OznAsia

Last June, I wrote a few thoughts on buying my next camera. It's taken a while but I have finally bought myself a Panasonic G2. I bought the twin-lens kit and one extra lens, the 20 mm, f1.7 pancake lens.

I already wrote in the earlier blog why I liked the G2 and so far I am not disappointed. I do, however, have a lot to learn as this is my first interchangeable-lens camera. What I didn't mention in that blog was the one shortcoming that is mentioned in any review of this camera, ie it is not equal to an SLR in low-light situations. That's one of the reasons I bought the extra lens. At f1.7, this lens lets in a lot of light. It is also good for getting a bit of background blur happening.

I took it out with me one night recently and took this shot of some fried noodles with chicken and vegetables. This was taken in an outdoor food court with artificial lighting. I used no flash. Photos I took of people on the same evening look just as good. The fz20 made me a fan of zoom. This lens has no zoom. All shots are taken at 20 mm (equal to 40mm on an SLR). And I'm loving it.

Like most cameras this camera has burst mode for when you want to take a sequence of photos of a subject. I tried that on a portrait shot and the photos come so quickly there is almost no difference from one to the next. I've decided that burst mode is almost superfluous. In normal shooting mode this camera will take 3.2 photos per second. Before I got used to this I sometimes took two photos of the subject because I held the shutter button for too long. Now I use this for burst. I can hold the button down and shoot off five or more pics in quick succession.

For some time I've already had a second camera, a Panasonic fx3, which I bought in 2007. I bought it because it is small and I can take it everywhere and I never have to miss a shot. But it has limitations. The zoom is only 3x and it has no manual controls so if I want to get something a little better in quality out of it, it is limited. I've written about this in these blogs some time back, here and here. When I last left Australia I left the fz20 behind knowing that I would eventually buy another camera. For about six months I've been challenged by the limitations of the fx3. So now I've bought another second camera or should I say a fourth camera.

The Panasonic TZ10 is fairly compact but not so compact as the fx3. It has a 3" LCD and 12x optical zoom. It also has most of the manual controls that you would expect in a serious camera. In many ways it does as good a job as my old fz20 but comes in a much smaller package. Technology has improved in the six years between these cameras. Even when I take the Panasonic G2 with me, I still take the TZ10. I'm anticipating a situation when I'm taking a shot of a flower and in the distance I see a bird in a tree. By time I swap to a long-zoom lens it might have flown. But I can grab the TZ10 and get a quick shot. For the cost of the TZ10 I might have bought another lens for the G2. The TZ10 is roughly the size and weight of some lenses and by carrying it I feel I get a lot more flexibility.

With each camera I got an 8GB memory card. That gives me a total of about 3,000 shots on the two cards. The cards are interchangeable between the two cameras. I know some people store all their photos on their memory card. I don't. I download and delete regularly. I can take a lot of shots on whichever camera I wish before I run out of memory.

Photos taken with these cameras are starting to appear on my flickr page. If you compare them with some of what I've taken with the fx3 over the last six months I trust you'll be able to see some improvement.

Labels: "micro four thirds", camera, flickr, fx3, fz20, G2, Lumix, Panasonic, photography, TZ10

Hi Dad,
Am thinking that you brought up a few valid points and I figure that I don't really need an SLR. So down to that do you have any advice? What size zoom would you think is useful to have? Basically want good snapshots at the end of the day but a camera that can play around with to get better shots. Sometimes we want to take pictures to use for a poster or flyers for things, otherwise something I can use to take nice photo's.
Love Mel

Hi Mel

First I'll give you two links to my blogs where I wrote about my cameras. This will give you an idea about why I have what I have:

Why two cameras?

Camera comparison

What size zoom depends on what you want to photograph. 3 x zoom is very common and for everyday photography it's usually fine. Sometimes I like to photograph wildlife. If you get too close then it moves away so my 12 x zoom on the fz20 is good. When there was a monkey on the roof of the house next door at Kompong Chhnang I could get a pic of just the monkey. (BTW, I have not cropped this pic.) With 3 x I would get the whole roof and would hardly see the monkey. If you want to take a pic of Iz or Hamad on the other side of the soccer field, you'll need a good zoom to take that pic. However you'll also need a camera good for action pics if you want to get them while they're moving. It can be a challenge to do that especially with full zoom. 5 x to 10 x is somewhere in between. That might suit you depends on how important those soccer shots are to you. You can also get more powerful zooms these days. Panasonic have one that does 18 x. I asked a guy who had one about it and he was pretty happy. Other manufacturers are bringing out cameras to compete with this. Not sure how good they are. The Panasonic Lumix lens has a good reputation. Read the reviews before you make a decision.


Here's an example of the sort of long-distance action you can get with an fz20. I took this at Scarborough back when I was last in Oz. BTW, someone once said to me that to get a lens on an SLR that does what I can do with my fz20, it would have to be about 45cm long. Another BTW, if you click on these pics you'll see a larger version.

OK. Some general info. If you go to my flickr page and take a look at my pics, see if you can see the difference between the pics done on the fx3 and fz20 and which do you prefer. I put that info into the tags at the side of each pic. You have to click on the pic to see it. You might think the fx3 is just as good but consider that in relation to what I have written in the blog—fx3 has its limitations. They may or may not be important to you. But if you want to take better shots you will probably want a camera with more features. BTW, fx3 and fz20 will have been superseded several times. The current models will have different names. Last time I checked the latest version of the fz20 was fz50. Not sure if it still is. It has a few more features and other improvements over mine. I like the way the LCD screen tilts so you don't always have to hold the camera up to your face. You can hold it at waist level or hold it over your head—and still see the LCD.

If somehow I lost both of my cameras I wonder what I would buy now. Rather than buy two cameras I could get a compromise, a camera that is fairly compact but has a lot of features. Canon have one called the G10. The Canon G series have a good reputation but these days other manufacturers are bringing out good cameras like it. Read some reviews and see if it does what you want. Some of the reviews will also mention other cameras to compare it with. Check out their reviews too.

There are two websites that have good reviews that I recommend:

dpreview

Steves Digicams

Read a few reviews and see if you can get more idea of what you want from that. Also on these sites are user forums. I followed the Panasonic forums for about 18 months on Steves before I bought the fz20. People tell you what they like and don't like about their cameras. It is a good way to discover which camera to not buy. You can also join and ask questions yourself. If you have narrowed it down and you are not sure, you can ask people who use the camera, eg. 'Is this a good action camera? Is it good for night shots?'. They'll tell you.

One other thing to remember is that you can have the best camera in the world but if you don't have an artistic eye you'll still take lousy shots. You need to learn a bit about framing your shots. It could be worth visiting the library and borrowing a few photography 'how to' books.

OK, that's it for now. Feel free to send more questions.

BTW, I'll expect to see lots of pics of the new baby on facebook.

love

Dad

Labels: camera, family, flickr, fx3, fz20, Kompong Chhnang, Lumix, Panasonic, photography

When I lived in Mahasarakham, back six years ago, I remember I had to go to the dance department of the university to meet one of the dance teachers who also helped teach the English students drama. When I got there he had a class and I was invited to sit and chat with him while his students practised their dance movements. 

Students at Thai universities wear uniforms. Mostly they are plain black and white. Some departments have their own uniforms. These dance students were wearing theirs which included a sarong that somehow wrapped back between their legs and connected again at waist level at the back turning the sarong into a baggy pair of pants. That's what these students were wearing on the day I visited. I felt I was very lucky to be able to sit and watch them practise. It was like I was getting my own performance and it was very beautiful to see.

During that year I had many opportunities to see the dance students perform, not in the uniform but in beautiful traditional costumes. One night I was asked to be MC for a night of performances of traditional Thai dance and music that was presented for visiting palaeontologists. I've always enjoyed these performances. It's part of what makes it special for me to live in Mahasarakham.

On Friday night I was wandering around the night market when I noticed some students in the baggy sarong uniform. I knew they must be from the dance department. Later I could hear some announcements being broadcast from the amphitheatre which is right next to the night market. I went to look. In fact, there's been something happening there almost every night of the past week. It's getting close to the end of the semester and I guess the various departments have special presentations to make. This looked like it might be a performance of those dance students I'd just seen. I decided to wait and see and it was.

First there were some group performances like the one you see in the photo above. This was followed by solos from each of the students. Perhaps they were being assessed. I'm not sure but I got to sit in on some wonderful performances and had a delightful evening.

My only regret was that I only had my little camera with me. It's OK for day-to-day shots but doesn't handle the night-time action shots so well. Still I got one or two half-reasonable shots that show some of the intricate and often colourful costumes. You can see them by following the link to my photo page on the sidebar. To see the pictures larger click on them. If you are visiting this page some time after I post it you might find I've added many new photos. You can go straight to the dance photos by clicking this link and then clicking through the photostream by clicking the thumbnails of the photos both before and after the one that opens. Enjoy.

Labels: art, Asia, camera, dance, fx3, Mahasarakham, performance, thailand

This blog has not been particularly active lately because I have not been particularly active. Well, I'm active but I'm following a routine and it is not terribly exciting. Two days a week I go into the city to Thai language school. My main priority on the other days is to study Thai at home which I do with the aid of two online dictionaries and off course my good friend Tee who lives downstairs in my apartment building.

Recently I discovered that an eight week Buddhist dharma and meditation class was to be presented at a wat in the city one night a week by an English monk. I went along on the first night, was pleased and have been going ever since. The course is presented on Thursday evenings and as I am already going to my Thai class on Thursday mornings it makes sense to stay in the city but that of course means I have a lot of time to fill between classes. One week I made a return visit to Little India and got some more movies. Was going to go to a movie another time but got there too late for one session and the following session would finish too late for my timetable so I spent a few hours browsing in a bookshop (and spending a little money).

Last week I came prepared with a book to read. I decided to relax in one of my favourite places in Bangkok, the Saphan Taksin jetty. It's always cool there with a breeze coming off the river and I enjoy watching the many and varied boats coming and going. Thursday it was very cool because there was a storm coming which you can see in the photo here that I snapped with my Panasonic FX3. That's the little camera that I bought so I could take it anywhere. It's usually in my bag.

I reached Wat Yannawa a little early for the dharma class so snapped a few shots there too. As you can see the floor is still damp from that storm. I believe the building behind the wat is empty. Bangkok still has quite a few buildings such as this as a result of the Asian economic slump of about ten years ago. Apparently ownership issues are so complex that nothing can be done to either complete or destroy such buildings.

If you are interested in these dharma classes, there is a short version of the talks here and also from this site you can pick up information about other Buddhist teachings and get-togethers in English happening in Bangkok.

Labels: Asia, Bangkok, Buddhism, camera, fx3, Panasonic, thailand, travel

Further to my recent blog discussing my new camera, I have decided to give some examples to show the difference between the fx3 and fz20.

For the sake of the discussion it might be appropriate to discuss the sort of photographs I was happy with when I was using my Kodak DC265. They were always sharp across the whole picture and at that time I was always happy with that. It could be said the camera gave good depth of field, ie everything near and far was in focus.

As I have progressed as a photographer I've become aware that it is at times desirable to show a subject in its setting but the setting is not as important as the subject. In these instances it is actually preferable to lose a bit of sharpness on the setting and to boost the sharpness on the main subject. This is known as short depth of field or perhaps narrow depth of field.

To do this, one opens the lens up as wide as possible, ie widens the aperture. This is measured in f stops and ironically the wider the aperture the lower the f stop number.

A few afternoons back I was walking home. It was about 5 pm, which means, in Malaysia, that the sun is still very bright, despite the rainy season. There were some nice yellow flowers growing on the side of the road. This is very common here. People in the Melaka suburbs love to grow flowers outside their house on the edge of the road. I wanted to capture this all in one photo, ie I wanted to get a good shot of the flower and show it in its setting. Now the streetscape in the distance is pretty boring. I didn't want to show it in detail. I just wanted to show that the flowers grow right on the edge of the street.

My fx3 was in a pouch on my belt so I simply had to pull it out and take the shot. I'll be honest. I didn't spend a lot of time on it. Just snapped a couple and put the camera back in its pouch. Even though the fx3 has a good LCD screen, I'm not really in the habit of checking them. Probably, to be honest, because the LCD on the fz20 is not all that great and that's how the habit formed. When I got back home and downloaded them I found that I had the street in perfect focus and the flower was blurred. Good one, John.

A few days later I decided that I should spend a bit of time becoming more familiar with what I can do with the manual settings on the fz20. I'm usually lazy. I use the scene modes far too often. This time, I set the aperture to f2.8, the widest possible, left it there and wandered the streets for an hour or more seeing what I could do. Altogether I took 77 shots. (Isn't digital wonderful.) I also went back to the same spot and took this photo of the flower in the street.


(Click on these photos to see a larger version.)

I'm not claiming it's the best photo I've ever taken but it achieves my objective. The flower is sharp; you can see what's in the street but it's not clear enough to take the attention off the flower.

BTW, I shot this in aperture priority, not full manual mode. The camera calculates the appropriate shutter speed. Because f2.8 lets in a lot of light and because it's very sunny, it took a fairly fast shot—1,000th of a second.

A few days later, I was walking past the same spot, about the same time, same lighting conditions and I had the fx3 in my belt pouch. I decided to see if this time I could get a better shot. Neither shutter priority nor full manual are available on the fx3 but there are two modes that will force the camera to widen the aperture: portrait and macro. I took a couple on each.

The photo in portrait mode did not achieve my goal. The street was in focus just as clearly as the flower. I did use a fairly narrow focus point and I thought I had it pointing at the flower but there you go.

Here's the one in macro mode.


As you can see the flower is fairly clear and the street is blurred but the flower looks a bit dark. Why? Well, because it is so sunny the camera has to compensate for all the light coming in. It chose to narrow the aperture to reduce the light coming in through the lens. It chose f5.6 with an exposure of 1/320 second.

I had not allowed the fz20 to do this, therefore it compensated by reducing the speed of the shot, which I believe gave me a better photo. Yes, I could work on the second photo in photo editing software. It would be very easy to use the sliders to lighten it. I do this sort of thing all the time. But the fz20 took a much better shot straight out of the camera. (Neither of these photos have been edited, except to reduce the file size.)

I've uploaded some of the other photos taken on my little excursion to my Flora page on flickr. See the link in the sidebar.

I would like to add that I am not an expert, I welcome any comments and suggestions.

Labels: camera, flickr, fx3, fz20, Lumix, Malacca, Melaka, Panasonic, photography

Last year, in Cambodia, almost every Saturday I would catch a bus from Kompong Chhnang to Phnom Penh. I've written about it here before. (August 2006) The journey took up to 2.5 hours each way, occasionally longer. The bus was not exactly comfortable but I still enjoyed the journey. I never got tired off making the trip. The countryside we passed through was beautiful, interesting and ever-changing.

In my mind I would take many photos but I rarely took my camera with me. The purpose of the trip was to connect to the internet in Phnom Penh. I already had my laptop in my bag and my camera is a handful on its own.

When I arrived in Phnom Penh, once again, there would be many interesting sights and I would think to myself, 'If only I had my camera.'

It was rare to see another Westerner on this bus trip. I was usually the only one, which made me an item of interest and it was very common that someone would start up a conversation. The second-last time I made this trip there were about five young Westerners on the bus. One had a really small camera with a very large LCD monitor. They were looking at pictures on the screen and even from several seats away I could see them quite clearly.

'That's what I want.' I decided.

So, when I came to Kuala Lumpur on this trip I did some comparison shopping. There were lots of promotions. I ended up buying myself a Panasonic Lumix fx3, quite similar to the one I saw on the bus.

I'm not saying this is the best camera for this purpose. I decided that, as it was to be my second camera, I didn't need one that did everything that my other camera, a Panasonic Lumix fz20, can do. When I want to do some serious photography I will take the fz20. But at all other times I carry the fx3 and if I see something that is photogenic then I grab a shot. It might not be the best shot but I've got something.

One of the reasons I chose this particular camera, apart from price, was that it uses an SD memory card which is the same as the fz20 and therefore interchangeable between cameras. The other reason is that I have been pretty happy with the fz20 and therefore feel positive about Panasonic cameras. Had I not had this feeling towards Panasonic I might have gone for a Pentax. They had a few models in the price range that looked pretty good and got good reviews. Some of the other brands were OK but didn't tempt me and a few, including some popular, well-respected brands, simply did not impress me at all. If you plan to buy any camera I highly recommend you read the reviews.

After all that, I guess I'm feeling a little frustrated with the fx3. It really is aimed at the beginner (perhaps not as much as some of the other brands), or someone who can't be bothered working at taking photos. It's great for people who literally want to just point and shoot. And for that purpose it gives a fairly good photo that most people would be happy with. But I can be a little fussy and want something just a little better. The fx3 has lots of features but does not allow me to control it manually. Perhaps if I had spent more money I could have got a camera that went a bit further. It wouldn't have come up to the fz20 but it would have given me a little more flexibility.

I've also become a little more enthusiastic about displaying my photos and I've gone 'pro' with the main one of my flickr accounts. There was another motive in doing this. Flickr pro users can upload as many photos as they like and at any size they want. I usually reduce the file size before I upload to flickr. Now I can upload all my photos in full file size. You won't get to see these. I'm doing this as a way of backing up. The photos are not displayed. The ones I choose to display to the world are edited, and also reduced in file size, before I upload.

The non-pro flickr user is limited to a maximum of 200 photos. When you upload your 201st the first one disappears and so on. They keep them on file but hidden. So now that I've gone pro they've all come back again. That's over 700 photos. They go back to when I first joined flickr in early 2005. In fact, back then I was using an earlier camera, a Kodak DC 265.

If you're interested to see if you can tell the difference in photos from these three cameras, or just interested to see a record of my last few years, you'll find a link to this (and my other flickr pages) in the sidebar.

Labels: Asia, Cambodia, camera, flickr, fx3, fz20, Lumix, Panasonic, photography