Canon 70D – Pany FZ50 + G1
Couldn’t resist …
A bug from my travels down the local byways.
Just thought I’d post a few samples of each camera, since I’m checking it anyway – in other places.
The same species bug, different individuals at different times. So it’s not really a controlled comparison, just what looks and feels best, for me. Because I’ve had my eye on changing cameras, for improvement of image quality.
I find the old FZ50 the easiest cam to operate, I can do it one handed most of the time and if I drop it I have another in the bag. :-) All shots from this cam are Auto Focus via the (A)rticulating LCD and through an achromat at around 4 to 5″ working distance. Keeper rate is the best at around 90%.
The Pany G1 has an Oly 50/f2 macro lens and same achromat as the others. Focus is manual via the (A) LCD – took some getting used to and isn’t always practical when subject is dark or reflection on LCD is too distracting. Keeper rate is around 30/40%
The 70D hasn’t been set up for macro lighting properly here. Shots by this are AF via the (A) LCD. I find this cam too heavy and can’t hold it steady for long enough – feels awkward. The keeper rate suffers accordingly. It’s a fine camera for everything but macro, for me.
All are JPG’s out of the cam and are post processed in exactly the same way, denoised and sharpened using the same settings.
It’s all entertainment really, not scientific.
They all have their qualities.
Everything is right.
And in its place.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click the pix for a closer look
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Sense and Sensation
The local stingless bees are well fed the mornings here. Salad plants, started as seedlings meant to be eaten, gone to seed and now 4 foot tall with white and yellow flowers are their source of nourishment, for now – with much to come if seed cast and sown is viable, with some already visible.
They are gone by early afternoon, back to do hive work. Lots of coming and going in the garden, not a lot for me to shoot though – too small or fast.
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The pure sensation, a simple tingling inside once you get down to it. A sense upon which the mind is ever trying to create ‘something’, as thought and emotion. The exercise is to resist the pull of the mind to think by focusing on the sensation.
And this occurs in space, the sense of it inside. The more it’s done, the greater the realisation. It takes time, and there is no failure – just the endeavour.
It really is that simple … and a couple more things. :-)
© Mark Berkery … CLICK any picture to enlarge in a new tab …
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To Laugh About …
With the rain and cold of this winter came the Kookaburra family to the garden, the male and female. Mates alone, with the young from last season gone to find their own place to live and die.
I suspect a shortage of food around these parts, suburbia, where people keep tidy gardens. It seems to be a rule of mind, with the occasional refreshing wildness.
These birds know where their bread is buttered, a plethora of small lizards to be found scuttling around my garden, plucked mid-stride. Gulped.
Every now and then a sudden raucous noise hits my ears, the distinctive ‘ HA HA HA, HO HO HO, HAHAHA’. Well, something like that.
They remind me of the practicality and diversity of nature, and to laugh – while they scan the ground for a morsel.
A proper laugh strategically applied can change the pattern or weight of a mind.
Does mind have weight, or is it the gravity of the past that tugs?
© Mark Berkery … CLICK any picture to enlarge in a new tab …
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Dragon Hunt
I have been finding a few Dragonfly’s recently, perhaps because of the generally warmer than usual weather, and the new location – a place I haven’t been to for many years. A nearby nature reserve that will soon become a horse track, I am told, so there may be some dung beetles soon to photograph … amongst the many creatures already to be found there.
The site is huge and Dragons can be found all over at different times of day, some by the water where it is clear of trees and brush, some hunt in the fields, some can be found asleep or at rest in the shade where the brush meets the open track, others in the dark shadows. At present there isn’t a ‘best’ spot, maybe as the spring gets on after the winter solstice locations will be more determined – by the nature.
There are many colours of Dragon though few individuals, and getting close to one can take a long time as they are inclined to take flight at the slightest disturbance in their view. Those big eyes are some indication of how sensitive is their sight. Along with being consummate hunters goes a correspondingly evolved survival instinct.
Stillness is the key to observing these wonderful creatures, of mind and body, and the approach takes time and demands an attitude of respect for best results, in my experience.
© Mark Berkery … CLICK any picture to enlarge in a new tab …
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Of a Certain Nature
An unusual place to find a Huntsman, atop a flower, in the morning.
A big Drone fly landed on a nearby flower. Standoff, in my mind …
But didn’t get caught by this spider, this time …
… gardening, and how not to do it.
Until recently my attitude to the garden has been of a minimalist approach; determine, sometimes intuit, location, plant a selection, water and feed – with little to no regard for the suitability of the earth it happens on and in. Lazy, yes, being a poor study of things I don’t ‘see’ the need for.
Then something happened, I stopped wasting energy in one area of my life, thinking I ‘should’ apply myself where I just didn’t fit, and that energy became available for other things. So I began to look deeper into where I do apply myself without the ‘should’.
The notion of growing a certain plant, for its wonderful flowers, slowly grew in my mind and I found myself thoroughly involved in researching how to do it the best I can – not unlike a root-bound seedling released from its constraining pot and transferred to fertile soil.
Of course, because nothing is certain in a world of change, it may not turn out as I envisage but I will have done my best – and that’s what counts, the doing, not the end.
I still love the little creatures, when they show themselves, but maybe I will focus a little more on the flowers that feed them – in all their ways.
When the garden’s soil develops and spring comes around.
… not the end.
© Mark Berkery … CLICK any picture to enlarge in a new tab …
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A Sleepy Dragon
It’s all … a gift, or a curse, depends on how you look at it. But the fact is whatever it is today is gone tomorrow, so there’s no point fretting it – whatever ‘it’ is. Making it less a curse, or a gift, and more simply what it is.
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I know, easy to say. But it can also be ‘done’ if done enough. Letting go is the key, not holding on to what’s inside – though it may appear outside – by thinking too much or getting emotional about ‘it’. Whatever it is.
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This sleepy dragon doesn’t give a … Lying there, resting in the hot afternoon sun, takes no notice of me – as long as I am careful, considerate of its sensibilities, discernible as what my own would be if …
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… I were a dragon.
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© Mark Berkery … CLICK any picture to enlarge in a new tab …
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The Brothers We-evil
Three different individuals doing what weevils do, wandering around in the fulfillment of their nature, what else. Not a problem in sight.
The nightmare is Man’s alone to make and break, zombie dogs at the window, nowhere to hide. Vampires running the show.
Analogies, actualities or realities … What a strange world we have made, that has so little to do with our simple nature.
Phew! It was just a dream after all …
Mark Berkery … CLICK any picture to enlarge in a new tab, they do look better bigger – FireFox – for me
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Bee On My Finger
When I get up, usually sometime in the morning, I have in mind to take a look around the garden. Not only because gardens require some tending, more that the sense of nature is soothing to the psyche and when put first, the sense, it has the effect of diminishing the mentality, the thinking and emotionality engendered by modern living.
It’s a good way to start the day. It helps resolve any lingering dream. And when I have been quiet enough for long enough I can come to things, inside, that nag at me to do something about it – whatever it is. It is tempting to gloss over what hasn’t been resolved, comfortable even, but that is not the way to peace of mind. It’s got to be about peace of mind first …
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On the way around I check the water buckets, where I let it sit to evaporate off the chlorine. I check for trapped or drowning creatures that don’t need to be so, and amongst the others there was a honey bee on its last legs. I lifted it out by putting my finger under it and raising it out of the water, as I do with them all, and I could see by some small movement it was still alive.
It had been raining for days, and cold, so I left it on my finger to warm up and dry out. It didn’t seem to be in any hurry so I got the camera and performed a few contortions to get a few shots. Eventually it woke enough and I put it down in a sheltered spot to gather its strength, fed it a little sugar water and next morning it was gone – back home or back to the hive, who knows. But not yet time to die.
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Did it succumb overnight to a creeping cold malaise or return to its vital instinctive self, given enough life left in it to do so. You just never know, and that state of not knowing is one of the beauties of truth. Because truth, or love – that beautiful state of bee-ing, is beyond the knowing mind.
Nature can be reflective … of the low and the high.
Mark Berkery … CLICK any picture to enlarge in a new tab, they do look better bigger – FireFox – for me
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Painted Stranger
Once more unto the breach, dear friends – however small that hole may be. And never relent in the making of light, no matter what the impediment.
That’s what this endeavour of mine is at times; a reminder to acknowledge the simple good of sense through the wall of mind or physical pain that depends only on what I attend to – largely.
And so there was this visitor in the garden that I had only before seen in passing flight, its size and flash of colour the only track of its existence. A mystery until it presented in masked form, a mystery still.
The Passion-fruit Vine attracts many a visitor these days, being of fruiting maturity, flowers of delightful aroma. An oasis to many a little one, the fairies and elves of our nature, that come and go as they please.
Occasionally inspected by the Vine’s guardians, the little army of black ants that know no fear or favour – just the command of form and function.
There is no disposition in nature to give up, until the end, of form and function – missing a piece of a leg a beginning, a common condition – mobility being essential in an ever moving world.
Anything not mobile is ant food.
Mark Berkery ……. Don’t forget to CLICK on any picture to enlarge it in a new tab – best in FireFox – for me
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Nature's Place 
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