Videographer

GRD II, f4.5, 1/320, ISO 100, RAW

I finished work early and as so often recently went for a walk in Greenwich park where I took a few pictures with the GRD II. Like yesterday, I knew after taking this picture that it will probably end up as my choice for today.

Today, I also recieved my CX1 review sample. There will be a few changes to my review system this time round so I will have something up by tomorrow.
The first impression of the CX1 however is great, the camera is extremely well built, the AF is very fast and that screen is just amazing.

Crossing

GRD II, f4, 1/320, ISO 100, RAW

After yesterday's post, I had a look through my recent pictures and noticed that I have hardly done any street photography in London. I have tried to look out for new things but at the end I do enjoy street photography more. I decided to do more street photography this week but also want to try and give it a different look.

I took this picture (as so many other) during lunch, at first I noticed the reflection on the street and it looked like a pedestrian crossing. Then I needed a subject but did not want to have the subject full in the frame. I have boosted the contrast a lot in this picture to get a picture without many grey tones, almost like using the text mode. I cropped it to 1:1 format because I feel it works beter like this and I started to really like the square format, although I prefer to always shoot in 4:3 and crop later to the intended format.

Four Friends

GRD II, f2.4, 1/30, ISO 283, RAW

I haven't been that inspired recently. Don't want to become stale and upload boring pictures so I think I need to set myself another project to work on. Maybe I have to start with a weekly theme again since this is always fun and more challenging than just taking random picturss of things I notice daily.

Took this while walking home through Greenwich park today. It was raining but the walk was still nice and quite sheltered by the trees. This however also reminded me why a weather proof camera would be great and make things a lot easier.

Kid's Fountain

GRD II, f2.4, 1/40, ISO 80, RAW

After the marathon (in taking pictures) yesterday, I took it easy today. The weather was the complete opposite as it was cold and raining so not great for walking outside and taking pictures.
Took this picture after lunch on my way back to the office and liked the colors and contrast that the grey weather gave to this fountain.

London Marathon 2009

Got up early today to go on an assignment and take pictures of the 2009 Flora London Marathon. It was an event by the LPMG and Bliss to take pictures of the official bliss runners. Although they announced rain for today, the weather has been fantastic and great for being out and taking pictures although the harsh light posed a problem at times.

I decided to take the Panasonic LC1 with me since it has a very usefull zoom, fast lens, handles very well and the dynamic range is very good. Everyone else had big dSLRs with long zoom lenses so my 90mm tele was where their zoom lenses started. My choice of cameras did stick out but at least I did not have to worry about a sore neck at the end of the day ;).
The only problem with my choice of camera is the slow and unreliable AF and the EVF lag of the LC1, I had to resort to manual focus at times and using one eye to frame through the EVF and the other to see the actual scene, this worked ok although the EVF is not 1:1. It is really a shame Panasonic never released a LC2 based on a 4/3 sensor and faster AF, a G1 in a LC1 body would be a fantastic camera and a bit like a digital Contax G2. I think the most important thing in a new camera for me is a fast and reliable AF, using manual focus is ok but I would not want to rely on it all the time.

Since I never go out of the house without one of my GRDs, I also had the GRD I with me for street shots while walking around. It did give me some very nice shots but also a few problems that I need to look into.

You can see more pictures from the marathon in my Dropbox gallery here.

Shadow & Texture

GRD II, f3.5, 1/500, ISO 80, RAW

Took this picture while out for a walk today. I liked the light and texture of it.

Another Shadow

GRD II, f4, 1/500, ISO 80, RAW

Took this again in Greenwich park and liked the form of the shadow. I thought of changing it to b&w but found that the tones of green worked much better.