On the Road With an FZ1000

We were on vacation last week and I had a chance to play with a new LUMIX FZ1000. I'll be the first to admit this post is a little like one of those reports you had to do as a kid in grade school, "What I did on my summer vacation!"

Well, our son has been trying to get me into fly-fishing so we spent a week in the North Georgia Mountains. I actually took a little time off and didn't bother to post much, although I did link to a few things on Facebook and Twitter. However, overall, if you've noticed my absence from the keyboard, it's because I've had a camera or a fly rod in my hand all week.

A new FZ1000 was just the tool to have with me and here are some examples of what made this trip so much fun.

---

Let's start with a reminder that I'm NOT a full time photographer. I know more than I let on, but my core work is all about marketing and business. I'm not very adept at Photoshop or Lightroom or anything else in the world of manipulation, but playing with some of the in-camera presets was a kick.  Here are a few examples and some of the images I simply loved capturing.

If you don't know the camera check out the specs. It's got a Leica 25-400 zoom, is light and easy to travel with and just gets results.  Remember too, these are screen shots of the jpegs, not the original files. They're great for a blog post, but even better when you can see the originals. 

---

I know I'm sounding like an amateur, but I do like the in-camera artistic preset that tweaks the saturation in the image above on the right.

Out for a drive one afternoon we came across this little church, which couldn't be sweeter. 

Again, I was playing with the presets. Had I been transmitting from the camera to the Internet, I could have posted these without slowing down. 

It's all personal taste, but I love the black and white presets and one called "sunshine" which just seemed to work with a subject like this charming little church, the last image in the sequence at the bottom. 

I typically haven't been a big fan of filters and presets, but these are too much fun not to use now and then. Plus, the only way I'm going to get to know when they're appropriate is to get a feel for how they look in different situations.

The image on the right was captured using a preset called "Bleach Bypass".

---

I'm not sure how this tradition got started, but the images below are taken at Blood Mountain on the Appalachian Trail. The trail is over 2000 miles long, extending from Maine to Georgia. Hanging one's hiking boots in the tree at the end of the journey has obviously become a tradition!

Two last images from the trip, both from the top of the mountain looking out over the valley. A storm had rolled in and left just a small set of clouds. I had some fun with one of the black and white presets.

The tag line for Panasonic's LUMIX line is "Changing Photography" and as I've written before, that's exactly what they're doing. If you haven't checked out the world of mirrorless and the LUMIX line, it's well worth a trip. This camera not only has amazing versatility as a still camera but also shoots 4K video!

Check out more images from Panasonic's Luminary team, one of the most talented and diversified groups of artists in the industry. The LUMIX Lounge is just a click away.

Visit the LUMIx lounge