even saw an old lady recycling nylon rope, using exactly the same method as others use with coconut fibres. That said there are some messy corners in villages, and on some non-tourist beaches, but you feel that they are trying to do the right thing.

Dhow at Jambiani Beach (Show Details)

And Finally…

There’s a Swahili phrase which gets a lot of use: "Pole Pole" (pronounced pole-ay, literally "slowly, slowly"). Sometimes this is meant as "go carefully", for example when getting on or off a boat. But it’s also an excuse, like "island time" or "maņana". If you’ve travelled in the tropics before the relaxed timekeeping and unhurried approach will be nothing new. If you haven’t, then sit back and relax – there’s not much you can do about it!

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What’s My Favourite Micro 4/3 Lens?

Burmese girl on Lake Inle
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX8 | Date: 17-02-2017 16:47 | Resolution: 3124 x 3124 | ISO: 320 | Exp. bias: 0 EV | Exp. Time: 1/500s | Aperture: 6.3 | Focal Length: 193.0mm | Location: Burmese girl on Lake Inle | State/Province: Ngapegyaung, Shan | See map | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 100-300/F4.0-5.6

Over at The Online Photographer Mike Johnston posed a question about favourite Micro 4/3 lenses. The obvious answer is the 12-35mm f/2.8. I bought one several years ago largely off the back of Mike’s original review, it sits by default on my G9, and perhaps 90% of my photography by shot count uses it. As he said, it’s like having multiple high-quality primes in one small tube. By any practical definition, that’s my favourite.

I supplement it with the matching 35-100mm (same thing, just longer), the 100-300mm (capable of serious papp-ing, but also of some subtlety – see above, shot between two boats at 600mm-e),and sometimes the 7-14mm (although that gets very limited use given the 12-35mm is so good at 12mm). Together with the G9 that’s my “serious / obvious / heavy” kit. (Note that “heavy” is relative, the four zooms weigh a total of 1477g.)

However, maybe the 12-35mm is a lazy choice…

I also have a second kit, the “social / subtle / light” kit. This consists of the tiny Panasonic 14-42mm “pancake” power zoom, their 45-175mm, and the Olympus 9-18mm. Total weight 460g. These normally travel as spares with my old GX8, but get pressed into service when I need their remarkable physical characteristics. The 45-175mm is a real gem: only 90mm long (and no longer, it’s an internal zoom) and 210g, in adequate lighting it’s capable of shots just as sharp as the 35-100mm f/2.8. Its tiny size makes it unthreatening, its light weight makes it easy to hold the camera above your head (e.g. from the back of a crowd) and get sharp shots, even at maximum 350mm-e reach. However if you’re moving, it has another magic property: its size means that it can be held stable in the slipstream. Last year I was lucky enough to get a flight in a two-seat microlite, and here’s one of the shots I took from the back seat – try that with a 5D and EF100-400m lens!

Shot from the back of a two-seater microlite (Show Details)

Is the 45-175mm lens my favourite? I’m not quite sure, but how about it for a “left field” choice?

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Panasonic G9. Close? Yes. Cigar? No.

Beware, bears! Russian strongman and former commando Mikhail Shivlyakov “psychs up” friend and fellow competitor Konstantina Janashia from Georgia, ready for a successful 480kg deadlift.
Camera: Panasonic DC-G9 | Date: 31-05-2018 15:07 | Resolution: 5017 x 3763 | ISO: 640 | Exp. bias: 0 EV | Exp. Time: 1/250s | Aperture: 5.6 | Focal Length: 300.0mm | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 100-300/F4.0-5.6

This article was also published as a guest article on "The Online Photographer".

My Panasonic GX8 arrived pretty much on the day of official availability and has been my primary camera for almost three years, including two major photographic trips, and innumerable other opportunities in between. It improved on the already good GX7 with "just right" sizing, a better sensor and higher speeds. Like many other owners and fans I was looking forward to a fairly straight replacement – all Panasonic had to do was fix the awkward exposure compensation control and improve the action autofocus and it would be pretty much perfect. Fat chance.

Instead, and not for the first time, Panasonic have shaken up the Lumix G range, with the GX9 effectively moving down the range, and all the new goodness going into a new "stills flagship" the G9, which sits at the top alongside the video-centric GH5 and its variants.

After a bit of prevarication, I decided that I was due an upgrade, and plumped for the G9. My new camera arrived a few days ago. This review is based on the first few days’ moderately heavy use. It’s not meant to be a comprehensive, or dispassionate blow-by-blow review, but a set of personal impressions from a long-standing Panasonic user and fan.

Body Style and Size

At first the G9 looks like quite a different camera, larger and more expensive, and more of a "DSLR ethos" than the rangefinder-style GX8. I’ll come back to cost, but the size issue is deceptive: put the two cameras side by side and it’s clear that the only real difference is the G9’s DSLR "hump", and a slightly deeper grip, which is academic unless you use a very small pancake lens. Given that similarity it’s surprising that the G9 is a significant 171g (about 6oz) heavier. The camera offers better weatherproofing and a bigger battery, and does feel a bit more rugged, so that’s acceptable. Unlike its predecessor, but like my old Canon 7D, it feels like it might take the odd knock without problems. In practice, you get used to the weight quite quickly.

Like every new flagship camera the G9 is initially priced high, but this gives Panasonic and their dealers some room for manoeuvre with discounts, trade-ins and freebies. Depending on how you look at it my G9 cost me only about 2/3 of the advertised price, or the 5 year lifetime cost of my old GX7 net of trade-in was about £250. I can live with that.

Controls and Ergonomics

Back in early 2016 I wrote an open letter to Panasonic regarding the GX8, acknowledging its good points, but identifying opportunities to improve the ergonomics and usefully extend its stills capability. They clearly ignored the letter for the GX9, but either great minds think alike, or it did influence the G9.

Ergonomically, I am a fan of "electronic" control, by which I mean the ability to set camera functions fluidly between on-camera buttons and wheels including your choice of programmable controls, the menu system, and stored custom values. By contrast "fixed switches" break this free control model and cannot be included in stored settings for custom shooting modes. In addition, I am short sighted and wearing my "distance" glasses the tiny markings on such controls are effectively invisible.

The GX8’s exposure compensation control is a good (or should that be bad?) example of the latter. Apart from breaking my preferred control model it is also badly placed – I found that to operate it I either have to take my right hand off the camera and reach in from above, or somehow slide my thumb behind the camera, which usually results in both adjusted exposure and smeared glasses! No such problem with the G9 – you can quickly set up the camera so that the rear wheel, under the right thumb, controls the primary exposure value (aperture or shutter speed as appropriate), while the front wheel, easily in reach of the shutter finger, controls compensation. Vice-versa if you prefer. Perfect.

Unfortunately, however, Panasonic have perpetuated, and even aggravated one of the GX8’s other ergonomic failings, and arguably introduced a new one! The perpetual horror is focus mode. The G9, like most of the G series, has four main modes: manual focus (’nuff said), autofocus "single" (half press the shutter button to focus, then full press to expose with that focus), "follow" (another single shot mode, but if the primary subject moves while the shutter button is half pressed, the camera refocuses), and "continuous" (aligned to the high-speed shooting modes, refocuses for each exposure). The ideal solution would be a button which toggles between the modes. That’s good enough for a lot of very good cameras. However the G9 has a switch.

If you must have a switch, then surely it should have four modes? Nope. You select manual, continuous or single/follow on a three position switch, then have to dive into the menus to choose between single and follow, or the several variants of continuous. To add insult to injury, at least in the GX8 you could set the button in the middle of the focus switch to toggle between single and follow. Not on the G9, at least not with its initial firmware – this is set to AE/AF lock (which I personally never, ever use) and not programmable. The obvious fix is to make that button programmable so that when in the single/follow position it toggles between the two, when in the continuous position it toggles between the various variants of that mode, and when in the manual position it does something equivalently useful like turning focus peaking (highlighting) on and off. This could be fixed in a firmware update – I will just have to write to Panasonic and cross my fingers.

The other fixed switch on the G9 is for the drive mode (single, high speed, timer etc.) On the GX8 this is on a button, which is much better as you can include infrequent or situation-specific settings (like high speed mode) in appropriate custom shooting modes, and just leave the main aperture-priority settings or equivalent on single-shot, with a much reduced risk of going to take a shot and being in the wrong mode. The G9 arrangement seems like a retrograde step, but liveable.

Strengths


Krzysztof Radzikowski sets a new world record with a 150kg dumbell lift

That brings us from some arguable weaknesses of the G9 onto its real strengths. It’s fast – so fast it has three high-speed modes: high (about 5FPS), super-high 1 (about 15FPS) and super-high 2 (about 20FPS). The two super-high modes also have a very useful feature for sports and wildlife photography: hold the shutter half pressed and they will continuously store a few frames (about 0.4s worth) in the buffer, and write these to the card when you press the shutter, so if you are fractionally late clicking, you don’t lose the event. The downside is that you need to use the super-high settings with caution: if you are saving RAW + large JPEG files super-high 2 will chew up your memory cards at roughly 1GByte every 1.5 seconds. Another reason why I’d prefer to lock this to a custom mode!

Autofocus is much improved over the GX8, although I have to admit that my first sporting event with the new camera didn’t give it that much of a workout: in absolute terms, strongmen don’t move fast. it’s impressive to see a 150kg (330lb) man jogging with the same weight in each hand, but it’s not the harshest test of autofocus! However I can report that the G9 seems to adjust focus very quickly in continuous mode and seems to have missed relatively few shots. If there’s any pattern to the misses they tend to be the first shots of longer sequences, when I may have been moving the camera into position on the action. I’ll have to try and find something involving horses or fast cars for a better check.

Sensor readout also appears to have been improved, with a bit less banding on pictures of LED displays, and no obvious rolling shutter effects so far, although a higher-speed subject will really be required to confirm that.

The other area where Panasonic seem to have listened to my prior pleas is in support for bracketed and multi-shot images. In addition to the established support for exposure bracketing (for HDR), the new camera now does focus bracketing/scanning, as well as bracketing for aperture and white balance. Intelligently, even in single-shot drive mode you can choose to have the bracket shot at high speed to minimise the effect of subject or camera movement. The focus bracketing capability is something I have been seeking for a long time, and records full RAW files, a completely separate capability from the camera’s other ability to do in-camera focus stacking or post-shot focus selection from within a 6K movie file. Bracketed photos are clearly marked in their metadata, which makes it quite easy to build a script to sort them out from the rest of a day’s shooting.

Battery life is excellent – at the aforementioned strongman competition the camera was on for most of the five hours of competition and took about 600 shots. It used one battery and was about 30% into the second, much better than the GX8 would manage. I can also confirm that the two card slot arrangement works fine, effectively doubling the memory capacity, so I wasn’t fiddling with cards.

Two other ergonomic points are worth making. The rear display can be manually set to a nice bright setting for outdoors, but it’s automatic setting is far too dim. The EVF is large, detailed and bright, but as adjusted for my glasses has an odd pincushion distortion, with noticeably curved edges. This is nothing to do with the lens, which the camera corrects as required, but the way the EVF display is presented to the eyepiece. It’s not a major problem, but annoying to an inveterate picture-straightener like myself, especially as I haven’t had that problem with any of the predecessors.

Otherwise it’s pretty much business as usual. Image quality appears to be just the same as the GX8, much as expected given the common sensor, and the camera has a nicely familiar feel even if some of the controls are different and it’s definitely a bit heavier. Stabilisation is at least as good as the predecessor, with no noticeable penalty from the increased weight, but it’s clear that the full multi-second goodness of "dual IS 2" will have to wait until I can afford to start replacing my lenses with the new Mark II versions.

Conclusion

Would I recommend it? If you’re a committed Panasonic user, or have no existing mirrorless camera affiliation, and you want a very high capability, stills-centric camera, then absolutely. However if video is your thing, the GH5 may be better, and if you really don’t need the high speed or new advanced stills features, then a GX-series camera will save you weight and money. This is a very good camera, but not perfect. Panasonic still have room for improvement…

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New Toy, New Challenges

Infrared image, combining filtering approaches
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GF3 | Date: 08-09-2014 15:26 | Resolution: 4000 x 2672 | ISO: 160 | Exp. bias: -66/100 EV | Exp. Time: 1/125s | Aperture: 7.1 | Focal Length: 14.0mm | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 12-35/F2.8

I’ve just got a new toy, a Panasonic GF3 converted for infrared imported from the USA. I went for the 590nm filter which admits a fair bit of the visual spectrum for the popular “goldie” look, and which makes sure that the cameras metering and display work fairly unaffected. The challenge is that to get the best results you have to swap the red and blue channels in processing, and the only software which does that straightforwardly is full PhotoShop, which I don’t and don’t want to use.

However, I realised that I can combine the camera with the Hoya R72 filter, which passes only true infrared light above 720nm wavelengths. This instantly converts the camera to a true infrared system with monochrome output, which Capture One handles perfectly. The above is an example of how this works.

I’m just at the start of learning this fascinating technology. I may find that it’s a gimmick which doesn’t justify carrying around the extra kit (although as the GF3 shares batteries and lenses with my GX7 this is minimal), but it may help to develop my vision in an interesting way. I’ll keep you posted…

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Busy Bee…

Busy bee in the Loseley Park gardens
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX7 | Date: 25-05-2014 15:12 | Resolution: 3274 x 3274 | ISO: 200 | Exp. bias: -33/100 EV | Exp. Time: 1/500s | Aperture: 8.0 | Focal Length: 35.0mm | Location: Loseley House | State/Province: England | See map | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 12-35/F2.8

I’m sorry things have been quiet on the blogging front recently. I got back from my very restful holiday in Barbados expecting to take some time to find new work. Within two hours, before I could do anything, I had a query out of the blue from an ex-colleague I hadn’t seen for 10 years, and I was back under contract in a couple of days. (OK, technically that qualifies as “some time”, but you know what I mean…) I can’t say too much, but it’s a very exciting web- and service-based initiative in the automotive sector, which is new to me. It’s very interesting, but hard work between learning a new business, sorting out a problem project, and travelling backwards and forwards between the UK and Germany.

Hopefully normal service will be resumed when things settle down, but no sign yet!

Between last weekend’s storms, Frances and I managed to capitalise on the one sunny and dry session to visit Loseley Park. I took the Panasonic GX7 and the Lumix G Vario 12-35mm/F2.8 lens. This is far and away the best “normal” lens I have ever owned. Despite its relatively small size it really is just like a series of high quality prime lenses in a single box, sharp at all lengths and apertures and with vanishingly little aberration, even before processing. If and when I get a Panasonic GH4 the pairing will also provide me with a “rainproof” micro four thirds kit.

Photographing other busy bees at work requires a bit of patience, as they are constantly on the move, and I had my share of blank frames! However when I did get the subject in frame and in the focus zone, the hit rate was fairly high. Even though the 12-35mm is not a dedicated macro lens, you can see individual pollen grains on the bee’s back, which can’t be bad.

Enjoy these, and I hope you are busy enough, but not too busy.

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The Achilles Heel

"Reverse Lartigue" at the Barbados Guineas 2014. And no, that's not the name of the horse, although it would be a good one!
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX7 | Date: 28-04-2014 21:01 | Resolution: 3713 x 2476 | ISO: 200 | Exp. bias: -33/100 EV | Exp. Time: 1/250s | Aperture: 5.0 | Focal Length: 35.0mm | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 12-35/F2.8

As regular readers will know, I’ve been very impressed with the Panasonic GX7, which is a remarkably capable little camera. It did the bulk of the work on my Morocco trip, and I have seriously been considering whether we have got to the stage yet where I could operate with just a Panasonic system and get rid of the big Canon kit which works well but is so heavy. The main question mark has always been over the Panasonic system’s ability to handle action. Unfortunately I can now confirm that this is not something the GX7 does very well.

As a deliberate experiment I took the Panasonic GX7 and GH2 rather than the Canon 7D and 550D on our latest trip to Barbados. (I did take the Canon S120, which is turning out to be a very capable little camera, but that’s a separate story.) For pictures of buildings and flowers, the GX7 works well, and as already established, in very low light conditions or where a “small” camera has a practical or psychological advantage it betters the large cameras. Then we took it horse racing…

I was prepared for the moderate frame rate of around 5fps, which while slower than the Canon 7D is a reasonable match for most other cameras. The slight lag of the electronic viewfinder was also expected, but is not a major problem and would be mastered with a bit of practice.

Beyond that, however, the GX7 displays two very different failure modes depending on how you operate the shutter.

With the traditional mechanical shutter in use, the cycle is as follows. First the shutter closes, and the camera resets the sensor. Then the shutter opens for the required time, exposing the whole sensor. The shutter closes and the camera reads the sensor, then the shutter opens, and the camera updates the display/EVF, metering and focus. In burst mode as soon as everything is stable the cycle starts again. The trouble is that the autofocus is either insufficiently quick or insufficiently accurate to hold a moving target, and the “miss” rate is very high, exceeding 50% in my tests so far.

The GX7 also offers an electronic shutter mode, in which the mechanical shutter stays open, continuously driving the display, metering and autofocus, and to take a shot the camera resets the sensor, and reads the data after the required exposure time. For some purposes where the subject is essentially static, like an HDR bracket or trying to capture a changing portrait expression, this works very well. However with a moving subject it fails miserably. The problem is that the camera resets, exposes and reads the sensor progressively, starting from the top and working down, and takes over 1/10s to do so. If during this the subject has moved you get an effect I have termed “The Lartigue” as it resembles the “leaning back” look common in action photos from Jaques Lartigue and other early 20th century pioneers of motion photography. Track the subject, which is something Lartigue and his contemporaries could not easily do, and the result is a “Reverse Lartigue” – see example above.

Oh well… I always knew that this would be a stretch, and taking the GX7 to a sporting event was a deliberate experiment with some risk of failure. Also I’m setting the bar very high by comparing with a Canon 7D, which despite being a five year old design is still near the top of the class in this respect. I did get a few decent shots, but the conclusion is that the 7D stays for now, and gets an outing at least when I know the subject is action. What will be very interesting is to repeat the experiment with the new Panasonic GH4. Watch this space…

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Getting Ahead of the Curve – Final Update?

Picadilly by the light of the video wall, Canon S120 wide open with both aperture and zoom
Camera: Canon PowerShot S120 | Date: 08-02-2013 17:07 | Resolution: 4824 x 3015 | ISO: 250 | Exp. bias: 0 EV | Exp. Time: 1/100s | Aperture: 1.8 | Focal Length: 5.2mm

When I purchased my Panasonic GX7 on the day of release, I did expect there to be a slight delay in getting software support (see here), but I got frustrated when no fewer than three versions of Capture One came and went without it.

However my patience has finally been rewarded with V7.2.1. This not only delivers full support for the GX7, but has also dramatically upgraded the support for my equally new Canon S120. This produces RAW files which at the wide end of the zoom have very dramatic geometric distortion, so strong it was impossible to correct manually, but in the new version the built-in C1 support corrects them perfectly, with neither geometric nor chromatic aberration evident even at pixel peeping levels.

While I’m still slightly peeved about the time it took (a grand total of 6 months!), I’m very impressed with the results.

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Morocco – Did I Need Two Camera Systems?

Blacksmith at work, Marrakech
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX7 | Date: 11-11-2013 15:29 | Resolution: 4592 x 3064 | ISO: 1600 | Exp. bias: -1 EV | Exp. Time: 1/40s | Aperture: 8.0 | Focal Length: 35.0mm (~72.0mm) | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO PZ 14-42/F3.5-5.6

Here’s the list of the main kit I took to Morocco:

  • Canon 7D body
  • Canon 550D body
  • Canon lenses: 15-85mm,  17-85mm, 70-300mm, 10-22mm (The 550D and 17-85 were basically “spares”, although both got a small amount of use.)
  • Panasonic GX7 body
  • Panasonic lenses:14-42mm (power zoom), 14-42mm (kit lens, spare),  45-175mm, 100-300mm
  • Olympus lenses: 12mm f/2, 9-18mm
  • Gitzo GT1540 tripod with Gitzo ball head
  • Around 96GB each of SD cards and CF cards
  • Three battery chargers and one or two spare batteries for each camera
  • Polarising filters in each of the following sizes, and protective UV filters in almost all: 37mm, 46mm, 52mm, 58mm, 67mm, 72mm, 77mm
  • Lens hoods for most, but not all of the lenses
  • Remotes for both systems, including an intervalometer for the Canons (ironically the GX7 has one built in) and an adapter cable because the Canons have different connectors
  • Shoulder bag for around town and tiny bag for GX7 as well as my large backpack for travelling and the desert trip

While I liked the flexibility of this selection, I would be the first to admit that it meant carrying more than ideal in terms of both weight and value. It’s also almost in danger of becoming my standard kit for any trip, which is vaguely ridiculous. However it’s not obvious how or even whether I should pare it down for a future similar trip.

Firstly, apart from the spare Micro Four Thirds normal zoom, each lens and all three bodies saw real use (although I could realistically have substituted either of the others for the only outing of the 550D and 17-85mm lens). However following my experiences in Cuba and Iceland I wouldn’t forego carrying a spare body for the “main” camera and a spare mid-range zoom, although by carrying two different “systems” I doubled up both elements on this trip.

I don’t think there’s a single shot I took with either Canon I couldn’t have taken with the GX7, but that might not have been true if there was more fast action, and I might have got one or two shots I missed if I had had the 7D with its fast performance and 6X standard zoom ready in my hand. The Canon lenses are definitely a bit more resistant to flare, but in most cases I didn’t find that an insuperable problem with the MFT kit. Whether the Panasonic batteries would have lasted the desert trip and frozen night shoots is an unknown, but the third party batteries for the Canon weren’t great either.

Conversely I definitely got several shots on the GX7 which exploited the GX7’s unobtrusive nature, silent operation, the wide aperture of the Olympus f/2 lens or the remarkable reach of my new 100-300mm lens. These I might not have got with the Canon.

As I’ve said before, the Panasonic GX7 is the ideal camera for wandering around in towns, or exploring cramped interiors like those of the older buildings in Morocco. I’ve read other reviews which liken it to a smaller Leica rangefinder, and if that’s true then I finally “get” the rangefinder aesthetic. Where it scores over other such cameras is that it is not limited to one mode, but moves seamlessly from point and shoot (composing on the rear display), or “twin lens reflex” (using the same panel tilted), through rangefinder and on to a high performance shooting mode best described as “mini DSLR”. I find myself increasingly using all those modes, whereas with my previous cameras live view has been only for situations where I genuinely can’t reach the viewfinder.

I also find myself using the multiple aspect ratios as a positive composition aid, and the live preview as a visual exposure guide in a way I have not done before.

The sheer physical size has an impact on subjects. In our financial argument with the snake charmers one of them went through our group saying “you have big camera, you have big camera…”. He got to me, raised his finger, and stopped dead. Something similar happened a couple of times.

Could I have managed with just the Canon kit? Probably, but I would have had to work harder, both physically and to get what I wanted from some of the subjects.

Could I have managed with just the Panasonic (with my GH2 as “spare body”)? Yes, but I would have been a lot more nervous about the desert trip. I happily sat on camel back with the 7D bouncing in the saddle. At one point I dropped the 7D in the sand from several feet up, but just dusted it off and carried on. That might have been a more serious incident with the smaller cameras.

The solution might be to extend my micro four thirds kit with a weatherproof lens and body, such as the Panasonic GH3 and 12-35mm lens. Morocco wasn’t that hard on kit, although I didn’t know this beforehand, and that pairing would have managed fine in the desert.

Unfortunately the harshness of a location is something which is hard to predict on a first visit: Iceland was much harder on equipment and even some of my heavyweight Canon gear did not survive – the wear on smaller cameras would probably have been unacceptable.

The alternative view (although it’s from Kirk Tuck, a man who changes his cameras almost as often as I change my socks) is that we just accept that the cost of smaller, lighter kit is that we wear it out more quickly, and that this fits with the gradual obsolescence due to technical advances. While I partly buy this argument, I’m not keen to completely wreck and write off equipment, and it brings the risk of a trip where both the primary and spare equipment die before the end. That would be a real disaster.

So for now I have moved one step closer to travelling light (or at least light-er). For trips to “easy” destinations I may be prepared to go MFT-only. For more physically challenging locations, if there will be a lot of fast action, or if I need the visual impact of a “big” camera I take the Canons. For trips with a mix of both, I remain a beast of burden.

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Camera History

Andrew's camera "fleet", December 2013
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX7 | Date: 03-12-2013 13:43 | Resolution: 11493 x 1881 | ISO: 200 | Exp. bias: 1 EV | Exp. Time: 1.0s | Aperture: 16.0 | Focal Length: 45.0mm (~93.0mm)

While my memory works tolerably well, and as I suspect I’m about to enter one of my periodic phases of camera replacement, I thought it would be interesting to write up a list of the cameras I have owned and how my photographic capabilities (but not necessarily my skills) have evolved with them. Read the article here.

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Morocco – What Worked and What Didn’t

Berber at prayer, Erg Chebbi
Camera: Canon EOS 7D | Lens: EF70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM | Date: 17-11-2013 15:50 | Resolution: 4700 x 2938 | ISO: 200 | Exp. bias: 0 EV | Exp. Time: 1/250s | Aperture: 8.0 | Focal Length: 300.0mm (~486.0mm) | See map | Lens: Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM

As a tail piece to my Morocco blog, and as a service to anyone else considering a photo trip there, here are a few notes on what worked, what didn’t, and how you might increase your own chance of a successful outcome.

What Worked…

This was the second trip I have done with Lee Frost of Photo Adventures (who also ran my Cuba expedition). He works hard to make sure you have a good time, with a balanced itinerary which gets you and your camera in front of lots of great subjects with a good chance of decent light. He’s also a fun and inspiring group leader and tutor. You just have to learn that he will always want “just one more shot” when the customers have all had their fill! Highly recommended.

Lee partners with someone who manages the local logistics, and on this occasion it was his regular co-leader in Morocco, Carolyn Hunt of Journeys Elite. Carolyn is a specialist in tailor-made Moroccan trips, and this reflected in faultless arrangements plus the ability to smoothly handle minor problems and variations. She was also a fun member of the group, and as a photographer in her own right understood our requirements well. Another strong recommendation.

Plumbing and toilets! I had some concern that toilet facilities might be a challenge, but completely needlessly. The Moroccans have a simple system that pretty much every cafe, hotel or other roadside stop has toilets which are freely available to use for a small donation from non-customers. Pretty much without exception these were in good order and spotlessly clean, often well above the standard of the British equivalent. (However, see note about showers in the “didn’t” section…)

The roads were all pretty good, well surfaced and with a capacity reasonably matched to the traffic (although I accept that I was seeing this in the low season). However it has to be observed that Moroccan drivers have a nasty habit of not worrying about which side of the road they use until an impact is imminent, and cyclists and moped riders are as much a menace as anywhere. While I would have been fairly comfortable driving outside Marrakech, I couldn’t have coped with either the poor signage in the larger towns, frequently only in Arabic, or the amazingly frequent speed traps and police checkpoints. Fortunately we had an excellent driver, Mohammed, who took all this in his stride, and was always happy to help in any way.

Morocco has very good telecoms services. My mobile worked everywhere, even in the middle of the desert. There was also free Wifi at almost every stop, although the speed varied substantially (and was not obviously correlated to distance from a major centre). I did have an odd problem that I couldn’t reliably send mail via my own SMTP server, but webmail worked fine.

It makes a welcome change to report that all my camera kit worked reliably and survived, although my Canon gear is going to need a very careful clean after the desert trek (and see note below about batteries).

I’m extremely pleased with the Panasonic GX7. This is the perfect camera for wandering around towns, whether they are packed or abandoned, and for taking high quality photos without the visible and audible imposition of a full-sized DSLR. It also makes brilliant high definition video, even in minimal light. At its limits it may not quite match the speed or the stabilisation of the Canon 7D, but I was not often left wanting. I do need to confirm its higher-ISO capabilities when Capture One support arrives, but the initial indications are good.

I’m also very pleased with the Panasonic Lumix 100-300mm lens. This fist-sized lens is pin-sharp and can pull details out of scenes which would demand major cropping with even huge lenses on full frame or APS-C cameras. It also stabilises well to cope in quite limited light. I now have hand held shots of the Moon filling half the frame, revealing detail which my eyes alone have never seen.

All that said, my Canons also had a key role. It was absolutely the right choice to take the 7D into the desert, where its heavier build and better sealing reduced worries substantially. If your trip covers a similar range you may also need a composite solution. I also used every lens except the “emergency spare” Panasonic 14-42mm zoom. I’m going to write a separate blog about how I might do a similar trip with a single camera system.

Much of the photography was in dark alleys or “open interiors”. This is very similar to outdoor photography in slot canyons and similar locations. Light is often best in the middle of the day, but changes rapidly. Inside the Kasbahs it takes on wonderful warm colours after being reflected from different surfaces. However overall light levels will often be low, and be prepared for very high dynamic ranges if you have a mixture of direct and indirect light. I got good use from my wide angle fast prime lens (f/2, 24mm-e), and took HDR bracket sets in several cases.

Morocco is dusty, and even out of the desert keeping optics clean is a challenge. My solution is a sacrificial UV filter for every lens, which I am prepared to replace after the trip. First indications are that I will have to do so for the two “standard zooms”, but the others will survive for another day. I have noticed a little vignetting on shots taken with the Canon 15-85mm when I had both UV and polarising filters in place, but this should be fairly easy to fix in the RAW processing, and it looks like the other lenses were fine. I also followed Lee’s suggestion to wrap cameras and lenses in plastic bags for the desert trip. There’s no way to tell how necessary this was, but it seems like a sensible precaution.

The food was a little repetitive and had a very high bread content (which I like but is not good for my waistline). However it was usually fresh, well cooked and tasty.

Cerberus, my invention to support multiple charging points from a single socket and cable worked very well, although I have realised that it can be further developed to also power my laptop from the same source. I have found a suitable C8 adapter for £3 on eBay, which will improve things further for the next trip.

For Geologging I now use Ultra GPS Logger by Holger Kasten. I have worked with the developer to optimise this excellent piece of software, and the results from this trip seem to be very effective.

French really is the best language with which to interact with the Moroccans. It helps to have the standard pleasantries in Arabic (yes, no, thank you etc.), and you occasionally find someone with usable English, but French is the right solution. Unfortunately mine was very rusty, and only started to work effectively at the end of the trip, but c’est la vie…

What Didn’t…

My precautions against the Caliph’s Revenge were ineffective. I avoided salads, kept my hands clean, drank only bottled water, and still suffered. My companions were fine. Go figure…

Showers – this is maybe slightly unkind, as every hotel had a device which produced a spray of water, usually at a reasonable temperature. Unfortunately almost without exception the mount on the wall was either absent, broken or, in an impressive display by the most expensive hotel, mounted so high that it both restricted the flow and ensured that what did come out flooded the entire room!

The haggling associated with some activities was unpleasant. It left a bad taste in the mouth to have a good shooting session and then end it with an argument about money. It doesn’t help that in the more popular areas some tourists and photographers are being more generous, which is pushing expectations up. Strangely this seemed to be much less of an issue south of the Atlas – whether this was due to a difference in culture or just less tourism is hard to judge.

If possible, try and agree a price for everything beforehand, and be prepared to walk away if the price is not right. I was successful in getting the price I wanted for all my souvenir purchases by this tactic.

Photographically I only had one problem. Both my spare Canon 7D battery and one I borrowed from Lee died very quickly in the cold of the desert nights. It might be significant that they were both cheap 3rd party ones – original Canon batteries and my Panasonic batteries for the GX7 seemed to fare better.

While you don’t go on a photographic holiday to lie in every morning, it would be nice to get the odd opportunity, and Lee usually obliges. However Morocco didn’t – 24×7 cockerels, mezzuins calling at 5 am and sub-zero temperatures all made their contribution! Oh well…

Conclusion

Morocco is an inspiring feast for the eyes, and a great photographic destination. With some planning, basic preparations and sensible precautions it’s not a hard one either. Enjoy it.

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Exploring the Souks

Moroccan drummers in the Marrakech Medina
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX7 | Date: 10-11-2013 17:41 | Resolution: 4592 x 3064 | ISO: 200 | Exp. bias: -66/100 EV | Exp. Time: 1/640s | Aperture: 7.1 | Focal Length: 264.0mm (~548.0mm) | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 100-300/F4.0-5.6

A gentle first morning, waiting for the others to arrive, but by lunchtime we were assembled. It definitely works well for me arriving slightly early and having time to sort myself out.

After introductions and a leisurely lunch, we got straight into the trip, with a visit to the Medina, the old centre of Marrakech. This is built around a large central square, which fills through the afternoon with a variety of vendors and performers, and then south of this you get into the souks, the warren of tiny streets filled with market stalls and busy artisans.

Everywhere you point your eye or your camera is a feast of visual opportunities – beautiful displays, bright colours, fascinating produce. The majority of the vendors seem happy or at least tolerant with photographers, although you have to respect those who say “no photos”, and you do hear the odd grumble about people who just want to take photos and not buy.

The Panasonic GX7 is an excellent choice for this sort of photography – it’s largely ignored if I have it in silent mode and with the tiny 14-42mm zoom, especially standing next to my co-venturers who are all using big Nikons or Canons, the latter with big white lenses. I’m still pretty unobtrusive (at least on the camera front, you know me) with the jewel-like 45-175mm lens, but the new 100-300mm does attract more attention. To offset this it’s a great lens, sharp, quick to focus and with wonderful contrast. The shot of the two drummers, above, was taken right across the square.

Also on the kit front, I’m very pleased with another little invention. “Cerberus” is a gadget which takes one power input and presents three “figure of eight” plugs, ideal for charging camera batteries and my Samsung phones. If you don’t get the reference, Cerberus was a three headed dog in Greek mythology.

The hotel room does have that stupid system where the power goes off when you leave, which makes charging during the evening a challenge. This is maybe more forgivable than in an expensive Midlands “business” hotel, but still annoying. (Update – you can get round it here by leaving your Costa points card in the slot – solved!)

It seems to be impossible to take a shower without completely flooding the bathroom. I have tried varying the relative position of the shower head, the little glass door, and me, but so far to no avail.

Oh well. Looking forward to another intensive day in the centre tomorrow.

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Buttons Or Switches? Buttons Are Better!

My Canon 7D, like the 40D before it, has a feature I love and would find it hard to relinquish – three fully programmable custom modes, right on the mode dial. This makes it possible to sort out the myriad of settings in a flexible modern camera, and quickly get to a sensible starting point for a given type of shooting, and then, equally importantly, back to normal mode, without forgetting something important. My four main shooting modes are:

  • Normal: Aperture priority, default auto focus, single shot, auto white balance
  • C1: HDR / bracketing – like my normal mode, but with my standard two stop exposure bracketing and high frame rate multi shot on the shutter
  • C2: Action – shutter priority, tracking auto focus using the central zone, highest frame rate multi shot shutter control
  • C3: Panorama (manual everything) – manual exposure and white balance, defaulted to sensible “landscape” settings

This works brilliantly. Unfortunately in Canon’s marketing strategy it’s classified as a “professional” feature and not available (or only partially implemented) on their lower models. When I found myself a couple of weeks ago at the top of a mountain in Cortina D’Ampezzo with the 550D in “landscape” mode and then saw some interesting birds of prey I couldn’t set up quickly enough to get the shots.

Now I have two “enthusiast” cameras from Panasonic, the GH2 and the new GX7. To Panasonic’s credit, both have three custom modes. (The GX7 actually has five, but three main ones.) However, comparison of the cameras has thrown up an interesting issue. Like the Canon 7D the GX7 sets everything via buttons (and the general-purpose dials). Almost all settings are gathered up and remembered for the custom modes, and then presented back to the user via the very informative viewfinder displays.

The GH2 is different. Many of its settings are controlled on dedicated mechanical switches. While this may appeal to some photographers, it actually causes me two problems. Firstly on such a tiny camera the graphics for the switch positions are so small I can’t always read them accurately with my glasses on (my norm out of doors). Worse, it means they can’t participate in the custom modes. You end up with a situation where either the switches setting is just not memorised, or the physical position and the memorised one are in conflict. I think Panasonic default to the former, but it’s not 100% clear.

I’m not advocating putting a camera’s settings all on the menu – that doesn’t work well either except on very small or much simpler cameras. The 7D and GX7 both have enough buttons to dedicate to the main settings, and that’s correct.

So I think there are three important lessons in ergonomic design of enthusiast/professional cameras:

  1. Fully programmable custom modes are good, arguably essential,
  2. Dedicated controls for the main settings are also required, but:
  3. These should be buttons, not physical multi-position switches (see point 1)

And I suspect the GX7 is rapidly establishing itself as my preferred “carry round” camera. Now where’s the Capture One support?

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