DSC_5974 Sparrow Hawk Laurel Cottage 15-03-2012

DSC_5974 Sparrow Hawk Laurel Cottage 15-03-2012, originally uploaded by rodtuk.

See other photos of the sparrowhawk on my Flickr site.

Taken with Nikon D90 and 18-200mm lens

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

What will be my next Quality Compact?

Time to upgrade my trusty Canon G9. 

Requirements:

• Good Image Quality
• Use in low light without flash
• Viewfinder
• Less than £500

Shortlist:

In order of current preference:

• Fuji X10
• Canon G2
• Nikon P7100
• Panasonic G3

Fuji X-10	Canon G12
Nikon P7100	Panasonic Lumix G3

Notes

The Fuji is great to hold and use, slightly larger sensor than G12 and P7100 but a more limited range (28-212mm 35mm equivalent) with a great view finder. Reviews and comments are good.

Canon is a sure bet, always at or near the top of quality compact reviews but only has 720 HD movie.

Nikon I have yet to have a go with. I nearly bought the P7000 but very slow image processing made it a none starter, but this is suppose to be fixed in P7100. Has a long range to 200mm 35mm equivalent.

Lumix get great review, very good EVF which unique in this collection displays shooting information. However although much smaller than my Nikon D90 it is quite a bit bigger than the other three when fitted with standard lens. There is a new lens available which is more compact, but increases price beyond £500. Another worry is I already have a large investment in Nikon DSLR kit, do I want to start another with 4/3 DSLR.

More photos of Scillies, from iPad

A couple more photos only this time the post has been done completely on iPad. Photos taken with Lumix TZ10, edited on iPad with Snapspeed and created on iPad Blogpress App.




There are less than 8 miles on the largest island St. Marys, so no need to hurry.




D be the Caribean but is in fact St Marys Scillies just 20 miles off Lands End in Mid September.

Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Poppy meets Barn Owl

Poppy meets Barn Owl, originally uploaded by rodtuk.

Testing ability to send photo to blog from iPad app Photo Manager Pro
Rod

(Sent from my IPAD)

Photo Manager Pro

At last an iPad / iPhone app that easily enables you to create albums and import your photos into them.

It does create another copy of the photo so you can erase the original, but other apps such as FlickStackr will not see them if original deleted. However you can export them to standard Photos again from PMP if necessary.

Have just remembered that you can use email to upload to Flickr, and this works fine from PMP. You can add tags in email, control who can see photo, add title and captions but I could not find a way of directing photo to a specific set.  This is described in Flickr Help.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad