Panasonic GF-1 notes

So now that I have used the Panasonic GF-1 for a few days, a few quick notes. This is part of a new category on the blog: “Michael’s Quick Judgment“.

Executive summary: I love it, and it will be a very cool addition to my toolbox.

Cool, and sexy:

But that is not enough to spend money. So why would I actually buy a small camera?

Well, for one, because it is lighter and smaller than an SLR. My other cameras (a Canon 1D Mark IV, a 1Ds Mark III, and a 7D) are all very considerably heavier and bigger.

Second, it is easy to take street photos with a small point and shoot. And you can always carry it.

And it is allowed where “pros” are not (London’s Trafalgar Square, Oakville Place Mall, and many other places where “professional” cameras are frowned upon.

So there are places where it fits in, in spite of not being an SLR.

But until recently, small cameras weren’t quite good enough. The small sensor created a lot of image noise at any ISO greater than 100. No longer. With large sensors like the one in this “Micro Four Thirds” spec camera, this is becoming practical.

I came late to the party. These cameras have existed at least since last year. But I like to be a settler, not a pioneer, and as said, David Honl’s Leica two weeks ago in Las Vegas really inspired me. I was carrying a big SLR; Dave had a point and shoot. And got essentially the same shots.

So to start off, here is a shot I took during last Sunday’s Creative Urban Photography course in Oakville:

Knox Presbyterian Church in Oakville, by Michael Willems

Knox Presbyterian Church in Oakville

And a full size detail from that shot (click to see it at its actual size):

Knox Presbyterian Church in Oakville, by Michael Willems

Knox Presbyterian Church in Oakville (detail)

Now I noticed that Lightroom introduced a little noise there; noise I do not see in the original. Look at the sky. Odd, but a very small tweak of Lightroom’s excellent Noise Cancellation fixes that:

Knox Presbyterian Church in Oakville, by Michael Willems

Knox Presbyterian Church in Oakville (detail 2)

So let me summarize my feelings about this camera:

Likes:

  • The coolness, let’s face it. This camera is very cute, almost Leica-cute.
  • The great image quality. And that is what it is all about.
  • The large “micro four thirds” sensor.
  • That flat 20mm f/1.7 lens (equivalent to 40mm). They call them “Pancake” lenses because they are thin, and they do not come out when you turn on the camera.
  • The small form factor.
  • The ultra-sharp live-view LCD.
  • The flash hotshoe – for my pocketwizards.
  • A very convenient (and customizable) AE lock button.
  • RAW images.
  • Customizable Fn button.
  • Great manual focusing, when you choose to use it (turn the ring and the preview zooms in).
  • In general, the amazing camera customizability (including tweaking the LCD colours!). This is a camera for pros.
  • Super fast response speed: no shutter delay, like on cheap point-and-shoots.

Muuh… neither here nor there; “I can live with it”:

  • No viewfinder (an optional extra).
  • The tiny fragile flash.
  • No in-camera image stabilisation.
  • No continuous focus with the 20mm lens.
  • Video (but I do not use this camera for video: I have my SLRs).
  • Face recognition (including some stored individuals).
  • Scene modes (I don’t need them: laudably, you can disable them).
  • The way the custom modes work.

Minor dislikes:

  • The slippery, nigh-impossible to turn control wheel.
  • The click wheel: push to switch functions. Combined with “slippery” above this is a bad combo.
  • The “My Menu” that you cannot store the way you want it.

Overall: I am lovin’ it so far, and I have no doubt that this will continue. Amazingly, I am waking around with a small point and shoot.

The big sensor is smaller than an SLR’s, but large enough to give me great selective depth of field, and low noise at higher ISOs. The depth of field and the ability to use fast prime lenses are the main reasons I chose this camera over the excellent Canon G11.

I would normally not dream of shooting the police scanner on my desk in dim office light at 320 ISO and at f/1.7:

Scanner, by Michael Willems

Scanner at f/1.7, 320 ISO

But now I can. And do. Look at the images in yesterday’s post. And at this: the 20mm f/1.7’s lens has an amazing ability to produce those wonderful blurred backgrounds. Large aperture and close focusing ability (20cm) produce pictures like this:

Camera strap, by Michael Willems

Camera strap, GF1 with 20mm f/1.7 lens

Beautiful bokeh – but the amazing thing is that there is any bokeh at all in a small camera.

And then there is the ability to judge exposure before you take the shot, and to lock the fast-reacting spotmeter on a mid-grey object: very cool even for an experienced SLR shooter.

Megapixels, you ask? Not important. If it has more than six, it’s enough. Too many means more noise. This camera has 12, which is about the ideal number. ‘Nuff said.

Of course Nikon, Canon et al are also going to do “small cameras with big sensors”; and in any case, if I had a spare $8k I’d go with a Leica for fun, but this is almost as good and it’s here now, for a fraction of that cost.

Michael’s Quick Judgment: highly recommended, 8/10.

Postscript: see a few more GF1 shots in today’s blog posts, including some taken with an external flash and Pocketwizards.

A few more GF1 snaps

A few more snaps, taken just now, with the Panasonic GF1. Around the house using available light.

This shows me how international my life has been. A random selection of items in my house:

From the Netherlands, and from a time when flying was fun. On KLM, business class and first class passengers used to receive items of Delft Blue chinaware (the houses filled with liquor, which alas has all evaporated in these past 25-plus years):

Delft Blue, photo by Michael Willems with GL1 and 20mm f/1.7 lens

Delft Blue - GL1 with 20mm f/1.7 lens

Indonesia: this figurine takes on all the shame and bad feelings in the household, thus freeing the people who live in the home from them:

Shame! Photo Michael Willems with GL1 and 20mm f/1.7 lens

Shame! Indonesian figurine - GL1 and 20mm f/1.7 lens

Middle East: a chess set bought in Jerusalem:

Chess pieces - Photo Michael Willems with GL1 and 20mm f/1.7 lens

Chess pieces - GL1 and 20mm f/1.7 lens

England: Wedgwood from Harrods:

Wedgwood - Photo Michael Willems with GL1 and 20mm f/1.7 lens

Wedgwood - GL1 and 20mm f/1.7 lens

Libya: a primary drill bit I found in the desert:

Primary Drill Bit, Libya - Photo Michael Willems

Primary Drill Bit, Libya - Panasonic GF-1, 20mm f/1.7 lens

China: a souvenir

Soldier Souvenir, China - Photo Michael Willems

Soldier Souvenir, China - Panasonic GF1

Eastern Europe, a crystal glass:

Crystal glass, photo Michael Willems

Crystal glass, Panasonic GF1 with 20mm f/1.7 lens

Life is one great adventure.

Oakville Sunset

Friday evening, this was the sunset as I was almost home:

Oakville Sunset, photo by Michael Willems

Oakville Sunset, photo by Michael Willems

That colour is not photoshopped: it was real.

For sunset pictures, remember this:

  1. Set your white balance to “daylight” (on the camera or, if shooting RAW, in Lightroom later).
  2. Expose right (if using evaluative metering, then use -1 stop Exposure Compensation). This saturates the colours.

I prefer to set the WB on the camera even when shooting RAW. That way, I can see on the LCD roughly what I may be getting.

Today

“Creative Urban Photography”: a snap from today:

Kid at Lake Ontario, photo by Michael Willems

Kid at Lake Ontario, photo by Michael Willems

Fun course, fun students, great weather: what could be better?

Oh alright, just a few more.

Composition with Yellow, Blue and Red; art in a car park; Photo by Michael Willems

Composition with Yellow, Blue and Red

Coffee by wall, photo Michael Willems

Coffee by wall, photo Michael Willems

Bike detail, photo Michael Willems

Urban Bike detail, photo Michael Willems

Erin, by Michael Willems

Erin with flash, by Michael Willems

Ha ha… can you see my flash (with Honl 1/4 CTO gel) in the last picture?

EDIT: Alright, one more, taken with the GF-1:

Flowers in Oakville, by Michael Willems

Flowers in Oakville, by Michael Willems

CUP

Today I am doing a walkaround in Oakville: “Creative Urban Photography”. A three-hour mix of tech review, storytelling, and more.

What kind of situations do we look for? Things that tell our story. Whatever it may be (and we go into that).

But also, there are visually interesting things we always look for, because they may contain interest. For example, in no particular order:

  1. Curves, particularly S-curves
  2. Converging lines
  3. Reflections
  4. Frames
  5. Colours (contrasting or strong)
  6. Textures
  7. Overview – medium view – detail view: don’t forget the detail
  8. Juxtapositions (often funny ones)

There’s more, of course, much more. On these walks we explore that.

Steeling up to carrying bag and cameras all afternoon!

Geo tip

A tip for those of you for whom this is new: about the iPhone.

I use my iPhone camera rather more than I was expecting I would.

Even though I would not want to publish the pictures I take with it, I do take pictures, and then edit them with Chase Jarvis’s Best Camera app.

Why?

  • To remember things. Like printed directions, or a bill, or a product I want to buy, or a URL I want to remember. Snap snap: and I have it forever. Easier than writing.
  • To remember student comments like the following from last week (OK, I apologize profusely for blowing my own trumpet but I think since this blog is a free resource, at least I am allowed to do this every now and then. Right?):
Michael Willems Reference

Michael Willems Reference

  • Importantly, to geotag. Whenever you take an iPhone picture, the iPhone embeds the location it was taken at. So for each shoot, I do a quick pic like that to remember exactly where I was.
  • To recall where a client wants me to take a shot. To recall a great shoot location for an upcoming portrait. One snap and the exact location is forever memorised.
  • To track a trip. A snap every hour during a road trip, and like Hansel and Gretel, I memorise a trail for later recollection or blogging.
  • To recall a vendor location.
  • To store a portrait snap to go with address book records.

Like many of these tools the real use only becomes apparent later, when bright people start to think of even better uses. Use your iPhone camera and tell me why and how you use it.

POSTSCRIPT: Can you geotag even when you have no data plan? Yes! You do not see a map, but that does not matter. Your iPhone knows where it is because of the built-in GPS. That needs no data plan.

My New Girlfriend

Well, that is what “GF” means. Not that Japanese product marketers would know that, which is why Panasonic names their flagship micro four-thirds camera the “GF1”. So my new girlfriend is not a girlfriend, but a camera:

And oh my, is it ever amazing.

First, credit where credit is due: David Honl, who joined me to teach two workshops last week in Las Vegas, turned up with a small Leica X1 camera. Dave carried just his Leica, and he got very cool shots. I was inspired.

Not inspired enough to mortgage the house and buy a Leica as well. But more than inspired enough to buy its equivalent: the Panasonic GF1.

  1. Micro four thirds sensor – meaning a quarter the size of 35mm film, i.e. a 2:1 ratio
  2. 20mm f/1.7 prime lens (interchangeable)
  3. Great controls, very intuitive
  4. Great feel, almost like a Leica
  5. Flash shoe, so I can use a Pocketwizard
  6. Great image quality, low noise

I have now owned it for about three hours, so not much photography yet – I was teaching. But a few snaps here just to give you a taste of this camera and its excellent prime lens:

Michael Willems, self-portrait with the Panasonic Lumix GF1

Michael Willems, self-portrait at 120 km/h

I love f/1.7:

Panasonic Lumix GF1 shot by Michael Willems

Panasonic Lumix GF1 shot

panasonic Lumix GF1 shot by Michael Willems

Petter, shot by Michael Willems

Panasonic Lumix GF1 shot by Michael Willems

Batteries at f/1.7

Panasonic Lumix GF1 shot by Michael Willems

Brake! (Panasonic Lumix GF1 shot)

So why a little point-and-shoot, from an SLR shooter:

  • A spare.
  • An un-intimidating street photography camera.
  • A camera to carry when  you want to be unrecognized as a pro.
  • A camera to put in a coat pocket when an SLR is not allowed.

I can see me take many pictures in situations where previously, I did not. As in that last shot above.

This camera offers excellent quality: at first sight, amazingly, it looks as good as the SLRs I shoot with, even at high ISOs.

Those were tryout snaps; soon, real photos.

MUA? What MUA?

Why do photographers need a make-up artist (a “MUA”) at a shoot? What does a make-up artist do? I thought that might be worth a few words today.

First of all, a make-up artist does make-up. D’oh.

Make-up is important for everyone – ask a TV producer: who ever appears under the cameras without make-up? Almost no-one. Richard Nixon lost an election because of his unkempt appearance.

Right, Michael. But surely young models, who are not Richard Nixon, do not need make-up? Right?

Sure they do. Even Angelina Jolie (or fill in your dream person).

Let me illustrate that.

Below, Angelina’s skin photographed close-up with a modern DSLR and a 100mm lens:

A wall. Photo Michael Willems

Not Angelina. Photo Michael Willems

Okay, maybe that is not Angelina’s skin, but you get the idea. No-one is perfect – people are people. Young and old, male and female: we all have pores, freckles, blemishes. Young models are, well, young, so they also have acne. The dream angels you see in Vogue have been photoshopped. They’re called “dream” for a reason.

So that is one reason you need a MUA: to fix flaws. So that the photographer does not have to spend hours in Photoshop or Lightroom “fixing” them.

And then the MUA does hair. Straighten, brush, whatever it needs: the MUA knows, and keeps a look out during a shoot.

Once all that is done, a very important function is to match the mood with the look. A good MUA knows how to do this. And to match the make-up and hair with the outfit: this too is very important. The MUA talks to the creative director and the photographer, and helps create the perfect look.

A further reason is to help with things in general. A shoot is always hectic and an extra pair of hands is great. And an extra pair of eyes. Runny eye shadow? Non-glossy lipstick? Hair in the way? The MUA keeps a close lookout for these things.

I would say that the final reason is one of the most important: a good MUA makes the model (male or female, young or old) feel good about themselves, and confident in their abilities. Feel great, feel beautiful, feel like a million dollars – and that translates to looking great.

To illustrate all that, here’s one more shot from Sunday’s workshop:

Evanna Mills, photo by Michael Willems

Evanna Mills (photo Michael Willems, Make-up Liz Valente)

Side note: I have been asked why we use young women as models in the workshops. Do we just like photographing young women?

Sure we do. But you would be surprised how little the photographer actually cares about the type of things he shoots. That is, you can have the same amount of fun shooting women or men, young or old; shooting jewelery or forests, shooting products or buildings. Old men are just as great as young women, creatively speaking. But models, most of whom are young women, are a good choice for several reasons.

One: they get paid to be there and they are very patient. Two: they have infinite energy. Posing all day takes it out of you. And three: they know how to pose for the camera. Finally, most importantly, they are not afraid. A good model is unselfconscious and will not worry for each shot how they look.

And the MUA reinforces that confidence.

Why? Or why not?

I am tempted to buy a small camera to add to my repertoire – like an Olympus PEN or even better, a Panasonic GF-1. The GF-1 with the prime 20mm f/1.7 lens is appealing, except for the slow way you move the focus area and the high price.

But I am tempted nonetheless, thinking “always carry it”, “street photography”, and “at lower noise than the G11, what with the micro four thirds sensor”.

What do you all think?Save my money, or take the plunge?

Geez, Apple. Sort it out already!

So I love the iPad and use it all the time.

As a photographer, I use it to show my images. As you might imagine. Using the only viewer available: the built-in one. Apple in its typical dictatorial fashion seems to prohibit other viewers – there are none on the App store, except a few that look at your Flickr portfolio – let’s not go there.

No, to view files you must use the Apple viewer, and to transfer them, you have to use iTunes.You can tell iTunes what folder (with subfolders) to sync, from anywhere on your computer, and it does that.

So I select some images in Lightroom and write them to JPG files in that chosen sync folder. So far so easy.

But you cannot in any way sort them. I thought that you could sort them by renaming, but no such luck. They always sort by “date taken”.

GROAN. Imagine that I have a selection of model images. And that the earliest one is NOT the one I want to see first, and when people look at the list of folders. Alas, that is what  happens. Misery: that earliest image always shows as the key image for that folder, since it is the first one in it.

One way around: use iPhoto and sort in iPhoto “events”.

Which of course is not practical: managing the RAW images in Lightroom, and then having to further manage the JPG images in iPhoto? Nah, think again, Apple.

One trick, which just took me a while to work out: use the excellent EXIFTOOL command line utility to change the date EXIF tags in the file. Open a command line, run EXIFTOOL (I have written about this before: search for it on the right), and run a string like:

./exiftool -“DateTimeOriginal”=”2008:03:12 10:03:40” -“CreateDate”=”2008:03:12 10:03:40” -“DateTimeDigitized”=”2008:03:12 10:03:40” -“ModifyDate”=”2008:03:12 10:03:40” /Users/michael/Desktop/Kat-20030312-IMG_3202.jpg

Simple it isn’t. But one good thing: you do not have to type the filename. When it comes to the filename, just drag the image from your desktop into the command window, and the Mac enters the fully qualified file name, with path. And yes, that also works in Windows.