On Friday the 4th May Cats Protection Inverclyde hosted a charity fashion show in the M&Co store in the Greenock Oak Mall. The night was a great success with them raising around £750 for the charity which I’m sure will make a great difference to them. I would like to congratulate everyone who was involved in organising the event and all the other businesses who gave their time and resources to make the event happen.

Cats Inverclyde Fashion Show

Cats Inverclyde Fashion Show

Cats Inverclyde Fashion Show

I stumbled across this charming little animation earlier on today and felt the need to share it. It’s a lovely little trip down memory lane showing the history of the camera in a colourful 8-bit style.

Last week saw the wedding of Lindsay and Gareth, a lovely couple who tied the knot in the Lynnhurst Hotel in Johnstone, just outside of Paisley. It was a lovely day full of love and laughter, unfortunately the weather took a turn for the worst the second we stepped outside after the ceremony but that didn’t stop us getting some great images of the day that I’m sure they’ll cherish. Below is a selection of sample of images from the day.

Wedding Photography - Lindsay and Gareth - Bouquet

Wedding Photography - Lindsay and Gareth - Tiara

Wedding Photography - Lindsay and Gareth - Fitting the Necklace

Wedding Photography - Lindsay and Gareth - The Kiss

Wedding Photography - Lindsay and Gareth - Reflections

Wedding Photography - Lindsay and Gareth - Feeling Bubbly

Wedding Photography - Lindsay and Gareth - Time To Get A Room?

Wedding Photography - Lindsay and Gareth - First Dance

Wedding Photography - Lindsay and Gareth - Enclosing

Wedding Photography - Lindsay and Gareth - Happy Embrace

The Lumix 100-300mm lens is one of the largest zoom lenses available for the M4/3 cameras, with the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 75-300mm being it’s only rival. For the Micro Four-Thirds cameras this lens is a bit of a beast. For a compact system camera it’s a very large lens but this is to be expected when you’re dealing with a super-telephoto lens. Taking the crop factor of a M4/3 camera into account you’re effectively getting a zoom range of 200-600mm, which is pretty impressive for the size and weight of it.

Price:

At the moment you can get this lens for around the £450 mark which is quite reasonable for this type of lens. If you were to opt for the Olympus lens it would come in at around £670, with a slower max aperture and no in-built optical stabilisation.

Build:

As usual for most lenses nowadays the bulk of the body is plastic, with a metal ring mount. It feels nice and solid, the focus and zoom dials turn nicely offering just enough resistance to stop you accidentally nudging but still allowing smooth operation. At 520g it is probably one of the heaviest M4/3 lenses, and may feel unbalanced on the GF model cameras. On the G3 I didn’t find it too bad and quickly got used to the weight, I think this was mainly due to the grip that the G3 offers.

Boat at 100mm

Performance:

Let’s start with the zoom level of this lens, as this is what most who are looking at this lens will be interested in, it’s a formidable zoom and is perfect for travel when you just can’t justify taking something heavier. As previously mentioned the 35mm equivalent is 200-600mm so you have to try to keep that shutter speed up to ensure sharp images, especially when tracking a moving object. For still subjects the OIS does help quite a bit, initially the stabilisation of this lens was fairly lacklustre, but Panasonic have released a firmware update which has greatly improved the optical stabilisation, so if you go for this lens be sure the get that updated firmware on it as it’s a marked improvement.

Boat at 300mm

Throughout the zoom range the image quality of this lens is pretty good, you have to step the aperture down a little to get the best out of, I found F8 offered pretty sharp images but even with the aperture wide open it performs very well. I wouldn’t recommend taking the aperture above F16 as the image does degrade at this point. Thanks to the multi-coating and ED glass, the lens copes will with ghosting or flare from any stray light. The lens also does well with minimal vignetting throughout the aperture and zoom range.

Daffodil Close-up

Sleeping Swan

My only bugbear with this lens is the focus speed, it’s not as fast as I’d like and does hunt a little sometimes. I’ve not tested it in a sport situation yet, but I think the slower focus at full zoom may more difficult to use for sport photography.

Specification:

Verdict:

I’m very impressed with this lens; it packs a lot into a very small package. With that 200-600mm 35mm equivalent it’s a perfect lens for anyone who’s traveling who enjoys shooting wildlife and doesn’t want carry around a massive prime zoom or serious telephoto for a full frame camera. You can get some really nice crisp images from afar, or get as close as you can and get some incredible close in detail of your subjects. When you consider the convenience of this lens it’s a clear winner.

• Review of the Panasonic Lumix G Vario 100-300mm f/4-5.6 OIS Lens
• A little guide to Macro Photography on the cheap
• Some landscape shots I’ve been taking now the nicer weathers coming in

Canon have finally announced their replacement to the 5D mark II, the mark III. I have to say it looks nice. I can’t wait to see how it performs in comparison to the Nikon D800. Spec between the two cameras is very similar with the main exception being pixel count, with the D800 scoring 36MP versus the 5D mark III’s 22.3MP. There’s a fair price difference D800 at £2,400 and the 5D mark III at £2,999. So I wonder if Canon are going to be able to justify the extra cost, and will they be able to take the high ISO crown off of Nikon?

Check this little preview courtesy of DigitalRev.com

Nokia has just announced a new camera phone that’s imminently hitting the market, the Nokia 808 PureView: A Symbian based mobile that features a mammoth 41 megapixel camera with a 26mm (equiv) F2.4  Carl Zeiss lens bolted on its back. What could possibly be bad??? Sadly there’s a lot.

Don’t get me wrong it’s not all bad, but it’s far from ‘All that and a bag of chips’. So, its 41 megapixels, this sounds to me like a massive cry for attention from a brand that most people have forgotten about when it comes to picking their next mobile, and I’m sure this cry will work. There are a lot of people who think that more pixels equal better photos and that’s the end of it. So I’m sure there’s more than a few drooling over this already. So why’s it bad? The main issue here is pixel density on the sensor, mobile phone camera sensors are normally very small, about 1/2.3 inches at best, and the more pixels you squash on the more sensitive the sensor becomes to signal noise. This is why a lot of camera phones and compacts suffer in low light with very poor image quality. Nokia have at least tried to address this by putting a massive sensor (in phone terms) into the 808, 1/1.2 inches. This may not sound like much, but trust me it’s a big difference and I doubt they would have been able to get 41MP out of a ‘standard’ mobile sized sensor. 41MP on 1/1.2 inches is still a hell of a lot though, and noise is still going to be a big issue if you’re shooting at full resolution. All of the sample images I’ve seen from Nokia so far have been strong sunlight and even at  that the fine detail isn’t great when you look at a 100% crop.

Lack Of Fine Detail?

I don’t know what settings the camera was using here but I think it’s safe to assume – given the harsh sunlight and F2.4 aperture – that it was taken using the phones lowest ISO setting, but I think it’s safe to say that you don’t want to be relying on cropping too much on this phone.

The second main issue with 41MP is the lens, I don’t care if it is a Carl Zeiss, it’s tiny and there’s limits to how well a lens that small can perform. And I’m fairly sure there will be issues with any lens that small being out resolved by a 41MP sensor.

If you’ve been reading anything from any other sites about this phone you’ll have probably noticed that they mention the great performance this camera has in low light. This will sound like I’m holding the completely opposite viewpoint to this. What a lot of the sites aren’t telling you is how they’re getting this low light performance, they’re not using the camera at 41MP! If you try to use the camera in low light at full resolution of 41MP it’s not going to be pretty, Nokia know this so have given you the ability to ‘step down’ to the likes of 8, 5, or even as low at 2 megapixels. The camera is actually still using all 41MP to take the shot but the software that Nokia’s developed for the phone is clustering these up to whatever resolution you selected, so in effect they’re trying to cancel out the noise by reducing the detail in the picture. Technically this is nothing new, there’s been computer application that have done this sort of thing for many a year, but this is the first time I know of where a phone does it at the time of image capture.  So you end up with a nice 8MP shot instead of the mess that it would have been if you left it at 41MP. Which (finally) brings me to my point, why did they bother? For most people, especially us in sunny Scotland will probably have to spend most of the time with the camera at a reduced resolution to get a good quality picture because a lot of out days are quite dull and overcast. So why not produce a camera phone with the 1/1.2 sized sensor that they went with but kerb the pixel count at 10 or 12 MP? With that they would have had a camera that would have offered better quality images throughout the ISO range and would definitely still outperform any other phone that’s out that the moment. The sad reason is that this wouldn’t have grabbed the headlines because most would have just looked and said “12MP, pah, my Samsung’s got that”. They’ve went with this ridiculous pixel count because they’re desperate to get the headlines.

As I said at the beginning it’s not all bad. The interface that they’ve created for the camera seems to be really impressive; it’s fast and easy to use with a wealth of features at your fingertips. A lot of thought has clearly gone into the interface for this, which is probably why this is a Symbian OS we’re seeing and not a Windows one. Nokia have already confirmed that they’re retiring Symbian, but they wanted to get this phone out now and won’t have had the time to develop this rich user experience in Windows Mobile, so they stuck with Symbian to get it on the shelves and have their little fanfare over it. Personally I think they’re shooting themselves in the foot by doing this. Yes, they’ve got it out and before any other manufacturer has anything anywhere near it, so they’ve succeeded in getting everyone’s attention and reminding us that Nokia still exists and has something to offer. The problem is that Symbian is a dying OS that’s never had the apps or fan base of iOS or Android - because it’s not very good. It was a smartphone contender before the iPhone came out and showed everyone how it’s supposed to be done, but Nokia stuck with it and didn’t develop it enough which is exactly why they’re in the mess they’re in now. So getting this phone will mean that you’re losing out a bit, as you’ll be stuck with what apps and forum support you can find which won’t be much from Nokia as most of Nokia’s attention will be focused on gaining support for their new Windows Mobile systems.

The one thing where this phone will really beat all other phones is in video, with the larger sensor it will really deliver top notch video for a mobile and I don’t expect any other phone to be able to come anywhere near it. The reason for this is that to record 1080p the phone will only have to use a tiny fraction of those 41MP so it will really deliver, but back to my previous point, if they just reduced it down to 12MP it would still have been every bit as good, and cheaper no doubt.

So well done Nokia for reminding us all that you’re still around, but I don’t see this phone being the game changer you need to survive.

Little photo-shoot with Michelle and Allan at Glasgow Green. Was a cold afternoon and a bit breezy but thankfully it stayed dry just long enough for a nice stroll round the park. They’re a lovely couple and I’m sure they’ll have a great time on their wedding day later on this year.

Engagement Photography in Glasgow - Tender Moment

Engagement Photography in Glasgow - Hide From The Cold

Engagement Photography in Glasgow - Kiss on the Green

Engagement Photography in Glasgow - Walk

Engagement Photography in Glasgow - Together

Today was the naming ceremony of baby Kyran, the adorable baby boy of Pamela and Ian. It was a lovely day with a beautiful ceremony and I have no doubt that Kyran has a bright future ahead of him surrounded by friends and family that love him.

Naming Ceremony Photography in Glasgow - Yawn

Naming Ceremony Photography in Glasgow - Pretty In Pink

Naming Ceremony Photography in Glasgow - Kyran Sleeping

Naming Ceremony Photography in Glasgow - Handing Out The Presents

Naming Ceremony Photography in Glasgow - Family

His images are absolutely breathtaking and his presentation was excellent. A lot of photographers who will show their images and talk a bit about them but avoid the technicalities, Dimitri does not, he will detail exactly what he did you get the image and – most importantly – why he did it. With a good sense of humour in the presentation as well the evening was an engaging and enjoyable experience. Dimitri’s website can be found here to browse some of his images.

Dimitri also runs Earth’s Beauty Photography Tours and Workshops in the UK, Greece, and Canada. Given his passion for photography, eye for detail, great teaching ability, and sense of humour, I have no doubt that his courses would be invaluable for anyone looking to improve their landscape photography. I can virtually guarantee that you would come away with some new skills and techniques, but most importantly a refreshed view on the world and a new way of seeing potential photographs. If you were looking for a landscape photography course I would strongly suggest you look at his site.