Category Archives: Photography

A friend asked me a few weeks ago about how I get such depth of colour in my images, and whether it was related to using automatic modes on my cameras. I had to explain about shooting RAW and correcting exposure and colour during development of the final image. That’s most of the answer, but as always it’s not quite as simple as that…
Most of the time I do trust my cameras to do most of the work. Well over 95% of the time I shoot in either aperture priority mode (if the subject is not moving much) or shutter priority (if it is). I also use auto focus almost exclusively. I may move the focus point around a bit, but more often I tend to use the old SLR trick of focusing with the subject centred and the shutter button half pressed, and then recomposing.

I do adjust the camera’s auto exposure if necessary, usually by dialling in some exposure compensation, or adjusting the metering mode if the conditions are tricky (such as a concert), but I only worry if the automatic exposure is at least a stop out, assuming I can correct anything less in RAW development. However I’m finding that the metering of the latest Panasonics is accurate enough and the development latitude sufficient that the requirement to meddle is reducing. That said it’s very important to me to have a quick and easy adjustment Indepedent of the primary exposure controls, and annoying that Canon have inexplicably complicated this on the S120 compared with the S95.

I usually leave the camera to decide the ISO setting and white balance. With the latter it’s easy to correct the rare mistakes in RAW development, and too easy to get it wrong manually.

Very rarely I go manual, typically when I’m planning some sort of multi shot technique such as a stitched panorama and I need to be sure of consistent behaviour across the source images. It’s no longer required for HDR as all my cameras now do accurate, fast auto bracketing, but it can be required for panoramics or focus blending.

So on my Canon 7D and the 40D before it I had custom mode 3 set to “manual everything”, which worked well for panoramas from Italy to Iceland. It was perfectly possible to replicate the same on the Panasonic GX7 and GH4, so I did. Gotcha! Whereas “sunny” white balance is a good default for most outdoor photos on the Canons, for reasons I don’t entirely understand it’s not a good default choice on the Panasonics, and can produce some downright weird results. The above shot from Morocco required a lot of correction from an almost blue starting point, even though it was a bright sunny day.. The only thing I can think of is that the cameras are thrown by the effect of the polarising filter, but that’s not something I’ve seen before.

It looks like the best approach is to set auto white balance, but then apply a fixed manual value when generating the JPEGs to stitch. I may not yet be using “auto everything”, but it’s just come a step closer.

My transition from Canon cameras to a lighter micro four thirds system is proceeding rapidly. In the last two weeks I’ve sold off the Canon 550D and Panasonic GH2, which both moved very quickly, my Panasonic flash and my CF cards, as everything is now SD based. Interestingly some Canon lenses are so far proving harder to shift. No-one loves the 15-85mm lens – I guess that like me others have uncovered its weaknesses including weight and uneven focus performance. Fortunately if all else fails the excellent Wex Photographic have offered me a trade in price which will cover a replacement flash for use with the Panasonics.

I will be sad to see the back of the Canon 10-22mm and 70-300mm IS lenses. As I’ve stated many times on this blog the latter was always a firm favourite: optically excellent, fast and accurate to focus and with very effective image stabilisation. Hopefully the second hand market shares my view.

Update: yes it does. My 7 year old 70-300mm sold within 3 hours of listing it! It’s just the 15-85mm which is unloved. 🙁

I do feel slightly ambivalent about moving from the Canon system: like the end of any lengthy relationship it’s difficult to be certain, and I’ve been a Canon SLR user for almost 30 years. There’s also nothing wrong with the Canon system per se, it just stopped being what I wanted to use. By pure coincidence on the day I sold the 550D The Online Photographer posted an article essentially reaching the same conclusion, that Canon products are no longer “fun”, and I have to concur. Canon have waited too long to replace their APS-C systems and weighted the originals too heavy.

At least from a high point of 7 cameras in the house I’m down to a slightly more sensible 3.

I have now had a chance to give the Panasonic GH4 a good workout on action photography, and it seems to deliver. It is blazingly fast, especially if you use the electronic shutter, but for best results you need to pay careful attention to shutter speed and auto focus mode. The “follow focus” mode is probably great for dogs and kids, but relatively slow. Continuous focus works well, and is probably good for trying to capture the peak action with a subject moving quickly towards you. However for most moving subjects the trick seems to be using single shot auto focus, tracking the subject and holding the button down. If there’s a lot of transverse movement then electronic shutter move will generate some “rolling shutter” effect, but nothing like the GX7.

Battery life is also impressive. I’ve taken about 1000 frames already, but I think I’m still on the first charge! I was getting through 3 batteries a day with the GX7 in Morocco.

I also love the fact that I have a genuine choice of lenses. The Lumix X G Vario 12-35mm f2.8 is without doubt the best standard zoom I have ever used, and only weighs about 300g, but the tiny 14-42mm power zoom loses little in effectiveness, and is not much heavier than a lens cap… I have now used my sale proceeds to order the X 35-100mm lens so I will also have the same choice in moderate telephoto.

I did toy with the idea of getting another tilt/shift lens, but instead I’ve invested in a copy of Helicon Focus, and I’m going to use focus blending when depth of field adjustments on a standard lens are simply not enough. The example above shows this should work well.

However, enough about kit. I now need to get out and make some images. If the Panasonic kit supports that as well as or better than its Canon predecessors I will be doing well.

After the less than excellent photo on the previous post, here’s one I’m quite pleased with. We did a trip to The British Library and St. Pancras Station on New Year’s Eve. Here’s a fascinating detail from the great statue at the entrance to the station.

Since I got the Panasonic GX7 I’ve been thinking about whether I could switch entirely from the big Canons to smaller cameras. Two things were stopping me: the GX7’s poor performance with action, and the fact that occasionally I need a more rugged camera, and neither of my existing Panasonics has any real sort of environmental protection. However with the announcement of the Panasonic GH4 there was a potential solution to both these challenges on the horizon, and I was gently thinking about getting one later in the year.

That was before last Friday, when out of the blue a close friend asked me “are you selling your Canon 7D”? He’d managed to dunk his in the Winter floods, and fancied buying a second-hand replacement of known provenance to tide him over until either the 7DII has arrived or the new Nikon D8100 has come down in price a bit. Of course, my answer had to be “yes”, especially when I established that Wex Photographic now have the GH4 as a stock item.

So on Sunday I started selling off my Canon kit, and on Monday the GH4 arrived. First impressions?

• Same superb stills quality with static subjects as the GX7. Panasonic say that the two sensors are slightly different, and the RAW files are very slightly larger (by about 0.5% in each dimension) but I’m damned if I understand why as otherwise things seem to be identical.
• It’s a nice size, very slightly larger than the GH2 and GX7, and fits very nicely in my hands.
• It feels like a “professional” camera, capable of taking the odd splash or minor knock without problems. With the 12-35mm lens on it’s officially splashproof and dustproof, although just as with the 7D I’ll probably still put it in a rain cover in very harsh conditions. Also I suspect we won’t be auctioning off 50 year old examples held together with sticky tape, unlike a few Leicas of note…
• It has a great electronic viewfinder, which really is not much different from using an optical one. However I’m not convinced that the colours in in-camera JPEGs completely match the viewfinders, which I thought was supposed to be one of their strengths.
• The ergonomics and haptics are an improvement on the GH2 in some respects, but have ended up as a bit of an odd mix of physical switches, physical buttons and soft buttons or menu choices. Some are an odd compromise – there’s still a physical switch for focus mode, but you have to switch between “single shot” and “follow focus” in the menu system, which is very poor. Overall I much prefer the cleaner model of the GX7, but when I get the programmable elements of the GH4 set up to my satisfaction things may be better.

It’s too early to judge action performance. The frame rate seems to be as high as promised, but I haven’t yet been able to confirm whether the autofocus does the job. I tried shooting some dogs and rabbits last night, but in very low light, which meant even at ISO 6400 I was wide open on my lenses and at too low a shutter speed. The above was probably the best, but certainly won’t be submitted for any competitions. More practice required!

At least I won’t be struggling with software. After the long wait for GX7 Phase One delivered Capture One support on Monday, a few hours after the camera was in my hand. No complaints there…

Watch this space, and eBay if you want a lightly used GH2 or Canon 550D!