The light was clear and bright and with the autumn sun low in the sky, it was one of those days that landscape photographers dream about.
I took my GH1 + 7-14, 20mm & 45-200 lenses. I never cease to be impressed by the (lack of) weight of my m4/3 outfits. All of this packed into a shoulder bag and I carried it around for a few hours without noticing.
I'm not sure I'm ever going back to DSLR's. Photographing is a real pleasure once more. The picture taking is fine with heavier outfits but carrying around a large camera + lenses takes much of the pleasure out of that for me. One of the reasons that I sold my D3X was because I was "forcing" myself to take it out. When you pay that much for a camera, and with the incredible resolution it made no sense to leave it at home. However on many occasions I would finish earlier than I intended as the weight was very tiring. Not so with my Panasonic system.
I'm turning into a real Lumix fanboy. (Boy!) This is an extraordinary system. I've been wondering lately whether to cancel my Leica M9 order, as the results I'm getting with my G-series kit are so good. The 20mm F/1.7 is possibly the best lens I've ever owned. The more I use it, the more I like it. The 7-14 is not far behind. This is definitely the best super-wide I've ever used and its difficult to get it off the camera.
The full-size high-res images that I've posted here jump off the screen at me. Wonderful colours, sharp with a "3-D" quality. I read recently in a lens review that F/6.3 is the "sweet spot" on many of the Lumix lenses, so I decided to stick with that for most of the pictures. The results were impressive & the 7-14 really shone at this aperture. The weather helped as its been stuck at F4 for a while.
I have noticed one thing recently. The acceptance rate for my G-series pictures at some of the more "picky" libraries who market my work is very high. Very close to 100%. This is higher than my DX3, Leica M8 or Canon 5DMkII pictures. This includes libraries for whom I have to interpolate the images up to 48MB.
The M9 still beckons but its pull seems to getting weaker by the day!
