Comments on: Latest on the GX20 saga

By: forkboy

forkboy — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 21:02:32 +0000

Feel free to quote me….others certainly have!

By: GX20… the continuing story « Adventures of an Idiot - occasional ramblings of a photography freak

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 07:26:08 +0000

[...] July 20, 2008 And now for the next enthralling episode about the breaking-in of the GX20. Breaking in, smashing up… they’re only separated by the extent of my patience. For the story so far read this. [...]

By: fotdmike

fotdmike — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 05:13:03 +0000

Ah forkboy… I’ve been casting around for ages for a suitable description of you. Thanks!

By: forkboy

forkboy — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 04:14:57 +0000

Oh Tamela…..I know squat. I’m just guessing half the time. You’ve seen my photos and read my blog. I’m just a giant turd.

By: tam

tam — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 03:19:54 +0000

Ok, WOW,what timing. I am just now reading this post… and I post about Lightroom today. It’s a great program but yeah, it eats the resources and it does cost a bit.

You two are really smart when it comes to software and camera equipment. See why I read and listen to you both? Ok, now I am waiting on the new post.

By: fotdmike

fotdmike — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 16:24:43 +0000

Yeah, what you’ve said about the reviews re Canon vs Nikon is pretty much what my mate said, and what I’ve observed.
What it basically comes down to is a matter of personal taste. And whilst I take your point that its not a major issue as settings can be tweaked, my own take (in my naivete) is that stuff should be ready to use “straight out the box”, with any tweaking only done in order to deviate from a set standard. Now I realise this is almost never the case in the real world (and certainly seems so with cameras), but hell, that can’t stop me wishing can it?
And that of course is the source of my real irritations with the GX20… that the pics seemed to require substantial tweaking in order to bring them into line with accepted standards. (More on this anon though… watch out for a new post shortly!).

By: forkboy

forkboy — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:55:54 +0000

Ah. Detail. I can see how I would be confused as sharpness seems somewhat in hand with detail (as in it’s hard to see detail if the image isn’t sharp).

While doing my research before purchasing I came across a lot of sites and reviews that mentioned how the Nikons exhibited softer images than did the Canons, straight from the box. I think the term “more film-like” was often used to describe the Nikon images compared to Canon. As the Nikons could be adjusted to be sharper (or the Canons de-tuned to be softer) I never really saw the issue as being important since both camera systems could be changed to be like the other.

My PhaseOne came free with the purchase of my 8GB Extreme III media card. Free is good. And the software consumes way less resources than does Elements 6.0 (but what Adobe app doesn’t chew up resources). I’ve often thought about purchasing Lightroom as it seems to be a nice app, but I’m hanging on to my money for more equipment. I think I have enough software for the moment.

Macro anyone?

By: fotdmike

fotdmike — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:28:14 +0000

Not sharpness… resolution of detail. There’s a difference.

Re Canon pics (I seem to recollect I wasn’t remarking on your pics specifically… more on Canon pics in general) whilst they don’t all have the same quality, with many of them there’s a sense of fragility, thinness, lack of substance sorta thing. Its almost as though they wouldn’t stand very much post-processing before breaking up. Its really difficult to describe but mentioning it to a mate of mine ages ago, he seemed to know exactly what I meant and suggested it could be the processor applying a degree of sharpness. Hence, I adopted the term cos it seemed to fit… to a large extent anyway.

Apparently (according to my oracle) a lot of Canons exhibit the same characteristic, whereas Nikons (for example) tend to introduce a degree of softness.

Interesting what you say about using different apps. I’m not familiar with the PhaseOne thing at all, and I just don’t get on with Elements.
Reason I use Lightroom is cos it was the first app I used to work with RAW files and I’ve just become used to it. I like the interface, the way it works, and it seems to provide a few extra features. That said, it did take a bit of getting used to originally!

By: forkboy

forkboy — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:36:30 +0000

Shooting in JPEG? Really? Okay….what have you done with the real Mike?

Well, I’m glad you have had some resolution to the niggling matters with the GX-Purple…..sorry…the GX-20. I have read on a handful of websites (when I was researching for the purchase of my camera) that using the software supplied with one’s camera will often yield the best results in terms of image quality (across the board). I can’t say that I have found this to be accurate (at least not to my eyes) in my circumstances, but I will say that I find a slight difference in colour rendering between my preferred software (PhaseOne Capture 4) and my backup (Elements 6). I frequently make use of the software included with my camera for the conversion from RAW to JPEG as it not only operates quicker, but I think the JPEG results look better.

Now I have to ask though….you talk about the sharpness of the images from the 20. I recall you once made a comment about how you thought the images off my camera were too sharp. You don’t have the same feelings about the 20, do you?