Up Close and Personal (POTD July 8)

I was out testing the Panasonic GF2 earlier this week, with the optional electronic viewfinder attached, and tried taking some photos from low angles. The optional viewfinder really does help you when you want to taking photos like that, in part because you can do so without having to lay down on the ground.
 

Up Close and Personal

Today's photo is not very good from a technical standpoint, the subjects are not in the brightest part of the scene for one thing, and they aren't perfectly sharp either. I wasn't expecting to get technically great photos, since it was around noon on a clear summer day. In retrospect I should have used the built in flash of the GF2 for fill light.

The mallards in the photo were a lot closer than they appear to be. The closest two birds were less than a foot in front of me, and I was actually a little concerned that they might peck at the front element of the lens! One of the features of the Lumix G 14mm F2.5 is that it focuses as close as 18cm, and you can see in the photo above why that can be a fun feature to have. I used to think that wide angle lenses were not very useful for bird photography, I guess I proved myself wrong on that. Next time I just need to use better technique.