GrahamNfk

I have a pair of C-mount spacer rings if you want to give your Fujian CCTV lens a try-out with close-up stuff. Would be interesting if that sort of thing would be another string to the CCTV lenses bow.

Adams was an artist, you are an artist, so it''s not a huge surprise to me that you'd both have spotted similar scenes I like them both

I'll do more playing in the editor, but from what I'm seeing so far, the Canon is lagging way behind the Panasonic. Thanks for the comparison images, most useful.

Some test shots. These are the same targets I use when 'getting to know' a lens. All were taken with IS switched on, and me/camera pressed against the side of the shed for added stability. full image then a crop. The grass has turned into a green smear, as has most detail, and the chimney has almost no detail at all. As you can see from the tree, CA is something the lens excels at. Perhaps I'm expecting too much from what is, afterall, a compact on steroids. Whole frame: Crop: Whole frame: Crop:

SX20 is a bridge, so has a built-in non-interchangeable. I'd intended it to be a stop-gap until much later in the year and replace it then with sommat that works well with my lenses.

Will do. I have an empty schedule for tomorrow so will do some examples.

Yes, I confess your results were all part of my decision-making process when I went for the G1 - I reckoned that if your results were typical of Panasonic, I'd be making a safe bet. It's all most peculiar. I've not written Panasonic off, but when I scout the pawn shops in future I think I'll take a lens and memory card and ask to do a few test shots. BTW, as an aside, I adore my CCTV lens that you put me on to. I used it to take some Ebay photos and the detail (after fettling) was crackingly good.

Ok, so as you recall I bought a Lumix G1 to use with my old Pentax-110 lenses, CCTV lenses, and the homebrew macro. You'll recall I then flogged it again after not achieving pleasing image quality. Since then I went back to my mate locally and shot similar pix with the same lenses on his Oly E-PL1, and they were superb. So I reckon ditching the G1 was a good move. Because I can't afford an E-PL1, and much less the add-on EVF, I decided to go back through my photo collection and see what stop-gap camera I liked. Things like the Fuji S6500 and S9600, both small-sensor bridges, were loads good enough. I failed to then track one down (they've risen in price on Fleabay) so went searching. I unearthed a Canon Powershot SX20 in a pawn shop, so came home and read the reviews (a note at this point - Photographyblog reviews are a series of "copy and paste" paragraphs and have proved to have little reflection on the camera being reviewed!) Based on that and a dpreview write-up, I went back and paid my fifty quid for the SX20 and left happy enough (it's a spotlessly clean example). Got home, tried it, and it's bloomin' awful Image quality is, frankly, smudgy Filling the frame with a small object - as with most cameras - is very acceptable. The images are soft too, with no adjustable in-camera sharpening. I'm set to 12MP and the least compression (Fine setting). Contrast is generally low. On the upside, the video quality is excellent (useful as I make lots of Youtube vids) I really fell like giving the whole thing up Question is, do I just give up and wait until I can afford a decent Oly M4/3, and flog the Canon and continue my search? If I do the latter, I'd really welcome personal experiences of bridge cameras that are currently available secondhand int eh "up to 80 quid" bracket. I can't go back to dSLRS as I just can use the viewfinders these days (which are invariably dark on lower-end stuff) Graham (wot's gettin' 'orriby frustrated)

Didn't know they were still playing that scam - well handled My favourite is Virgin. "Is that Mr Wilson?" "Yep" "Can I call you Graham?" "Most people call me Agnes during the day - do you like my dress?" .....

Many of the lenses that come my way have done just that - spent years in attics (worse possible place) and I generally reject half. I can't see anything like the LCE statistics being the case with lenses that have been stored 'normally' though. That said, houses these days are all sealed-up with pish-poor ventilation. Warm and humid, perfect conditions for fungus to grow into the dreaded fronds.

Generally known as "indicator silica gel". The blue/pink one has been outlawed now, I think the replacement is yellow/green. usually easy to find on ebay etc (though some sellers charge more for it than 18ct gold!) Somewhere around five to ten quid for a kg should be about right.

Captivating is the right word. I think I'll spend the rest of the evening looking at them...

My guess is that it's much less likely, depending how well it's put together. Not seen a fixed lens camera with fungus... yet.