Dunsborough

Cape Naturaliste again

Mirrorless cameras

Well it turns out there are many mirrorless cameras rumored to be announced in the next few months. Take a look here: http://www.mirrorlessrumors.com/a-possible-mirrorless-roadmap-for-march-june/

I will certainly wait for some of those announcements before I decide on my next camera system; looks like Nikon will announce theirs very soon.

Here is another very interesting rumor, a digital version of the Fuji TX camera system (same as the Hasselblad XPan). These cameras are 35mm rangefinders that use medium format lenses to make a longer format “panoramic” exposure on the 35mm film; I think the aspect ration was 2.5:1 rather than the usual 1.5:1. A good friend of mine use to have an XPan and we both loved it! I really hope this rumor is true.

These are exiting times for photography.

Downsizing my kit

So… I got thinking the other day about how I haven’t had much time to get out taking photos recently; however I still love it and when I travel, I have all the time you could want for photography. So I realize now that I’m more of a travel photographer than anything else.

With this realization, I was thinking I would like to downsize my kit as much as possible; whilst the D90 + 16-85mm I’ve been using recently isn’t particularly bulky, there are a lot of new cameras designed to be more compact than ones based on the old 35mm film format.
So I started looking at the Panasonic GF2

and the Olympus E-PL2

both micro four third format cameras, and the Olympus one seemed to have a cool old school design that appealed to me. Then along came Sony’s answer to the compact interchangeable lens system with the NEX, but strangely, I guess because it was too different to what I was used to, having no mirror, I mentally wrote it off as a glorified point and shoot.
I decided to go to the local shop to have a closer look at the Olympus and Panasonic cameras, but after talking to the salesman and explaining how I wanted something more compact than my D90 he talked me into the NEX system, stating it has better IQ than the other two and it is obviously more compact.

I did some research and indeed the NEX cameras have much better high iso performance than the others, in fact as some testing done here shows they have slightly better high iso performance than the D90.
So in summary, the NEX cameras have better high iso performance than the other cameras I was thinking about and they are more compact too. You see the reason the NEX system is more compact is that it is the first one to be designed from ground up to be mirrorless, and whilst the other two cameras are mirrorless, the four thirds system didn’t start that way, and because the system started with a mirror, that limits how compact it can be. The reason the high iso performance is in a different league with the NEX cameras is that the chip physical size is bigger than the chip in the four thirds system.

So the long story short is that I’m selling my D90 and getting a NEX camera; though rumors have it that some new NEX cameras are coming in a couple of months as the NEX-3 is already discontinued in Japan, so I’ll wait for the new cameras to come.

I’m curious if anyone has gone from a DSLR to a NEX and have shared their story? I will certainly update with my findings once I have had some time with it. One very cool thing about the NEX is that it has such a short distance from the lens mount to the sensor that you can get lens adapters for any kind of lens; check out this cool blog: Lens Bubbles; this guy uses all sorts of old lenses on his NEX-5, though I do believe you have to change the aperture manually and focus manually. I think one day I will get a Leica lens like this, though you pay a premium for those.

 

Italy

Toscana

Pompeii

Inside St. Peter’s Basilica

With literally hundreds of people directly behind me, beyond a rope divider was this “holy” man… great for photography.

On the road between Rovereto and Schio

Inside Civita di Bangoregio

Cinque Terre

Italy

Being half Italian, and having grown up in Italy for 6 years, the Italian culture is very much part of my life. After 15 years of living in Australia I finally had the chance to go back there on holiday for almost a month, and boy did I have fun taking photos.

Here are some, I might upload some more at some stage.

 

Inside il Colosseo.

 

Sunflowers around Brolio, Toscana.

 

A gothic church in Siena, Toscana.

 

My favorite place, called Civita di Bangoregio, it is a small Etruscan town only accessible by this foot bridge.

 

On the road between Rovereto and Schio

 

Up the mountain from Malcesine on Lago di Garda.

 

I think you know where this is.

Dunsborough #6

This is literally around the corner from Meelup beach. I’m quite happy with it because I don’t usually get ok shots in the middle of the day

Dunsborough #5

Cape Naturaliste.

Dunsborough #4

I just love getting up before sunrise, only to take photos though.

Dunsborough #3

Cape Naturaliste again. The rocks there are something else.

Dunsborough #2

This is probably my favorite shot from the Dunsborought trip. 4 vertical image stitch taken close to Mellup Beach just as the sun rose. The file ended up being 26 megapixels, so I might do a nice big print on canvas.