[robot w/ no flash, lizard head 86mm & shak music 88mm, i.e. 420mm equiv. w/ no flash hand-held]
Today (and yesterday) it has poured with rain all day long so I am trapped inside experimenting with my new camera, awaiting a chance to try less familiar subjects! Tomorrow is ANZAC Day (a National Holiday) so perhaps an opportunity will present itself. Here are some preliminary outcomes, without tripod. Much as I envy the M8, it stubbornly remains beyond my reach so I have decided to see what I can do with the humble V-Lux. It is at the other end of the Leica spectrum completely but has an incredible fixed DC Vario-Elmarit zoom lens 7.4–88.8 mm f/2.8–3.7 ASPH. (equivalent to 35–420 millimeters for 35 mm format), 12 x optical zoom in a single surprisingly light-weight, portable unit. It is not a substitute for the colour achievable with the Canon EOS but certainly saves carrying around 2 or 3 heavy lenses, the noisiness of previous Leica/Panasonic digital cameras is said to be reduced in the new software/compression processing, and the Leica lens is razor-sharp / fairly fast f/2.8-3.7 @ 420mm (with image stabilisation). There is quite substantial manual control. So far, I am even delighted with its superior performance over my Digilux 2 (a much more expensive camera)! Despite the tactile pleasure and intellectual satisfaction of the very manual retro-feel/retro-looking Digilux, that invokes a certain patience and constructive approach to composition associated with manual photography, it does produce rather noisy (i.e. grainy appearance) images and colour aberration in low-light situations or high ASA speed equivalent settings. The V-lux goes up to ASA 1600 at full resolution and up to ASA 3200 at reduced resolution to allow for 'extreme-sensitivity mode'. The resolution is up to 10 MP raw or JPEG.
[shoes 44.3mm, room wide-angle, bananas & delete key 7.4mm 35mm equiv f/2.8 macro: looks like my computer needs a bath! The World Changing book and web site are very interesting sources of knowledge about environmental consciousness, sustainability and smart applications of technology]
[photography books with/without flash taken in the B&W colour adjustment mode: warm/cool/sepia also available]
