There comes a point where the “classic” has been done and now comes the “post classic era”. I think that this is the way it has to be. They have spectacular graphic imaginations and their work is more illustration than photography. Looking at the work of photography school graduates I am struck by two things. Photographers agonise over two serious questions: first, is my camera as good as yours and second, why am I doing this? What is there left to photograph? Hasn’t it all been done? Today it is all Micro Four Thirds for me: The Olympus OMD E-M1 MarkII, Panasonic G85 and Panasonic GX9. Then came Nikons, Canons and a Sony, until I could re-enter the Olympus fold with the original OMD E-M5. Sadly there was no easy transition from film to digital for Olympus people and so I became a Nikon D70 owner. From that day until my conversion to digital I remained a faithful Olympus customer. In 1975 I bought my first Olympus, the OM1. I no longer needed to carry an exposure meter or to guess the exposure. It is a beautifully made camera that served me well until I was seduced by the first Pentax Spotmatic. But the Pentax had a curious semi-automatic diaphragm with a lever to open the aperture for focus but the iris remained closed at its set f stop after the exposure. Even German SLRs had mirror black-out at that stage. This, I think, was the first SLR with instant return mirror that a mere mortal cloud afford. In the early sixties I sold the Retina and bought my first single lens reflex cam era, the Pentax S1. ![]() My ruinously expensive love affair with photography began in 1956 when I got my first 35mm camera – a Kodak Retina 1b. Moral of the story: Take anything I say with a grain of salt! Years before it became a fact I predicted that the day would come when most people would be using only their mobile phones to shoot photos and videos. ![]() Prediction Four: This one I made half in jest to stimulate discussion and argument, so I am not claiming prophet status. My last three camera purchases have all been decided on their 4K video quality. Who needs video in a stills camera? There are still a few die-hards who will applaud my prediction, but not me. Prediction Three: Hybrid still/video cameras will never catch on. I have turned my back on optical viewfinders – they are so last century! Or on a TV with your nose pressed to the screen. What’s more it is like looking at the image through a coarse screen-wire door. I mean, have you seen the shutter lag? You compose the picture and by the time you have pressed the button and fired the shutter the subject has disappeared over the horizon. Prediction Two: Electronic viewfinders will be a passing fad of interest only to players of video games. Canon has declared that the megapixel race is over. Prediction One: No one can possibly want more than 5 megapixels. Over that time I made a number of predictions about the future of digital photography technology and all of those predictions, except one, turned out to be wrong. Once more into the Treasury! Review: Panasonic Leica 10-400mm lensįor fourteen years, from 2002 to 2016, I reviewed digital cameras, lenses, printers, accessories and software for the Fairfax group of newspapers in Australia. ![]() Review: Panasonic Lumix 100-300mm lensīut…Every time I ventured out with the Lumix I was tormented by the thought that for $1000 more I could have the Panasonic Leica 100-400mm, bringing the tiny birds a little closer. First I bought the Panasonic Lumix 100-300mm lens. Pursuing birds has led me to plunder the Exchequer to equip myself with a suitable lens – or, as it turned out, lenses. I have described my Digital Downsizing process in this video, Digital Downsizing,explaining how I reduced my multi-system camera collection to the current trio of Micro Four Thirds cameras. Since retiring from the newspaper reviewing job I have tended to concentrate on bird photography for which the Panasonic Leica 100-400 lens is indispensable. I have a bag full of lenses covering focal lengths 7mm to 400mm. I currently own three MFT cameras – the sublime OLYMPUS OMD E-M1 MarkII the PANASONIC G85 and the PANASONIC GX9. ![]() However, since then I have started to create videos about various features and accessories of the Micro Four Thirds camera system. I closed my previous web site at the beginning of 2017 thinking that it had served its purpose as a permanent archive of my digital photography equipment reviews that had been published in the Fairfax newspapers. TODAY I AM RETURNING to the Great Global Information Superhighway.
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