Sony a1

I have an old saying which I developed when determining (many decades ago now) if I needed to upgrade my 35mm outfit to a 6x7 medium format outfit (back in the daze of film): 

How much detail do you want to throw away?

because seldom do you need everything that (even 35mm film) the camera can capture. This is more pronounced in a day when people still wank on about that huge billboard print but then look at pictures on InstaGram on their phone.

Well DPReview have produced the review and (to me, all) important Studio scene comparison (I've got no time for slick wankerTV blabbering on about bullshit which isn't important to me) to allow me to see at a glance what I need to know

The costs of the step up are:

• Moiré in the fine detail 
• more than 4 times the RAW file size (still hasn't seemed to sink in that double the detial is 4 times the file size): meaning much more power in desktop processing
• nearly double the mass
• insane 30fps drive (and that's a traditional insane not "wow I want that" insane)
• body only price of around €7,300

So if its the camera you need (I'm guessing only for a number of top level pros) then its great that stuff like this is made to do so well as to challenge the capacity of your lenses (and maybe add another few dozen thousand to your bill). But if you're like me then its really nothing I want.

Interestingly if I did want more than the amount of pixels that the A7 puts out I can try some software which by all accounts is now getting pretty good (if you need those high res road side posters); for example the new offering by Adobe

So it seems I'm still very well served by my:

• 2009 Panasonic GH-1 (stills but mostly video now) {cost about AU$1000}
• 2009 Panasonic GF-1 (stills with occasional video {cost about AU$100}
• 2014 Sony A7 (stills with maybe 1 video made) {cost about AU$500}
• GoPro Hero 3+ (action video) {kindly donated, but costs around AU$50 now}
• 2016 Oppo Phone {cost about AU$250}

This outfit allows me to have (as I deem I need for a job) more compact or more competent in a variety of situations, in most cases people can't really tell what took what. Even I need to look at the data to know which took which with what lens

It seems to me that for most people too much is never enough.

harvest

I've been waiting for the good angle and light on this one, didn't get the light I'd have wanted but I think I'm ok with what nature provided.

I'm pretty sure the farmer is too.

I'm also still pretty happy with my Sony A7 and a humble selection of lenses which are in the main manual focus Canon FD series lenses from the 1970's

:-)

A year with the A7 (brief thoughts)

so, its been a year with the A7 now. Its been an interesting and informative journey.

I can say that the A7 has been an more of an addition to my photography but has not replaced the micro43 system I have. They do things differently (especially with the same lenses).

The m43 is entirely adequate, video too is sufficient and its backed up by a better set of lower priced native lenses.

Of course that I can use my non-native lenes (by adapter) on both means that the A7 just added a body to my set of (older 70's legacy) lenses and this essentially changes what those lenses do and how the images render ...

For instance the FD200mm f4 lens is quite telephoto on the m43 (equating to 400mm) but is a lovely mid telephoto with nice DoF on full frame (the A7)

... which I simply could not do without something like a 150mm f2 lens in m43 (which I'm not sure even exists, certainly not for the $100 I paid for the FD).

However despite how compact it is with the nice little SamYang (top picture) it has not managed to really pull me over from using the GF-1 with the Panasonic 20f1.7 lens

which is such a sweet little bokeh maker and on the GF-1 (for which it was made) is a compact easy to carry on a hike little bit of kit. Interestingly, both the 20mm on the GF-1 the 35mm Samyang on the A7 are almost exactly the same angle of view.

Of course what I want Full Frame for is also shallow DoF, but in portrait lengths ... which the m43 also does but the A7 does just that bit better.

So this body has really added dimension to my kit while only costing a small amount.

Win Win

Huawei P30 (a quick look at the camera results)

I was in at my local Optus shop the other day (located in Rose City in Warwick, Queensland, they are one of the few privately owned stores and actually really care), to ask a question about my phone plan and one of the staff there mentioned she'd just bought the Huawei P30 because she thought it had a great camera. So naturally I was interested to see.

Not having my camera with me I had to wait till today when I went back in, and of course I took my A7 in to make a comparison.

The Huawei has an equivalent lens to a 28mm and the best match I have for that on my A7 is the Samyang 35mm f2.8, which is a bit less wide than the P30's lens. This therefore gives the A7 image a slight advantage as its covering less area. But equally the P30 shoots more pixels so there's that.

The specs:

• Sony A7 - 6000 x 4000 pixels - 3:2 aspect
• Huawei - 7296 x 5472 pixels - 4:3 aspect

Overview

Lets have a look:

A7

P30

and so (unsurprisingly) the P30 is wider and taller. To just bring that into a bit more visual equality, lets just crop the P30 image top and bottom off to make it the same 3:2 aspect ratio that the A7 is (which to be fair isn't entirely required as many people actually like 4:3 better (and indeed I have a few 43rds cameras myself)) for similarity sake.

P30 @ 3:2

of course still wider ;-)

Both cameras have made slightly different exposure decisions and both (set to Auto Colourbalance) have picked pretty similar renditions of the colour (in a tough artifical light situation really). Top points to the Huawei already for just this.

Both extraordinarily good on screen, indeed far better than the screens will allow without some pinch and zoom ... which is essentially looking at details, so...

Details Observations

So, with barely a warm up lets just dive in and pixel peep the images. I thought I'd start at the corners

Top Left Corner

You'll need to click that image to load the 100% view, but you can see that the extra pixels compensates for the extra width of the P30 image, with 100% pixels being almost a perfect match.

The exposure decisions of the P30 help that ceiling down light look "white", but you can see the classic JPG artifacts of colour noise reduction in that "smeared oil painting" look in the grey of the ceiling. If you can't see it, make sure you open the image because blogger resizes things to fit on smaller screens. Here is just the P30 image at 100%

Now, when making the image smaller (as its almost always going to be when you print or show on the web (Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat ... heck even blog) you just won't notice this. However if you want to use "digital zoom" to make that into a more "normal" portrait you'll start to see this smearing become more prominent just as you are now.

either way, the edge quality is outstanding with excellent (expecially for a phone) edge correction and no significant barrel distortion or other aberrations.

Great points again for the Huawei (and remember how poorly my Oppo R11s performed in comparison to the A7 with this exact same lens).

Lets look now at the center.

Ok, here we can start to see that there is some clearer advantage to the A7 image in the text and the strange JPG artifacting in the chrome poles ... but hey, this is a Full Frame mirrorless camera certainly the equal of any DSLR out there while the P30 is a phone.

Amazing that it got this close, lets look at another portion:

So the exposure decision made by the A7 has prevented the blow outs of highlight on the Accessories wall while keeping colours of the items for sale fairly consistent. If you click and load the image you'll also see that the Opening Hours are clearer, which will become (as I mentioned) more obvious if you were to use a little "digital zoom" to make that more of a "normal" shot than a wide shot (as portrait mode does).

Discussion

For a phone camera this performance is not only excellent, but for wide angle shots that are typical of travel and general snapshots its fantastic. It gets within a hairs width of a top quality Interchangeable Lens Camera like the A7 which surely deserves recognition.

For me however it won't be replacing my proper camera, because on my A7 I can mount different lenses and take better portraits and more versatile specialist shots of things which you just can't get with software:

or even

without any weird software (pretending to do Bokeh) effects. And I seriously doubt that the P30 would do this well on long exposure low light shots like this:

or telephoto

But that notwithstanding the P30 camera makes a compelling choice if you're seeking a new phone and photography means anything to you.

Well done Huawei

PS: as a disclaimer I got paid nothing for this, do not own a Huawei phone (as should be clear from recent posts) and I have nothing to do with Optus apart from being a happy customer and liking the way I've been dealt with (so if you live in the area, and are thinking about changing to Optus, go in and ask...). Lastly, thanks to the lovely lady how took her shots with the P30 and shared them with me (via bluetooth). Personally I'm motivated by the "Invisible Hand" , as you'll see in other posts of mine.

Old Homestead

Back in the early Pioneering days of Australia people were poor (yet somehow managed to not be impoverished) and made do with what they had, often building and then adding to their houses in stages. Now everyone "gets in deep" with million dollar loans (even that word has lost significance) and has to "have it all and have it now".

Sometimes I like to immerse myself in that for a little while and reflect upon that to understand it. Which is why I'm drawn to older (often abandoned) buildings.

As I currently live in a rural area, and so there are always old homes left on properties as people either "sold and moved on" or (often the kids) just built another home somewhere else on the property. My eye was caught by this lovely old place on a ride the other day, so I thought I'd share a little of it.

I don't like the stark and contrasty light of mid day so I chose to go out there in the late afternoon with the sun barely over the horizon (and falling fast as it does here). Accordingly I like to adjust the images that the camera gets to fit how I saw it with my own eyes.

I love the obvious stages of a veranda on the front (right side) and then added an annex on the left.

Back then it was most common to have the bathroom / washing room in a different place (so as to keep the floors from getting rot from water inevitably splashed around (having redone a bathroom in a modern house a few years back I think its something we could learn from, as waterproofing is still a big issue ...).

note the construction of the sink and the simple drain (out into the yard). Given how bloody dry it is here most of the time and given how little water people used (probably a tenth of today) for washing it was obviously quite a satisfactory arrangement. Having a concrete floor was clearly a sign they had some money too.

My Mum grew up in such a place (and Dad's wasn't too dissimilar although he was a city boy) and she applied the same principles in the gradual addition to building of our house (where I grew up). Mum was very much of the Stoic School (although having been infected with the mental virus of Christianity at the hands of Nuns at boarding school may not have known it). I believe that mum operated by the view

“Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.” 

So while she never told it to me, I believe I have understood that an embodied it myself.
Thanks Mum

Lastly, as is pretty obvious to any reader of my blog photography is one of my passions, so too is motorcycling, so I may as well share how I got there to take these photos with you too.

My trusty T-Max (its my second now) and while they're not common in Australia (but are in Europe) they are a great highway cruiser and very handy practical (500cc) bikes. They are a bit sketchy on dirt roads tho ...

:-)

Samyang 35mm (and a comparison to the P20 f1.7)

It turns out to be an excellent combination (well unless you have ultra-unrealistic ideas of how fast AF should be or how far you can pixel peep the corners at f2.8 on a lens which costs this little).

I was tempted into buying this lens because while I've historically been into wider than 35mm (indeed perhaps 28mm being where I like to start) over the years I've changed.

This is not a strict review of that lens instead it is an oblique look at the angle of view difference between 35mm on (so called) Full Frame and 20mm on micro 43rds.

One of the things which changed me is the little Panasonic 20mm f1.7, which works fantastically on a compact m43 body to give great renderings (indeed the above shot was taken with the 20f1.7 at f4 (because I like my subject to be clear to allow you to look at it, not a personal WankFest on how shallow my DoF is). This is a picture of the P20f1.7 on my GF-1

As a lens its almost the same dimensions as my Samyang.

Now an interesting thing is that the Panasonic GH-1 has a "multi aspect sensor" meaning that if you set 3:2 you don't just get a different crop, you get a slightly wider angle of view (read my post on that over here).

 The P20f1.7 somehow always felt it made my GH-1 feel a little chunky (even though its still a very light and compact camera)

Very similar cameras when you have them in your hand for weight and size.

So I was interested to see (and that's what this post is about) what would the difference be between them in "angle of view" when I set my GH1 to 3:2 ratio. In the following I've made no effort to adjust the pictures, they're Straght Out Of Camera JPG. Camera on tripod and unmoved between images.

Sony A7 & Samyang 35

GH1 and P20 set to 3:2

Well ... just about identical isn't it.

Just for "shits n giggles" I'll throw in a shot taken at 16:9 which I often end up cropping to anyway (well not with the GH1, but other cameras), which shows wider again:

GH1 & P20 @ 16:9

which works out to be a bit wider doesn't it. This is something I've observed a few times here (example), and it gets wider again if you use RAW files and don't do the lens corrections.

Observations

Interestingly even with these SOOC JPG's its pretty evident that the Panasonic is a bit brighter looking in its image. This is something I've observed with every shot I've taken with the two cameras side by side. I'm not sure why, but I assume that Panasonic biases its exposure a bit more to boost up shadows (same goes for my GF-1). Its not a concern of mine, because I like the images both produce. But its an observation.

Also I found that the differences in sharpness and available detail (when looking at 50%) aren't so huge. I wouldn't call it double and unless you're intending to make super huge prints (I mean really, not just in your dreams of when you take that winning shot) that there is really nothing amazing to be had in the Sony A7 from that perspective.

I still like my m43 system (despite its age) and wonder if the Sony is worth having (for my needs and desires).

The experiment of ownership continues ...

Less wide than I normally use

But I must say I am liking this 35mm f2.8 Samyang

Good Evening

Nice light

Its a nice spot.
[Sony A7, FD20mm f2.8 @ 5.6]

really wide lenses (sort of a Bambi vs Godzilla redux)

premise

I feel that the Micro43 system (m43) is the low hanging fruit of camera equipment, it provides a level of compactness which is more or less unchanged by further dropping down sensor size, like the Nikon 1 Series which didn't really provide more compact cameras nor lenses. The lens range of the system is huge and indeed the availability of legacy 35mm lenses is presently far in excess of what the market can soak up (literally tons of good 35mm lenses can be bought and adapted) and adds to the system too.

The sensor isn't too small to afford reasonable focal plane control (shallow DoF), and indeed is almost the same as the very popular APS format (which indeed Canon released its first DSLR in way back in 2000 with the EOS D30 camera.

Its ability to do High ISO is of course limited compared to larger formats like Full Frame and or Medium Format Digital, and while latest m43 sensors will indeed go almost as high in ISO, you will be losing in colour fidelity and general bit depth (hello blowouts and posterisation).

I'm no longer on the path of having the latest and greatest (principially because I think we're already close to the crest of the diminishing returns crest) and so when I picked up the A7 it was a $500 experiment (rather than a $2000 experiment just 6 years ago) to allow me to see and confirm if there was something of value in this for me.

---

One of the things I enjoy having in my camera outfit is a very wide lens. Myself I've been inclined to this for decades, however anything wider than 24mm has often been outside my budget.

Micro43 brought along the equivalent of a 22mm lens (in the guise of the GWC-1 adapter for the Panasonic 14mm f2.5 lens) , which has been both my widest lens (lets ignore my Olympus 21f3.5 for the moment, not least because I sold it years back and I've only tried it on a 5D mk1) and a mainstay of my wide angle photography. Its enabled me to get some shots I enjoy in places, like this one in the Czech Republic in a dimly lit subway under maintenance.

Certainly no phone would have done that (either in angle of view or high ISO performance.

So given that I'm testing out the limits (and how I sit with the results) of my new (to me) Sony A7 I felt the need to find an equal for that angle of view.

Having read and seen good things about the FD 20mm f2.8 I decided to buy one. Sadly the prices have gone up since the A7 came out. This is probably because a 20 is within what one calls "normal" on m43 and almost nothing else can manage its shorter (for 35mm) flange distance.

Appearance

This is what one (mine) looks like on a A7

which may not be what you were hoping to see, but actually isn't too far away from what modern 20mm lenses (and wider) are looking like today.

Another angle makes it clearer that this is not a compact lens:

The amount of "stand off" taken up by the adapter also makes clear how much "space" was taken up by the mirror box on the FD cameras, or indeed any SLR or D-SLR camera.

However it does make for a nice firm grip of the lens with the left hand while holding the controls of the camera with the right.

In comparison the above mentioned Panasonic m43 with the GWC-1 and 14mm lens compares like this:

and

The A7 is indeed a bloody compact camera (as indeed is m43), however its a fact that the lenses are needed and make the entire system thus different.

A key difference also being that the GWC-1 comes off (it essentially screws onto the filter thread) and leaves the very compact 28mm equivalent 14mm lens  ... which is pretty nice for general picture taking (although about the same angle of view as most modern phones). If you want to know more about the Panasonic 14mm f2.5 and the GWC-1 I recommend my blog post over here as a starter.

aside:

 I'd rather have my camera nicked or broken in the field when out touring internationally than my phone, so think about that when saying "I do everything with my iPhone"...

image quality

Well for a starter the A7 produces a 6000 x 4000 pixel image over the 4000 x 3000 that the m43 camera has, and so that's going to perhaps give it an advantage. However I'd argue that the optical system of the FD20f2.8 vs the combination of the P14f2.5 &GWC-1 (note, for simplicity I'm just going to call the combination of P14 & GWC-1 the GWC-1 from now on in this post) is such that the m43 system is limited by the optical resolution not the amount of pixels ... but lets have a look.

First its important to understand that in modern cameras and lenses lens corrections are built into the JPG files and stored in metadata on the RAW files. With a legacy lens like the FD20 there is no such thing available, it must be chosen and applied in post processing ... so to even up the playing field I always photograph in RAW and then develop my file with DCRAW.

So  lets have a look at the FD20 on the A7 . This shot represents the scene taken for all these tests

now the GWC-1:

... which is a camera JPG not a RAW sourced image. Its worth showing an overview of the GWC-1 as sourced from RAW file, as you'll see that the Panasonic corrections for the 14mm are not insignificant (and of course make a difference to what the GWC-1 produces.

So you get a bit more image width now, nearly as wide as the FD20, but with substantially more barrel distortion ... if you correct in software in post it will look closer to the JPG sourced, and of course you'll (as always) loose some of the width.

I think its worth pointing out that Panasonic designed the GWC-1 specifically with the 14mm f2.5 in mind (well and a PZ 14-42 as well), so its quite likely that they knew what corrections would occur and worked to fit in with that.

The FD20 is a little bit wider and needs less attention as its a nicely corrected rectilinear lens right out of the box (which isn't surprising because it was made for the days of film when there just wasn't an easy way to correct for this stuff - and buyers thought it important back then.

You'll probably have spotted some vignetting visible in both (the Panasonic corrects this in JPG a little, but not fully as there is no electronic coupling between GWC-1 and P14mm so it can't know its there to correct it. So lets look at vignetting

FD20

So strong at f2.8 and clearing up well by 5.6 but not observably better at f8 and (not shown) f11 is barely cleared up at all

GWC-1

where I didn't go past f5.6 because the lens system is already at it sharpest at f4 and starts to go down hill a bit due to diffraction around f8

You can see that the GWC-1 also has more barrel distortion, which depending on the subject may need some correction in post, the FD20 is much better out of the box.
Image details
As expected the FD is poor on the edges but not bad in the center from wide open, and gets better all over as you stop down. Again like vignetting I didn't see much in the step from f8 to f11

The following are 100% pixel crops from the TIFF files developed by DCRAW, what is interesting is how much smaller the same features are between the A7 and the m43 camera (yes, that 6000 pixel vs 4000 pixel makes a difference), so make sure you open these images full screen to observe that.

FD20 Corner

and by f8 the text of the ARSE postcard is visible (and the print of the plastic food container too).


GWC-1 (raw) corner

FD20 Center

The center however clears up so that even by f4 you've got quite good details on the black torch, the tooth picks and the swiss army knife.

GWC-1 center

and even at f5.6 (about the sharpest its ever going to get) its neither as large nor as sharp as the FD20 image at f4.

At this point I think it would be of benefit to anyone still curious to go and look at some other A7 lens comparisons and compare these both to my results and to other lenses. I happen to think the (excellent) blog of Phillip Reeve has some great tests which I strongly suggest you look at. Even if you're not a "Full Frame" person and instead are reading this because of the m43 content. I recommend reading his posts about

• the Canon FD20f2.8 (look at his edge and center shots which are close to my own findings)
• the Tokina Firin 20f2 
• and the Zeiss Batis 18f2.8

Consider the prices of those lenses and then that I paid

• $350 (including shipping) for this FD20f2.8 
• $150 for my GWC-1 (and I already owned the 14f2.5)

Discussion

So what does this mean? Again as I've mentioned I don't feel that this means "I'm going to dump my m43 outfit" (as is often said on internet fora) , what it does instead is highlight to me that my choices for a light weight camera which would also sit as an equal against my EOS APS camera (a 20D back then) has proven viable.

It shows me that the compact and light weight m43 system is far more than adequate, but virtually indistinguishable from my A7 in all but the largest of prints. For anything that will be web delivered (although 4K may change that a bit) the A7 is un-necessary.

I prefer to carry on holidays and day trips the Panasonic GF-1 and its small lenses, but when I want to go out and take an image I've planned and I know I'll want either bigger prints or to take advantage of higher ISO or to take advantage of more shallow DoF that Full Frame gives, then I'm glad I've got the A7

hope that helps someone else

 ... something else ...

Ouhh, and about the title, nearly 10 years ago I compared my Panasonic G1 (the very first m43 camera) to a Canon 5D MkII which I dubbed Bambi vs Godzilla ... so this is a nod to that article. I wrote that because I wanted to also examine what was the limits of sensors, as I knew that per square centimeter the G1 had a denser packed sensor than the 5D did. Indeed scaling up the density of the G1's m43 sensor I predicted that a Full Frame of the same density of 42 megapixels was possible. The A7 is only 24 megapixels, but indeed the Nikon D850 is  right there at 45 megapixels ... a standout camera even today.

still gnawing on that

Some criticism of my "method" led me to go out and reshoot a test between the Pansonic 25f1.7 on my GH1 and the FD50f1.4 on my A7

Taken on its own the Panasonic yeilds good results:

and allows a very nice rendering of concentration on a subject with sufficient DoF control to make the background a visible background while creating the effect of focus on the subject.

To me that is precisely what a "shallow normal" is for ... normal shooting distances (not 30cm away shots of you SuperMarioBros pencil decoration model on your keyboard in the office and dribbling about shallow DoF ... my phone does that). Distances where (say) your friend could have been standing beside that fence post and you want the background to be observable as a background, but attention to your friend.

In this role the little Panasonic is a champion, indeed it or the Panasonic 20mm f1.7 are excellent choices but I digress.

It however becomes apparent when you compare it to larger formats (even with 1970's lenses like the FD50f1.4) that sharpness is not up to it. It first strikes you when you are attempting to use manual focus (in the above that was on the wire at the top of the post) magnification and it just doesn't look "sharp". Its like that old saying about Volvo not wanting you to drive a BMW in case you don't come back to Volvo.

So while for general picture taking I find the m43 perfectly suited, when I am specifically going out to shoot a landscape and both wanting and needing that extra detail, the Sony A7 just allows me to get that.

Method

Now all the following shots were on a tripod (of course I needed to change the camera, so alignment is not perfect). All shots were developed from RAW using DCRAW to equalize the parameters and avoid sharpening in-camera (or post processing) effects (which Adobe does by default if you don't watch out).

Results

For instance lets look at what the Panasonic 25mm got, and lets give it the beneift of being stopped down a bit (f2) to put it at its optimum sharpness.

it is in fact almost indistinguishable from the f1.7 shot (and a small amount of thought would confirm that 2/3rds of a stop won't really impact on DoF control but will on cleaning up a lens)

So in keeping with my 50% pixel view of an image reveals close to what you see with a fine print at maximum size:

So this is the central portion scaled to 50%

Now ... lets have a look at what we could get from the A7 to be "fair" I've scaled it down to the same width as the GH1 image first for the overview (which blogger will also scale a tiny bit more)

and now a central segment

They are fairly close, however my nod goes to the A7 as being a smidge sharper (and there has been no software sharpening done).

For any print except "at the maximum" this isn't even going to factor for anything more than the most carefully inspected print. I would comfortably say "99% of people just won't pick any difference even side to side.

Ok, but I've hamstrung the A7 by scaling it back to what the GH1 could yeild, and its important to keep in mind that we're talking about a big print here: 70 x 46 cm

But should one want for some reason to go out and plan a photograph that will be printed bigger then what difference does the 6000x4000 pixels (vs 4144 x 2768 of the GH1) make?

so a bit more again. Are you able to see the bit of lichen on the left side near the top of the post in the m43 shot? Not really, and the fine details in the lichen on the fence are missing too.

Perhaps with a better lens (than a 1977 model) I may do better, but perhaps not by much. Thus for the $50 I paid for the FD50f1.4 (and they sell for about $150 now, which is still less than a new AF lens by nearly a factor of ten times) its hard to get better value.

Discussion

So is this worth it to you? To me its totally worth it (I paid less for the used A7 than I would for a later model perhaps better m43 camera), bang for buck I get something which isn't far from the results I could get with my 4x5 camera. Sure, that's better (typically good for 10,000 x 8000 quality scanned pixels) but I'm having a hard time getting colour negative anymore and processing other than my own black and white is hard to come by, plus that camera works out at $15 per image and this is ... well digital.

I have not touched on the other advantages the A7 brings, such as

• good access to high quality legacy 35mm lenses (and used as they were designed, not halving the apparent contrast by the x2 crop)
• better high ISO results
• better bit depth at any given ISO

I know that someone will probably say "oh, but you could shoot the m43 camera at f1.7 and not at f4 ... well that's true ... but I could also shoot the FD50f1.4 at f1.7 and get a lovely result too ... so in summary here is that image for your consideration

as always I recommend viewing this on a good PC with a good screen and loading the images (center click on a windows machine) and viewing as big as Blogger will deliver.

I always enjoy being out in the forest and hanging around (and walking to this place) makes testing as much fun as anything else ... besides one of these is going on my wall ;-)