Driving home from doing the shopping this afternoon, Kristi spotted this chimney out of the corner of her eye. Naturally, we just had to go and investigate, and with the last light of the day, we managed to snag this photo of what was once the East Glamorgan Hospital.

Built during World War II, the hospital was finally closed in 1999 after the opening of the new Royal Glamorgan Hospital over to the north-west of Llantrisant. Sadly, the handover did not go as smoothly as one would like, with human tissue samples reportedly discovered by the workmen who came to clear the site, and with patients of the mental health unit left with nowhere to move to.

Today, most of the site has been cleared for a large housing estate, but the iconic chimney still remains. Searching online, it isn’t clear what the site is used for today; the road shown in the picture has a sign insisting that the place is private and off-limits (which we respected), bearing the title of the Pontypridd and Rhondda NHS Trust. Their website is still online, but the trust itself has been replaced not once but twice … a damning inditement of the inefficiency in government-run organisations over the lifetime of the current government.

If you’re able to shed some light onto what this site is used for today, please leave a comment below.

On Saturday March 13th 2010, the ancient Roman monument of Hadrian’s Wall was illuminated end to end in an ambitious project to celebrate the 1,600 anniversary of the Romans leaving the wall they built at the northern extreme of their once-mighty empire. Kristi and I were both there, and we managed to capture a little bit of the event ourselves.

The Photos

Here are the photos that Kristi and I took on the day, Kristi shooting on her new Canon rig, and me with my trusty Nikon kit. Kristi has only just switched to Canon, and this weekend away was her first opportunity to spend time with the gear. I think she did brilliantly for a first night shoot, and of course with her stunning artist’s eye managed to pick out many excellent photos that I never spotted.

As the light began to draw in, the crowds began to gather around each of the beacons along the Wall. Those beacons placed higher up were easy to spot, with their audiences silhouetted in the background The lady in the foreground is the Chief Executive of the company that organised the event.

Whilst everyone waited for the Line of Light to reach us, there was a steady stream of people looking to get themselves photographed next to one of the beacons. The two volunteers at this beacon were extremely gracious throughout!

With dusk falling, everyone’s eyes were on the beacons, waiting to see them lit.

Slowly but surely, the Line of Light marched towards us. The anticipation built as each beacon in turn was lit.

The lighting of this beacon was being broadcast live on the BBC. This is the moment that Christine, one of the many volunteers who made this possible, reached up to light the beacon, live on national TV.

One click from the ignitor, and the beacon is lit … live on national TV. Christine, understandably, wanted to get her arm away from the burning flame as quickly as possible!

This is what we’d all come to see … history in the making as a line of beacons lights the length of Hadrian’s Wall for the first time in 1,600 years. And boy, was it worth the wait!

Each of the beacons used to illuminate Hadrian’s Wall was powered by its own gas canister. An army of volunteers had had the horrible job of carrying these up onto the Wall and then along to their allotted spots. I’m sure all that heavy lifting was forgotten though as they enjoyed what they had accomplished together.

Whilst the crowds looked on at the lighting of the beacons, the road that runs parallel to the Wall put on an unexpected show of its own, with traffic going bumper to bumper as far as the eye could see in each direction. I’ve been up here at the height of the season and hardly seen a soul or a car; to see the place as busy as this was quite amazing.

One of the great sights of the day was the look of utter joy as organiser after organiser posed for their picture beside the beacon. I dread to think of how stressful it must have been to put on this event; I hope they were able to enjoy it as much as we did once it began.

The BBC had a live broadcast team at this beacon, and after showing the lighting of the beacon live on national TV, they spent the evening doing interviews with volunteers and the organisers. They worked extremely hard, and the cameraman did a first rate job of marshalling his younger colleagues throughout the day.

Here’s another shot of the BBC team interviewing one of the crew who staged this historic event. Boy doesn’t she look cold!

There was no doubting what the money shot of the night was, and an army of professional and amateur photographers and cameramen alike did their best to capture it.

It seemed like everyone had a camera or camcorder of some description with them, with the vast majority of people sporting the sort of kit that used to only be used by professionals. On tonight’s evidence, the digital age of photography really has brought photography to the masses in a way that chemical film never managed. Having said that, I sincerely doubt that the Once Brewed car park has ever seen as many Audis, BMWs and Mercedes in one go before, so perhaps this wasn’t a particularly representative crowd

As the darkness drew in, and the cold wind really began to bite, it was no surprise that the burning beacons became the focal point for everyone shivering up on the Wall.

In the midst of all the crowds milling around, I spotted this young girl staring up at the burning beacon. The secondary flame on the photo spoils it a bit, sadly, but I thought it was still a strong image worth sharing.

It might not look it from the other photos I’ve uploaded, but it was really dark up there on the Wall before too long. That made for a great backdrop of the beacon burning brightly though

Another shot of the beacon burning in the night sky. I particularly like how the focus is on the flame rather than the beacon itself.

The volunteers stayed with their beacon throughout the evening. We’d left before the beacons finally burned out, but I imagine they were still there, all alone in the dark.

This is what it was all about: the Line of Light running the whole length of Hadrian’s Wall, from Segedunum on the eastern coast of England to Borrow-in-Furness on the western coast. Said to be the first time that the Wall has been lit in 1,600 years. History in the making.

Tips From The Shoot

Looking at the photos others have taken, the one thing I’m sure about is that I have a lot to learn about this sort of photography: shooting lit objects in dusk and at night. Here’s how I approached the shoot.

• Get there early, and pick your spot. We arrived about five hours before the event, so that we could take a good look around and plan our shots. Mind you, as we’re both nursing injured knees right now, we needed that long just to hobble to and from where we managed to get parked!
• Use manual focus, and set the focus on all your lenses before the light fades. With an event at dusk, as the light goes so does the camera’s ability to auto-focus reliably. A hunting lens not only means missed opportunities, it also eats into your battery life. Having picked my spot during daylight, I went through all of my lenses in turn and made sure they were focused sharp on the beacon I planned on photographing. Once the action started, all I needed to do was switch lenses to select my shot.
• Use fast (f/1.4 if possible) lenses rather than VR lenses as the light goes. VR is a great addition to the photographer’s kit bag, and several of my shots on the night were done using a VR lens. But as the light went, the VR lens needed longer and longer exposures to take each shot, and with so many people milling about, getting shots where everyone was sharp just wasn’t possible. Switching to the fast prime lens I have solved that problem … for a while at least.
• Bring a tripod, or beg, steal or borrow one if you didn’t. Even with a last lens, eventually it was too dark to shoot handheld at all. The last shot of the day, of the Line of Light stretching across the Northumberland countryside, was a 10 second exposure. If I hadn’t been able to borrow Kristi’s tripod for that shot, I probably would never have taken it. My own tripod didn’t survive last year’s car accident; I’ll be replacing it soon.

Thoughts From The Day

We hadn’t heard of the Illuminating Hadrian’s Wall event in advance, but by chance we were up in the North East this weekend intending to spend the weekend exploring the ruins of the old Steetley Magnesite in Hartlepool. Those plans lasted about five minutes before we decided to raid the local Asda for food for a pack-up and head on up to the Wall.

Our destination was the visitors’ centre at Once Brewed. Pretty central, it sits close to one of the best preserved (and most photographed) sections of Hadrian’s Wall, and it seemed to be the best bet for us to find a great opportunity or two to get some photos. That turned out to be a good guess; we joined a large crowd and several live broadcast crews in watching the march of the beacons westwards along the wall.

We arrived early afternoon, but not quite early enough to get parked up in the visitors centre’s car park, just missing out on the last parking bay. No matter, we pottered over to the other side of the B6318 and joined the small group of cars starting to gather on the grass verges. With plenty of time to kill before the event started, we nursed our collective knee injuries east along the wall to take some photos of the sycamore tree famously used in the Kevin Costner film, Robin Hood – Prince of Thieves. Along the way, we got to watch the teams of volunteers carting the gas canisters up onto the Wall, giving us plenty of options to think about where to go to try our hand at photographing this “once in a lifetime” event.

Finally, as dusk approached, the air was abuzz with excitement as everyone picked their spot and waited for the beacons to be lit. The plan was that the first beacon would be lit in Segedunum (the Roman fort uncovered near where Sting was born) at around 5:45pm, and then the line of light would march westward until it reached Carlisle about an hour later. It was timed to co-incide with a fly past by a helicopter film crew … presumably there’ll be a DVD of the event on sale in due course.

I was surprised at how the vast majority of the crowd was ignoring one of the beacons nearest them, instead all aiming their kit at the cliff opposite, so I picked that beacon as the one I wanted to try my luck with. Kristi had very sensibly brought a tripod with her (I’d bought a Nikon 50mm f/1.4D lens instead of a new tripod the week before), and she headed a bit further back to higher ground aiming to capture crowd shots, which she did a great job of. I found myself about 10 ft away from the BBC live broadcast team, with a great view of the beacon they planned on filming plus the opposite beacon in the distance, and also able to clearly hear their conversations as they discussed what was about to happen and when. Pretty much the perfect spot.

Everyone was clapping and cheering as the line of beacons approached … and then, just as I was about to take my shots, having patiently waited for some time, someone who appeared to be part of the BBC crew (I think he was the producer, but I can’t be certain), rudely stepped right in front of me … to shoot with a frickin’ iPhone. The iPhone is a wonderful gadget (mine goes everywhere with me), but one thing it isn’t is a passable camera. Writing up this blog post about it now, I’m still really angry with what a rude and pointless action it was by this gentleman. And if he was part of the BBC team, he should have been working, not playing tourist. Grrr.

(I’d also had a couple of the professional photographers covering the event step in front of me in the build up. By contrast, they were careful to only do so when I wasn’t taking a shot, and polite enough to apologise or nod in acknowledgement before moving on afterwards. None of them stopped me taking any of the shots I wanted at any time).

Then Christine – the volunteer lighting the beacon that the BBC team was broadcasting live – got the nod from the BBC cameraman (a real old hand who seemed to be doing an excellent job of directing his younger colleagues throughout the evening), and she reached up to light the beacon. Shooting handheld with the Nikon 70-300mm VR before switching to my new Nikon 50mm f/1.4D, I managed to capture the moment she lit the beacon (by shooting over the head of the rude BBC man), before wandering around bagging a few shots before the light completely faded.

All day, I’d been hoping for the opportunity to get a photo of a Roman soldier lit by the beacons. There was a re-enactor around, but by the time I’d spotted him at one of the other beacons and made my way down, it was simply too dark for me to get a shot handheld with my skills. This shot in The Guardian however is perfect, and shows what I miserably failed to photograph!

Finally, with darkness having fallen, I borrowed Kristi’s tripod for some speculative shots of the beacons lighting up the wall into the distance, before we made our way back to the car. We sat there for a good half an hour, eating our pack-up whilst everyone queued to get away from the site. The road that runs parallel to the Wall was just bumper to bumper in both directions, forming a very pretty line of lights of their own too.

We were there simply by good fortune, and we both had an amazing time. It was billed as a “once in a lifetime” event by the organisers, and whether or not that turns out to be true, it was a great privilege to be there to see, and record, a tiny piece of history.

Other Coverage

People came from all over the world to take part in this event, and it was well covered in the media on Sunday.

• The official Illuminating Hadrian’s Wall site’s Gallery.
• Legions of sightseers attend Hadrian’s Wall illumination in The Guardian.
• The Guardian’s Illuminating Hadrian’s Wall Gallery.
• History Made As Hadrian’s Wall Illuminated on JournalLive.
• Illuminating The Wall, on the Heritage Key blog.
• Wall of Light is Spectacular Success, on the Hexham Courant.
• The Illuminating Hadrian’s Wall group on Flickr.

Sunset at Barry Docks. Handheld with my new Nikon 50mm f/1.4.

Of all the bridges over the River Taff in the Pontypridd district, this one remains my favourite to photograph. I don’t actually know anything about this bridge, other than it once carried road traffic but today it’s a footbridge.

If you enjoyed this shot, you might also enjoy Bridging The Rivers At Pontypridd.

This is a view across the River Taff that I get to enjoy several mornings a week; steam rising from the Brains Brewery just outside Cardiff Central railway station.

A non-HDR shot for a change

The morning is, without doubt, the best time of day to try and snap the houses of Trefforest. Snuggling on the western bank of the River Taff, the former market town of Trefforest is today dominated by the University of Glamorgan. Most of the housing is now let to students, making the place a bit of a ghost town out of term time.

Taken from the same spot as Watching Over The A470.

If you can get out of bed early enough, this time of year offers fantastic light when the weather isn’t against you. And yet, look at the photography going on this time of year, and you’ll see that so few people ever look up to see – and photograph – what’s above them.

Mind you, you have to look up a long way to see this bad boy. This is one of the ridiculously tall lights that rises up from the Treforrest / Glyntaff turnoff to look down onto the elevated section of the A470. To have any chance at all of capturing this shot, I had to wander into the car park of the new University of Glamorgan campus (many thanks to the security team for their permission), and even from that elevated position I had a fair job getting the whole lamp into the shot.

Can you imagine having the job of changing the bulbs in this thing when they blow?

In February 2009, Panasonic kindly loaned my one of their (at the time) new LUMIX DMC-G1 micro four-thirds digital SLRs for a couple of weeks to play with and review. Because I use a Mac and shoot in RAW mode, it wasn’t possible to publish the photos taken with the G1 until Apple released Aperture 3 in February 2010. But despite the time that has passed, the DMC-G1 is still on sale and definitely worth a review.

To help you make your own mind up, I’ve also included over 40 example shots taken with the G1.

My Review Model

Panasonic lent me a LUMIX DMC-G1 camera, complete with a 14-45mm lens (equivalent to 28-90mm in 35mm terms). The camera has an electronic viewfinder, and a live view screen on the back that pops out of the body so that you can tilt and swivel it. It came in the lovely red colour shown above.

Let’s start with first impressions. Everyone who saw the camera – friends, family, and my colleagues at work – found both the camera in general, and the particular tone of red in particular, to be very eye-catching and very much to their taste. There’s just something about the look of the G1 that suggests quality. The publicity photos really don’t do it justice. If you’re even remotely thinking of buying this camera, pop down to your local camera shop and see it in person if you can.

It’s very nice to handle too. The camera body has a rubber coating that makes it very easy to grip, and is much smaller and much lighter than my beloved Nikon D200. You can (and I did) walk around with it in one hand for a whole day without getting tired. When it was time to send the loan unit back, I found that I’d grown very attached to it.

As A Camera

The whole point of the micro four-thirds camera system is that it allows the camera manufacturers to design cameras that are much smaller and lighter than DX format cameras like the Nikon D200 or full-frame cameras like the Nikon D700. One of the compromises they had to adopt to achieve this was dropping the mirror and pentaprism required for an optical viewfinder.

Using the G1, therefore, is a bit like using a compact camera. You frame your shot using the screen on the back of the camera. There is a viewfinder, but it is electronic (i.e. it’s another screen, just a very tiny one), and I personally didn’t use it after the first couple of attempts. I’m too used to an optical viewfinder, and I found the electronic viewfinder too blocky to use with any degree of precision. Besides, using the screen on the back of the camera is much more flexible, as it allows you to hold the camera at silly angles or away from you and still see the shot that you’re composing. The screen on the G1 pops out; it can be tilted and rotated, just like the screen on a camcorder. It’s very very handy, and a feature I’d love to have on a future Nikon DSLR.

Focusing with the G1 took full advantage of this. It was possible to zoom in on the picture to make sure that the image I was about to take was in focus exactly where I wanted it to be. This is another excellent feature I’d love to see on a future Nikon DSLR; I believe that picking your focus point (instead of just focusing on whatever is in the middle of the shot) is a very important part of composing a good picture.

The passage of time has dulled my memory, I have to admit, but I don’t remember any real issues with the camera at all. I tend to shoot with manual focus a lot, so I don’t recall using the autofocus very much. Micro four-thirds cameras have a reputation for being a little slow to autofocus; something to consider if you’re buying a camera to shoot birds or cars and the like, perhaps.

I did find that the battery ran flat on me sooner than I’d expected. On one of the test shoots, I took the camera out all day, and had to switch back to my Nikon halfway through the day after the G1’s battery ran flat. That was more inexperience with a new camera than anything else, I believe, but it is something I wish I’d tested better at the time.

What Was The Problem With RAW Mode On The Mac?

Many photographers like to shoot in RAW mode because the resulting image gives you the most flexibility in post-production. Take a JPEG image (such as my shot of Machrie Moor from 2004) which has been heavily adjusted in post-production, and you can clearly see the way the colour gradients have broken down. You simply don’t get that degradation in quality when processing RAW images.

Unfortunately, shooting in RAW mode with the Panasonic DMC-G1 turned out to be a problem when it came to preparing the images for this review. There’s no such thing as a ’standard’ file format for RAW images. Each RAW image is essentially a dump of the actual data captured by the camera’s sensor; as a result, every time there’s a new camera with a new sensor, there’s normally a new RAW image file format for people like Apple and Adobe to support. And … how can I put this? Apple took their time adding support for RAW files from the G1. They didn’t add support for the G1’s RAW images until February 2010, a full 12 months after Panasonic had lent me the G1 to review.

Let me say that again. For a full year after the release of the Panasonic DMC-G1, it wasn’t possible for me to view or work with the G1’s RAW images using Apple’s products. Adobe released support for handling RAW files from the G1 back in November 2008 according to one report.

If you are going to buy a newly-released digital camera, and you want to shoot in RAW mode, first make sure that your photography software of choice has support for it. This is a major pitfall with digital cameras to be aware of. It wasn’t just the DMC-G1 that I’ve been stung with this. I also own the compact Panasonic LUMIX DMC-LX3, and I had to wait 14 months before Apple added support for its RAW files. Grrr.

Remember to check before you buy. And if Apple are being tardy in supporting the camera you’re interested in, consider switching to using Adobe Lightroom. Or don’t shoot in RAW mode.

Field Tests

I took the camera out on three major field tests before I had to hand it back to Panasonic.

The first test was arguably the most difficult. We went out to Aberystwyth on the dullest, dreariest day you can imagine, the sort of day where I’d resort to black and white HDR shots with my Nikon D200 and count myself lucky if I bagged anything worth uploading.

In the second test, I spent a day walking a good chunk of the Bath to Bristol Railway Path. It was once the route of the Midland Railway, and it makes for a lovely and gentle walk through a mixed countryside. As such, it provides a nice amount of variety to give the G1 a good workout, and the sort of long trip that makes you quickly appreciate the G1’s lightweight nature and size.

To finish, I took the camera out for a couple of hours up the hill opposite where I live to basically mess about taking woodland shots and take advantage of the live view on the camera’s rear screen to take the sort of shots that’d be just too awkward to attempt with a traditional DSLR like my Nikon D200. Woodlands are a good challenge for any camera; you’re going to take photos that are quite busy – crammed with detail – with lots of opportunities to highlight any problems with colour fringing or coping with textures and patterns.

So how did the camera fare? In my opinion, surprisingly well, but here are the pics so you can decide for yourself. None of these shots have been adjusted or cropped in any way at all. What you see is exactly what the camera produced.

The weather at Aberystwyth was dull and grey, but that didn’t stop the G1 getting the exposure just right on this shot of the harbour.

Point the camera away from the grey sky, and the G1 has no trouble at all producing bright photographs like this one.

Again, the auto-exposure did a great job in this shot, striking a pleasing balance to bring out the boats in the harbour.

This is where it gets a little more subjective. The camera appears to have based its exposure on the white waves, trying to avoid burning them out. The resulting shot looks quite dark, but I’m sure it can be easily processed to bring out the detail.

The under-exposure continued throughout the day. Although the unprocessed shot looks dark, with careful adjustment I’m sure all of the detail could be easily brought out of this shot.

This shot, perhaps, is where the G1 under-exposed too much. Some credit for trying to preserve the detail in the sky, but I think that the camera got it wrong this time – albeit in very difficult conditions.

But the camera got it spot-on with this shot, possibly because there’s a lot less sky in this shot, or perhaps because of the large amount of tarmac

The exposure on this shot seriously impressed me. It has brought the detail out in the passageway just perfectly.

Add more sky into the shot, though, and we’re back to underexposing the shot I’m sure that, with more practice, I’d learn to handle the camera well enough to avoid this underexposing … but would the camera’s target audience ever learn? That is something I’m not so sure about.

I’m pleased not only with the exposure but also the depth and detail on this shot. One advantage of the G1’s smaller sensor is that it can produce sharper images than my D200. View this shot on Flickr at full size, and look closely at the detail in the background, and see for yourself.

I’m a great fan of Nikon lenses (which is one of the main reasons I’ve been a loyal Nikon user for the past decade or so), but I’m very happy with the kit lens that comes with the DMC-G1. There’s a little bit of distortion on this shot, but not enough to complain about by any means, especially when you remember just how affordable this camera is.

The G1’s ability to capture fine detail isn’t just useful for landscapes like the headland shot above. If you like snapping texture shots (such as this wooden planking), you’ll be very happy with the G1.

I have no idea what happened to the white-balance here, and it’s been too long for me to remember whether or not it was my fault … but look at the fantastic detail of the rust. Just as importantly, notice the depth-of-field behind, and how the G1’s sharpness adds a pleasing contrast to any photo where you decide to blur the background.

That’s it for the photos from Aberystwyth. The conditions were difficult, but with the one problem of underexposure, I think the camera did well, and I came back from my very first outing with the camera with several photos I would have been happy to post on my blog and share on Flickr. And at least the underexposure behaviour appears predictable.

This next set of example shots is from the second field test: my walk along the Railway Path from Bath to Bristol. This sort of field photography puts the lens in particular to the test: will it have enough width to take in the landscape and yet enough reach to zoom in on interesting sights in the distance? And will the fine detail be lost in horrible purple colour fringing?

The day opened overcast, but thankfully not as dull as it had been out at Aberystwyth. With the brighter conditions, there were no underexposed shots at all during the day, which was great news!

If you view this shot at full size on Flickr, the fine detail of the bare tree branches can be clearly seen, and there’s no sign of horrible purple fringing.

As I walked along the path that ran along the River Avon, this green bottle bobbed gently by. Focusing on the bottle was easy enough, the camera coping well with the reflection on the water.

“Wide” on the 14-45mm lens is probably wide enough for most people. I like the sharpness on the image too, such as the amount of detail in the tree bark.

At the other end of the lens, the image isn’t quite as sharp to my eyes, but is still perfectly fine. And there’s no obvious problems with colour consistency between the two ends of the lens’ range either.

But the lens is definitely at its best when used for wider shots. I suspect landscape photographers looking for a lightweight alternative to a big and heavy Nikon would be very happy with the DMC-G1.

There’s nothing all that remarkable about this shot at first glance, but the main reason I’ve included it is for the lack of reflection highlights on the lettering on the sign. I’ve had camera and lens combinations in the past that would have struggled with this.

The 45mm (equivalent to 97mm on a 35mm lens) had enough reach to pick out this bridge visible in the distance, but there wasn’t much to spare. With both Nikon and Canon having 18-200mm lenses for their cameras, the more modest zoom on the G1’s kit lens might frustrate people at first. But Panasonic also make a 45-200mm (which would be the equivalent of over 400mm of zoom on a 35mm camera system!) at a very modest price.

The shots above are all nice examples of the quality of the lens … lots of nice straight lines with little noticeable distortion, bringing out the true nature of a cycling path running along a former railway route

The live view screen makes it very easy to attempt more unusual shots like this without back-breaking contortions. This is exactly the sort of shot I’d normally resort to using a pocket camera for; the fold-out screen on the G1 gives it an added versatility.

I picked this shot partly for the lush fine detail that the camera has picked up, and partly for the very pleasing exposure and colours. I think the G1 can capture very high quality images in good light, as we’ll see later.

Reflection shots are challenging for cameras, but the G1 has exposed this just right I feel. The other reason I’ve picked this shot is because of the composition. If I’d taken this shot with my Nikon D200, I would probably have had to crop it in post-production to get the framing right. With the live view on the large screen on the back of the G1, I was able to see this shot clearer when the shot was taken.

Another example of how the sharpness that the G1 can reliably manage makes a great contrast if you go for a shallow depth-of-field in your shots.

As the light improved, the G1 started to capture images with colours and tones that I found to be very pleasing. The sky is still a little washed out, but that’s a problem all current digital cameras suffer from, and here the effect isn’t displeasing.

Plenty of pleasing detail throughout this photo, from the gravel beneath the train tracks to the clouds in the sky. I think it’s a good example of what the G1 can do with very little effort, which is perfect for the amateur photographer who is likely to be interested in the G1.

As the light improved further, the G1 captured the blue sky accurately. My previous Panasonic – the FX33 – had a tendency to get the shade of blue in the sky wrong, but no such trouble here.

Alas, half-way through the walk the battery in the G1 ran flat, so I wasn’t able to explore this rail yard with the camera properly.

By comparison, here’s a shot taken with the Nikon D200 a few minutes later. I think the shots from the G1 compare very well, especially when you think that the Nikon D200 + 18-135mm lens combination cost me over 1,600 GBP, and today you can pick up a brand-new G1 for under 450 GBP. That’s progress for you.

Finally we come to the third and final field test, an afternoon’s stroll on Craig-yr-Hesq in South Wales, with more examples showing the excellent detail that the G1 captures and at last the opportunity for the G1 to show off what a great job it does of capturing rich colours on a bright day.

It’s worth mentioning that this shot was handheld

Final Thoughts

I really enjoyed my two weeks trying out the Panasonic LUMIX DMC-G1, and putting together this review I’ve been very impressed with the quality of the images that the camera consistently captured. The conditions were not kind at all, but the G1 still did a great job. Each photo is full of fine detail, especially on the wider shots where the bundled kit lens is at its sharpest. The colours are rich and accurate, and very importantly I haven’t found a single shot spoiled by purple fringing so far. And none of these shots have been adjusted at all; they are exactly as taken by the G1.

I’m not sure that the G1 is for people like me who have been shooting with digital SLRs for some time. It is very early days for the micro Four-Thirds standard, and at the time of writing there are only two lenses available for the G1. By contrast, my light travel kit bag has three lenses in it But don’t let that put you off; I don’t believe that we’re the target audience for this camera.

If you’re looking to move up from your pocket digital camera to your first digital SLR, then you should include the G1 on the list of cameras to consider. Because the camera is entirely electronic, the controls look and feel like those on a pocket camera – with the added advantage that you can take full control over your images when you’re ready to do so. Today, the G1 with the 14-45mm kit lens that I used to take these shots can be purchased for under 450 GBP brand new – and for even less on eBay. That’s cheaper than a Nikon D5000, and you get a more versatile lens for your money.

I believe that both the Nikon and Canon ranges offer the serious amateur more long-term options, but most people just want to have fun taking photos, and at the same time have a little more creative control and a little higher quality than a pocket camera can offer. If that sounds like you, then the G1 might just be perfect for you.

I hope you find this review useful; if you do, please leave a comment below. And please feel free to share your own experiences with the G1.

Since the car accident, I haven’t been able to do very much photography, so I haven’t been paying attention to how popular my photos are on Flickr for over six months now. I had a quick look tonight, and I was certainly surprised by the current top 20.

First: some numbers. At the time of writing, my photos on Flickr have been viewed a total of 228,025 times. I have 1,308 photos up right now; that’s an average of 174 views per photo. Sadly very few of my photos are that popular, but still … who are all these people looking at my photos? And why do they never leave any comments to say what they do or don’t like?

The Runaway Leader

With over 11,000 views, this photo of some graffiti outside the ruins of the Treforest Tin Works is by far and away the single most popular photo I’ve posted to Flickr. I know that this photo has been mentioned in at least one ‘50 photos of …’ type post, which is probably the only reason that it is so popular.

Also in the top 20, at #6 with over 1,500 views, was another shot from the same shoot, of some graffiti from inside the ruins of the old Tin Works.

It wasn’t the best of conditions the day I explored the old Tin Works; I really need to return one day soon when the sun is out and the sky is blue. And clearly I don’t know anything at all about graffiti, because I would have picked this eye-catching piece as the pick of the bunch from that day. It currently has 492 views.

Textures

Having just crept over the line with 3,002 views, this photo of a Scottish wall in the Western Isles makes #2 on the list.

Not far behind, with 1,357 views, is one of the silliest photos I’ve ever posted. (There is an even sillier one to come in this top 20!) Taken with my now-retired Canon IXUS 400, and saturated to the max, it surely is proof that plenty of people are looking for greener grass.

I’ve been struggling to think of any texture shots that might be better than these. Perhaps there is a case for this wonderful (well, I think so anyway) shot of the roof of the Dan-yr-Ogof show caves, taken during our honeymoon stay at the place.

I think there’s also an argument to be made about this shot, taken at the 2007 Beyond The Borders storytelling festival. After a long hiatus, the festival is back this year. Mrs H and I can hardly wait!

Architecture

Although I like to think of myself as a cross between a landscape photographer and a photo journalist, buildings fair far better than landscapes in this top 20. At #3, with 2,455 views, is the very first photo I took once I was inside the Eden Project in Cornwall. It’s a shot that would feature in my own list of favourites, and it was used as the front cover for the Eden Project’s official guidebook.

That wasn’t a surprise (the only surprise for me is that it hasn’t done even better), but the following one is. It’s an abandoned house on the western coast of the Isle of Lewis. You’ll find it very near one of the stone circles at Calanais, but only if you go off the beaten track a little. To this day I don’t know why I snapped it at all, but with 1,465 views, it has proved to be far more popular than my photos of the stone circles themselves, and came in at #7 overall.

And here is another surprise. I took this shot of the Millennium Stadium from miles away, using the long end of my Sigma 80-400mm lens, a tripod, and a bit of guesswork. (I was so far away, technically I was in a different county!) I suppose that it is an unusual view of the stadium, but with the low contrast and lack of sharpness, it isn’t a photo I would have expected to be all that popular. This photo had a total 1,245 views, and came in at exactly the halfway mark at #10.

In that photo, the Coal Scuttle (as we locals like to call it) aka the Millennium Centre can also be seen. I was able to use the winter sun and the excellent sensor of the Panasonic LX3 to snag this (arguably much better) photo of the place. It currently is nowhere near the top 20.

Here’s another shot taken with the Sigma 80-400mm lens. (Hrm, and here’s me thinking of putting it up for sale on Ebay. Perhaps I should be hanging onto it after all). This is a shot of the General Electric plant in Nantgarw, Rhondda Cynon Taff. My cat Spike came from this plant; he was a ferile kitten found in a litter by one of the staff who work there. This one had 935 views, coming in at #15.

I didn’t just snag one photo in my top 20 from my hilltop shoot of Cardiff … I snagged a second one too. 862 people have viewed this photo of the steel works on the East Moors, placing it at #19 overall in the list.

I’ve taken a lot of architecture photos over the years that I’m really pleased with, but for me, one of the best is the very very first photo I published in the Merthyr Road photography project. This shot of the Cefn Coed Viaduct, taken on a wet and miserable January day with my Canon IXUS 400, does an excellent job of placing the viaduct in context. It currently has only 349 views.

Or perhaps this shot of the ruined West Pier of Brighton would also be a contender for the future? It is more popular, with 749 views to date.

Naval History

I’ve made several trips to the Portsmouth Historical Dockyard and surrounding area over the years, and for a while I even ran the Flickr group before the Dockyard’s staff got involved and took it over. At #4 on the list, with 2,228 views, this exposure of the lower deck of HMS Victory was one of the very best shots I’ve ever taken there.

Also popular, with 1,005 views (placing it #14 overall) is this second shot from below decks on HMS Victory, taken during the same shoot.

Landscapes

Now we’re getting onto the territory that I most enjoy trying to photograph. I’m pleased that so many of my landscape shots feature in the top 20, but I’m equally surprised at how much better other subjects I’ve photographed have done!

At #5, with 2,102 views, this sunset over the amazing Borth Beach was another surprise for me.

The trip to Borth Beach was an amazing experience, getting to park on the sand and walk amongst the uncovered remains of the old forest that used to be there, and taking the now long-serving Nikon D200 out for its very first trip. But if there was one photo that I would have chosen from that set, it would have been this one – which was the very first shot that convinced me that the D200 was a huge improvement in picture quality (not just in viewfinder!) over the D100 that it had replaced.

I can’t argue at all about the next shot. With 1,425 views, this beautiful HDR shot of the Mumbles Lighthouse is at #8 on the top 20 list. Despite many visits to Swansea over the last 18 years now, this trip was the first one where I learned that Mumbles had both a pier and a lighthouse. Like many of my better HDR photos, this was a speculative shot towards the end of a tiring day. I don’t think it could have turned out much better.

Yet another surprise laid in wait for me at #11. My HDR series of shots of the River Taff has been one of the more popular photo sets I’ve done, but although it has 1,207 views, it isn’t the shot I would have picked from that photo set.

Instead, I would have gone for this one. Sure, it looks very surreal because of the way I was shooting into the sun, but it’s a shot I could stare at for hours.

Getting back to the top 20 list … and at #12, with 1,187 views is this HDR shot of the deserted beaches of Harris. If you’ve never been to the Isle of Harris, then be assured that this photo completely fails to do justice to the gorgeous white sandy beaches on the western coast. We’re already looking forward to the day we can go back.

How does this photo only have 1,127 views?!? I know I should have used a tripod instead of taking it handheld, but come on – this shot of Mrs H atop Caerphilly Mountain one wonderful misty morning deserves to be much higher up the list than merely #13.

From the same misty morning shoot, this shot of Craig Yr Allt and The Garth (the hill where I took the shots of the Millennium Stadium and the steel works) has 930 views, and is #16 on the list.

And so we come to perhaps the single best photo I’ve ever taken … and it’s back to Scotland and the Isle of Lewis for this HDR shot of Calanais at dusk. This shot was taken right at the end of an amazing 40 minutes where we’d had the whole place to ourselves as the sun went down. It was five frames shot blind into the sun with no idea what I’d get. Help me get this photo up from #18 with only 886 views!

To finish the popular landscape shots, at #20 on the list with 822 views is this fun photo I took at Three Cliffs on the Gower many years ago now. The dolphin sand sculpture in the foreground is courtesy of Mrs H.

One thing I’m disappointed about is that the single best photo I ever took with my long-gone Nikon D100 has never made it into the top 20. Recently featured on a local calendar, this photo of Machrie Moor on the enchanting island of Arran in Scotland is one of the photos I’m most pleased with, both from a composition and colour point of view.

A close second, and incidentally also a shot taken with my Nikon D100, is this shot of some trees caught in the silvery winter sun in early February. It isn’t a shot I originally thought anything of until Mrs H chose it for an art project she was working on. I’m really glad she did.

Saving The Silliest Til Last

Why on earth have 890 people looked at this photo? Could it, by any chance, have to do with the fact that I gave it the title of ‘Bollards’? You decide. It came in at #17 overall, ahead of both my Calanais stone circle photo and the shot of Kristi’s dolphin structure on the beach at Three Cliffs. Go figure, because I can’t!

If you liked any of these photos, please show your appreciation by clicking through to view them on Flickr. That helps me see which photos are proving popular – and you could always leave a comment on the photo’s Flickr page, or maybe even mark it as a favourite of yours.

It might not look like much today, and the bare trees and cold tarmac of the A470 might make this picture seem extremely unremarkable, but sixty years ago you’d have been looking at the canal bridge at Trallwn as it crossed the Glamorganshire Canal.

Sadly, although I’m sure I’ve seen a photo online of the bridge taken from about this spot, I’ve been unable to find it so far. If you know of one, please let me know in the comments below!