{"id":1935,"date":"2009-08-29T16:39:21","date_gmt":"2009-08-29T06:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/?p=1935"},"modified":"2009-09-12T13:10:20","modified_gmt":"2009-09-12T03:10:20","slug":"hiking-in-alpine-areas-with-your-cameras-a-win-for-the-panasonic-gh-1-and-olympus-e510-over-the-canon-1dmiii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/?p=1935","title":{"rendered":"Hiking in Alpine areas with your cameras &#8211; a win for the Panasonic GH-1 and Olympus E510 over the Canon 1DMIII"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This week I took some time off to explore Victoria&#8217;s Alpine region in Winter and took my Panasonic GH-1, Olympus E-510 and Canon 1DMIII.<\/p>\n<p>After the first very steep hill climb on which I thought I was going to have a heart attack (reminder to self &#8211; time to get a bit fitter!) carrying the Canon 1DMIII and a couple lenses as well as the Panasonic GH-1, <strong>I quickly decided that unless I was going to be shooting something that specifically required the big, heavy 1DMIII and its lenses, this kit was going to stay in the car!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The image quality and resolution of the Olympus E510 and Panasonic GH-1 are very similar at low ISO to the Canon 1DMIII, and I could easily cover the focal length range without it, while shallow depth of field and close up work could be achieved very satisfactorily with the E510 with ZD 50-200mm f\/2.8-3.5 lens.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Thus my hiking kit quickly became reduced to 2 cameras each with only 1 lens giving me 28-400mm coverage in 35mm terms:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Panasonic GH-1 with its 14-140mm HD lens<\/strong> &#8211; this would give me 28-280mm coverage (although best at 28-100mm), image stabilised with useful ISO to 1600 (3200 at a push), and with HD video with AF if I needed it, but perhaps best of all, the ability to alter image aspect ratio according to scene without losing pixels (thanks to its over-sized sensor)!<\/li>\n<li><strong>Olympus E510<\/strong> (the E620 or E30 would be better but I don&#8217;t have them) with <strong>ZD 50-200mm f\/2.8-3.5 lens<\/strong> &#8211; a great image stabilised combo with ISO useful to 400 (maybe 800 at times), but giving great focal length reach of 100-400mm with wide aperture allowing shallow depth of field and ability to compress landscapes, capture wildlife and even do close up work to 1:2 macro if needed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>An example of the E510 with 50-200mm SWD lens &#8211; uncropped image of bushfire-affected Australian alpine forest taken across a lake in light fog conditions (cloud actually as it was only 5deg C at this altitude &#8211; which required wearing gloves) at <strong>200mm focal length<\/strong> (400mm in 35mm terms).<\/p>\n<p>This image shows the contrast of the white Candlebark gum trunks against the fire-scarred black trunks from the 2003 bushfire which ravaged the region 6 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>Click on image for larger view.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/gary\/photos\/ByLens\/OlympusdSLR\/ZD50-200mm\/ga_Cobbler_GA274576.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/gary\/photos\/ByLens\/OlympusdSLR\/ZD50-200mm\/ga_Cobbler_GA274576.jpg\" alt=\"Lake Cobbler\" width=600\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And, to demonstrate the 16:9 image aspect ratio of the Panasonic GH-1, here is the Paradise Falls, uncropped but resized for the web:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/gary\/photos\/ByLens\/PanasonicGH1\/Lumix14_140HD\/Paradise_P1020315.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/gary\/photos\/ByLens\/PanasonicGH1\/Lumix14_140HD\/Paradise_P1020315.jpg\" alt=\"Paradise Falls\" width=600\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Finally, another GH-1 photo &#8211; 6 years on &#8211; not all parts of the forest show evidence of new growth &#8211; some were so devastated, they will take years to recover.<\/p>\n<p>Again click on image for larger view.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/gary\/photos\/ByLens\/PanasonicGH1\/Lumix14_140HD\/ga_Cobbler_P1020197.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/gary\/photos\/ByLens\/PanasonicGH1\/Lumix14_140HD\/ga_Cobbler_P1020197.jpg\" alt=\"Bushfire destroyed forest\" width=600\/><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It goes to show, <strong>the best camera is the one you are willing to take with you and actually bring &#8211; size does matter<\/strong> &#8211; and the <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/?page_id=1510\">Micro Four Thirds<\/a>and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/?page_id=1513\">Four Thirds<\/a> cameras<\/strong> and their beautiful lenses definitely have a big role to play.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A few quick comparisons:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Panasonic GH-1 with 14-140mm OIS HD lens giving 26-280mm coverage (10% more width in 16:9 aspect ratio) + 28-560mm HD video coverage with AF = <strong>904g<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Canon 1DMIII + 24-105mm ISL lens giving 31-137mm coverage but only in 3:2 ratio and no video = <strong>~1.8kg<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Olympus E510 with ZD 50-200mm f\/2.8-3.5 SWD lens gives 100-400mm coverage with IS with close focus to 1.2m for nature macros = <strong>~1.5kg<\/strong>, will work very well with a 1.4x or 2x tele-extender in AF, and the lens can also be used in MF mode on the GH-1 for extended focal length HD video or 16:9 aspect ratio <\/li>\n<li>Canon 1DMIII with EF 70-200mm f\/2.8 IS L lens gives 91-260mm coverage = <strong>~2.9kg<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/forums.dpreview.com\/forums\/readflat.asp?forum=1041&#038;thread=33009968\">Here is another photographer who has create some great alpine shots using a GH-1<\/a> &#8211; check them out!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week I took some time off to explore Victoria&#8217;s Alpine region in Winter and took my Panasonic GH-1, Olympus E-510 and Canon 1DMIII. After the first very steep hill climb on which I thought I was going to have a heart attack (reminder to self &#8211; time to get a bit fitter!) carrying the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[91,18,14,123],"class_list":["post-1935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photography","tag-canon-1dmiii","tag-four-thirds-micro","tag-olympus","tag-panasonic-gh1"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}