Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Landscape & Nature Photography => Topic started by: Jon Gallo on June 16, 2011, 02:53:24 pm
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In a review of the GH2 and 100-300mm lens some time ago, Michael suggested that it might be the perfect camera to take to Africa. My wife and I just returned from three weeks in Botswana and Zambia as part of a 12 person group led by George Lepp and Dana Allen. I shot with D700 and D300 bodies using the Nikon 200-400mm f4, with a few shots using the 70-200mm f2.8. My wife took a GH2 with the 14-140mm and 100-300mm lenses. The GH2 had a few drawbacks: it is not as useful as either Nikon body in low light and it is hard to hand hold and get a sharp image at 300mm, especially of moving animals where the motor drive is painfully slow. I am just starting to print some of the images we took at 11x14 and 16x20 full frame. In situations where we both were taking pictures of the same subject, I am unable to see any significant difference in image quality between the prints taken by the GH2 versus the d700 when the prints are looked at at nomal viewing distance. If you pixel peep at a distance of a few inches using a 4x magnifying glass, the D700 usually seems to have better resolution, but the difference seems to vanish at normal viewing distance. My kit weighed over 30 lbs; she carried less than 4 lbs. I'm starting to rethink what I want to lug through airport security and customs on future 30 hour trips!
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good to know!
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Jon,
I am sure that if you would have used a nikon d3x/ nikon d7000 camera the difference would be a lot greater.
These lenses are 24MP.
It all depends how big you want to be the prints...
And as i know- the out of focus blur of the new 70-200 is really wonderful.
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Jon,
I am sure that if you would have used a nikon d3x/ nikon d7000 camera the difference would be a lot greater.
These lenses are 24MP.
D3x = even more weight.
And what's a 24MP lens?
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D3x = even more weight.
And what's a 24MP lens?
sorry
a 24mp lens for me- is a lens capable of producing 24mp of real data in one shot ( d3x sensor capacity - completely used to the max)
500 gram extra is not that much of a problem i guess if it makes the carrying of the other 6 kg of lenses more justified
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Hi,
No doubt that the potential of a 24 MP full frame camera is greater than 16 MP APS/C, but I'm not really sure how much that matters. I did some comparison between 24 MP Sony Alpha 900 and 12 MP Sonya Alpha 700 and the difference on files was significant but sometimes very little difference was visible in A2 size prints.
Also, I have not found I take better pictures with the bigger camera. Certainly, I could make larger prints! But none of the pictures I made with the Sony Alpha 900 merits a really big print (like 70x100 cm) and the Sony Alpha 700 (12 MP APS-C) is certainly good enough for A2 prints.
The quality is there, but more pixels doesn't turn me into a better photographer...
Best regards
Erik
D3x = even more weight.
And what's a 24MP lens?
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One side note: While in Zambia, we did the walk under Victoria Falls. It's very wet and a little dangerous because of the slippery footing. It was a lot easier for my wife to carry the GH2 in a ziplock bag than it was for me with the heavier D700 and 24mm lens wrapped up in a garbage bag to keep it dry. And after looking at several hundred shots, I like one of hers best! Jon