A kid does his thing
Snapped in the Inner Sunset district of San Francisco. A small adjustment with the Fill Light slider in LR2 brought up the diners in the restaurant.
Some field tests
To read the whole series on the Panasonic G1, click here
The ProStrap for the GI finally arrived.
No more excuses for deferring a proper outing for the camera so after attaching the strap I set out for the big city, spare (and very small) Panny battery in my Levis. The strap really does nothing for the handling of the camera which is a good thing. The right hand finger and thumb grip on the body are properly engineered for a secure grip and the left hand cradles the lens from below in traditional fashion. What this little strap confers is enhanced peace of mind that you are not about to drop the camera, and it’s far more functional for my intended use than a shoulder strap emblazoned with the manufacturer’s name.
Before setting out I did a little more checking of the confusing instruction book and made a couple more changes to the settings.
First I switched on AF+MF. This means that when you have locked focus with a first pressure on the shutter button, you can still make manual focus changes with the collar in the lens. When turned this renders the enlarged view in the EVF for fine changes in focus. A quick press and re-press of the shutter button then restores the full image with the focus locked on the new setting. Very clever.
i.Exposure was also turned on – this provides for automatic adjustment of contrast if the contrast range is too high for the sensor to handle. A tacit acknowledgment by Panasonic that things are not yet perfect with digital sensors.
Then I turned on i.ISO. If the subject is moving the ISO is adjusted upward automatically for a faster shutter speed. The electronics can do this as the live sensor video feed continuously measures movement blur. I had already limited the maximum ISO to 800 to mitigate grain/noise as described yesterday so it will be interesting to see how this works out in practice.
Bottom line? I should have things set just so for a very responsive …. point-and-shoot.
The major criticism to be leveled at Panasonic so far is that they have done such a poor job of the instruction manual. Multiple cross references, a near-useless index and a rote recitation of each menu choice and control function. What is needed is an approach which focuses on the user, not the camera. A section for street snappers, a section for the sports crowd, a section for landscape photographers and so on. How can a company making a multi-million dollar investment in wonderfully executed new technologies pay so little attention to the ergonomics of a user manual?
This camera may be the answer for many, like this fan of the magnificent M2 and M3 bodies, looking for that elusive replacement for the Leica M rangefinder.
Simply stated, Panasonic’s G1 is a keeper. I believe it marks a seismic change in quality camera design which will have the competition scrambling to keep up.
The station in Burlingame
Dating from 1894, and used to this day, the Southern Pacific railroad station in Burlingame, CA uses 18th-century tiles from the Mission San Antonio de Padua and the San Pedro y San Pablo Asistencia. Gorgeously restored recently it’s a fine example of Mission Revival style architecture (1890-1920), visible in a very early historical picture here:
On a late afternoon trip to the bookstore – I studiously avoid the freeway because of the opportunity to luxuriate in fine architecture – here’s how it looks today; the old weathered sign has been left unrestored:
All snapped on that little pocket charmer, the Panasonic Lumix LX-1 Here’s the plaque:
Brought to you from bankrupt California, USA
Fine work
A couple of readers were kind enough to comment on yesterday’s piece about the Reader application put out by the New York Times and pointed me to two NYT photoblogs in the process.
One is Lens and the other is 1 in 8 million. Both are well worth a visit though the latter does take a while to load owing to the inclusion of sound and video. That said, the presentation of both is superb and the use of short introductory sound clips in the ‘1 in 8 million’ blog is inspired, doing just enough to pique your interest.
For a truly splendid profile of an exceptional man, take a look at this piece on Harry Reininger by Sarah Kramer. It’s the scarcity of such people in New York that contributed to my departure from that modern Gomorrah in 1987.
Nice work, NYT!
By the way, it is incorrect to ascribe the demise of newsprint to financial engineering, as one commentator on yesterday’s column states. Rather, the causes are:
Financial engineering does not account for the drop in circulation. I am no defender of Wall Street, but it is hardly to blame for the above.