Sunday with the ‘5’

Saturdays tend to be the days where I have a trip to Dartmoor or a little further afield from my home town of Exeter, where Sunday’s have evolved into my ‘stay local’ walks, often up and out before seven AM to enjoy having a city pretty much to myself while others luxuriate in their Sunday lie in.

For me, Photography has gone hand in hand with my hikes, long or short, so I cannot remember the last time that I did not take a camera bag with me, that is until today.

Those that are following my current chapter in my photography will know that I have purchased some older digital compact cameras at budget prices, the most recent being a Lumix LX5, which has been vying for a place in my bag with a Canon G11 and a Canon S95 but today, I have decided to take just the LX5 and a spare battery on my Sunday walk.

As a further exercise in my becoming more acquainted with the ‘5’, I have decided to make full use of the dedicated aspect ratio control that have become a feature of many Panasonic compact cameras, 16:9,4:3.3:2 and 1:1.

I became addicted to the 1:1 square format with my long since gone Fuji X100F, however this was only if I shot Jpeg’s, the LX5 will shoot RAW in this format, this would be my theme for the today’s walk.

Coupled with the ability to shoot close up at the wide end of the focal range, this gave me the option of getting some decent macro shots as I meandered my way along my chosen path.
Naturally, with such a diminutive sensor, there will never be that separation of the subject and background but nonetheless, the image quality is very pleasing.

It is fair to say that I am having a blast using these older cameras, I love the G11 and S95 for the colours, the LX5 for its versatility but they have one thing in common, they have really brought the fun element back into my photography, as I find myself shooting compositions I may not have shot with my bigger gear.

I have a few days away in the coming weeks and I am seriously considering just taking my trio of compacts only, something I never thought I would ever do just a few weeks ago.