Testing Cameras to Find Strengths
I've been playing around with some of my photography gear over the past few days while I am trying to recover from a nasty cold in an attempt to find the physical limits of my gear. This will help in choosing the right camera for each task... sometimes I will need long reach... sometimes I will need to go wide in tight quarters... sometimes I'll need the smallest lightweight gear... sometimes I'll need low light capabilities. Each situation is different and each camera has certain strengths as well as weaknesses. The key is to know which camera is good for which situations.
I now own some full-frame Sony gear which is just amazing in low light. Low light or not, this Sony camera has crystal clear resolution and is simply spectacular in all light but especially in low light situations. This gear continues to wow me everyday. I love using it for portraits... I love using it for landscapes.
While I was testing a new micro four thirds Panasonic camera over the past few days, I figured I would take a peek at some of my Sony images to compare... I truly do like the Panasonic images but, honestly, there is no comparison. To be fair, however, this Panasonic gear is older (although new to me) and its sensor is only a fraction of the size of my Sony full-frame camera. This sensor age and size difference makes a significant difference. I picked up this used Panasonic gear, however, for a very specific task... shooting wildlife at great distances... something my spectacular Sony gear can't do all that well at the current time. That being said, I want to start with a photo from my Sony camera which does amaze me... low light, high sensitivity capabilities.
Shot in very low light... at ISO 12,800, yet this image is still crisp and free of annoying, noisy grain... and, most importantly, I shot this handheld without a tripod and I focused manually just for fun. This is amazing image quality and I already know none of my other gear can compare for this purpose...
As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I picked up this micro four thirds Panasonic camera specifically for shooting wildlife in the long telephoto range... mostly birds but also other wildlife that we happen to encounter while at the lake house. The full-frame Sony camera that I used to shoot that Coke can, above, can only reach so far with the currently available lens lineup so I needed something with more reach and decent resolution. I knew that micro four thirds cameras were great for doubling lens focal lengths so I was leaning toward this micro four thirds format for this purpose of long telephoto wildlife shooting. I found the Panasonic camera at an exceptionally good price (equal to the cost of a night on the town... which we rarely do anymore because of my health) so I jumped on it.
Today, I grabbed my old Olympus 70-300mm telephoto lens, slapped on a small adapter with a micro four thirds mount, mounted it onto my new Panasonic G3 and then headed outside to see what it can do.
Auto-focus worked like a charm with this combo which was a very pleasant surprise! This lens with adapter actually works better on this tiny Panasonic camera that it does on any of my Olympus dSLR bodies. Focus was snappy and sure. These examples below may not seem like much, but this shooting experience was about testing performance and I am impressed.
I should mention that this combo of Panasonic G3 and Olympus 70-300mm lens does not provide any image stabilization, unfortunately. At focal lengths upwards of 600mm, this meant I needed shutter speeds greater than 1/600th of a second to avoid camera shake. Today, in nice sunlight, I opted to keep the shutter speed at 1/1000th of a second... it worked like a charm. If the light had not been as good as it was today, I may have struggled with camera shake issues without any image stabilization. I plan to resolve this common problem by purchasing a Panasonic 45-200mm lens which does have optical image stabilization which I would use in less than favorable light.
This first image, below, was shot from afar at 300mm (equivalent to 600mm in 35mm film terms... meaning this tree was quite far away)... nice and crisp and the camera had no problems auto-focusing... nice contrast, nice color, nice clarity. If a bird was perched in this fairly distant tree, I could get a decent photo with this lens and camera...
This next shot, of a branch lying in the grass, was shot low to the ground in brush about 150 feet away... or more. I expected the camera to try to focus on any number of things around this branch but it chose this branch for focus and it did it almost instantly... again, nice contrast, color and clarity. If some animal was on this branch, I would have had no problem getting a nice shot with this camera and lens...
The next shot was a difficult test... shot toward the setting sun (sun just out of the frame), in a thicket of these plants... again, shot at 300mm... auto-focus was snappy and sure... I am really impressed with the contrast even though I was shooting into the sun... the color and clarity are nice as well. Of course, there is some flare and some reflection because of shooting directly toward the sun, but I was testing the auto-focus and it worked exceptionally well even in these tough lighting conditions...
This shot of the cat, below, was also shot with this 70-300mm lens (again, in 35mm terms, this is a 140-600mm lens)... auto-focus was spot on and the clarity, contrast and tonality are beautiful...
This next two shots were captured using my micro four thirds Olympus kit lens... a 14-42mm lens on the Panasonic G3. Other than this lens being insanely tiny and lightweight, this lens really is unremarkable. For a kit lens, it is sharp but it is nothing special. I wanted to see how a landscape shot would look with this camera so I had to give it a shot. As we were driving down to the grocery store, I was shooting out the passenger window. Again, these are nothing special... nothing more than 'snapshots' as far as I'm concerned but I do like the contrast, color and clarity here as well... this Panasonic G3 camera can put out some nice image quality!
As the sun set this evening, some light was shining on Sheila's face as she read a magazine on her Kindle... I grabbed my Olympus 25mm pancake lens, slapped on the adapter, mounted it onto the Panasonic G3 and snapped a few shots... again, nothing more than a snapshot, but this image also looks good. This tiny Panasonic G3 camera does a pretty good job! Additionally, I now have a use for many of my old Olympus lenses.
I don't think I'll have any problems shooting wildlife with this Panasonic G3 and my old Olympus 70-300mm lens when the light is fairly good to very good. The auto-focus with the required mount adapter is working beautifully and the resulting images are looking sharp with nice contrast, color and clarity. I didn't expect to be able to use my old Olympus lenses so this is a very pleasant surprise and plus.
The shot of the book, below, was shot in our living room... shooting toward the sun shining through a window right above the book... of particular note here is that this was shot at ISO 3200. What little bit of noise presented itself was very easily cleaned up in post-processing.
Although the Panasonic G3 did a nice job on the landscape shot and the portrait snapshot, I will leave these types of situations for my Sony full-frame camera. I also have a camera with a sweet Kodak sensor in it but the old Kodak sensor is not good in low light. That Kodak sensor is silky smooth for skin tones and even landscapes but there needs to be a good amount of quality light. All low light duties and portrait duties will have to go to the Sony... just look at the crispness of that Coke can photo at the top! I also used my Sony gear for our recent trip to San Antonio and it performed spectacularly providing beautiful portraits in any location we visited.
The strength of this Panasonic G3 lies in telephoto reach for wildlife. I will use this camera paired with my Olympus 70-300mm with a mount adapter when the light is fair to good. When the light is rather poor to fair, my used Panasonic 45-200mm telephoto lens which sports optical image stabilization should prove to be very effective at capturing wildlife in those less than ideal conditions...
Now... if I can just get outside without a cat following me around, I might see some wildlife to shoot...
I now own some full-frame Sony gear which is just amazing in low light. Low light or not, this Sony camera has crystal clear resolution and is simply spectacular in all light but especially in low light situations. This gear continues to wow me everyday. I love using it for portraits... I love using it for landscapes.
While I was testing a new micro four thirds Panasonic camera over the past few days, I figured I would take a peek at some of my Sony images to compare... I truly do like the Panasonic images but, honestly, there is no comparison. To be fair, however, this Panasonic gear is older (although new to me) and its sensor is only a fraction of the size of my Sony full-frame camera. This sensor age and size difference makes a significant difference. I picked up this used Panasonic gear, however, for a very specific task... shooting wildlife at great distances... something my spectacular Sony gear can't do all that well at the current time. That being said, I want to start with a photo from my Sony camera which does amaze me... low light, high sensitivity capabilities.
Shot in very low light... at ISO 12,800, yet this image is still crisp and free of annoying, noisy grain... and, most importantly, I shot this handheld without a tripod and I focused manually just for fun. This is amazing image quality and I already know none of my other gear can compare for this purpose...
Today, I grabbed my old Olympus 70-300mm telephoto lens, slapped on a small adapter with a micro four thirds mount, mounted it onto my new Panasonic G3 and then headed outside to see what it can do.
Auto-focus worked like a charm with this combo which was a very pleasant surprise! This lens with adapter actually works better on this tiny Panasonic camera that it does on any of my Olympus dSLR bodies. Focus was snappy and sure. These examples below may not seem like much, but this shooting experience was about testing performance and I am impressed.
I should mention that this combo of Panasonic G3 and Olympus 70-300mm lens does not provide any image stabilization, unfortunately. At focal lengths upwards of 600mm, this meant I needed shutter speeds greater than 1/600th of a second to avoid camera shake. Today, in nice sunlight, I opted to keep the shutter speed at 1/1000th of a second... it worked like a charm. If the light had not been as good as it was today, I may have struggled with camera shake issues without any image stabilization. I plan to resolve this common problem by purchasing a Panasonic 45-200mm lens which does have optical image stabilization which I would use in less than favorable light.
This first image, below, was shot from afar at 300mm (equivalent to 600mm in 35mm film terms... meaning this tree was quite far away)... nice and crisp and the camera had no problems auto-focusing... nice contrast, nice color, nice clarity. If a bird was perched in this fairly distant tree, I could get a decent photo with this lens and camera...
This next shot, of a branch lying in the grass, was shot low to the ground in brush about 150 feet away... or more. I expected the camera to try to focus on any number of things around this branch but it chose this branch for focus and it did it almost instantly... again, nice contrast, color and clarity. If some animal was on this branch, I would have had no problem getting a nice shot with this camera and lens...
The next shot was a difficult test... shot toward the setting sun (sun just out of the frame), in a thicket of these plants... again, shot at 300mm... auto-focus was snappy and sure... I am really impressed with the contrast even though I was shooting into the sun... the color and clarity are nice as well. Of course, there is some flare and some reflection because of shooting directly toward the sun, but I was testing the auto-focus and it worked exceptionally well even in these tough lighting conditions...
This shot of the cat, below, was also shot with this 70-300mm lens (again, in 35mm terms, this is a 140-600mm lens)... auto-focus was spot on and the clarity, contrast and tonality are beautiful...
This next two shots were captured using my micro four thirds Olympus kit lens... a 14-42mm lens on the Panasonic G3. Other than this lens being insanely tiny and lightweight, this lens really is unremarkable. For a kit lens, it is sharp but it is nothing special. I wanted to see how a landscape shot would look with this camera so I had to give it a shot. As we were driving down to the grocery store, I was shooting out the passenger window. Again, these are nothing special... nothing more than 'snapshots' as far as I'm concerned but I do like the contrast, color and clarity here as well... this Panasonic G3 camera can put out some nice image quality!
As the sun set this evening, some light was shining on Sheila's face as she read a magazine on her Kindle... I grabbed my Olympus 25mm pancake lens, slapped on the adapter, mounted it onto the Panasonic G3 and snapped a few shots... again, nothing more than a snapshot, but this image also looks good. This tiny Panasonic G3 camera does a pretty good job! Additionally, I now have a use for many of my old Olympus lenses.
I don't think I'll have any problems shooting wildlife with this Panasonic G3 and my old Olympus 70-300mm lens when the light is fairly good to very good. The auto-focus with the required mount adapter is working beautifully and the resulting images are looking sharp with nice contrast, color and clarity. I didn't expect to be able to use my old Olympus lenses so this is a very pleasant surprise and plus.
The shot of the book, below, was shot in our living room... shooting toward the sun shining through a window right above the book... of particular note here is that this was shot at ISO 3200. What little bit of noise presented itself was very easily cleaned up in post-processing.
Although the Panasonic G3 did a nice job on the landscape shot and the portrait snapshot, I will leave these types of situations for my Sony full-frame camera. I also have a camera with a sweet Kodak sensor in it but the old Kodak sensor is not good in low light. That Kodak sensor is silky smooth for skin tones and even landscapes but there needs to be a good amount of quality light. All low light duties and portrait duties will have to go to the Sony... just look at the crispness of that Coke can photo at the top! I also used my Sony gear for our recent trip to San Antonio and it performed spectacularly providing beautiful portraits in any location we visited.
The strength of this Panasonic G3 lies in telephoto reach for wildlife. I will use this camera paired with my Olympus 70-300mm with a mount adapter when the light is fair to good. When the light is rather poor to fair, my used Panasonic 45-200mm telephoto lens which sports optical image stabilization should prove to be very effective at capturing wildlife in those less than ideal conditions...
Now... if I can just get outside without a cat following me around, I might see some wildlife to shoot...
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