Low Light and the LUMIX GH3

Like any post I write myself in Luminary Corner, I need to remind you of my profile in professional photography. While I know more than I let on, I do not make a living as a photographer. My background is in marketing and business, "seasoned" with my passion for the craft. I'm the industry's biggest groupie and thanks to career paths at Hasselblad and Rangefinder/WPPI I've been privileged to work with some of the finest photographers in the world.

Last September we attended Dragon Con in Atlanta and I've already shared a lot of images with you in previous posts. It's one of the largest sci-fi conventions in the country. Pick any character from any book, movie, comic book or video game and odds are somebody was in costume paying tribute. Sixty thousand people invaded Atlanta across five hotels this past Labor Day.

Today's post is going to give you a little different perspective and demonstrate one of the points I love about the GH3, it's capabilities in low light. At Dragon Con we were on the 22nd floor of the Hyatt. At 11:00 pm one night I was out on the balcony and saw lights dancing around in a park below. There were a half dozen guys from Dragon Con battling it out with light sabers.

The images below are hand held with the GH3 and a LUMIX 150mm zoom lens. I shot wide open and took the ISO to the max on the first one (12800). While it's not anything that would win awards, if I were doing surveillance work it would probably pass! This was shot at 1/15th of a second.

Then I started playing with the ISO dropping it down to 800 and 200...and adjusting the aperture as well. The blur in the light in the bottom right corner is the result of being without a tripod, a necessity on these longer exposures.

I spent enough years in research during my Polaroid days to recognize that none of this is scientific, but keep in mind it was dark...I was on the 22nd floor...and had I had a tripod the images might even make it to being respectable. Also, the original images are slightly sharper, since these are screen shots and easier to post as smaller files.

Now imagine what this camera is like when photographing a wedding reception! You'll find a number of posts from the Luminaries talking about shooting in low light, especially William Innes using the GH4 at weddings.

What a kick working with LUMIX gear is. I love the fact that Panasonic is leading the way with mirrorless technology.