U-Turn? - part 2

Yesterday's post wasn't meant to be a soap style cliffhanger - I didn't have time to finish it!


SOLD GF2





My original plan was to buy the the GF2 14mm kit and sell the camera body to get the lens cheaper. In the end this is what I've done. Though the GF2 was a nice little camera, little is the important word here. Its just too small for me. It produces identical images to the GF1 and I prefer the handling and size of that camera. 


ORDERED SONY A850


Can't comment on it yet as it hasn't arrived. However reasons for ordering it are:-
1. 25MP. Big files are a great advantage for what I do. 
2. I got it at a good price. 
3. I loved the results from my 25MP D3X. However the A850 is lighter and (substantially) cheaper.
4. There's a review of the camera at http://www.photographyblog.com/reviews/sony_a850_review/ with some superb raw samples, that really impressed me.
5. I'm frustrated at the restricted dynamic range of my cameras (apart from the Pentax K-5) Even the Leica M9 has problems in this regard. I do find it frustrating. I worked with some of the  files from the A850 I found and its possible to recover a lot of shadow detail without generating a lot of noise. Overall the files were quite "elastic" in being able to take a lot of Photoshop work while still retaining their quality. This was a great improvement over what I was able to get from a Canon 5DMkII for example.

6. Its not meant as a camera for carrying around, but for using in certain specific situations when I'm looking for high quality, high resolution images. Its how I ended up using the D3X, but I could never justify using something as expensive as that for that purpose. Since you can buy 3 A850's for the price of a D3X body, its a much more realistic proposition.
7. Full-frame plus AF has advantages for the kind of pictures I take.
8. The A850, on the samples I saw has excellent colour rendition.


So its a combination of commercial considerations and the full-frame advantage in terms of dynamic range. I'm not worried about the poor high ISO performance of the camera. I never used my D3X over ISO 200 and I doubt I'll do the same with the Sony. Its a camera for a very specific purpose, to create high-quality, high-resolution images for large-scale reproduction. 


How it works out in practice, I'll find out in the next few days. The 28-75mm f/2.8 lens isn't a Zeiss so it will be interesting to see how that compares. According to what you read its either an old Konica Minolta design or very similar to the Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8. I had one of the Tamrons for my Canon 5DMkII and while it was not great at f/2.8 it was a very sharp lens at f8 - f11, which is where I'm going to be using it mostly. This isn't a camera for indoors or low light, its specifically for landscape, travel and architectural work, either in good light or on a tripod.

David

U-Turn?

I've just sold my GF2 and ordered a Sony A850 + 28-75mm f/2.8 lens. Considering what gets written here that may come as a surprise. 


More later.

Video shot with Panasonic GF2 - Voigtlander 25mm f0.95 Zeiss 50mm f2 - iMovie11

This is a video shot with a Panasonic GF2 and Voigtlander 25mm f/0.95 and Zeiss 50mm f/2 Planar lenses.


This confirms what I thought initially, that the GF2 video is an improvement on the the GF1. Its now full 1080p HD, and it produces sharp detailed results. Not particularly a camera for low light as the high ISO is exactly the same as the GF1, which is not great. However for such a small portable camera the results are superb.

iMOVIE

Those who have Apple Macs will have realised by now that having iMovie as part of the operating system is a bonus. There have been gradual improvements to the programme and version 11 from the iLife 11 package is now an excellent piece of software. I've been using Premiere Elements 9 for a while but after getting the updated version of iMovie, I'm back using that again. The main reason is that it absolutely flies! Its now really quick to use. Nowhere near the functionality of Premiere and Final Cut but for simple video editing its terrific. They have introduced an image stabilisation function and now a rolling shutter fix. Neither are dramatic, but do help. 


Though not designed for professional use, and also possessing some really cheesy features like movie trailers, its a very useful tool. I did a lot of wedding video editing using it, because of the speed and simplicity. 


Considering its price, which even if you buy it as part of an iLife package is still very cheap, its a bargain. 

Team Player or Last of the Independents?

A photographer I know once wrote an excellent piece on the way huge companies try to impose their brand into all aspects of our lives. Apple are a great example of this. With your iPhone, iPod and iPad integrating smoothly with your iMac using iLife, you can live the Apple Mac lifestyle without ever thinking that there might be something else out there. There was even a television programme where a family was challenged to source everything in their life from food to transport to mortage via Tesco. It rather alarmed me that they succeeded. 


As far as your cameras, lenses etc. go, do you mix and match or stick with one brand? Cameras, lenses, flashguns, straps, cases et al bearing that same logo. I'm sure these companies would love us all to be members of Team Nikon, Team Canon or Team Panasonic. The latter would probably like you to go a step further and purchase their TV's, Hi-Fi's, phones and computer gear. Integrating my camera with their hair dryers or microwaves might be a problem though.


We've all seen the posts from Nikon and Canon Man and the scorn they pour on those who dare to stray from the path. 

Personally I've never been a team player. Just ask the teams I've worked with!! There's something about using a commercial brand as a uniform that I find distasteful. Its also not necessarily the way to get the best from whatever you're using. One of the nice things about the spate of recent announcements about various 3rd. party companies starting to provide alternative products for m4/3 and Sony NEX, was that specialisation is not completely dead. Unfortunately the big corporations don't necessarily agree that more choice is a good idea, as Olympus proved with their "non-lens announcement" the other day.


When people started sourcing adapters and using all kinds of lenses on m4/3 cameras, I always wondered whether this was something that Panasonic and Olympus were aware of from the start. They have either embraced it or accepted it, I'm not sure which and indeed have put items on their stands at Photographic shows to demonstrate it. Panasonic even make a Leica M > m4/3 adapter, though Leica are an occasional partner. However every time someone buys an alternative or legacy lens for their camera, then either Panasonic or Olympus loose a sale. 


This is not a new thing. SLR manufacturers have had to put up with companies like Sigma and Tamron for years. Though this has mostly been to provide lenses that cost less than the marque products. While some of them are excellent products, the general consensus is that they will be slightly inferior, though in many cases this is very marginal.


But what if these companies find themselves in a position whereby the alternative choices can equal or better the native factory product? Zeiss have made a variety of lenses for Canon, Nikon and Pentax and are generally regarded as being very good indeed. Both these and m-mount lenses do come at a price however. The situation for both Olympus and Panasonic is also helped by the fact that these are all manual focus lenses. 


It will be interesting to see what Sigma come up with since they will make AF lenses for the system.





After much experimentation and moving back and forth between m4/3 AF lenses and MF prime "alternative" lenses I have come to a situation where I'm mostly using the MF primes on my Panasonic cameras. To be specific this usually involves just two lenses. The Voigtlander 25mm f/0.95 m4/3 mount lens and Zeiss 50mm f/2 Planar m-mount lens via a Novoflex adapter. I've written before about the marginal increase in quality that I've got from m-mount lenses on cameras with the Panasonic 12MP sensor. My conclusion was that in most cases it was not enough of a difference to warrant going out to buy lenses specially. Both of these lenses however do demonstrate a significant improvement on the "factory" branded lenses, not only on the GH2 which I've written about before but on the GF1 and GF2 also. 


Yesterday I went out with the GF2 and the same two lenses, primarily to shoot some video, but I also took the opportunity to shoot some stills. The example below was shot with the Zeiss 50mm.





If you look at the full sized version on flickr, you will see a very high level of sharpness and also a complete absence of CA and fringing. 


Since this is something I can't get with any of the m4/3 lenses that Olympus or Panasonic make I have been using this twin lens combination for a while now. I'm pleased that they work so well on both the GF's as I like using them very much.


So a team player, No. Independent - Yes, though hopefully not the last. I've always been prepared to experiment and try out different combinations and put up with the inconvenience of prime lenses and manual focus if it produces better results. In this case it does and going back to the AF lenses, while they are indeniably useful, will now seem a compromise on quality for me. There are many situations when AF will be the best option, and it would be nice to have the quality and convenience, in the same lens. However it hasn't happened yet and I have doubts as to whether it ever will.


David

Process - 3

As before, slideshow of of in-camera jpgs above, edited images below. This time using a Panasonic GF2 and 14mm f/2.5 and 45mm f/2.5 lenses.














Images - David and Ann

GF2 Video

A second video shot with the Panasonic GF2. This time with the 45mm f/2.8 Macro lens. It confirms what I thought about the first one, that its really rather good. Panning is not great and I doubt its good at high ISO's but this is very crisp.

The built in microphone is not bad either.

Panasonic GF2 - 14mm f/2.5 Review - Part 7 Video and Conclusion

VIDEO

A short video of me doing what I seem to spend much of life doing. Fiddling with cameras and sitting in front of the computer! I was pleasantly surprised by the GF2's video output. Its actually very good. This was done with the 14mm lens. As you can see, and hear, it autofocuses during shooting, and silently. The "hunting around" has more to do with the fact that its a m4/3 sensor. This continuous AF sounds like a good idea, but in reality I've always found it a nuisance. Because of the more limited depth of field of sensors such as m4/3, APS-C and full-frame, continuous AF is always going to be adjusting all the time. On micro sensor cameras, everything is in focus most of the time so you notice the changes in focus much less, if at all. However for what its worth the GF2 does it.


This video was shot in brightish indoor light and taking stills readings the camera would have been working between ISO 400 and 800. Its actually pretty clean footage. The lens was wide open at f/2.5 for all of it and it all looks very sharp. 


It looks an improvement on the GF1 to me. Its not in the GH2 class, and I'm not sure that all the compression artefacts are a result of my compressing it for YouTube, but with care I think it could produce very good results. 


UPDATE


2nd. Video shot with GF2.





CONCLUSION


GF2 CAMERA


The GF2 is a very nice camera. Contrary to mine and other peoples predictions of a "dumbed down" GF1 it more than holds its own. In many cases transferring functions to the touchscreen makes things easier and quicker, so its not the problem I envisaged it to be. Its nice to handle in practice, and in terms of stills produces images identical to the GF1, and in terms of video, better footage. It has slightly quicker AF than the GF1, and the screen is easier to use in bright sunlight. Its also extremely well made and feels very solid and sturdy.


I looked again at my initial reaction to its announcement - 
http://soundimageplus.blogspot.com/2010/11/panasonic-gf2.html 
I noticed that I did have the good sense to end the piece with the words "You know me. I could even end up buying one!!"


I like it much more than I thought I would and have had a few enjoyable days using it. One of the points I raised in my original piece however does need thinking about. The GF2 works very well with certain lenses. Some of the larger m4/3 lenses are however very unbalanced on it and handle very badly. I used my 45mm f/2.8 macro on it, which was OK but I really wouldn't want to use anything bigger. 


Do I prefer it to a GF1? Well in some situations I do. Its an unobtrusive camera, despite being very red!, and would work very well for street photography. 


14mm f/2.5 LENS


Excellent. I really like this lens. I got some great results with it. This will be a great addition to my m4/3 lens collection and its so light that its possible to take it out all the time in the bag. 


I don't know about the rest of the world, but at the moment in the UK, the GF2 / 14mm kit is at a very good price. If you were thinking about buying the lens then the camera is relatively cheap. Heres a couple of links for the best deals I've found. How long they will stay like this I can't say. Both are reputable dealers who've been around for years.


http://www.mathersoflancashire.co.uk/html/gf-2.html


http://www.srsmicrosystems.co.uk/c/470/Panasonic-GF2-Digital-Cameras.html

Panasonic GF2 - 14mm f/2.5 Review - Part 6 Zoom lenses

A day with the GF2 and two zoom lenses - First three are with the Olympus 14-150mm.








Second three with the Olympus 9-18mm.











Both lenses are small and light and work very well with the GF2. Though bigger than the pancakes their light weight makes them a nice match. I used the EVF with the 14-150mm and it was as bad as I remember it. Panasonic seem in no hurry to replace it. Its not a patch on the Olympus equivalent or the built in EVF of the G2, GH2 etc.


Most of these images were taken in the centre of Stratford-Upon-Avon. It was a freezing day with a biting wind and there were not the usual crowds but the 14-150mm zoom in particular was useful in picking out detail. It also let me avoid changing lenses, which was painful in the cold. 


Words - David
Images - David and Ann

Panasonic GF2 - 14mm f/2.5 Review - Part 5 GF1 GF2 ISO Performance

This will be fairly short! The GF1 and GF2 are virtually identical for ISO performance at all settings. 

I did do a test image but something happened to it on the upload to flickr - so I deleted it.

However see:-

http://www.43rumors.com/gf2-at-dxomark-dxo-analysys-by-van-den-hammer/

The GF1 and GF2 sensors seem to be essentially the same. There is certainly no improvement in high ISO noise on the GF2. It merely has ISO 6400 added, which is terrible!

Panasonic GF2 - 14mm f/2.5 Review - Part 4 GF2 as landscape camera

I sometimes wonder what great artists from the past would make of modern technology. Mozart with a synthesiser, Van Gogh showing his work on Facebook, Ansel Adams with a digital camera. Intriguing possibilities. Would great artists still be great outside their own time frame? We'll never know unless someone comes along with a real-life Tardis but I think its probably true that the tools available to us at any time affect what we produce. If I'm cynical I might imagine that Mozart would sound like Jean-Michel Jarre and Van Gogh spend all his time posting pictures of him and his mates "off their faces" on absinthe. However I'd like to think that great artists produce great art no matter what they use.


The Photographer and writer Tom Ang in his BBC television programme A Digital Picture of Britain convinced well-known photographers to work outside their comfort zones and use cameras they were unfamiliar with. I particularly enjoyed the landscape photographer Joe Cornish who at the time was shooting on large-format film, taking pictures on a camera phone, which he duly did using a tripod.

This is the well-known UK landscape photographer Charlie Waite using a compact camera. Well known for his Hassleblad film cameras, Tripods and f/22 this was somewhat of a surprise. However Charlie is not the only photographer who enjoys "Travelling light". 

GF2 AS LANDSCAPE CAMERA


One of the great things about the GF2 is there's now no need to compromise on picture quality if you want to use a camera thats compact camera size. 





Try as I might I can't get excited by micro sensor compact cameras. Even the best of them leave me disappointed with their results. I find the lack of detail particularly disappointing. The Olympus XZ-1 is the latest "hot compact" but many of the samples posted by Dpreview have far too many areas of featureless "mush" for my liking. 


However with the arrival of the GF2 there is now an alternative for those looking for light, small and good quality. Yesterday afternoon the sun came out providing some wonderful light. Having been struggling with a bad back all week I wanted to go out and take some pictures but couldn't face carrying anything even moderately heavy. The GF2 was at hand however and together with the 14mm f/2.5 pancake and 45mm f/2.8 macro lenses I hobbled out the door.














The trip was successful on two fronts. Firstly I got some pictures I was pleased with and secondly forcing myself to stride purposely had a beneficial effect on my back!


I like the GF2 more and more. I've already apologised to it for calling it a "dumbed-down" GF1 and it doesn't seem to hold a grudge. It does make an excellent landscape camera, as does the whole m4/3 range. It also neither breaks the bank or breaks my back.


Words - David
Images - David and Ann

Panasonic GF2 - 14mm f/2.5 Review - Part 3 Other lenses

While there's no denying that they look very sexy, this is not really a camera for me to use non-native, non-AF lenses on. Firstly I find the Panasonic LVF1 electronic viewfinder not really up to the job of manually focusing lenses and secondly I find focusing using the screen very fiddly and difficult. The GH2 is much better suited for using such lenses, both in terms of quality and use.





As I've written before, I'm not convinced that the GF1 sensor is good enough to get the benefit from such lenses. Whether there is any improvement on the GF2, I'll see when I do some testing.


The 20mm f/1.7 pancake and 45mm f/2.8 macro lenses both work very well indeed, and like the 14mm take advantage of the faster autofocus on the GF2.


Some camera porn with the 20mm:-









A couple of shots with the 45mm:-






For me the GF2 seems ideally suited for situations when I want to work quietly and unobtrusively. Also times when I don't want to carry a heavy outfit. Though lenses like the M-Mount Zeiss, Leicas and Voigtlanders are small, they aren't particularly light. I've had a painful back for the last week, and anything that takes the strain off it is very welcome.


For my particular uses I think these small prime AF lenses work very well with the GF2. They don't "overwhelm" the body and all work very quickly being native Panasonic lenses. The touchscreen shoot function, whereby you touch the point you want to focus on, and the camera focuses and shoots is very useful. It's something I've been doing on my GH2 and it works well. 


Words - David
Images - David and Ann

Panasonic GF2 - 14mm f/2.5 Review - Part 2 The Lens

This is a very light (55g) very small lens. It does however produce excellent results. 

The image above, which was processed in Rawker the dcraw based software which gives a version of the raw file minus the manufacturers "adjustments", shows that it's a sharp lens with little CA and fringing and not a lot of distortion. As you can see there is some vignetting, I imagine as a result of making it so small. I'm not quite sure why its as small as it is. The 20mm f1.7 certainly doesn't look out of place on the GF2, so if the 14mm was the same size as that I'm sure nobody would have complained.

A 14mm lens gives a lot of depth of field. This is not a lens for great bokeh effects, as you can see from the four images above and below, all shot wide open at f/2.5.

I was pleasantly surprised at how good it is for architectural photography. It needs minimal adjustment for distortion in Photoshop.

Above image has no adjustments for converging verticals.

Above image has been adjusted for converging verticals.

I like the lens very much. It works very well on the GF1 and GF2. I've had a brief try with it on my GH2 and it looks fine but I'll use it more on that camera at a later date. Being so small and light it can be taken everywhere with any other lens combination. I used it for these pictures paired with the 45mm f/2.8 macro and took out two bodies, the GF1 and GF2. This was a light, easy to carry, outfit which produced very good sharp files from both cameras. 

Just a note on prices here in the UK. There are some wildly conflicting prices for this lens and the GF2 camera here. Some dealers are selling the GF2/14mm kit for £469 and others are selling the body only for £499. These are all well-known reputable dealers who are normally very similar on price. I've seen the 14mm lens selling for £356 which considering you can get a kit with a GF2 for only £113 more is a bit strange. Usually when cameras first appear the price is pretty uniform but it seems our economic situation is producing some pretty severe cost cutting. If you are interested in either the lens, camera or kit it pays to shop around, and certainly the kit at £469 is great value, and if you don't want either of the items there's always ebay.

Words - David 

Images - David and Ann

Panasonic GF2 - 14mm f/2.5 Review - Part 1 First Impressions

Due to the pricing structure of cameras and kits it is cheaper for me to buy a camera lens kit and sell off the item I don't want to keep on ebay. I have been considering a 14mm f/2.5 lens for my m4/3 system for some time. The lowest price in the UK I could find from a reputable dealer was £274. The same dealer was selling the GF2 + 14mm lens for £469. So a GF2 would cost me £195. I could obviously sell a brand new GF2 body for more than that on ebay. If I liked the camera and wanted to keep it, after the tax and equipment concessions that I get as a full-time photographer this would bring the "real" cost down to about £130. It would also give me the opportunity to have a look at & use a camera that I was initially quite hostile to and disappointed at its announcement because of what what I perceived to be a "dumbing down" of the previously excellent GF1.


So my GF2 + 14mm f/2.5 kit arrived yesterday from the excellent Mathers of Lancashire, with an EVF.





FIRST IMPRESSIONS.


Due to my dislike of black cameras I ordered a red one. The first thing to say is this is VERY red! This isn't the matte finish of the previous G series cameras, this is full on glossy red, with a hint of pink. Its very striking.


The 14mm f/2.5 lens is very small and light. I can't ever remember using a lens this light before. In fact the whole outfit is small. Its smaller than it looks in pictures and the size difference between this and the GF1 is more significant than I thought it was going to be.





The first thing to say is that it handles really well. It looks like a compact camera but feels more substantial in the hand. I took to it really well and found getting around it quite easy. The moving of certain controls to the touch screen is not the big deal that I and others made it out to be. For me the important controls are still where I want them and the menu system is very similar. After using the touch screen on my GH2 I've revised a lot of my objections to the idea anyway. 


My thoughts after using it for a while were that this is what the m4/3 idea was in the first place. Compact camera size with a good sensor and interchangeable lenses. To a certain extent Sony and Samsung have missed the point with their NEX and NX systems. Small cameras yes, but with the exception of a couple of pancakes, the lenses for both systems are quite large. In Sony's case ridiculously so. If Panasonic could make a "pancake" short telephoto somewhere in the 50-75mm range that would make a stunning little 3 prime lens kit. 





Despite its very non-retro colour, the GF2 gave me the feeling of using a small rangefinder outfit. I went out yesterday with the GF2 / 14mm and GF1 / 45mm combinations and the whole lot was very light and small. Also very enjoyable to work with. 


IMAGE QUALITY


To slightly digress here to make a point. There's a review in a UK magazine of the GH2. In it they come up with the phrase:- "The image quality is clearly affected by the densely packed sensor, and luminance noise is often visible at low sensitivities." This clearly implies that the first creates the latter. Well how do they explain the quite unpleasant shadow noise on images from the Canon 5D Mk II? That has a far less "densely" packed sensor. Also the Leica M9 has quite "grainy" sky areas at its base ISO of 160. What the review fails to appreciate is that the sharper the image a sensor produces and the less strong (or absence of ) anti-aliasing filtering is, the more luminance noise will be produced. On all my m4/3 cameras and my Leica M9 I always run noise reduction software over clear sky areas, to "smooth them out" while keeping everything else untouched. Sky areas in particular show up this noise and I used this technique to get rid of the grain that showed up in film scans. Leica in fact only let the M9 go to ISO 2500. I believe that this is because they will not compromise on sharpness. Other manufacturers add in noise reduction at higher ISO's which reduce noise but also soften the image. If Leica did this I'm sure they could push the M9 up to ISO 6400 with no problem, but they choose not to and thats yet another reason why I use their cameras.


When images are printed its amazing just how much noise that we see clearly on our computer screens disappears. I've just got the last wedding digital story book I did back from the printers. There are full page images shot at ISO 3200 and 6400 that looked pretty terrible on my screen that have reproduced very well when printed. Much smoother than they looked on my screen and still lovely and crisp. 


Finally on this point, I like my Pentax K-5 very much, and its very good at high ISO's, however the images are not as sharp as my m4/3 cameras at lower ISO's. I'm perfectly happy to forego low noise at high ISO settings for improved sharpness at the lower settings, and its one of the reasons I like m4/3.


So going back to the GF2, on initial use it seems very close to the GF1 in terms of IQ. Good sharp low ISO performance and noisy high ISO results. If there is any difference I'll report back when I've done some tests. 





14mm f/2.5 PANCAKE LENS


Let me say straight off that I love this lens. After looking at just a few images on the screen I regretted not buying it sooner. The samples I've seen from it just don't do it justice. It is very sharp. With the GF2's improved AF it focuses very quickly and accurately. The next part of this review is of the lens itself and I won't spoil that, but for me this lens is up there with the 20mm f1.7 and 45mm f/2.8 macro as the best m4/3 can offer.











You may already get the impression that since getting the GF2 it has worked its charms on me and this is not going to be a negative review. You would be right about that and I'm already regretting my hasty comments on its "failings". 


Words - David
Images - David and Ann