Better Digital Camera

Well, I just got back from 9 days in Indonesia on my Orion cruise to the Spice Islands of Molucca and Nusa Tenggara. The very 5-Star MV Orion is an awesome way to see these very remote destinations. It was a great place to photograph people, everyone was happy to be photographed and the locals actually took more pics of us on their mobile phones that we did of them!

I have posted a huge slideshow gallery here -  Spice Islands 2009 

In addition to the Canon 5D2 I took along a Panasonic GH1 which turned out to be quite a nice little camera. There will be a full review in January’s Better Digital Camera Magazine but I was quite impressed with its ease of use and the quality of the resulting images. It has some quirks, as well as some really useful features that makes you wonder why the Big Two have not thought of them. For example, on manual focus, if you touch the focusing ring on the lens the focus magnifier is triggered, either in the electronic viewfinder or on the rear screen. It’s a nice touch, works well and can be turned off if you don’t want it. The GH1 is also a lot easier to use than the 5D2 for video, with full manual and all the auto settings available. AF works too, properly, and this make the camera breeze to use. One last thing of note - the image stabiliser is amazing - the picture just freezes in position even at the long end of the zoom. Great camera.