Category Archives: Cameras

Cameras

Why I like the micro 4/3ds format on the Lumix GH-2

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Minolta XD-11 SLR camera

A nice feature of the Lumix GH-2 from Panasonic, as well as other micro four thirds cameras, is their ability to use a wide variety of lenses.

I had two old Minolta film cameras and had several old lenses that work great with the GH-2, using a Minolta to m43 adapter ring.

Here’s a photo of my collection (picture taken with a Canon SX-1):

The lenses are from left to right:

  • On the GH-2, the Panasonic Lumix 45-200mm zoom
  • Vivitar 135mm prime, f/2.8, Minolta mount, purchased for $20. Works as a 270mm f/2.8 on the GH-2. I really like this lens.
  • Sigma 28mm to 70mm zoom, f/2.8, Minolta mount, bought it back in the 1980s.Works as a 56 to 140mm f/2.8 equivalent zoom on the GH-2. In many ways, this is one of my favorite lenses.  It is fairly fast and is almost a normal lens (56mm equiv.) at the wide angle end, plus very sharp under pixel peeping conditions.
  • Sigma 24mm wide angle prime, Minolta mount, bought in the 1980s. This is my fake 50mm standard lens – really, a 48mm equivalent.
  • Minolta 50mm prime, f/1.4, came with my original Minolta SRT-101 film camera. Works like a 100mm f/1.4 lens – super for indoor and night shots.
  • Minolta 50mm prime, f/1.7, came with an original Minolta X700 film camera.
  • Tamron 4mm-12mm zoom, f/1.4, C-mount CCTV lens, purchased for $144. Used only in 1920×1080/24p video mode. Works equivalent to a 21mm lens on a 35mm film camera when used in the 1080/24p video mode. Also works as a super macro lens.
  • Not shown: Lumix 14-42mm f/3.5 zoom that came with the GH-2.

This was the first time I’d pulled everything out and this collection seemed impressive.  Okay, okay, may be I am easily impressed. I know, its not Canon L-series glass. But it doesn’t cost as much as a new car either!

In fact, except for the Lumix lens, there’s not much money in this at all. I had all the Minolta lenses stored for decades.

The micro 4/3ds format enables use of all those old and often very good lenses. Either ones you already have, or ones that you can buy cheaply on Craigslist, EBay, or some camera stores and pawn shops.

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Cameras, Editing, Techniques

Video editing on the iPad #videography #ipad

Image representing iPad as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

I am apparently the last person on earth who does not yet have an iPad. Anyway, those that have them are using them for video editing, as described here: Quick-edit Videography with iMovie for iPad « Moving at the Speed of Creativity.

Me, I still use my MacBook for portable work. Why? I like having over 100 Gigabytes of disk storage available, plus an external disk drive as well. I store stills and video on board while traveling.

For event videography, I sometimes record direct to disk, routing the Canon XH A1’s firewire output direct to the Macbook. This copies the HDV equivalent files to the disk, for captureless editing. At 12 to 13 GB per hours, this uses up considerable disk space rather quickly!

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Cameras

Unique Micro Four Thirds (m43) Lenses

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Nikkor 50mm f /1.8 lens for the Nikon F-mount.
Image via Wikipedia

A neat opportunity with the micro 4/3ds cameras is the opportunity to readily use older lenses or, for DSLR-type cameras, non-standard lenses.

I recently bought a remarkable Vivitar f2.8 135mm prime lens for the Minolta mount for $20 on EBay. Wow. On the micro 4/3ds camera, there is a 2x multiplier so that this becomes an f2.8 270mm lens. For $20 🙂

With a Minolta to m43 adapter ring, this works like a champ. My first two photos with this wonderful lens are below – click on the photos for full size.

The first one illustrates the narrow depth of field, photographing my BBQ grill cover from the side. Photographed using the GH-2, Minolta to m43 adapter ring, and the Vivitar f2.8 135mm lens. Who says you can’t get narrow depth of field with a micro four thirds camera?

The second is the required flowers shot.

Again, click on the photos to see full size.

I also picked up a Tamron 4mm to 12mm C-mount surveillance camera zoom. For shooting video, this makes a fantastic wide angle lens, providing the equivalent of a 10.4mm lens in 1920×1080 video mode.  C-mount lenses were used on professional 16mm cameras and many professional video cameras of the past. They are also used on surveillance cameras today. If you get one, make sure it has “1/2 inch” coverage. There are tons of C-mount lens for sale on EBay.

When I have more time, I will have to shoot some demo videos and more photos to illustrate. If only we could get a nice, slow, motorized zoom on one of these cameras, I wouldn’t need my video cameras!

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Cameras, Editing

Digital still photography

Until now, most of my still photography was mostly family and vacation snapshots with only a bit being serious still photography. Most of my photography has been at 30 frames per second.

As a very happy owner of a Panasonic Lumix GH-2 – which I bought for video work, of course – I am now getting interested in still photography once again. I say “once again” since I had (and still have) a darkroom that has not been used much in recent years. In other words, I used to do lots of still photography.

This week I joined the 21st century and begin working with RAW images. Having not been shooting and editing RAW images until now makes me feel like, well, a dork.

I downloaded the trial versions of Adobe Lightroom and Apple’s Aperture. I like both of them and especially like the electronic download price for Aperture ($80 at the Mac App store).

Unfortunately, after I imported an iPhoto library the program began crashing and bogged down to unbelievably slow, even after applying a number of tricks that do improve the speed. But the crashes, and Apple’s creating confusion about its professional products with the release of FCP X have some thinking that Apple may not continue on with Aperture. Since the release of version 3 – which was buggy and suffered from slow performance – their sales plummeted. Most of those problems have been fixed in 3.1 and it seems the new $80 price point might be an attempt to win back market share – or at least test if there is a market for Apple at that price. Who knows?

Regarding Final Cut Pro X – its billed as a successor, and therefore, presumably upgrade, to Final Cut Pro 7. But they left out sufficient features that many think it is a downgrade and are not happy with FCPX. Thousands of professionals have signed a petition to Apple asking them to re-instate FCP 7. They have good reasons to complain. FCP X drops features from FCP and is not compatible with FCP 7. That means, say, if your team is adding new editing workstations to work on existing projects, your team is stuck – FCP 7 has been discontinued and FCP X cannot edit your current FCP 7 projects. Quite a mess.

In fact, FCP X is an upgrade to Final Cut Express. Apple discontinued Final Cut Express upon introducing FCP X. They also added in features like importing from iMovie, something that professional editors have about zero likelihood of using. The key idea that seems missed so far is that FCP X is a upgrade to FCE. And while FCE was officially discontinued, it kind of looks like FCP was itself discontinued. It’s Final Cut Express – may be that is where the “X” comes from, “Express”?

Is Apple abandoning the professional market? That market always was small – but was influential in terms of respected individuals and teams buying Apple and encouraging others to do so. The bigger market is the pro-sumer market, not professionals. With the success of iPhone, iPod, and iPad, does Apple need those influencers still? Probably not.

Which gets us back to Aperture. Many now think Aperture may go the same way as FCP – which means, end of life.  It was a professional product – perhaps with the price drop, Apple is trying to re-position it as a pro-sumer product and out of the crosshairs of Adobe’s better products.

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Cameras, Techniques

Cameras moving to “backside illumination” sensors

Camera market flipping to new sensor technology | Deep Tech – CNET News.

I saw a demo of BSI at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show. BSI enabled decent, low noise photos to be taken in very poor light – such as outdoors at night.

All of the examples I have seen have been in still picture cameras, some of which also take video. I have not yet seen this technology in a “pure video” camera example, but I imagine that will change soon.

Still camera makers seem to be a in race to ever increasing gigapixel cameras, providing a resolution that exceeds that of the lens. I would not mind less resolution with better low light capability. Will that ever happen?