Even at 75mm (150mm in 35mm terms) you can still see the compression in the lanscape that is not visible at shorter focal lengths. These mountain ranges are miles apart in reality, but appear to be just behind each other in this image. I don't get a chance to photograph something like this too often, so when I do get the chance I take as many different photographs as I can at every folcal length at my disposal. With the 75-300 lens attached I worked the scene but the best image came out at the 75mm setting. There was just enough of the mountain ranges visible to show the compression. 

What an excellent lens this is. Much prefer it over the Panasonic 100-300. This was taken at 75 at f8. I'll be posting some shots taken at 300mm soon so watch out for those. Yes, it's dearer than the Panasonic but well worth it in my opinion.

This isn't so much about the camera lens combination but more about the image format. I think this is the first trip I have ever made only using the squre format for 90% of my images. I like it, I can compose easier that with the 3:2 format (which I dislike) and even better than using the 4:3 format. The only other format I used quite a bit was the 16:9 because I wanted to get that panorama feeling to the images.

If you're looking for a bargain lens for the m4/3 system, then look no further. The 45 f1.8 is small, fast to focus and delivers extremely sharp images. This is a medium tele lens in 35mm terms (90mm lens) which is about my focal length that I like to use. A nice pertrait lens too and all can be has for less than €300. What more can one ask for.

If you read my last post you might have read me saying that I don't use Panasonic lenses on Olympus bodies, well this is the exception. I didn't want to take more that one camera on this trip but I wanted to test a few prime lenses, namely the Panasonic 14 f2.5, the Olympus 17 f2.8 and the Olympus 45 f1.8. In my opinion all those mentioned lenses performed very well indeed. Normally I'm not the wide angle lens sort of guy but I really did enjoy using the three lenses above. I forced myself to use them because normally I use zoom lenses for the convenience. There are circumstances when you just can't change lenses in the space of 5 seconds and this is where the zoom comes in. It's just more prctical for me.

Let's talk a little about the lens. This is the first zoom with a constant aperture of f2.8 throughout the zoom range that's been brought to market. The next will be the 35-100 f2.8. If the 35-100 is the same quality as the 12-35 then it's going to be a winner. The 12-35 is well built, focuses fast on the G5 and produces first rate images. I've seen some negative comments on the net regarding this lens, but most of those were using this lens of an Olympus body. As I've stated before, I tend to use Panasonic lenses on Panasonic bodies and the same goes for Olympus. I think that's the only way for you to get the ultimate image quality that one seeks.

It's really amazing how much gear you can gather in a period of only a few years. This is about the first image taken with this new combination of the Panasonic G5 and the excellent 12-35 f2.8. I think this is the best camera Panasonic have brought to market since the DMC-L1. For those of you who have been reading this blog you'll know that the L1 is my favourite camera of all time because of the ergonomics and the image quality I get from it. I was very surprised at the focusing speed of the camera, to my mind it equals the Olympus OM-D if not a little faster. The shutter sound is non-existant if using the electronic shutter option. More in the next post.