The Central parking mall has come up with an idea to encourage something, mainly sexism I think. The third floor has been nominated as parking for ladies only.

The GH2 is the latest micro four-thirds (M4/3) camera to be released by Panasonic and is the most advanced model in the line-up. I don’t own one, but my neighbour Nik does; and the day after he brought it home from Hong Kong, he lent it to me for two days. Personally, if I had just purchased a new camera I would not lend it to anyone; so big thanks to Nik for letting me play with it.

The main reason he lent it to me was to let me try it out as a sports camera, specifically by trying to capture polo action. More on that later; but just to note that the two days I had to play with it coincided with a need to use another camera to photograph polo matches, so my GH2 time was limited. So don’t expect a detailed review with image comparisons; just some feedback from someone who has a GF1 and a sports-oriented camera and has made a rough comparison between them and the GH2. If you are thinking of getting an M4/3 camera, maybe this will help; maybe not.

So, here it is:

Outraged outburst from Billy following my use of the ‘p’ word when describing a lens in a recent post.

So, toning it down a bit, here are some photos from the lens that looks like a dick.

Zoomed in, there is a little vignetting:

Three days of polo; standing in the sun for three hours every day, clicking the shutter at any passing horse. End result: completely knackered and 4,009 photos taken, which is some sort of obscure record which I would have prefer not to have set, given that I will have to review every single photo over the coming days.

Return home for the usual ritual of downloading photos and backing them up, followed by a refreshing shower and a need to relax for a while. The solution is O’Gara’s pub where a pint of Guinness and a plate of fish and chips (with peas!!) does much to restore my spirits. Look forward to going home and relaxing in front of some mindless entertainment before retiring for a long sleep.

This is not to be, because she who must be obeyed remembers that there is drift racing in progress at Bali Hai pier. It finishes at 2200 and it is only 2030. So back home to collect a camera and long lens and we attempt to get near to Bali Hai. Not a chance, the roads are solid with parked cars and it would take us an hour to walk there, and I would collapse with exhaustion long before we saw a car drifting. So instead we had for the hill overlooking Bali Hai where we get an excellent view of what must be one of the most boring spectator sports on the planet.

After a delay of twenty minutes, two cars head off in staggered formation round a tight track. The distance between start and finish is around two hundred metres and each race is over in seconds. The drifting is quite impressive however, as is the sound of valves being destroyed as engines are massively over-revved. I expect that vast sums of cash are spent on these smoking, sliding machines. As I lifted $10,000 worth of camera equipment to my eye, I wondered why people are stupid enough to spend so much cash on their hobbies.

In any event, my costly camera gear was no match for the almost dark conditions. 3,200 ISO and slow shutter speeds does not make for cool action shots; plus I was so damn tired. In summary, the photos were shit; but here are a few:

I really don’t know what came over me. There I was, sat having an excellent meal at the polo club, with convivial company and not a care in the world. So why did I turn to the lady next to me and enquire: “would you like to see this lens, it looks like a penis”? It could have been worse, I could have said “do you want to see my penis, it looks like a lens”.

It may have been something to do with the very fine glass of white wine I had just consumed; but more likely it was an enthusiasm to share the beauty of a lens I had just been lent; and in my defence it did sport excellent phallic properties.

The lens belongs to William, owner of a couple of the lenses featured in the micro four-thirds collection; and the owner of several more tasty pieces of glass following an extended and expensive session on eBay. But this lens in particular was so pretty. Being phallic, of course it has to be French, and it is a cine lens made by Angenieux of Paris.

The inaugural meeting of the “my condo micro four-thirds owners group” was held this morning. The meeting concluded that we still had space in a photograph for some more lenses and Mr. Ebay will be consulted accordingly.

And how better to spend the afternoon than taking 1,300 photos of, well, the usual.

My recent foray into the delights of Russian lenses resulted in the weirdly styled and not completely shit Industar-22.

But the $29 extravagance that was the Industar-22 was accompanied by the slightly more down-market Industar-50 at $17. Again, it took shots that weren’t shit; but it was destined for a higher purpose as a macro machine.

Somewhere on the wide wide world of web, I found reference to a macro lens solution involving an Industar-50, and adapter and a set of extension tubes. The tubes (cost $9) arrived yesterday, and the device was screwed together.

Passengers from the cruise ship RFS Titanski enjoy a welcome break in Pattaya.

She who must be obeyed is becoming increasingly interested in being a photographer. Specifically, she fancies earning some cash from stock photography; just like I’m not. I have warned here that, should she manage to make a sale before I do (in other words, ever); then the penalty will be divorce; which I feel is reasonable punishment.

So she has been snapping away and fiddling around in Lightroom, the latter very slowly. The reason for the tardiness is her hand-me-down iMac which used to be mine before I promoted myself to a Mac Pro. It’s a little slow nowadays, partly because she has filled the machine with crap; but also because the iMac is more than three years old and technology has moved on somewhat.