Happy, happy new camera!

I've lost count of the number of years I've salivated over professional digital SLR cameras. So long, in fact, that DSLR technology has passed and gone. The pro cameras these days are mirrorless -- so I managed to miss an entire generation of technology. But --

There's something to be said for patience. The technology came of age, matured, had its bugs shaken out ... and the price came down. I won't say mirrorless cameras are cheap -- they're not, and they're never going to be -- but they're affordable enough, in a sale... 

...and at the same time, the technology matured enough for enormous, gallumphing devices (that's not a word, but it ought to be) of yesteryear to become small enough for a person with extremely small hands, like mine, to be able to manage the camera easily, comfortably. I like it!

It would be pretty fair to say that Dave got sick enough and tired enough of me moaning about the shortcomings of the Lumix FZ-80 to take the initiative: save up for six months or whatever, and get a Canon EOS R50 kit, which included the body plus two lenses. Now, I'm not going to knock the FZ80 too much. It is what it is: a superzoom bridge, with all that means. When you want a 1200mm zoom lens on a semi-affordable (read: under a grand) digital camera that is small enough to use 100% handheld while hiking -- well, when you ask for all that, and the Lumix FZ80is what you get. But. But...but...

The FZ80 has a phenomenal reach, at 1200mm, and it's light enough to carry, and it costs around $900. Those are the high points, and if you want a superzoom bridge at a price you can afford -- take the good stuff and accept the rest with a smile. But there's rather a lot about the camera that could have been better, and I have to wonder why Panasonic pulled up short of building a truly amazing camera. The processor is so slow that it takes a couple of seconds between shots. If you're photographing crashing surf or birds, this can be a serious problem, because the time lag is enormous, when the subject is moving so fast...

...and, sure, you can shoot on burst mode. But with several shots in the buffer, the time lag while the sloooow processor saves multiple images is painful. Your bird has flown away, gone, before you can get another shot. So, don't use burst. I would have to guess that putting a faster processor into the build would have added $200 to the price of the camera, and given the FZ80's other shortcomings, this might have made for marketability concerns. The second issue I have with the FZ80 is that the available, useful ISO is just not enough. So many times, I put the camera away because the day was too dim, or twilight had come on. Above ISO 400 -- forget it. The images are so grainy, you might as well not bother. Yet, at 400, in low light conditions, you end up with huge apertures and impossibly long shutter speeds. 1/8th of a second? That's too long, even for me. I can hold a camera steady at 1/15th of a second, but not 1/8th. Dang.

This shot, above, was done at 1/15th ... nice water blur, at Byards, two days after I got the Canon. And yes, the Lumix would have done this, but you'd have run into the last of the problems I have with is ... and it's not the Lumix's fault!! There's nothing Panasonic can do to change the laws of optics, and physics! To get a 1200mm zoom lens, you need to put a shedload of lenses in front of the virtual film plane, and this gives you a soft image. A very soft image at the best of times. Long shutter speeds and/or big apertures are going to exacerbate the soft-image problem. Result: yes, you'll get a picture, and I've done it many times. You'll also have a lot of work to do in Photoshop, to get a usable image, and sometimes, you just can't get one. Trying to photograph a dawn or sunset, for instance, all those lens elements fill the picture with pink beachballs ... lens flare. It could be the lens coating, but I doubt it; I'm sure it's just a trade-off for the extremely long zoom, and -- nope. Not even Photoshop can get the pink beachballs out of the shot.  So --

--so, why didn't Panasonic provide a useful ISO range? Something to do with the processor again? Some things, they can't change -- like the trade-off of swapping 1200mm of zoom for tack-sharp pictures. But a useful ISO range, and a faster processor, would have made the FZ80 a camera that was actually worth $1,100, whereas at $900, it tends to be a bit of a "one-trick pony." Meaning, its forte is longshots, birding, wildlife at a great distance, and in great lighting conditions, without a weight penalty or price penalty. That's what it was made for, and it does it well Take it off that work, and you might be left moaning and groaning as often as not, because it's a specialist, not an all-rounder -- ah! --

Yes. As I said, Dave was sick and tired enough of listening to the aforesaid moaning and groaning. Result: Canon EOS R50. Small enough to fit my hand perfectly. Powerful enough that ... if there is a weakness to it so far, I haven't found it -- aside from the unavoidable facts of photographic life: when you run  zoom lens to 100% maximum, you will soften the image. That's just how it is, and there's no way around it. Now, the R50 kit has two lenses, both modest zooms: 18-45mm and 55-210mm. Both useful ... and the wide-angle is pretty fabulous for landscapes ... the telephoto is not quite long enough to permit full-pro birding, unless the bird is pretty darned close. Like, sitting on the end of the lens! 

Having said that -- yes, of course I'm using it for birding. At 25MP, there's enough depth in the mages for me to crop deeply inside them, and I judge that, quality wise, I'm within 15% of what a pro would achieve with a looooong lens and good light. And because the mirrorless is a body + lenses, I have the option of adding on a longer lens. Ah! But not a zoom, which will run out to max and soften the images again, right? A fixed lens ... say, 400mm ... and a 2x or 3x teleconverter, which will take me to 800mm or right back to 1200mm, without a whole bunch of lenses in front of the virtual film plane. 

Well, that's for next year, or even the year after. I'm tickled pink to be able to get great landscapes again, and I will grab the FZ80 in its right time and place. When you're wanting to photograph birds, you want the long zoom. When you're looking at capturing landscapes, you want something like the 18-45mm wide-angle. All in all... oh, yes, I'm happy. Tickled pink. Happy new camera!! And thank you, thank you, to my one and only!

The Year of the January Green

 

Something so extraordinary happened (I should think it's finishes now, with the onset of real summer heat) that it's worth stirring from my recent torpor and blogging about it...

This ... Never ... Happens. I'm not exaggerating. In fact, I've been ransacking my memory for any other year in which the South Australian landscape was green as County Cork in January, ten days after the summer solstice ... and I can't remember any other time. There was a year (1971 or 72, I can't quite recall) when it drizzled until shortly before Christmas, but by New Year the hills were baked brown and the catchments were half empty, as usual. This year? Well --

 

This never happens. Except, apparently, in an El Nino year with some weird dipole values and a heck of a lot of monsoonal activity in the north and east. Put it all together, and you get a cool, sometimes misty, and rather wet summer for us, which translates directly into ... green. And I have to say, I like it. A lot. The climate could settle into this pattern and stay right there, if it were up to me...

These images were all captured after New Year, and as far apart as Victor Harbor and the Flinders Ranges, by way of Clare Valley, the McLaren Vale region, Mt Lofty Botanic Gardens, Nangawooka, and Brodie Road wetlands, which are in our own backyard. I'll say it again: Green!!!

Well, now I've seen everything: Thunderfoot.

Kinchina is a CP, or Conservation Park, not far from Murray Bridge -- in fact, it's adjacent to the Mobilong facility. Dave and I went there to spot birds (no joy: barely even heard any, and saw just one ... no photos worth sharing). But instead, we saw something we have NEVER seen before. And although I was thrilled and privileged to see this incredible animal, I actually hope not to see another like him. I'll call him Thunderfoot, because --

When he took a STEP -- not hopping, just stepping forward -- the impact of those immense feet sounded like a horse cantering over soft ground. Thudd!!!! 

We heard him before we saw him. We knew something was out there. I wondered if there were some big horses loose in the park -- a whole bunch of deer jumping at the same time could have made a similar thudddd sound. Then Dave spotted what we thought (ha!) was the proverbial Really Big Roo. I said words along the lines or "Wow, look at the size of him!" I popped a couple of frames ... then noticed the body morphology. It was the female. The doe --

And then Dave spotted the male. The one who made that heavy, dense, soft thuddd every time he took a step. When you weigh about 200 kilos, this is what it's going to sound like -- and this weight estimation is based on observation and cold, hard logic. A horse easily weighs more, but it sounds comparatively loud because all that weight is falling on a small area, the hoof: a horse walks on its middle toe, right? Now, consider an animal which is not called a macropod, or big-foot, for no reason. His feet are immense. To hear that same "shire horse cantering" type of thuddd sound, you'll need an utterly enormous weight spread out over that huge foot.

The size of him ... 

Those are trees, not shrubs, around him. That's a boulder, not a little rock, just left of centre of this frame. Now, look at the foliage on the foreground tree: mark the scale of it ... but this animal is standing at least eight meters, probably closer to ten, behind that foliage!!

At left here, Dave is standing beside one of the mock-up ancestral animals at the Womambi Fossil Centre, back in 2009. It's one of the extinct tree-browsing kangaroos. (Imagine the proverbial Really Big Roo with the face of a koala, which evolution designed to reach up and browse tree foliage.) The critter at Kinchina, whom we're calling Thunderfoot, is waaaay bigger than this extinct browser. 

Think of the biggest male roo you've ever seen at Belair NP, or Onkaparinga Gorge, or wherever, and -- literally double it. 

It was like looking at a shire horse, and when he moved, that's what it sounded like, back among the trees. 

I've never before felt that frisson of "Oh, oh ..." when coming across a roo in the wild. Never saw one that concerned me, much less made the breath shorten and the hair rise on the back of the neck.

Very carefully, I doubled back around to get a line-of-sight on him without trees in the foreground...

There's nothing for perspective in that shot, but we can tell you this much: if he were to stand up straight, his head would be around nine feet off the ground. Up on those toes? Standing in your living room, his head would be right through the ceiling. His shoulders ... it was like looking at a bull --

A bull that has seen you, is looking right at you, and you're in his territory, and his female is only twenty meters away. For all we knew, there could have been a joey (his baby) in the area, which makes any wild animal protective. He was intent on me, likely for good reason. No way in any world would this animal be leery of a puny little human, but where his joey is concerned...

I popped a couple of quick frames, then very carefully turned around. To be safe, you walk at right-angles to a big, wild roo: you don't make eye contact, and you do not move like you're slinking or sneaking. Slinky walking, eye contact and walking directly toward them emulates the stalking characteristics of the only predator evolution ever threw at animals this big. There haven't been wild dingoes in this part of South Australia for many years -- I don't even know if they're even still wild up in the state's north. But the programming of evolution isn't going to change, not in another million years.

So we walked on, and heard Thunderfoot and his enormous missus boom off into the bushland. It was thrilling, a little bit scary -- like almost but not quite blundering into a grizzly bear in bush Alaska. I wouldn't trade the experience for anything, yet at the same time, I hope not to repeat it! I honestly did not know that roos grew this big  -- and yes, I know exactly what the official documentation says! But I also know what Dave and I experienced. We're savvy people, and entirely used to Clydesdale horses, wild bull moose in Kincaid Park, camels ... those taxidermed bears in the big glass cases at Anchorage Airport! We know what we saw. 

And I won't be diving through the bush with quite the abandon that I used to! Radar on, wits about you, and make enough noise that wildlife can hear you coming! Because it's bigger that you are. A lot bigger. And it has eight-inch talons! It's very fortunate indeed that roos, even humongous ones, are such peaceable herbivores: they absolutely will not attack you ... unless you give them a justifiable reason, like startling them by running right into them, which would make any animal come up swinging.

 So -- don't given them a reason!

Playing Catch-up With Myself: July 14

 

July 14

Here's an "awwwww" factor that's right off the scale. Just too cute: Roos on the trail to Punchbowl Lookout, yesterday. Dave Downes and I had already taken a good hike at the Onkaparinga Wetlands, and rather than coming straight home, we went up to Punchbowl ... by some miracle, it wasn't cold, and wasn't raining, so -- make the most of it, right?

You often see roos and joeys on the hike through to the Punchbowl Lookout, and sometimes a big male, too. But they're not so often close to the trail itself, and when they are, they're (wisely) wary of humans, and tend to take off fast. These didn't ... result, I got some lovely pictures!

It's deep midwinter now ... which means, in Australia, the world is green again, water is flowing, and we're waiting for flowers to bloom in the woodland.

In fact, next post will "The Colours of Winter, 2022."