New toy, Darkside Edition (dialup warning)

coinpictures

Well, I finally decided to replace my aging Olympus 7070Z. After perusing Mark Goodman's
book, I realized that I probably needed something other than a point-and-shoot if I am
going to improve my pics. Most folks getting good quality pics are using SLRs.

There's a problem though...

I'm an absolute MORON when it comes to photography. The terminology and physics of it
all confuses the bejesus out of me. In short: I would need a prep course even before opening
the cover of "Photography for Dummies".

I'm strictly a point-and-shoot guy. If it doesn't have a good Auto-Everything mode, I'm screwed.

I can fix most things after the fact in Photoshop; on the camera I'm all thumbs.

What to do? I opted to split the difference... a point-and-shoot camera that can use
individual lenses. Enter the Panasonic Lumix G1.

If I understand things properly, it's basically an SLR without the mirror and uses a smaller sensor.
It's part of the "Micro 4/3" class of cameras, currently espoused by Panasonic and Olympus.
It's considerably lighter than virtually all SLRs

It's gotten rave reviews in terms of its "Intelligent Auto" mode and as a good camera for
photography newbies.

The number of available lenses for the G1 is pretty limited, although via an adapter, you can
use virtually all standard 4/3 lenses, albeit many without autofocus.

I picked up the G1 kit (which includes a 14-45 lens), a micro-4/3 to 4/3 adapter, and a
Zuiko f3.5 1:1 macro lens for just under $1K total.

It just arrived today and I popped on the macro lens to take a few shots.

The picture below is the camera set on auto-everything, the only thing I changed was to
increase the aperature to f8 to increase the depth of focus.

I need to start experimenting with changing the lighting and the exposure, but out of the
box, acting as a point-and-shoot, I'm impressed.

Quarter Size:




Half Size:




Full Size:

1960NYGiants

Phenominal!!!!!!!

JCMhouston

Congrats, that seems like a good setup. The only thing I would offer is the 35mm Macro may require you to get too close for optimum lighting. I went back to using the standard zoom on my Oly 300 (uses the /43 system), and with a +2 diopter filter it gives excellent closeups with the ability to back off the coin a foot or so.

Aethelred

Sweet!

olmanjon

That is an awesome pic. I happen to have that coin. It is massive. Same size as a silver dollar but twice as thick. One penny. Imagine carrying around a dollars worth of those in your pocket?
Olmanjon

Mine appears to have a split around the outside. It only goes around half of it. Is this a split planchet or is it in the design and mine is worn off or what? Any ideas?

declan

Great pic!

Hussulo

Doogy

what is that, and eBay picture!? talk about grainy and distant, how 'bout a close-up man!

awesome!

zeebob

That's one of those 2d coins huh? I sent mine into our hosts. They sent it AND MY MONEY back saying NO SERVICE. Apparently it won't fit in the holder!

That's some super camera work! Nice job. Looks like you hit on an excellent camera model!