Photo Basic Instincts

What is the best camera for you? For sure the camera you bring with you and take pictures with it!

It may be common sense to bring a camera with you and to take pictures but it is not by far always true when you are observing all the so-called photographers. Many love to play and pretend to be great photo artist and like to flash with expensive pieces of equipment. That last two or three-decade tendency had flourished around the world at a point that real “day-to-day” photographers seems to be an animal in process of extinction with the exception multi-phone snap shooters mostly self shooters.

Urban Sky Scape

Cameras are nice media expression tools and as a tool intended to be used on the main purpose of taking pictures. And take pictures must have some kind of purpose by itself (to look at them, to show them, to share them, etc.) So it bring us back to a debate not on to select or use a camera but when you will use it except for showing to the other fellows (camera shops, clubs, schools are good for that!).

No technically perfect but perfect expression!

Good habits

Learning to interact with your camera will help you a lot to mastermind the medium and will become a second nature to do photography. Take time to play with your tool, to try the functionalities and to discover the full potential of it and there is a lot in it. Go see some “users” reviews that are presenting interesting results obtained during photo sessions. Keep your camera “on sigh” and it will be easy to fulfil most of your photo temptations. Take pictures of your surrounding to find angles, moments, compositions, or exposures that will reinvent the interpretation of your day-to-day world.

Digital is cheap

Yes digital photography is very cheap even if you want to get first class equipment. You just have to watch and wait for the best opportunities to buy products (see my other article about this: http://photodanielm.blogspot.ca/2015/11/over-paying-for-novelties-or-sub-paying.html )

You can take all the pictures you want and keep them first on your memory card. For editing your computer or tablet will work perfectly. On a regular base you can duplicate your photo files to an external hard disk for future references. But remember the real pictures that are lasting are the one that are still shared and all the others are past and forgotten memories.

Museum are very special space to experiment

Experiment yes but better Persist

You have to experiment to find your own way of photo expression. It is true at first but you must also persist in your search to explore and refine the interpretation of your subject. Get a fine shot at first glance is lucky but it is very difficult to repeat this everyday and everywhere. You must understand in your way how you can reproduce the process of doing the pictures that are pleasing to you and your public. So take pictures, take pictures and retake pictures, again and again.

Edit a presentation and share it

B&W add a lot by graphic expression

So you have a lot of provoking pictures. What is the next step? The next basic step is to encourage yourself to do more photography and as humans we need human reconnaissance. To get that the only way is to present and share your pictures with others. Put pictures on your walls, share over social media, open a Web account, create your own blog, and share your experiences with forum, other blogs and public photo files. Get reactions from others that will motivate you to follow your own path in accordance or not with the public eyes.

And don’t forget that you are a kind of unique person that cannot please to everybody.

Be ready, be interest and press the shutter!

Explore the medium, the subject, the mood

Photography is a medium among other forms of expression. The great artistic representations are the one that the subject transcends the medium. By seeing a picture you trigger a psychological process that will initiate a minded personal quest. So you have to consider things or subjects over the photograph by itself. It is asking a more fundamental task regarding the purpose of doing photography or other forms of expression.

find your own way, explore, repeat, share...

and more important have fun!

The Twin project

Only a vision of twin duality of time and thinks...

Over paying for novelties or sub-paying for results

Mirrorless photo-video equipment can be a hard and tricky category of products to purchase. Compare to their D-SLR competition there are expensive, distinctive but not always intuitive to operate and their starting evolution was fast and decisive.

Overtime you can spend a lot of money for far less better results than we are thinking at first. That has happened to me during my first days as a new user of the M4/3 format and this can be applied equally with many of the other mirrorless categories.

Fujifilm X-E2 is a very attractive model that can be
 upgraded and perform almost as the newest  XT-1/10

Will I be better served to put big money on the latest novelties? We can answer easily by yes knowing the rapid evolution of the medium but is it worth to wait six months to one year to get the same technological advancement at a fraction of the initial introducing selling price.

Panasonic GX7 / 20mm F1.7 at $639US !

Working the last years of my modest photo production with Fujifilm, Olympus and Panasonic cameras and lenses I have developed a different approach in consuming equipment. I love to see the different manufacturers upgrading theirs products but I prefer to transfer the RD cost of those novelties to the aficionados of the newest models on the market.

Olympus EP-3 / 14-42mm: A very fine deal at $399US two years ago!

Managing cost evolution.

These following simple examples has given me both saving and results at lower cost and a better assurance of reliability:

I have chosen to buy Olympus EP-3 and later on OM-D E-M5 at the end their selling cycle at half price of their initial tag. Those cameras give me a lot of pleasing results and I was able to resale them with a minimum money lost.

I did the same move in buying the Panasonic Lumix GX7 for less than half of the introducing selling price by using a combination of Manufacturer Instant Rebate and bulk packaging with the very good Lumix G 20mm F1.7 (II) lens. And the GX7 and the 20mm lens are delivering excellent results for my purpose. Fuji film X-E2 is another fine example of a top model that can sold for a very reasonable selling price and knowing that a lot of past Fujifilm models like the X-E2 have the possibility to be substantially upgraded had to the value of the camera.

For sure the Fujifilm X-Pro2 or X-E2S, the Olympus OM-D E-M5 II and the Panasonic GX8 are without question more up to date products with design and functionality advantages but I didn’t wanted to spend that level of money. At the end it depends on you if you want to get right now the newest offers. But with time the big forward technological advancements will be substituted by smaller refinements that will impact far less the final photographic image results.

Olympus OM-D E-M5/14-42mm at $499US !

And the less money putted on cameras can be converted to more interesting possibility of traveling, visiting or even buying other photo accessories if you please. After all it's your money...

On the street with the Panasonic Lumix GX7

The Panasonic Lumix GX7 digital camera was marketed more than two years ago and has been already replaced by the newest model GX8. But the GX7 is still used by many photographers as an everyday camera. It is a very handy camera designed first for still photography despite its own video ability.

Table Top Wall Stripes

Digital compact camera offers handling advantages in term of small dimensions and low weight. But because of the multiple function buttons seen on many very diminutive models like the Lumix GM1 or GM5 we have reached a point that the compactness is inducing a lot of involuntary finger touch manipulations. The Panasonic Lumix GX7 can be classified as a mid-size compact camera with interchange lens option. It is not a subcompact (GM5 class) but combined with many Lumix G lenses it stays a small package.

With user experiences you can memorize most of the main function buttons and operating reels. As usual I have found there is too many options available to really mastermind their utility on picture taking situations with fast rate shooting. By keeping it simple you will better optimize your photographic results.


The display fonction button can be too easily involuntary activated and the rear adjusting dial edge is located too far to get a confortable reach from you thumb. Those two design flaws can be annoying in particular when you are using more manual setting.

The viewing system that offers a LCD screen and an electronic viewfinder (EVF) is very distinctive of camera design inspired by the ancient rangefinder cameras. It is a compact camera but not as a subcompact or a miniature like the Panasonic Lumix GM5. In that sense the handling of the GX7 is more secure partly because of the larger dimension of the body of the camera. Face strong front day lighting the EVF will generate a more contrast picture that doesn’t really help to evaluate the fine details of your composition. In those cases you have to guess first and check the result over the LCD screen.

Fifteen before six: Very good B&W gray tonal graduation even in using high ISO setting

The images preserved from the fine quality JPEG file option are generally very exploitable for web uses and mid-sized printout. As usual a basic RAW file will give the full opportunity to more deeply post-treat the taken image. The default contrast rendering is on the high side and you may have to use some of the softer rendering picture taking options to counteract this effect. The color rendering is mainly natural but artificial lightning can generate some misinterpretation of the white balance auto setting function.

Native JPEG Outdoor color rendering is very accurate

Onboard flash

To have an onboard flash option is liberation. The flash of the Lumix GX7 is easily reachable by a mechanical switch on the backside of the camera. As a fill flash it work very nicely but it can be advisable to power down a bit the flash output especially with nearby subjects. As a commander flash it is a perfect tool. And Panasonic designers preserve the possibility to add a more powerful unit via the hot shoe.

The EVF viewfinder as waist (sternum !) level finder

Many reviewers were sceptical about the use of the partly moveable viewfinder of the Panasonic Lumix GX7. Looking down to a camera viewfinder is not a real novelty. You can go back to the ancient twin lens reflex or to the very first reflex mirror cameras to find the same way of viewing your picture. A complete generation of amateur and professional photographs can easily remember the glorious days of the various Hasselblades and Rolleiflexes. The “waist level “ view option allows the photographer to better control the linear rendering of the lens by facilitating the positioning of the camera which respect parallel lines better than tilting up or down your point of view. It is remarkable that so many photo experts have missed that point.

Spontaneous close-up photography is easy by using larger aperture prime lenses such as the Panasonic Lumix G 20mm f1.7

As I have pointed out with many other camera models of the same features like EVF, it is very recommendable to bring extra batteries to prevent abrupt photo session finales.

Overall the Panasonic Lumix GX7 camera has been and still is a very competent picture-taking companion. It generate very interesting image results, the overall handling is on the good side, the Panasonic lens offering is correctly extended (and can be completed with the Olympus M4/3 counterpart lenses), the camera-lens combination is discrete, the operating system cost is reasonable and you can manage to overcome the few design flaws of the camera. 

BNC Tower over De la Commune, Old-Montreal