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Panasonic Tag

04 Jun

Posted at 09:19h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

Sounds like a 1930's race car, doesn't it? Nearly as good - this is a Panasonic full-frame race car of a camera - slotting into their lineup as a more compact version of their big S1. Hard sometimes to equate the outside sizes of some photo equipment with the contents - we've seen very large bodies and lenses feeding into quite small sensors and vice versa - this camera is tending toward the latter design. It still doesn't make the sensor larger than the actual camera body, but I'll bet there is someone in a design bureau that is doodling with that. Remember that designers have given us the Goggomobile Dart before and they can do it again. Okay - 24mm x 36mm sensor - 24megapixel. Compact body. L mount. Very fast autofocus, extensively concentrating on head, face, and eye detection. Full video suite - dual card slot. Extended number of shots per charge. A real all-rounder that can do professional-quality video work as well as stills. I found it in the cabinet paired with a Sigma 45mm f:2.8 lens of remarkably compact...

02 Jun

Posted at 08:21h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

If you were able to buy a 2017 motor car from a dealer right now - a car that had been introduced that year but was sitting - unused- on the dealer's floor today - would you do it? WHAT IF IT WAS A GREAT CAR? That's not as foolish a question as I could ask ( Stick with me - I've got sillier ones. ), but it does come to mind looking at today's featured camera. Like it or not, a new model of the Panasonic Lumix GH5 - a Mark II - is shortly due. It's been announced by CE management complete with the opportunity to pre-order. Which leaves the GH5 in an invidious position; who is it going to appeal to? The same people to whom it appealed these last five years. All-round photographers. I'm the last person to be writing for them - I'm not well-rounded. I slump to one side and veer off whenever they loosen the shackles. But I recognise that there are people who wish to be equally proficient with video work as with still shots,...

28 May

Posted at 09:37h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

How many fingers and toes do you have? Which ones are your favourites? Or are you one of these people who just uses whatever is there on the end of a limb at the time? It's sort of like that in the camera business as well. I was brought to this conclusion when I asked a CE staff member what was new in the joint - He found a few things but said that there were a lot of people who overlooked what was good in the things that were there already. When I asked for more details he pointed to a very neatly set-out Panasonic cabinet. A lot of superb cameras and lenses, but in some ways it reminded me of the '57 Chevy advertisements. GM made a lot of Chevies and we bought one. it was a big, robust black car and served better than many others of the same year. Yet Chevy had so many options and different models that you could be forgiven for giving up on them  - from over-choice. Here's two charts from the net: If...

11 Feb

Posted at 13:47h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

" And we bet 59% of geniuses will get it wrong." I hate those Facebook memes, don't you? The ones that put out mathematical puzzles that are either impossible or improbable. I always suspect that if I click on them I'll get a  blackmail demand from a hacker. They'll threaten to tell everyone that I'm stupid. I've got the laugh on them because I've been advertising it for years. But here's the deal: 14mm focal length on the Panasonic Lumix cameras with the Micro 4/3 sensor is a decent little wide-angle - wide enough for interiors and parties but not down into the looming distortion pits. The mathematics of it equates to 28mm in the old 35mm film days. The lens is very small, very light, very precisely made. It weighs 55 grams. However, we are not in the old 35mm film days - we are in the new " full-frame " digital sensor days. It just so happens that the full-frame is full to the extent that it's the same size as the old 35mm film frame. At a considerably higher cost, I...

05 Aug

Posted at 09:10h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

If you have always sighed to own a Leica camera but quailed at the price of the new ones, there is an opportunity for you now in the secondhand shelves of Camera Electronic. Ignore the gold-washed Leicavich 35mm camera - that's just an ex-Soviet Fed faked up for the sucker market. Buy it for a talking point, if you fancy, but know what it is. Look more closely, however, at the Digilux 2  sitting behind it. The camera with the silver finish and leather strap. It's not new - and it's not ex-Wetzlar - but it is a genuine Leica made in collaboration with Panasonic of Japan and it has a genuine Summicron lens ( probably made in Yamagata ). All this is good. The camera will not have the screen or the resolution of a new Leica Cl or M10. You cannot expect that. It has nowhere NEAR the number of numbers in its price tag as those modern cameras, however - and there is your advantage. The rest of it is made to very high standards indeed and can serve very well. And,...

05 Nov

Posted at 07:30h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

You might be forgiven for thinking that wireless triggers are simple things. So they are when all you wish to do is tell a circuit to close at a distance from the camera. You put a transmitter on the hot shoe of the camera, a receiver under the Speedlight out in the distance, and fire away. As long as the things are plugged in correctly and the AA batteries are fresh, it works every time. When you start to go TTL, however and start to introduce different models of different maker's flashes, the whole thing becomes as complex as a spider's web. Here's a collage of images from the different trigger systems here in the shop on just one day. Beware that not all triggers made are shown - you have miles to go in this forest before you can sleep...

01 Oct

Posted at 07:10h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

Not to mention the camel exhausts and general air pollution of Cairo and surrounds. I not to mention this because a friend is  touring Egypt - the cities and the Nile up as far as Aswan - and has sent back some glorious photos via our social network. Unfortunately, I think many of them have been taken with a mobile smartphone and the lens has not coped well with the atmosphere. Perhaps it has been fingerprinted as well...