So here it is, my first post, apart from the introductory post which is technically the first post, this post will be all about my first impressions of my new camera, the Panasonic Lumix FZ150, if you want to get right to the first impressions of the FZ150 scroll down to the fourth paragraph
As mentioned in the 'technically' first post, at Christmas time 2012 I was owner of a Nikon P510 until late Febuary 2013 which is when I sold it on Ebay, I then proceeded to purchase a Canon SX40 and having owned it for just a couple of days I had sent it back due to it not being to my liking because for one I found it very tricky to hold with my large hands and not only that, whenever I found a half comfortable place to hold it in my hands, I was covering up the AF assist lamp! apart from that it was not too bad, the Auto ISO was a bit rubbish I thought, it seemed to select ISO 1600 for a hell of a lot of shot's I took, they may have been in quite low light, but when compared to the Nikon P510 and Panasonic FZ150 the auto ISO to me seemed a bit rubbish
Moving on... Shortly after sending back the SX40 to the retailer it was quickly sorted for me and now it was just a case of paying £10 difference to the retailer and haggling for free delivery, which the person on chat support give to me within a minute or two of me asking if I could have free delivery, so now it was a case of waiting for the FZ150 to arrive.
The 6th of March was here, and so was my new camera! upon opening the package, there was obviously the camera box which I quickly opened up and removed most of the contents of the box which included goodies like a charger, battery, usb cable, neck strap, lens hood, lens cap and some other bits and pieces.
It didn't take me long to turn my new camera on, seeing as that was my main priority at the time, I was then able to take about 15 photos I think it was (as the FZ150 has about 70mb of in built memory). After having a play around with the camera and taking photos for a couple of minutes I was very impressed at the picture quality from what I could see on the LCD screen of the camera. After that I went on to check out some other technical stuff like how the auto ISO worked indoors, which is obviously not the best location for lighting, and that was the point. Again I was very impressed, finding that most images had an ISO of 400-800 and were quite clear, not that noisy and sharp.
A couple of hours later I went to sit in my back garden and test the zoom function, zooming in and out was very quick if you wanted it to be by giving a good tug on the zoom lever control and if you wanted to zoom in and out slowly that was also easy, by simply just giving a gentle and light tug on the zoom lever control. Now that I was outdoors I just had to take some photos and my cat Tatty happened to be in the garden so I took a couple of photos of her which came out looking lovely, maybe I should have adjusted the exposure slightly as the white parts of her fur were quite bright (here is the image, let me know what you think)
I love macro photography so I had to test out the macro capabilities of this camera, which I quickly did on this bush outside in the same garden, not the best subject for macro, but not the worst I guess! I also later that day took a quick shot at this piece of chocolate which I enjoyed, as I got to eat it right after, yummy.
Not much picture taking was done after that, only some messing around photos have been taken since, which I am sure will soon change once the weather improves and I can get to a local country park to capture some wildlife and nature shots.
Some first impressions on the accessories, so this will be quite boring, but quite interesting if you read on... the main accessories I would consider would be whatever you fit to the exterior of the camera body, so the lens cap, neck strap and lens hood, oh yes that nasty piece of work that is the lens hood, which I have still been unable to fit onto the camera, if you google 'FZ150 lens hood' you will see what I mean, getting the lens hood on is a struggle that I have yet to overcome as you have to twist it, and just before it locks into place, there is a load of resistance which makes it feel like you are going to destroy the camera or the lens hood, and destroying my new £270 camera is not something I want to do! so for now I have left it off and have no plans to try fitting it again in the near future. The lens cap is easy to attach and detach from the lens, the neck strap is also very easy to attach if you take your time doing so.
I hope my first impressions of the FZ150 have been helpful to you, if you are reading this and considering whether or not to buy it, do it! this camera has amazed me after only about one day of owning it, so it receives a 5 star rating from me.
With that said, I thank you for reading this post and hope to see you back here soon!
March 07, 2013
February 23, 2013
New blog and first post!
Hi all!
Brand new blog and first ever post here, so for my first post I would like to introduce myself and thank you for visiting and will tell you about the kind of posts you can expect over the next many months
So the idea of this blog is to share some of my stories whilst outdoors or indoors with my camera, so along the way you will read all about my journey in photography which I started to take more seriously as of late last year when I looked into taking my photography from just some basic 'hobby' into something much more, so while I may not have purchased a DSLR camera, because I could not afford many different interchangeable lenses and will not for many years
So for Christmas I asked for a Nikon P510 bridge camera, I wont go on too much about that. But I ended up selling it, soon after that I was an owner of another bridge camera, the Canon SX40HS. Originally in November or it may have been October, it was a battle off between those two, but I chose the Nikon P510 over the SX40 for the reason the P510 had slightly more zoom (42x compared to 35x (1000mm vs 840mm)) and had some cool features like in camera auto panorama stitching, come Febuary I decided I wanted the SX40 instead because I found there was not much difference in zoom for what I would be using the cameras for, and the panorama stitching i rarely used
Cutting to the point... I wanted the SX40 instead of the P510 because they both have similar features, produce very similar image quality, CHDK is available for the SX40, which if you don't know is short for 'Canon Hack Development Kit' which you can load onto the camera and unlock features Canon decided not to include on the camera, otherwise there would be no reason to buy much more expensive cameras I guess, it unlocks the possibilities of RAW shooting and other cool features like time lapse, to find out more go here.
On top of that, it also has something the P510 does not have, which to be honest I thought I would not really need, because I mainly shoot outdoors most of the time, but I know I want to pursue a career in photography at some point, and I know this one simple thing will not get me a career in photography, but I know if I am going to be shooting families, children or get into the modelling industry as a photographer then it is a must have feature, and that is the hot shoe that sits on top of the SX40 and allows for external flash units and if you are a photographer, you know that using on board flash gives a harsh look to an image, like a models face for example
and after all that, I ended up sending the SX40 back! Reason being is because of the size of my hands, they are large hands, and I could just not handle the SX40 as I found it very awkward to handle, and the only main advantage the SX40 had over this next camera I was going to get was zoom, As I write this post, the SX40 is back at the place where I bought it from and I am currently in an exchange process of exchanging it for the Panasonic DMC FZ150
As I receive the FZ150 I will update the blog as I receive it and have had time to play with the camera, but for now I will leave a quick introduction.
So more about me... My name is Kevin, I live in a not so lovely town in Essex, but with nature parks not too far from me, I can't complain too much. I am 28 years old and love photography! Well I guess that was a rubbish introduction, but you know my name, roughly where I live and my age, not sure there is too much else to tell without boring you, Incase anyone wonders what KeCa means, well for those that know my full name, take the first 2 letters from my first name and my surname, stick them together, and you have KeCa, I thought it was kind of creative and does not sound too bad and thought it was something that was easy to remember
Over the coming weeks, months and maybe years as I said earlier I will post stories about my journey into becoming a better photographer, trying to help others who also own a FZ150, and those who own other cameras aswell, such as a Nikon or Canon
For now, thank you for reading and if it was too long and you didn't read it all, well what can I say, no cookie's for you!
Brand new blog and first ever post here, so for my first post I would like to introduce myself and thank you for visiting and will tell you about the kind of posts you can expect over the next many months
So the idea of this blog is to share some of my stories whilst outdoors or indoors with my camera, so along the way you will read all about my journey in photography which I started to take more seriously as of late last year when I looked into taking my photography from just some basic 'hobby' into something much more, so while I may not have purchased a DSLR camera, because I could not afford many different interchangeable lenses and will not for many years
So for Christmas I asked for a Nikon P510 bridge camera, I wont go on too much about that. But I ended up selling it, soon after that I was an owner of another bridge camera, the Canon SX40HS. Originally in November or it may have been October, it was a battle off between those two, but I chose the Nikon P510 over the SX40 for the reason the P510 had slightly more zoom (42x compared to 35x (1000mm vs 840mm)) and had some cool features like in camera auto panorama stitching, come Febuary I decided I wanted the SX40 instead because I found there was not much difference in zoom for what I would be using the cameras for, and the panorama stitching i rarely used
Cutting to the point... I wanted the SX40 instead of the P510 because they both have similar features, produce very similar image quality, CHDK is available for the SX40, which if you don't know is short for 'Canon Hack Development Kit' which you can load onto the camera and unlock features Canon decided not to include on the camera, otherwise there would be no reason to buy much more expensive cameras I guess, it unlocks the possibilities of RAW shooting and other cool features like time lapse, to find out more go here.
On top of that, it also has something the P510 does not have, which to be honest I thought I would not really need, because I mainly shoot outdoors most of the time, but I know I want to pursue a career in photography at some point, and I know this one simple thing will not get me a career in photography, but I know if I am going to be shooting families, children or get into the modelling industry as a photographer then it is a must have feature, and that is the hot shoe that sits on top of the SX40 and allows for external flash units and if you are a photographer, you know that using on board flash gives a harsh look to an image, like a models face for example
and after all that, I ended up sending the SX40 back! Reason being is because of the size of my hands, they are large hands, and I could just not handle the SX40 as I found it very awkward to handle, and the only main advantage the SX40 had over this next camera I was going to get was zoom, As I write this post, the SX40 is back at the place where I bought it from and I am currently in an exchange process of exchanging it for the Panasonic DMC FZ150
As I receive the FZ150 I will update the blog as I receive it and have had time to play with the camera, but for now I will leave a quick introduction.
So more about me... My name is Kevin, I live in a not so lovely town in Essex, but with nature parks not too far from me, I can't complain too much. I am 28 years old and love photography! Well I guess that was a rubbish introduction, but you know my name, roughly where I live and my age, not sure there is too much else to tell without boring you, Incase anyone wonders what KeCa means, well for those that know my full name, take the first 2 letters from my first name and my surname, stick them together, and you have KeCa, I thought it was kind of creative and does not sound too bad and thought it was something that was easy to remember
Over the coming weeks, months and maybe years as I said earlier I will post stories about my journey into becoming a better photographer, trying to help others who also own a FZ150, and those who own other cameras aswell, such as a Nikon or Canon
For now, thank you for reading and if it was too long and you didn't read it all, well what can I say, no cookie's for you!
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