yet another bag

I swear I have nearly a dozen camera bags. Some were claimed from my dad's supply, but many are my very own.  Like so many purchases we all make, each made sense at the time.  And now another is coming?

from huntsphotoandvideo.com

Any micro:43 kit is relatively tiny and does not need a 'normal' sized camera bag to rattle around in.  I saw a great little Tamrac Jazz 52 on sale and almost bought it - then noticed that $hipping charge was nearly as much as the bag itself!  Err no thanks.  I then sought it elsewhere on the web but found something even slightly smaller: a  brand-new new Jazz 36 bag was available (last one!) for a slightly lower purchase price + Free Shipping.  Much better, both for price and volume; I can just toss under the tree, let my lovely spouse know of it & then forget about it for a few weeks.  The way my memory misfires have increased, that part will be easy.

As illustrated, this bag barely holds a standard DSLR plus one lens and flash.  In other words it will be very nice fit for a G7 with two zooms plus + a 7.5mm prime* perhaps? The Jazz 36 will definitely serve the purpose that I have in mind - and like no current bag can manage.

As to the G7 itself: so far so good, but wow it's complex!  And with several function buttons and a dozen or two possible settings for each one, it could take a month or more before the camera is functionally set to use.  I hadn't really thought about that!  And I've just installed v2.0 firmware so it's even more complex - Panasonic added the focus-stack-to-video option where you can choose which frame ahs the point in focus that you wanted most & save that shot as an 8Mpx still.  And if you like several planes of focus for the image, go ahead and extract/save them too!  What a clever way to play with 4k video.

I've been testing its low-light abilities first, seeing how close to EV-4 it can focus, how iso 6400/12800 look and how OIS does at such stupid-low exposure levels.  No surprise that details are smudged at such high settings, but very good results in the worst of circumstances.  I'm more than satisfied with these, so I doubt that iso200 shots will be troublesome.  I will check on that too, someday soon. Now to find a website that determines EV levels for a given shutter/aperture/ISO combo!

* Done deal!  I offered below someone's auction price but did not hear back, then found another one ending soon for cheaper.

done and .. slightly un-Done

Papers signed, funds to flow soon.  The home refinance feels good!
However, I had planned to invest a bit more of the surplus funds into lenses.  That plan fails because of those silly fees that added up without being fully factored into my planning worksheets, which converted a pleasant excess into a small check that has several other important uses.  So any other items will wait for January, when no house payment is needed and a bit of excess from our former escrow account will flow back to us.  That money also has places to go, but a pinch of expense for that 7.5mm fisheye can probably be worked in!  It's available for $50 off right now, and hopefully a few buyers won't like fisheyes and drop a copy into my happy hands.  Or maybe an inventory excess sale?  We'll see if it works out.

This lens took a rare 5-star award from photozone, so the secret is out.
Its all-manual functionality and fishy output just aren't for everyone though, regardless of stars!

image via lenstip.com

It should be noted that Olympus sells their 'body-cap' 9mm fisheye for quite a bit less.  It isn't awful and it's a whole 30 grams - but at a fixed f/8 it will not be astronomy-friendly as this f/3.5 model.  With a bit more budget I could squeeze out a Samyang 12mm f/2 which gets rave reviews from astro-types.  It's $100ish more than the 7.5 though, for now I'll Just Say No.

the New Kid

I picked up the New Kid a day early, rescued from the delivery warehouse before it sat too long.  

The Kid looks like new but it was a demo baby for all of 280 clicks.  

The Pentax caught it napping while the battery received a boost.

I'll give the camera some tests later for speed accuracy handling and such. First off it sure is light and compact - no surprise yet always surprising! It's a very nice fit for hands my size. Looks sharp, and the 45-175 silver is reasonably close to the G7 shade, a warmer shade of silver. This camera has many programmable buttons and two control wheels, so just setting it up for use could take a day or so. At some point I'll even explore the images I guess.. 'twas nice of Samys to leave the 4GB memory card inside!

fine-tuning two systems

With Pentax and Lumix now shaping up as thin but complete systems, the chance to improve on optics becomes complex.  The best choices for good glass would be one that fit well into both systems rather than just one.  So with that in mind, here goes!

The first step comes at around 30-40mm.  Several nice Pentax options are available, but micro43 prefers to fill space just above 40mm and the Pentax 50/1.7 does just fine above that.  My 14-42mm would be f/5.6 at the long end, and the 45-175 sits at f/4 - so a faster prime would be very nice to have!  I see two options for sale right now: an older 35mm f/2 and a Limited 40/2.8.  That latter lens would have modern coatings and be auto-everything on the K50, but the 35's aperture ring is handy on the G7.  Since I've ordered an adapter that can adjust the aperture on K-mount lenses the DA40 is the better choice.. but really closer to the 50/1.7 than I would prefer.  More consideration coming..

Another space in m43 is at the wider end.  Many lenses are 14-xx and Lumix has a 14 prime - but what else?  Samyang has stepped in with several fun choices, and the 7.5mm fisheye is a good call as is the 12mm f/2 for sky imaging.  On the other hand, the 12-32mm zoom is tiny but well liked by owners and reviewers.  It's another of those f/3.5-5.6 types which is a bummer.. but getting to 12mm (24mme) is a nice option to have.  I see deals on that as well, so perhaps that will be wide enough - especially since the G7 has a panorama mode for times when wide-angle lenses just won't do.  Good luck using that mode with a fisheye lens, it would be interesting to see how the camera handles such a request!

the Orphan with the red X

It came a day or two ahead of its body, and now it must wait.

The race was close though - one reached Portland, the other Troutdale. Another two hours and they could have traveled together!

So the silver G7 will spend the weekend in the Big City awaiting the Monday delivery cycle.  Ah well, that will be a fine commemoration: it will be mine the same day we sign papers on the refinance of our home.  A great date to celebrate!

And another day of waiting to see how the two silver items match up.

two ways to 300

Both of my recent Pentax telephoto deals have now arrived, so comparing the two will be interesting!

First came the Spiratone 300mm mirror lens.  I have been curious about this type of lens but never won a bid until last week.  At f/5.6 this one has a better chance of AF systems working with it, compared to the slightly slower f/6.3 Tokina.  That lens is micro43 only, while this is conceivably film-friendly  - and arrived PK adapted and stabilized on the K·50!

My first shots with it were surprisingly contrasty and pretty well focused.  These lenses are often criticized for low contrast so that was a nice surprise.  More tests are needed, and the 'donut bokeh' has yet to be featured in the few shots I've taken with it.

Today the Sigma 100-300 arrived.  This is my fourth copy I believe so it's very familiar to me!  AF speed is really fast, telephoto optical speed is dreadful at f/6.7 - this is why the Pentax 55-300 and this lens alternate in my bag.  The other good side is price; the 55-300 is an excellent deal at $100ish, while the Sigma came for $9.99 plus shipping and handling (about $22 all told).  The Pentax is a bit more crisp and contrasty for the most part, but really with minimal retouch the results are very nice with either lens.

I have a PK-m43 adapter coming, but perhaps a T-m43 would also be useful.  That 600mme closeup should be fun to pull off in good light!  In the meanwhile though, the 45-175 should arrive soon to take the mic43 system to greater lengths, even though the internal-zoom lens won't get any longer!

ding!

Time's up.

Samy's camera went with others on the sub-$600 deal for a new G7 with 14-42 lens.  By doing so it forced a still lower price for their demo model (in silver) with ~280 shutter count.  Well below, like $470ish!  This was lower than buying a new one elsewhere with $100 credit, so this was hard to overlook.. so I didn't.  Yes those deals included bundles with additional lenses, but not lenses I was seeking.  I could settle for a 25/1.7 .. but I didn't.

They also threw in $10 speed shipping, not free but quite good for a 'used' item. Thanks folks!

For a brief time I worried that the 14-42 lens was type-I not type-II; that was not true though.  The newer lens does not say II on the nose, but it says HD and .2m-infinity on the focus range, definitely type-II parameters.  Yaay!

For the future I'll seek a spare battery and that 7.5mm f/3.5 fisheye*.  First things first though: I have thirty days to be certain this is a camera I can enjoy and make use of for my kind of shots, both old-school and newfangled 4k types.  Should be fun, and a joy to carry such little weight.

* another thought is the 12-32mm retractable zoom; that lens gets very high marks for its image quality and silly-small size.  Even if I stop at 24mm or so it might be worth having!

BlackFriday decisions

Looking at the first wave of pre-Christmas deals was enough to make the call between the G7 and LX100.

Sales on both cameras are in play - and the G7 is still almost $100 less.  Today's G7 Genuine Deal is an impressive one: $200 off + $100 store credit and bundle-now&save deals all at once!  So that's the current buying plan: silver G7 plus 14-42 II and maybe $50 more for the 25/1.7 'normal' lens bundle. The credit can go for a microphone ± spare battery or something else.   For a similar price one can have a "$250 value" stereo microphone in lieu of $100 gift card, which is also a great deal.
Sorry LX100 - the G7 price & features are too good to ignore.

Friday also featured a used-gear shop with lenses going for 30% off  and a Lumix 45-175 was available.  Two copies in fact, and thank goodness: I tried to buy the black one but no purchase button appeared, and when I returned to the lens page it was gone - apparently it sold 10 seconds before I could reach it!  So I selected the silver copy instead.  It won't quite match the G7 silver-grey shade, I suspect, but I'll survive.  A deal on the 7.5mm fisheye will expire Tuesday, so that will have to come later.

The G7 will go from 28-350mme stabilized in-lens, plus an adapter can let the Pentax lenses play on it out to 600mme with the Spiratone 300/5.6 and 800mm with the 400/6.3 Hanimar.  The original plan was to buy 14-42, 45-175, 300 Tokina and 7.5 fish-eye, plus maybe a prime in the 14-20mm range; so far so good with the first two plus a 300mm in Pentax mount.

Speaking of Pentax the DAL 50-200wr arrived today. The K·50 is now weather sealed from 27-300mme and sensor-stabilized.  This 50-200 seems sharper than previous copies and it's a nice tight fit; too bad it doesn't come in red!  The silver band and lack of focus distance scale mark it as DAL and not DA.

O what fun!