Panasonic G3 PanLeica 25mm f/1.4
Since getting my G3 the sun has been in hiding. Yesterday it finally appeared and Ann and I drove down to Chipping Campden in the Cotswolds, taking the camera plus Olympus 12mm f/2, PanLeica 25mm f/1.4 and Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar.
Panasonic G3 Olympus 12mm f/2
Panasonic G3 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar
Its really quite incredible what this camera can achieve with top quality lenses.
From the last couple of posts you may have noticed that I'm somewhat underwhelmed with the Samsng NX200. One of the reasons is that, yet again, we have a Compact System Camera with no viewfinder, nor the opportunity to add one. Yesterday was a very bright day with strong sunshine, and the idea of trying to take pictures without a way of blocking out the light, was once again shown to be hopeless. There were a lot of tourists walking about with their live view only cameras, going through extraordinary contortions to see what they were taking pictures of. I watched one with a Sony NEX squinting away, shading the screen with her hand, taking her glasses off, putting them back on again, standing in the shade and eventually taking her hat off and holding it over the camera!! All in order to see what she was taking and had taken.
How Samsung have the nerve to describe the NX200 (or should it be more accurately described as the NEX200?) as having "Professional Performance" is beyond me.
Going back to a camera that actually works on sunny days, the G3 produced extremely sharp results with the three lenses I took. I have a feeling that the EVF is improved. I was manually focusing the Voigtlander 75mm without having to open up the aperture. I was able to see it snap in and out of focus at f/8, which on previous m4/3 cameras with EVF's hasn't always been easy.
Panasonic G3 Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Heliar
The bright light allowed me to shoot at ISO 160 thoughout the day, with small apertures and high shutter speeds. In conditions like this, the G3 is close to my perfect camera. Small, light and capable of incredible resolution.
Panasonic G3 PanLeica 25mm f/1.4
The more I use it, the more I like the pinpoint focus. For the picture at the top of the page I could have focused on an individual berry if I'd needed to. Its wonderful not to have the AF hunting around and "guessing" what I want to focus on. As I said when I did a review of the camera, now I've used it I wonder why all cameras don't have it.
Panasonic G3 Olympus 12mm f/2
So my first "proper" outing with the G3 went very well, and the three lenses performed as I hoped. An enjoyable day.
