Hello Fujifilm X-T1

Having said goodbye to Nikon in Feb 2014 and welcome to Sony NEX6 I have just changed again.

Now the NEX 6 served me well for 18 months, including 6 weeks travelling around Australia. I also took a Sony RX-100 II, which I still have and use all the time.

I have a lifelong interests in birds and visit the local hides occasionally where I take a few photos once I get over the embarrisment of my kit being so puny compared to the big boys with their long Canons.  To this end I purchased a Sony A65 and added the Sony 55-300mm lens.

The kit performed OK but I was unsure whether it was wise to invest heavily into Sony A-mount and it still did not focus and track that well

The at my local LCE shop in Worcester I got my hands on an Olympus OM-10 and thought "this is the one for me"! Got so close to buying it but decided to wait until the Birmingham NEC Photos  Show in March. So I began selling Sony kit and saved my money.

Then I got to read and handle the Fujifilm X-T1, love at first sight. Reminded me so much of my Nikon SLRs in the old film days.

So now I am happy owner of Fujifilm X-T1 with 18-55 XR 2.8-4, 55-200 XR f3.5-4.5 and 60XR f2.8 Macro. 

However still not the best kit for birding, or indeed movies, so now I am considering complementing this kit with Canon 70D, or maybe 760D or even used 7D but will wait until the late June firmware release from Fuji which has some interesting updates to the AF especially for tracking and speed.

Goodbye Nikon

The time has finally arrived when I have sold my Nikon D7000 based kit and moved over to Sony Nex-6.

A little more complicated as at first I was going to upgrade my Panasonic GX-1 to GX-7 ready for forthcoming trip to Australia. GX-1 had been good although it's LCD panel had to be replaced after 14 months. Now give Panasonic their due, this had been done free of charge although outside guarantee period but this was my 3rd Panasonic camera and the second to have developed a fault.

I was also a bit disappointed at quality of their 70-200mm lens at 200mm. It turned out cheaper for me to swap GX1 plus two lenses for Sony Nex-6 and their equivalent 2 lens, 16-45 and 50-200mm, the upgrading to GX-7, no doubt due in part to the, then unknown, imminent release of Alpha 600 to replace Nex-6.

 

I still think it was a good move.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Using Nikkor lens on Panasonic Lumix GX1

One of the downsides of buying the GX1 is that it a system camera and so I am temped to buy other lenses and flash guns similar to my behaviour with my D90 system.

I have a micro 4/3 to Nikon AI adapter left over from my brief affair with a GF2. I have so far attached Nikkor micro 50 mm f 2.8 (renown for its sharpness) and a Tokina 70-200 f4 ( renown for its ordinariness).

Now I expected these manual focus lens would have to be operated in stop down metering mode. In this mode usually the screen would go dim but the EVF automatically increases it's gain and remains bright. The exposure works in this mode, so if you stop down aperture the shutter speed lengthens as it should. If auto ISO is set then this may also vary.

Another good feature that as the GX1 is in manual focus by pressing the rear control button the centre part of the image is magnified.

I was very pleased with the result but there were several rejects amongst the result.

Why I chose Panasonic Lumix GX1

As discussed in my previous post I had a short list of cameras for my travel and walking consisting of

• Panasonic Lumix G3
• Canon G12
• Fuji X10
• Nikon P7100

Well I finally decided on a G3 kit which I hoped to purchase when visiting Focus-on-Imaging show in NEC. In deed Camera World were selling the standard kit for £400. However they were also selling the GX1 for £600 and including the EVF (view finder) at no extra coat. Now this retails for £200-230 and I had dismissed the GX1 as it would have been twice as much as the G3 although the new power zoom lens was very compct and ideal for travel and a metal body.

The EVF is the Mark 2 with 1.44 Megapixels and very clear.

Masses to learn but so far very pleased. It has the keen amateur as its prime user with such controls as

• Mode Dial
• Exposure +- dial
• Manual focus magnifier
• Customisable quick menu and function buttons
• RAW (incidently Apple just updated Lion to support GX1 Raw