My Accidental Camera System
April 6th, 2014
I don’t need a second camera system. My Nikon D7000 produces beautiful files and will use the many lenses I’ve accumulated from being a Nikon user since 1968. And I blame Mike Johnston at The Online Photographer blog for sending me down this path. He was the one who posted that the Panasonic G5 was on sale at Amazon for less than $300 with the kit lens.
Now, I don’t automatically buy a camera just because it is a good deal. There are lots of good deals out there. But I’ve been looking for a good travel camera…something that would take up less space and weigh less for trips where I’m not really doing serious photography, but just want to be able to make some good vacation snaps. I’d tried out several “super zoom” cameras and found them lacking. I’d been looking at the Sony NEX system, but didn’t think it was really ready and was waiting for some improvements and expansion of the lenses available before making that jump.
And then I saw Mike’s announcement of that sale. I already had a first-generation Micro 4/3 Olympus camera. It was ok, but not quite there for image quality with the 12mp sensor. But this Panny had the new 16mp sensor. Resistance was futile. I placed the order and just hoped my wife wouldn’t figure out what I had done.
Now I know this isn’t the latest and greatest camera from Panasonic. Everyone is raving about the G6, but it costs more than twice what I paid for the G5. And I’m pretty sure it has the same sensor. And the G series is the cheapie version of Panasonic’s Micro 4/3 line. I’m sure I’d enjoy the features of the more expensive cameras, but I don’t see myself plunking down something in the neighborhood of a thousand dollars or more for a vacation camera. I can live with the more limited feature set and controls on the G5. After all, as I like to say, P is for Professional.
I’m not going to go into a detailed review, there are other places on line where you can find that…including the link above to DPReview. But I’ll just say that I love this little camera. It’s turned out to be the perfect solution to my problem of finding a smaller, lighter travel camera. And, as you can see from the photo above, it’s growing into a nice little system.
I guess I’m supposed to tell you that I’m not being compensated in any way for writing about this camera. I bought mine and paid the “full” sale price. So what I’ll be saying about the camera and lenses is simply my opinion. If someone wants to send me free stuff to write about, I’d be all for it, but that has never happened and I doubt it ever will.
OK…so how good is it? I’m just going to give you my impressions…and I’ll share a few photos. No pixel peeping here…that just doesn’t interest me. I just care about getting photos that I can use.
I’d say that the files from the G5 are not as good as the files from my D7000. But the differences are not that great and mostly fall around the margins. There seems to be a bit less dynamic range, but that only matters in fairly extreme lighting situations. And the high ISO performance is not quite as good as the D7000…but only by one or two stops. The G5 performs just fine up to at least 1600 ISO. Above that you are probably going to want to use some noise reduction software. I’m happy with the files out of the D7000 up to 6400 ISO without using noise reduction…so that matters if high ISOs are needed.
But, that said, I think the G5 is greatly superior to what you could do with 35mm film. Its 1600 ISO looks one hell of a lot better than Tri-X processed in Acufine. And I’d say the G5 files are at least as good, if not better, than the files from my last digital Nikon, the D200. So, just how good does a camera have to be to be good enough? The G5 is good enough for me for most things. I can make 17 inch-wide prints on my Epson 4900 that look just fine. That’s all I need from a camera.
Here’s a snapshot of some friends at 1600 ISO. It was shot with the kit lens at 14mm, exposure 1/20th at f/3.5:
Here’s a shot done at ISO 160, again with the kit lens. 1/200 at f/6.3:
And you’ll note one of the little things I like about using an electronic viewfinder. The G5 (and most, if not all Micro 4/3 cameras) allows you to select the format of your photos. I worked for many years with square-format film cameras and I enjoy working in that format, so I’ve been using the G5 in square format. I switch when the subject requires a different rectangle, but keep it in square most of the time.
I have a lot more to say, but this post is long enough for now. More to come about the rest of the system in future posts.
Kinsey and Uelsmann
April 4th, 2014
I had some fun this week. I went over to Bloomington, Indiana and got to see a talk by a couple of wonderful, interesting, inspiring photographers. Jerry Uelsmann was already famous when I was in photo school half a century ago. Then and now he works only with film and a wet darkroom. To look at his photos you’d today assume he was heavily into PhotoShop, but that isn’t the case. He was doing this kind of work back in the last century. Back then when we looked at his photos the first question was always, “How the hell did he do that?” If you aren’t familiar with his work you really must click over to his website and take a look. You’ll be amazed. And remember, it’s film. No PhotoShop.
Sharing the podium with Jerry was his wife of many years, Maggie Taylor. Maggie is a master of PhotoShop and produces amazing composited photos that show great vision and immaculate craftsmanship. Unlike Jerry, I had not encountered Maggie’s work before this presentation. Again, you really should click over to her site to see what she does. Prepare to be amazed.
Above is Jerry showing a photo of himself with the contact sheets that are his starting point for his wonderful photo constructs. At 80 years old he is still a captivating speaker full of wit and energy.
Here you can see a little more of Jerry’s work as he displayed it during his talk. This last one is one that has a certain relationship to my work.
And, finally, here’s the original reason I went over to Bloomington. This is one of the two photos that the Kinsey Institute included in their show, Flora, in the corridor gallery at the institute. This photo is my personal favorite of all the nude-in-nature photos I’ve done. It was shot in Hawaii with the model, LeonaAnne. I’m afraid it’s too late for you to go to the institute and see this show. It came down today. I had planned to go over to see the show sooner, but the weather of this awful winter had other plans for me. But I’m glad I got there before it was too late, and very happy that the visit gave me the chance to see Jerry Uelsmann and Maggie Taylor and also to visit with my friend at the Kinsey Institute, Catherine Johnson-Roehr.
More Aerial Hooping
March 29th, 2014
Here are some more photos of Lindsay from our shoot in my studio. Sorry to have taken so long to get this post done. I’ve been sick. Bad enough for a trip to the ER. But I’m feeling much better now and all is well. Good to be back in action. Enjoy Lindsay’s aerial skills.
Up In The Air
March 22nd, 2014
I met my friend Lindsay when she was a student dancer at Ohio University when I was doing photos of their dance concerts. She has come to my studio several times to get performance photos done. She is now in Cincinnati and teaches yoga and continues to perform. That all keeps her very busy and I don’t get to see or photograph her very often. These are photos from a trip to my studio about a year ago when she set up her aerial kit and “hung around” the studio for a while.
She’s a talented and lovely young lady. You can learn more about her on her web site.
Decorative Art Nudes
March 15th, 2014
Here are a few more photos from my shoot with Sarah 219 at my friend Antoine’s home in Savannah. We took advantage of this lovely niche in Antoine’s house which was obviously intended for the display of lovely art objects. So it seemed like a perfect place for Sarah.
Savannah Style
March 10th, 2014
I’m still running a year behind on editing my shoots. I’ve not been shooting much lately, so maybe I’ll begin to catch up. But Spring is coming, so there may be no hope.
Today I’m posting some photos from a shoot last March in Savannah. I was honored to be able to do some photos of the wonderful Sarah 219 while I was visiting. We did the shoot at the home of a fine friend and great artist and photographer, Antoine.
For these photos we were just playing around with the light and the beautiful surroundings at Antoine’s front door. I’ll have a few more from this shoot in my next post.
Love at the Darkroom Gallery
March 3rd, 2014
I was able to attend the artist’s reception for the Love exhibit at the Darkroom Gallery in Essex Junction, Vermont, yesterday afternoon. I love the Darkroom Gallery and often enter their juried shows. It happens that I didn’t enter this show, but I still wanted to go to the reception since I happened to be in Vermont at the right time.
The reception was very nice, as is everything this gallery does. And, of course, the show was beautiful. And there were a bunch of nice folks there who it was fun to visit with. If you are in or near Vermont you really should go see this great gallery.
That’s Ken Signorello, the proprietor of this fine establishment in the photo above.
In the photo above is Babak P. Aryan who was awarded best of show for his wonderful photograph, “When I was young…” Babak flew in from Austin, Texas, for the artist’s reception. It was great to meet him and have the chance to chat with such a talented photographer.
If you enter juried shows, there really isn’t a gallery doing them that is nicer and easier to work with than the Darkroom Gallery. Their shows are always beautiful. I highly recommend them.
And, for the photo geeks, just for fun I decided to do these photos with my Panasonic G5 and my 15mm f/8 body cap lens. I just set the lens on the hyperfocal distance for focus and snapped away with it on aperture priority. That little $50 lens is pretty good…and fun to shoot with. And it’s so compact that the G5 fits comfortably in a coat or jacket pocket. I should also note that these photos were edited on my laptop in a room with a ton of glare from the sun, so I’m not sure just what they will look like. I hope I got close to what they should be.
Ansel Adams at Springfield Museum of Art
February 24th, 2014
A snapshot of some friends who went with me yesterday to see the Ansel Adams exhibit at the Springfield Museum of Art. It’s a great show of masterful prints made by Adams himself. If you are anywhere near Springfield, Ohio, you don’t want to miss this show.
A few more photos:
This one was shot by my wife, Emily, with her cell phone.
And these were shot by my friend Tim Black with his little Fuji camera.
As you can see, it’s a beautiful gallery. And those prints just have to be seen to be appreciated. Go if you can.
Winter Gold
February 18th, 2014
This has been a long hard winter, and it’s not over yet. But there are some benefits to this awful weather. It’s the best year in at least a decade for frozen waterfalls. I couldn’t let that go by without making some photos.
I found a brave volunteer in Ayn who was willing to suffer the cold and ice for the sake of these photos. I’m very pleased with the results. I can only hope that Ayn feels it was worth the pain.
We went to Hocking Hills in the early morning. Ash Cave was amazing, but also had a lot of other people there taking photos of the first time in more than 30 years that the waterfall was frozen from top to bottom. So we went on to other locations that were less popular and much harder to get to. Here’s what we came away with.
Thank you Ayn. You are amazing.
Beautiful Kat
February 14th, 2014
I’ve come to the end of the photos from my time in Florida last February. Maybe I can get through the work I did last March before this March is passed. We’ll see.
So, I’m ending this series with a few portraits of my wonderful friend and model, Kat. Kat is one of my favorite people on this planet and I always love getting together with her and working with her. It’s nice to step away from the whole model thing and just do some simple portraits now and then. Especially with a beautiful friend like Kat.
