Panasonic Lumix GH1

Everybody with photography or film making interest should know this Micro Four Third (MFT) frenzy by Panasonic and Olympus by now. The only thing different with this MFT is that it not only captures fantastic photos, it also take astonishing HD videos!!! Damn...sources said it would be price with the same price as the Nikon D90 which takes better photos, more lense choices instead of 2 but average HD videos of 720p instead of 1080p. Hmmmm...tough choice.

So it has smaller body than a average DSLR, same quality of pictures (which some don't agree), stereo audio capture (which is better than most DSLR audio), comes bundled with a 14-140mm lense (which is great value) and user friendly menus. Anyway, take a look at the videos it took below.

Panasonic Lumix GH1. First footage from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Kauai sunset: Lumix GH1 slow motion from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Panasonic GH1 photo gallery (some lucky guy got it)
Panasonic GH1 preview

What do you think? Cool vids eh? damn man...i'm not even sure i wanna keep my D60 or not after watch and reading all this. sigh...$$$$

Minolta 50mm ROKKOR-X 1:1.4 macro

I've got my new lens today. After spending months of reading and research, I settled with this. Its a Minolta MD ROKKOR-X 50mm 1:1.4 MF only. Before you guys ask any questions about compatibility, I gotta say that this lens ROCKS!!! I got it off eBay for GBP40 shipped from the States. Since its f number is so small...the amount of light it took in is phenomenal. Its a lot heavier than my bog standard 18-55mm Nikon ED lens. Its full metal-built lens feels very solid and tough. I haven't exactly got it to fit on my D60 yet but i took it for a test in 'another' way. I'm still waiting for my adapter though to perfectly fit on my D60.

Since Minolta had experience in making lens that rival Nikon or Canon, I think its a no-brainer to buy this one especially with an 1:1.4 standard. A Nikkor 50mm 1:1.4 would set you back for about GBP220 for the AF version and about GBP330 for the AF-S version. Of course, in photography, what you for is what you get. But the Minolta defies that theory, partly because it quite old and it doesn't have any AF or AF-S function but I gotta hand it to ‘em, these are nice colours. But some pics are blurry due to the stupid freakishly strong wind which UK is always 'feymes' for...sigh...I used an extremly high shutter speed (1/800) to catch it. Enough said, look at the 'another way' pictures. I'll post a real picture test after i got my adapter.

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The method used to take most of these pics is the reverse-mount method. How do you reverse-mount? Ideally, you need to have two lens of any type. Mount one in the way how you normally mount a lens and the other attached to it in reverse. Try to look it up on google. These pics are still noob-ish so I need more work…hehe…

So what do you think?

All these are taken with this lens too...

Canon 5D Mark II

This camera is the world's 1st DSLR with HD video and HD pictures. There hav been lots of reviews on it but the thing i wan to touch about is its video quality. Its jus STUNNING!!!!! The quality is very close to a professional camcorder but in the size of a DSLR. Here's a forbbiden video taken by a blogger on Akihabaranews.com.

Tokyo Reality (Canon 5D Mark II) Final
by lejapon

There is another video taken by very professional ppl but the link isn't working for now so I din include it in this post. There are a few pictures taken by the blogger to try it out. There is almost no noise at the highest ISO setting of ISO3200. No other camera in my mind hav ever achieve this. Mind you its still the beta version of the 5D. AWESOME QUALITY. The only problem is the price...its roughly touching GBP2000 (body only), with a EF 24-105mm f4.0L IS USM lens its GBP2500. Here are the links for preview pics...

5D vs 5D Mark II
AF Test
RAW Night pics
Visiting Akihabara
High ISO Night Pics
First HD Video Sample