Five Frames With A Panasonic Lumix DMC-S5, A Second Look

Digital Moments - Testing out the vintage ultra-compact Panasonic Lumix DMC-S5, looking beyond the first outing.

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A second look with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-S5. Images were shot in Normal Picture mode from just outside the front door, transferred to my desktop image editor, and tweaked with Auto Tone Correction, Crop, Tone Curve, Brightness & Contrast, and Unsharp Mask.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-S5

The images look good, sharp and crisp, almost technically perfect, but is that all there is? I have a gut feeling that there is still something I have to discover with the camera, whatever it is...

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Five Frames With A Jupiter 37-A 135mm 1:3.5, Square Cuts

Vintage Lens Test - In the garden with a Jupiter 37-A 135mm 1:3.5, with images processed in the square format.

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Acquired another copy of the Jupiter 37-A 135MM 1:3.5 lens recently, after the earlier copy went to a buyer, did my normal quick edit of the garden, and had the images edited on my desktop. As expected, images with the 37-A are very sharp, even when shot wide-open, with good micro-contrast, natural color rendition, and smooth bokeh.

Olympus E-P5, Jupiter 37-A 135mm 1:3.5

Had the images cropped to the square format, or the 1:1 aspect ratio as well, which in itself is an interesting way to present images. Unlike images in either the portrait or landscape format, where the eye is either drawn from top to bottom or from left to right, the square photo format draws vision to the center of the composition and then lets the eye explore the entire frame without providing any implicit direction because of the frame.

Square format images are, of course, not new, as they were first introduced by Rollei in 1929, later by Holga and Hasselblad, and came back to focus with mobile photo apps like Instagram and Hipstamstic.

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Five Frames With A Canon EOS 300D, Ghostly Twilight

Digital Moments - A vintage digital Canon EOS 300D DSLR, and a Canon EF 40mm 1:2.8 STM on an impromptu twilight shoot.

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Perfect shots, true colors, couldn't ask for more. Exposures were taken in Program Mode, recorded at 1/2 and 1 second for the first four images, and 1/25 second for the sky shot. in the community park just across from where I lived.

Canon EOS 300D, Canon EF 40mm 1:2.8 STM

Not a planned night shot, but rather an impromptu "Program Mode" handheld twilight session. I am still all excited about having the vintage digital Canon EOS 300D, a 6.3-megapixel entry-level DSLR camera. When launched in 2002, the EOS 300D camera was the first DSLR to hit the market with a price tag of below US $1000.

My take? Find an alternative to the ever-spiraling cost of continuing the hobby, as I have been doing in the past, in film photography. Am I getting what I am looking for? I am warming up to it, and it looks like it's going to be a big Yes. I will have to forgo my love for film, though, and work on other challenges instead.

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Five FramesTamron SP 90mm 1:2.5 52BB Macro, In The Garden

Vintage Lens Test - A more structured test with the Tamron SP 90mm 1:2.5 52BB Macro, close-ups in the garden.

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Still working with the Tamron SP 90mm 1:2.5 52BB Macro, mounted on the E-P5 this time around. I have also acquired a new Ai - M4/3 lens adapter with a tripod mount, making handholding slightly more stable with the tripod support cupped in my hand. Images are still from the garden, though, closed-up.

Olympus E-P5, Tamron SP 90mm 1:2.5 52BB Macro

The Tamron Adaptall-2 SP 90mm f2.5 Macro (52BB) is optically identical to the earlier 52B model which was released in 1997. The original 52B features a lot more metal in its construction and has a screw-in hood, whilst the 52BB came with a redesigned barrel and a bayonet fitting for a hood, which the lens was sold with. The 52B/52BB was replaced by the 1:1 macro 90mm f2.8 72B.

Note: My first post was with the lens mounted on the Olympus E-PM2.

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