New LUMIX GX7 Trumped PEN E-P5!

After all the photos and specifications leaked last week, Panasonic launch their new Lumix DMC-GX7 mirrorless camera today!

The handsome looking camera caused quite a stir and I noticed fan boys are already pre-ordering the new M43 wonder!

Placing the GX7 side by side with it's main competitor, the PEN E-P5; most photographers said the Lumix is better looking and more refined than the E-P5. Is it any wonder that E-P5 orders are being cancelled and changed to GX7!

My Ideal Travel Camera

In our younger days, we were all guilty of NOT travelling light. In my younger days, travel usually meant work; as a photographer for a newspaper. I recall fondly the time I was with a fashion team to India, shooting for a Singapore paper; travelling with me were the following photo gear...

2 units Canon EOS1 camera bodies, only one with a drive to save weight.
1 unit Leica M6 camera body with winder.
1 unit Canon 580 Speedlight.

Canon 14/2.8 L
Canon 17-35 2.8L
Canon 28-80 2.8L
Canon 85/1.2 L
Canon 200/1.8L
Canon 1.4 extender
Canon 2x extender

Leica Elmarit-M 21/2.8
Leica Summicron-M 50/2
Leica Summicron-M 90/2
Leica Summilux-M 35/1.4
Leica Elmarit-M 28/2.8

Chargers, batteries; 60 rolls of Kodak Ektapress colour negative film. A Monopod. And a Tenba Pro Pak camera bag.

I was amazed how I managed to lug all those gears around! But then I was much younger...

3 Nights In Melbourne

 I have a soft spot for Melbourne, may be it is because the best part of my 6 years were spent in this city as a student, or is it because Melbourne has been ranked No.1 as the world’s “Most Liveable City” for the second year in a row by the Economist Intelligence Unit’s liveability survey?

That's yours truly on the left, at the Melbourne Essendon Airport; 1967.

46 years after that picture was taken, me and Le General heads for the city I love :)

We landed at Melbourne Airport, Thursday; at 8.30 am.

We got a mild shock when we join the Q at the immigration check out, a couple of planes from China must have arrived at the same time; we were swamped by hundreds (look more like thousands) of Chinese tourists!

Took us 90 minutes to pass through the check point!

We made our way to the Sky Bus stand, we bought a return ticket; A$28.00 each. Don't even consider taking a cab, unless you just won Lotto ;)

The BIG, fast; Sky Bus took us to the Southern Cross Station where we changed to a smaller hotel transfer bus. It is very efficient, and in 40 minutes we were outside our hotel.

PICCURE the Final Release

If you have been reading my post on 4th May on Piccure, you will know what it is and what it can do.

In short, it is an easy-to-use plugin for Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, piccure will allow you to restore your degraded photos produced by involuntary camera movements.

And from my test, it did the deblurring very well!

Last week, Piccure was released into the wild and you are able to purchase this plug-in here.

Piccure come in for Win7 and OSX, you can either purchase the Photoshop or the Photoshop Element version.

In New Zealand, the Photoshop plugin cost $127.98 NZD and $63.34 if you are using PS Element.

Panasonic & Fujifilm Developed World’s First Organic Sensor!

June 11, 2013; REMEMBER this day because FUJIFILM Corporation and Panasonic Corporation jointly announced that they are jointly developing an organic CMOS image sensor technology using organic photoelectric conversion layer!

Big deal?

You bet!!

This will be one of the biggest breakthroughs in digital camera sensor technology in recent years!

How does a dynamic range of 15 stops and a 88db signal-to-noise ratio grab you?

This is their full press release...

FUJIFILM Corporation (President: Shigehiro Nakajima) and Panasonic Corporation (President: Kazuhiro Tsuga) have developed organic CMOS image sensor technology that uses an organic photoelectric conversion layer with a photoelectric conversion property at the light receiving section of an image sensor to achieve performance beyond that of conventional image sensors.

Applying this technology to the image sensors of digital cameras and other imaging devices expands its dynamic range and enhances sensitivity further to prevent highlight clipping in bright scenes and capture a dark subject with vivid colors and rich textures.

Lumix 45-175mm f/4-5.6 ASPH X Revisited

A friend who bought an Olympus OM-D recently, decided to supplement his 14-42 (Eqv 28-84) f3.5/5.6 "kit zoom" with a telephoto zoom. He had his eyes on the Panasonic Lumix G X Vario 35-100mm f2.8 zoom, he nearly fainted when he found out how much this chunk of a glass cost!

A whopping NZ$ 1,959.00 at our local Photo Warehouse in Wellington city! Since he is a poor photographer like me, who have to save up our pennies for photography addiction; he came and seek a second opinion on an alternative cheaper lens.

First, our friend wanted to know why his dream lens cost so much more than something nearly in the same range, a Lumix 45-175mm f/4-5.6; which is also a "X" lens! The zoom range of this cheaper lens is even longer than the 35-100!

OM-D @ ISO 20,000 in Real World!

I have been using my Olympus OM-D for nearly a year, and I have shot thousands of pictures with it, but how many time did I actually made use of the ISO 20,000 setting for really low light capture?  ONCE!!

This still life test shot was taken in early May last year, while I was testing my newly acquired dream camera. It was shot at ISO 25,600!

Even at that never heard of (a couple of years ago), ultra high ISO for a HALF FRAME sensor, the result was ACCEPTABLE!