[pixelsaurus]

Welcome back Gub

[MarkJerling]

I'm back!! great trip. Geeez Bob your music taste is weird!!!
Shot taken by my Missus who sanely chose to take the Q

Welcome back!

[Kiwizinho]

I'm back!! great trip. Geeez Bob your music taste is weird!!!
Shot taken by my Missus who sanely chose to take the Q

So that's why the forum has been so quiet?

[Arpe]

I'm back!! great trip. Geeez Bob your music taste is weird!!!
Shot taken by my Missus who sanely chose to take the Q

Nice work, my understanding is that not everyone even makes it that far.

[Transit]

I'm back!! great trip. Geeez Bob your music taste is weird!!!
Shot taken by my Missus who sanely chose to take the Q

Awesome!!!
Glad to hear my camera suggestion bore fruit 😁

[GUB]

Nice work, my understanding is that not everyone even makes it that far.

Yes after we got back down it was explained to us that all the helicopters buzzing by were not so much for tourism but rather for extraction of people who were prepared to pay to get the heck out of there. Apparently the failure rate is over 50%. The general numbers of people doing the trek surprised me - In the hundreds flying in daily. A lot of them obviously not fit - overweight. Some looking far too posh and delicate for the conditions they are about to encounter. (And some of these would no doubt surprise me). The hygiene and safety quality of some of the hostels are shocking. The highest hamlet Gorakshep is a total shitehole specially designed to make the rest of Nepal look brilliant. So food poisoning would account for a great degree of the suffering up there. Then there are shonky guides who have underhand deals with the chopper flyers and are counting on you to fail. This is before altitude has a go at you.

[GUB]

But make no mistake - the people are amazing. And there is no regulations stopping the helicopters couriering goods in - the porters simply do it cheaper!

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[NZ_Ross]

But make no mistake - the people are amazing. And there is no regulations stopping the helicopters couriering goods in - the porters simply do it cheaper!

Thanks for sharing the photos GUB, and welcome back. An amazing country by all accounts

[NZ_Ross]

For the past few months I have been exploring my options for my work for a camera that is suitable for travel and Vlogging.

I have looked at all the possible Pentax options given I have a wide set of Pentax lenses, and I have found my K-3 very suitable for stills travel photography. In the past 5 years I have owned the K-3 I have taken it all over the world with me, and it has never missed a beat.

Vlogging is something I intend to do a lot of over the next few years, both here in NZ and also when I am travelling - often to international conferences.

Unfortunately stabilised continuous autofocus video, preferably 4K for future proofing is not a specification that Pentax currently meets, and so I have had to look to other manufacturers offerings. I have ended up with Micro 4/3 and the Panasonic G9 coupled with the Panasonic Leica 12-60 (24-120 35mm equivalent lens). I also brought a 45-150 (90-300 equivalent) for longer telephoto when I need it.

In the end there were other good options for Vlogging only, but I think the G9 provides a very good compromise for both stills and video, and when travelling I only want to carry one camera, a few lenses, and a video microphone - all in one small day bag. The decision came down to the right tool for the job at hand.

Given I have a good record of my shooting habits and focal lengths used over the past 5 years, I am expecting that the Leica 12-60mm lens will be sufficient for 95% of the travel photography and Vlogging. I may end up also wide buying a prime for back up purposes for Vlogging, but we will see.

I have had time constraints in this decision process, as I am attending a conference in Vanuatu in August, and then another conference in the Philippines in November, and I am intending to Vlog at both these conferences.

It would have been nice to know what the next Pentax APS-C flag ship will offer in video, stabilisation etc, and when it will be available, but that is not how the camera industry works. In the end delaying this decision to wait on the off chance that Pentax might offer a good video spec, and good continuous stabilised AF didn't make much sense.

I am intending to keep my Pentax gear, and to keep using it. I have a Pentax to M4/3 adaptor, so I can also use my Pentax lenses on the G9.

My longer term plans are still to purchase a K-1 for my landscape photography, probably around this time next year, as I already have all the Pentax lenses that I need for that - mainly the manual focus Voigtlander's and Zeiss lenses - landscapes not being particularly fast moving so manual focus works fine .

So, I will still be here, and enjoying being part of this community, just now with 2 different digital cameras, lens mounts, and lens systems.

Ross

[MarkJerling]

That Panasonic has a very Pentax look to it Ross. I can see why you like it!

[zkarj]

My longer term plans are still to purchase a K-1 for my landscape photography, probably around this time next year, as I already have all the Pentax lenses that I need for that - mainly the manual focus Voigtlander's and Zeiss lenses - landscapes not being particularly fast moving so manual focus works fine .

So, I will still be here, and enjoying being part of this community, just now with 2 different digital cameras, lens mounts, and lens systems.

There are some in Canterbury & Marlborough areas who might disagree about the speed of landscape.

I think you were wise to just make the decision now because, in all likelihood, you'd just make the same one after Pentax announces their next. I don't think anyone here is holding their breath for state of the art video capability in a Pentax SLR body any time soon.

That Panasonic has a very Pentax look to it Ross. I can see why you like it!

It does, doesn't it!? I'm actually reminded slightly more of my Cosina. But... perhaps they are all just copying Pentax in the first place.

[NZ_Ross]

That Panasonic has a very Pentax look to it Ross. I can see why you like it!

It does, doesn't it!? I'm actually reminded slightly more of my Cosina. But... perhaps they are all just copying Pentax in the first place.

Thanks guys. Panasonic clearly has photographers in their design team, as like Pentax everything falls nicely to hand and works well. I am still setting the camera up, and that will take a bit of experimentation and trials, but so far so good with usability, UI, and outputs achieved

[Transit]

looks very nice Ross !

[Kiwizinho]

Ross it's interesting how you made the decision to buy Panasonic.
It's interesting to look at alternative camera makes for specific tasks. I have a couple of ageing (mini DV tape based) - Canon camcorders which where at the top of the pro-sumer range when they came out, but they can't compete with a DSLR for dynamic range, although smooth zooming, image stabilisation and AF are pretty good.
Panasonic looks to be the way to go for video, although I've been tossing up Olympus for a different, but specialised area of photography.
I do quite a lot of natural history photography, but realised there's a lot of aquatic life around, and even with polarising filters, photographing out of the water is hard to achieve without reflection and glare.
Olympus have the only waterproof compact that shoots RAW as far as I can tell. IQ wise its no match for a DSLR, but it seems to be superior to everything else in its class, and even if I could get a waterproof housing for my Pentax, it would still be rather bulky.
I'm not thinking of swimming with sharks, more photographing invertebrates and small fish in rivers and lakes.
Of course this is a Kiwi group, so someone might have some number 8 wire ingenuity with a way to take semi-immersed photos.
Unfortunately Pentax WR is just that, not WP, so I'm don't want to go and buy a nice 100mm macro lens and dip the end in a stream to test how well the WR works, as it will most likely be a very expensive exercise.

[richandfleur]

Interesting discussion and I agree, the camera market/tech has improved significantly to the point where you can have one device that's capable enough for good results in both stills and video.
Gone are the days of these two fields being so far wildly apart that separate devices were required, especially if your requirements are not too far to the extreme of either discipline.

Will be interesting to hear how you get on Ross.