New camera for Glastonbury

I’ve just got back from Glastonbury and have finally got rid of all the mud in what’s left of my hair.

Before I went, I bought a new camera to take with me, a Panasonic LX5. Now, I’m not normally a techie kind of bloke; I don’t sit around discussing f-stops and lenses and resolution. The last time I was asked how many megapixels one of my Nikons had, I had no idea. I still don’t.

However, this camera has impressed me like no other, so I’m going to write a little bit about why, and show you some examples of stuff I shot at Glastonbury with it.

The last pocket camera I had was a Ricoh GX100, which I ended up hating. Sometimes it just refused to take a picture for no real reason. The flash was utterly inconsistent, the colours were weak and the digital noise was crazy. If that’s tempted you, it’s going on eBay next week. I think I might re-word the sales pitch though.

So, I got the Panasonic. Google told me that this is actually the exact same camera as the Leica D-Lux 5, with one minor difference and one major difference. The minor one is that the Panasonic has a slightly different shape to the body, with a curved handgrip in front. No big deal. The major difference is the price. The Panasonic retails for about £450. The Leica, however, is about £200 more. That’s a lot of money to pay for a nice little red badge.

Before I went off to the mudfest in Somerset, I spent a week or so playing around with it, just testing as many options as possible. I wanted to be really familiar with it, so that I would be able to react quickly.

I realise that for many people, the word Glastonbury is the very definition of hell on earth, but myself and my family love it, even when it's wet and muddy. I wanted good pictures, but if I wasn't actually working, I didn't want to lug around my Nikons. This Panasonic appeared to be the perfect compromise.

I need a pocket camera that can do several things. It must be able to shoot RAW files, it must have a manual setting and an accurate flash. I need it to feel solid and I need the digital noise to be minimal. This camera does that and loads more stuff, all too technical and dull to go into.

I’m going to shut up and let the pictures speak for themselves. Now, these were all shot in the RAW format and there has been some post-processing; they didn’t just pop out of the camera looking this way. But they are an accurate representation of what I saw at the time and this brilliant camera was able to deliver the goods. I am a happy customer.

P.S. I shot them all in the 16:9 format as I like this shape. It's especially good for audio slideshows on a widescreen TV.

 

 

I have included the last two to show just how well the camera can cope with low-light levels. Both were shot at ISO800. The one of the chap in the hat was shot in almost pitch darkness, balancing the camera on my knees for a quarter of a second.