43 Photography

Panasonic elected to choose yet another raw file format for it’s GH series of cameras. This would be all fine and dandy however they do not support 64bit operating systems and this poses a problem. While Silkypix Developer Studio that ships with the camera software runs fine on Win7 64 the Panasonic PHOTOfun Studio does not. My installation crashes whenever I try to browse the folders.

So what is a boy to do?

I downloaded Adobe DNG converter from here for free. Why? Because now I can browse my raw files in Live Photo gallery or another software of my choosing and I have more options than just the Silkypix that came with the camera.

DNG files are the universal raw format so I believe it is a good free workaround that opens lots of doors.

There comes a time in photography when the photographer changes the role from passive to active. At some point you decided to start taking photographs instead of pictures, and in that, you found the one thing for which you are at the mercy of forces outside your control.

The light.

You can alter a composition with cropping, you can edit poor colors and other instances you don’t like in your photograph, the light is forever. Never again will you find the same angle at the same time in the same place, not in your lifetime anyway.

What do you do about this? First thing is you take pictures, you take your time, and you open your eyes. A shadow may change with a passing cloud, the mountains might bring an early cast of dusk on the valley, these are things you can look at and anticipate in your surrounds.

Remember to stay until dark because the best colors are usually the last colors, read the news for eruptions and fires, not because you are morbid, but because the colors will be once in a life time if your sky falls victim to the upper level debris. Check your focus distance and depth of field, these are important for adding depth to you scene while insuring the proper subject is accentuated.

Remain curious and prepared, granted smiles and wisdom finding like in form, natural and serene, blessed be those by choice, self aware of thee and I, for in that there is one.

Sporadic I know, it has been a long month with more to come, but time will bring the sun for me, and I will write that guide!

I recently purchased a Panasonic DMC-GH1. Hooray for me!!!

I was pleasantly surprised by the look and feel of my new camera. Coming from a Rebel XT, I have been more than pleased by the feel of quality I get when I hold this camera in my hands!!!

Over the next few days I will take some pictures and begin writing my users guide for the GH1…

We can learn together, isn’t that special…