Yesterday, I posted part 1 of my GX1 review, here’s part 2:
As soon as I looked at the first pics I shot with the GX1 on my computer, I got the feeling that the GX1 could possible be more than an even better always-with-you-camera. Therefor I needed to test it in a real life situation: a photoshoot that would require me to create several different looks in a short amount of time.
I had a shoot scheduled with Sofie and she agreed to do it all with the GX1. Sofie runs a great fashion blog called Bien Sucré and needed some images for her business cards and other uses. Lots of different setups in only a couple of hours, seemed like a good stress test for the GX1. We started outdoors but couldn’t really find good locations that went with her outfit. The few decent places we found were so exposed to the cold wind, that we couldn’t shoot more than a couple of minutes. Here’s one of the few keepers:
1/200 – f/5.6 – iso 3200 – 12-42 lens @42mm
The new Panasonic 12-42 vario lens came with the test camera but being used to fast glass with a constant aperture of f/2.8, this f/3.5 to f/5.6 lens couldn’t really convince me. It has an electronic zoom which is probably great for video but not as fast and accurate to use as a good old manual zoom ring. The fact that I wasn’t too crazy about it also has to do with the fact that this must be one of the ugliest lenses I’ve ever seen. But it has to be said that the optical quality is amazing, certainly for that price. So I’m not saying it’s a bad lens, but some nice primes are more interesting (and unfortunately way more expensive) for photographers who want more control over depth-of-field and low light shooting.
After this cold adventure we decided to head back to the studio to come up with something useful. We started with a very basic setup with one speed light and a shoot through umbrella.
1/100 – f/5.6 – iso 160 – 12-42 lens @42mm
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1/100 – f/5.6 – iso 160 – 12-42 lens @42mm
We moved on to a clamshell setup with the speedlite and umbrella straight above the camera and a silver Sunbounce mini under the camera as fill. I like how the clamshell light worked on Sofie’s face in the first picture but I wanted less depth-of-field. Therefor I switched to my Canon 50mm 1.4 with a cheap e-bay adapter. On the GX1, my Canon 50mm, becomes a manual focus 100mm f/1.4. It’s pretty hard to manually focus at that wide open aperture but with lots of shots and a bit of luck, we got the eyelashes in focus like I wanted.
For a bit of a retro look, I wanted to work with a white background. I could have setup a white seamless or my Lastolite HiLite but as we had little time, I just used my big Chimera Octa that was already setup in the studio. There’s an Elinchrom 600RX in the octa and it’s triggered by it’s optical slave. The main light is a speedlite. Some shots with an umbrella, some shots with just the bare flash.
1/100 – f/5.6 – iso 160 – 12-42 lens @36mm
1/100 – f/5.6 – iso 160 – 12-42 lens @36mm
For a fashion blog I thought it might be quite nice to have the setup included in the shot. And it helps you get an idea of how this was shot 
I also played around with just the pilot light of the Chimera to see what kind of results I would get at iso6400.
1/125 – f/5.6 – iso 6400 – 12-42 lens @42mm
Looking for a different background, I saw one of my silver Sunbounces and figured it would make a nice background if I could get lots of reflections of it’s surface. I’m not a big ring flash fan and I must admit that I’ve only used my Orbis ring flash adapter one or two times since I got it a couple of years ago. But somehow it seemed like the right thing to do.
1/125 – f/5.6 – iso 200 – 12-42 lens @42mm
I just noticed I’ve written very little about the GX1 in this article and maybe that’s exactly the point. During this shoot and the post processing I hardly noticed that I was not shooting a pro DSLR. This got me thinking about my current gear setup, the kind of work I do, the kind of work I WANT to do more, budgets, investments, options, … but more about that as soon as I’ve figured it out.
And the GX1, I can be short about that: I bought one and made sure it got delivered before I had to send the test camera back
It’s not a secret that I absolutely looooove my Panasonic GF1 camera. The reason why I bought it is to have a very small camera that is small enough to carry with me all the time and that is a real photographer’s camera with great lens, decent low light capacities, easy manual settings and good image quality. The GF1 ticked all those boxes and surpassed my expectations. I’ve been so happy with that camera that I wasn’t even too excited when Panasonic announced the GX1, the successor of the GF1. On first glance the specs of that little camera offered little or no reason FOR ME to upgrade. But when I was asked to review the GX1 for Shoot magazine, I accepted. My buddies, fellow pro photographers and co-members of the GF1 fan club Rob and Tom also reviewed the camera. Here’s Rob’s review.
I picked up the GX1 with the new 14-42 lens and the EVF2 electronic viewfinder at Shoot magazine about two weeks ago and during the first few days I hardly shot any pictures with it. First of all, it looked ugly. That turned out to be the fault of the new 14-42 lens decorated with something like nine different fonts in three colors. With my good old 20mm 1.7 it looks fine. It may not look as retro-chique as the Fuji X100 or minimalistic design-ish as the Sony NEX but one of the main attractions of having a small camera is to be unobtrusive and that’s a lot harder with a piece of beautiful design. The GX1 is but sober, maybe even a bit dull but it looks and feels very solid.
1/60 – f/3.5 – iso800 – 14-42 lens @14mm
At first I used the GX1 pretty much like my GF1 (and it’s limitations), meaning I shot mostly black and white up to 800 iso. The GX1 performed flawlessly and the extra megapixels are nice to have (but not a reason for me to upgrade). It wasn’t until I reviewed some really high iso test shots on my computer that I got blown away. That’s right BLOWN AWAY! It immediately became clear that Panasonic has concentrated on a better sensor and processing engine because the image quality took a massive leap forwards.
1/100 – f/1.7 – iso3200 – 20mm
With the GF1 I’d rather not go higher than iso 800 but with the GX1 I won’t hesitate to take it two stops further to iso 3200. Another thing that struck me is that the colors are really good, even at high iso’s. The color rendering in the GF1 was not very impressive.
1/100 – f/1.7 – iso3200 – 20mm
The first shots I took at iso 3200 were just taken for testing purposes. I didn’t believe it would be usable. But I was proven wrong. So let’s try to go even higher, iso 6400.
1/80 – f/1.7 – iso6400 – 20mm
Noise becomes pretty visible at iso 6400 but with just a touch of noise reduction in Lightroom, the pictures are actually usable.
1/80 – f/1.7 – iso6400 – 20mm
When you do a lab test, the images out of the GX1 may not be the cleanest when it comes to noise. There’s even some noise visible at lower iso’s. But it never becomes disturbing to me. It’s more like film grain than noise. It may be very personal but I really like the “look” of the GX1′s images.
With every images I looked at on my computer I’ve grown more enthusiastic about the GX1. To the point that it’s probably going to play a key part in some of my future work and projects. But that’s for part 2 of this review.
A little over a week ago, I finally got the very first Confessions XL Video online but didn’t have time to blog about it before leaving for a well needed holiday in Scotland. Most of you probably saw the announcement already on Facebook or Twitter, but for hose who didn’t, here it is:
I while ago I wrote about my plans to get new instructional videos out that would go far beyond my original Confession videos on Youtube. As usual with such plans, even the most pessimistic deadlines proved to be aimed too high as there was a lot of stuff to figure out. But I’m glad (and proud) that I did push through. In short, in the Confession XL videos, I will take you on a shoot from start to finish, including the post processing. Here’s the trailer for the new videos:
www.confessionsXL.com is a new site to host the new videos. At the moment it’s still a quickly put together iWeb site, but soon it will be the stylish home of all my instructional activities: blog, videos, workshops, …
The first Confession XL video is titled GF1 Guerilla Style. Here’s the trailer for it:
The video can be purchased on www.confessionsXL.com. The normal price is 9,95 EUR or 12,95 USD but until midnight tomorrow I’m offering it for the special introduction price of 7,95 EUR or 9,95 USD. So if you want to get yourself a last minute New Year’s present, hurry to www.confessionsXL.com.
Big thanks for all the great reactions from the early adopters btw. And I would really appreciate it, if you would spread the word.
I’ve been playing around with the SLR Magic 12mm f/1.6 Hyperprime for a couple of weeks now. So what do I think of it after having used it a bit more after my first impressions?
Last week I did a family session with some friends of ours and their four fun kids. I shoot family sessions mostly with my 5D mk2, but I also keep the GF1 with me at all times, because particularly kids respond to that little camera different than to a huge DSLR. We had great hard sun light to play with under a huge viaduct. For the color pictures, I tried to imitate that same kind of light with a single off-camera speedlight in spots that the sun couldn’t reach.
So what about that lens? Well, it does everything the specs promise: it’s fast, more than decent image quality, it’s wide and full manual. For me those two last things are what holds me back to use it very often. First of all, I’m not a wide shooter, except when it’s extremely wide. The 24mm full frame equivalent focal length, is just not my thing. But that’s a very personal thing, I know lots of photographers who swear by that 24mm as the ideal focal length.
The full manual thing is another problem to me. Setting the aperture, is not a problem at all and the fact that it’s a stepless aperture, is nice (specially for video). The manual focussing ring is very smooth and in combination with the zoom function on the GF1′s screen, it isn’t hard to focus manually. But I often use the GF1 for some fast one-handed snapshots from the hip and then the manual focus is just too slow to shoot with a large aperture. But again, that’s a personal thing.
Does that mean that the Hyperprime will gather dust in the cupboard from now on? Well, it will certainly gather dust but only in my jacket pocket when I’m traveling or walking the streets. It’s a great and affordable lens to have with me for those occasions where my favorite 20mm 1.7 pancake lens, just isn’t wide enough. If I shot wide very often, I would probably replace the SLR Magic 12mm with the Olympus 12mm f/2 which is supposed to be a great lens too and it has autofocus. But it’s also more expensive.
Since I wrote the draft for this post, I think I might have found a really good use for the Hyperprime, but that’s for the next time folks.
A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by the guys from SLR Magic about a new lens they are launching for Micro 4/3. At first I thought it would be another toy lens but I got a lot more interested when I heard it was a 12mm (24mm equivalent on full frame) with a wide open aperture of F/1.6 and macro capabilities. It’s called the Noktor Superprime. I’ve been wanting a fast wide angle prime for my GF1 for a while so I’m happy my review copy arrived today.
I’ve only had time to take some quick test shots today but until I got some time for a decent review, here are already some snaps and my first impression.
It’s a pretty heavy lens with a rather strange shape but it balances nice with the GF1 and doesn’t look too weird.
It’s a manual focus lens but even at f/1.6 it’s not really a problem to get it focused fast. I even managed to take a picture of our very energetic dog Mika and my German friend Josh who becomes equally energetic when he gets to hold the Phase One, we’ll be shooting with tomorrow.
Josh also had a go with the GF1 + Noktor Hyperprime and took a shot of me in my extremely tidy office.
If I’m not mistaken, you can focus as close as 4cm from the lens. Wide angle macro is certainly something that opens up a lot of creative options.
I’ll leave the pixel peeping to others but at first glance, I think the optical quality, sharpness and distortions seems to fit my needs.
It’s too soon for a final verdict, but for now, it looks like the Noktor is here to stay.
The lens should be available soon. I’ll keep testing and let you know how I feel about it.
This time of year I get asked a lot what photo gear I take with me on a holiday. So let’s use my summer holidays with the kids as case study over a couple of posts to see what I’m taking and why. I took three camera’s with me but let’s start with my holiday workhorse, the Panasonic Lumix GF1 with the 20mm 1.7 pancake lens.
Those of you who follow me on Facebook won’t be surprised that I picked the GF1 as my primary camera for this trip. Most of my family pictures are taken with that little camera. With the risk of sounding like a Panasonic missionary, I’ll say it time and time again: The GF1 is an amazing camera that offers near DSLR quality in a near compact camera size.
For this year’s holiday we went to the area of Peniche, Portugal. Our friends Lente, Mario, Cedric and Claudia were so kind to let us stay in their fantastic new house. I’m sure they will think twice next time they invite two adults and three kids to stay for 12 days at their place. It was my first time in Portugal and I really like the area. It’s still wild and largely untouched by tourism. It’s amazing to have a spectacular beach all for yourself.
I like the black & white images out of the GF1 so much that I rarely use them in color. But I found out that the colors are actually pretty nice once I got a feel of how to handle them in Lightroom. I know the colors in these pictures are all but “correct”, but to me it’s about creating a certain mood.
One of the nice things about the GF1 is that it looks like a compact camera to the untrained eye. I hate looking like an ordinary tourist but sometimes it’s the best way to shoot strangers without attracting attention. The focus and shooting speed of the GF1 makes it even easier to capture a scene.
The 20mm 1.7 pancake lens is the perfect travel companion for the GF1. It’s size and weight make the camera pocketable (that’s if you have large pockets). With the Micro 4/3 format and it’s 2x crop factor, the 20mm becomes a 40mm. That’s still wide enough to capture and overview and doesn’t distort much if you use it up close for a portrait. So even though it’s a prime lens, I find it to be a good all-rounder. Image quality is great and with a maximum aperture of 1.7 you don’t need much light and you can throw the background out of focus.
I won’t say that the GF1′s dynamic range is at the same level as a full frame DSLR but it handles contrasty scenes surprisingly well. It never ceases to amaze me about how much image info you can still get out of a RAW-file.
High ISO performance might not be amazing but I won’t hesitate to use the camera at ISO 800 and for black & white, I’ll use ISO 1600 without worrying about getting too much noise.
For such a small camera it’s amazing how easy and fast you can control all the settings. I really think it’s a photographer’s camera. At the same time the automatic functions perform pretty well. I always shoot full manual on my DSLR’s and with the GF1 I also like the full control of manual. But I put it more and more in aperture priority mode to have it always ready.
With a twist of the mode dial, the GF1 becomes a simple point-and-shoot. Panasonic Intelligent Automatic mode (iA) does a really great job in getting a decent full auto exposure. We call it the Donkey Mode (i-A) and that’s the mode the kids use or what we set the camera when a random dorky tourist takes a dorky picture about our family.
In the next articles I will explain you why I also took some other cameras with me, but if I had to take just one, it would be my GF1.
Yesterday, my buddy Ioannis Tsouloulis dropped by and we had a good chat in the kitchen. My youngest daughter Noa kept us company and Ioannis fired off some pictures of Noa and me with his GF1. I like some nice pictures of me with my kids, but I didn’t think much about it until I watched the pictures this morning. Ioannis’ work left me speechless (and those who know me, will testify that that is a rather rare event).
Being on the receiving end of photography was a humbling experience that made me understand once more how privileged it is to be a photographer and be part of other people’s lives.
This is the reason why we forget about the low pay, countless hours and fierce competition in our industry. This is why we keep learning, practicing and redefining our creative vision.
This is why I became a photographer.
Let’s just go out and shoot our clients, families and friends and share with them the gift of photography.
It was a great honor to be asked to speak at the second European congress of the Federation of European Professional Photographers (FEP). Accepting an offer like this might seem to be a no brainer but I had to think long and hard before accepting. I won’t go into detail (maybe I’ll do that later) but let me sketch out the climate briefly.
I attended the first congress in Valencia, Spain and had a bit of mixed feelings about it. The fact that my bag was stolen there, might have something to do with it but mainly it was because the rather formal setting of a congress might not be my natural habitat. I’ve also experienced some behind-the-scenes politics, which is something I just don’t want to spend any energy on. On the other hand, I became friends, got inspired and learned a lot by meeting people that I would have never met in my natural habitat. This and a number of other conversations over the last two years, led me to believe that the younger generation can learn a lot from the more experience generation and vice versa. I’m pretty new in the business and embraced digital and the web, which makes me part of the new generation. But at age 35 I can also relate to the older generation.
Some people really stuck their necks out when asking me to speak at the congress, people who share my belief that our industry needs strong organizations that bring experience and innovation together. I know it took courage to get me on the speakers list, so I decided to accept out of respect to those people, the industry I love and most importantly to my peers.
The setting of this congress was Lyon, France. We got some beautiful spring weather thrown in for free which created a bit of a holiday feeling. The French national organization, did a great job to make everything run smooth.
The congress started off with lots of awards and competitions and labels and … I know some people swear by the value of those, but I’m not that convinced. I saw some great work, but also stuff that wouldn’t win anything in my world. But then again photography is subjective and I’m happy for all those who won something.
I arrived in Lyon at 5am after three days of workshops and a night of driving. So it’s pretty clear that I was exhausted and sitting in a comfortable seat in a dark congress hall isn’t exactly the best way to stay awake. But the general quality of the presentations and speakers was very good and I didn’t have much trouble to get through the first day. A couple of speakers made a really big impression on me. So much that they deserve their own blog post, so stay tuned.
I was the last speaker on the second day. I was a bit nervous, mainly because I decided to do my presentation in French. My French isn’t that bad but it’s rusty and I’m certainly not used to speak in French about photography in front of 400-500 of my peers. It went rather well, partly because Bertrand Edel, a French reporter, did a great job helping me out on stage. He got me talking about my passions and forget the setting. Thanks Bertrand!
My presentations was mainly a positive message about how to embrace new technology and opportunities without forgetting the rich traditions of our craft. I also talked about social media, self publishing, sharing, cooperation, style, learning … and my short career in the porn industry (don’t ask).
If you want to know if it was any good, you’ll have to ask the people in the audience but I received lots of great comments from people who said they really appreciated the fresh view.
Big thanks to my buddy Ioannis for making the pictures of me on stage and the fun we had together in Lyon.
Some say the French are rude and to be honest, judging by the behavior of some waiters, shop employees, … there’s a certain amount of truth in it. But that doesn’t go for the French photographers. For the very first minute there was a very warm and friendly atmosphere at the congress. The unofficial part of such an event is at least equally important as the official program. You get to meet so many different interesting people if you open yourself up to it.
The second evening, the atmosphere was taken into overdrive at the gala dinner at Paul Bocuse’s restaurant. You’d expect a rather stiff, formal but tasty dinner at a restaurant with three Michelin stars. I was right about the food, it was delicious but I was wrong about the atmosphere. Within five minutes people were dancing on the tables.
YMCA in a restaurant ???
Stage diving on a gala dinner ????????????
After a night in which you’ve been dancing with a white wig on your head while your shirt is ripped of your torso, the boundaries between nationalities, shooting styles and generations are forever gone. And it was a miracle that pretty much everyone turned up at the congress on time for the final day. Again a day filled with inspiration and even more personal encounters.
The day and my pleasant stay in France ended with a walk into Lyon and a nice dinner with a group of friends. On the way back to my hotel, I let the photographer in me loose and started some new “fine-art photography projects”.
This is “white signs on dark backgrounds”
And here’s “Scandinavian ice queens in photo booths” and “Irish FEP presidents coming out of the closet” (sorry Neil)
I’ll do an inspiration post about the congress later and in the mean time, I’d like to thank everyone who made this a fantastic experience.
Today is one of those day that I can’t seem to get much done except for getting a new snorkel for scuba practice. I have a lot of things on my to do list but I have no assignments planned for today and no very urgent deadlines. I had enough sleep but can’t seem to find the energy to answer my e-mails. And if I answer one, I get five back which makes it very tempting to forget about my inbox for today. I did a lot of work this weekend, so I shouldn’t feel guilty about taking a day off. But still I feel bad if I do nothing at all.
Yesterday I made the picture below when I was on the road. In fact, I drove up and down the whole road three times to get the shot since that road is way to dangerous to pull over and shoot some pics in the middle of the road. But it got me thinking …
For a very long time, I been feeling the urge to do a documentary project. The 50/50 project I did over a year ago, was maybe not completely documentary, but it came close as it’s a good rendering of my life at that time. I’ve been looking for a new subject, but I had to dismiss each and every one because it didn’t interest me or it practically impossible in my situation.
So yesterday I made that picture very close to my home and today I started thinking: what if I would try to document my village, Steenokkerzeel? On first sight it may not be very interesting. Unless you’re a plane spotter there’s not much to see. But on the other hand, it’s probably just as exotic to someone from abroad than a Massai village is to me. There must be interesting stories lingering around in Steenokkerzeel.
I live in the village, so I don’t need to travel and just by doing what I normally do, I meet people and I see things. So if I just take my camera with me more often and look better, I can make pictures. And on days like this, I can just take my camera and go for a photo walk for a couple of hours if I need a little break.
I’m not sure if I’ll find this idea interesting enough in the long run, but why don’t I just give it a try for some time. There’s no rush, no deadline and if I don’t like it anymore (or find a better idea), I’ll just quit.
Last year in the spring I bought the Panasonic Lumix GF1 (which is now replaced by the GF2). I’ve been wanting to blog about it ever since I got it, but I’ve been way to busy having fun with it. The other reason why I haven’t blogged about it is that I wanted to keep it all to myself and didn’t want anyone else to shoot with this fantastic little camera.
The pics in this blog post were all taken in 15 minutes behind the scenes of a shoot I did last week with Fotofolio to learn from each other how we use the new Pocketwizards (more to come about that this week).
Why Did I Buy the GF1?
Just like many photographers I got frustrated with the bulk of a DSLR sometimes. Like when I’m with my kids, when traveling, … And I got equally frustrated by the lack of speed, image quality, low light performance and too much DOF of a compact camera. I even seriously considered getting myself a film rangefinder. When I borrowed a friend’s old Leica last year, I loved the size, the manual controls and the image quality. I love shooting film, but to be honest all the developing and scanning is a pain in the ass. Certainly for a camera that I want to use very often since I want to have it with me all the time. Digital rangefinders are simply to expensive to justify for what I would use it.
But the last few years there have been some interesting experiments going on putting a bigger sensor in a compact body. When Olympus and Panasonic announced the Micro 4/3 system, they got my interest. I kept following their progress and when Olympus announced the PEN E-P1, I was ready to buy. But when I read the reviews, I decided to hold off a bit longer. It seemed like an almost-but-not-quite-there-yet thing. But then I read about the Panasonic GF1 and it seemed that this was the camera for me. It took me a while to finally decide to get one, but I haven’t regretted it for a second. I got it with the 20mm 1.7 pancake lens (40mm because of the 2x crop factor).
The Down Sides
It’s rather pricey, no automatic image rotation, limited dedicated micro 4/3 prime lenses available and I’m not too crazy about the colors. But that’s it what I’m concerned
Why I love the GF1
Technically the GF1′s qualities certainly beat the average compact camera. But even without any lab tests, I can tell it’s also considerably below my DSLR’s. But this is RSO, Review-sort-of, my way to write what I personally think about something. A review that should be taken with a grain of salt just like any technical review. And I just happen to like this little camera a lot. It’s also important to be realistic and see it like what it is. This isn’t a sports or wildlife camera, nor is it a camera that I would use for high end commercial jobs. To me it’s mainly a black & white reportage/documentary camera. (The in-camera “Dynamic Black & White” setting is pretty damned good by the way.)
It handles surprisingly well. In fact, it far exceeded my expectations. It feels sturdy and stable used with one or two hands. The LCD screen is great, even in lots of light. It’s almost as responsive as my high end DSLRs. All the automatic stuff like autofocus, auto exposure, … works great. When I put it in auto mode, even my 3yo daughter Noa makes great pictures with it. And with a couple of presses on the well laid out buttons, it’s daddy’s perfect manual machine. The menus and operations are intuitive and sometimes almost revolutionary. I can even fire speedlites remotely by putting a Pocketwizard on the hotshoe.
At the same time it looks like an average (slightly large) compact camera. I feel the size and look of the camera let me get closer to people and make more intimate shots. You might give up some image quality but that’s a price I’m willing to pay to get better stories.
What About the Image Quality?
Like I said, it’s not on par with my DSLRs … technically that is. I’m not a big fan of the colors most of the time. From iso800 on the images become pretty noisy. But in black and white, it shines. The noise actually becomes pleasingly close to the authentic, organic feel of film grain. The GF1 shoots RAW and these files seem to hold surprisingly much detail in the highlights and shadows. I love playing around with the Graduated Filter in Lightroom on the GF1 files to make the sky more dramatic and dodge and burn area’s to lead the eye to the subject.
Do You Have Any Bold Statements?
Yes I do: If I was a Magnum photographer, I’d travel the world with a couple of GF1′s.
And that was not bold, just to bold. I got some ideas for personal documentary projects floating around in my restless brain. I want to do one of these projects this year and I will probably shoot it mainly with the GF1.
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