Changeable weather

After the early rain yesterday it faired up towards evening so I hit the beach without much idea of what to do other than play around with the G2. I also carted along a real camera with one lens, an 85mm. Looking out the water's edge I saw some activity and wandered out to see what was going on. It turned out there was group practising their kayaking skills in preparation for a charity crossing of the English Channel.

I didn't have much time before they were launched and out of range, so I amused myself making use of the flippy screen to avoid having to kneel down in the water!

A bright low sun made it pretty much impossible to avoid blowing the highlights with either camera. I like shooting against the light, but it's difficult to decide on a workable exposure.

Trying to time the shots was proving tricky. I hadn't realised how much earlier I had to predict movement with the mirrorless camera compared to using a DSLR. The answer was to set the camera to burst mode and fire in advance. The quality of the out of focus areas is quite pleasing from the kit lens.

When it comes to taking landscapes the small camera has the advantage over a DSLR of greater depth of field. It also gives pleasing colours.

While pictures from both cameras were producing coolish looking pictures using auto white balance those from the DSLR were appreciably cooler. It must be a Nikon thing. Countered against that the Panasonic makes blues brighter and almost every file needs the saturation of the blue channel reducing or blue items stand out.

Making beachscapes on this featureless coastline relies entirely on the light and the sky. I made the frame above because I liked the symmetry of the water and the darker clouds created.  The two shots below highlighted the benefits of the 4:3 ratio for making pictures in portrait orientation, although neither is particularly good and both are a little hackneyed.

The tide was racing in, as it does over the flat sands. I kept my eyes on the filling gully between me and the dunes, but a family with their dogs left it late enough to have to wade knee-deep through it. The beach isn't as flat as it looks.

The clouds coming in off teh sea made for a colourful sunset, but by now the kayakers had returned and I was faced with either having them well exposed or silhouetted. Keeping the sun out of the frame was crucial. Unfortunately the best angles made that impossible.

 As the only wide angle lens I had with me was on the small camera it gave me an opportunity to see how it performed for this sort of stuff. Again the shutter lag was a bit of a problem, but other than that the focusing was fast and accurate enough. In less challenging light conditions I'm sure it would be well up to the task.

The two shots here pleased me. The second shot benefits from the depth of field the sensor gives at wider apertures than a DSLR provides. I guess that's the trade off against the limited dynamic range.

The camera will serve nicely as a second camera when I know what I'll be doing with the main camera, but mostly I like a wider lens on my second body. Alas, the only available options for m4/3 cost more than I've spent on the camera and two lenses. A pity because there are reasonably priced options for longer zooms.

Using two similar but different cameras can be a bit confusing. Especially when one is a recent acquisition and one of the controls works the opposite way. Something that I really did notice was the difference between the viewfinders. Both have their advantages. The DSLR's is bright and clear, but the electronic viewfinder changes brightness as exposure compensation or white balance changes are applied. WYSIWYG. It started to seem odd to be looking through the optical viewfinder of the Nikon and nothing altered when I increased the exposure!

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