Different Tastes of B&W and Others

^This is one of my favourite images taken with the GF-1 so far, reminding me of the Chinese ink painting.

Most digital cameras allow users to choose from different image settings.  As discussed yesterday, I found two of the My Colour settings of the GF-1 handy and useful.

Great Function 4

But I'm more concerned about the black and white image settings.  Take my GX200 for example.  The GX200's black and white images dons a unique film-like grainy character, especially at high ISO values because, interestingly, of its lacklustre performance high up there.  The GX200 lets users tune the contrast and sharpness for their own black and white setting.  But, frankly, the differences are not obvious.

For sure, we can always post-process.  But what can be better than seeing a scene in different image characters instantly?

It is where GF1's film mode comes in handy.   The film mode features several effects in colour and B&W, as well as two customisable settings.

For the black and white settings, there are (from top left clockwise) standard (a, well, standard setting), dynamic (the contrast is increased) and smooth (smooths the picture without losing the skin texture).

Probably because of the GF1's larger sensor, the black and white images are generally smooth.  And depending on your taste, it has a strong digital feel.  I may prefer GX200's B&W images with the grainy look.

Disregarding my personal preference, GF1's different B&W settings are fun to play with and observably distinctive.

I have tried the smooth setting for landscapes.  It smoothes and renders the final images with a touch of Chinese ink paintings to my liking:

And the dynamic setting gives a discernable difference to the image, which accentuates the subjects:

The normal setting is like this:

I think the three different B&W settings are characteristic in their own way, with the caveat that the images are too clear to my taste.

I don't care much about the different settings in the colour film mode.  I like the colour settings in the My Colour mode which are more drastic.  Instead of saying the names supposedly representing the different colour film settings, which are not really self-explanatory, I compiled the following mosaic image:

Great Function 5

As a street photographer, I drag the shutter a lot when shooting in the street.  I've been wondering if there is a serious compact which lets users see the instant effect of a slow shutter setting.

Eureka!  There is the shutter speed preview function in the GF1, by activating which the photographer can check out the LCD display for at what a pace the motions are being dragged at the specific shutter speed.

So,  by activating the function, the LCD display will show the subjects in slower motions depending on the shutter speed.  This is useful for flash photography when you're not very familiar with the effect of a slow shutter speed plus firing the flash.  The real-time display can gives the photographer some indicative hints.

Take the photo below as an example.  When I moved the camera and viewed the LCD screen at the 1/10s shutter setting, the background was shown exactly like what you see in the photo below.   I handheld the camera and fired the flash at 2nd curtain.  The background was blurred just as I wished by not purposefully steadying my hands.

With this, I close today's post should write more in the next post about the GF1.