Bring on your BIFs or whatever -- I am up for the challenge…

…just as soon as my red dot sight arrives! LOL.

In the meantime, I determined to put in some time doing a bit more testing of the Panny 100-300. I have not been feeling at home with this lens.

I showed some pix the other day of some birds on a local water at Point Cook, in Melbourne, Australia, where I am staying with my daughter, taken with the GX7 and the 45-150. Okay, I thought I would follow that up with some pix taken with the 100-300.

No luck!

1. "Great!" I thought, as I spotted from afar a couple of black swans on the water sparkling in the sunshine.
2. But as I approached, the sun went behind a cloud and stubbornly stayed there for the next 20 minutes.
3. The principal birds, two black swans, a duck, and a number of what I have always called "dab chicks" (I know there is a proper name, but it has slipped off the edge of my mind just at the moment) ignored the fact that I needed tem to stay at arms length as it were because I had the 100-300 on the camera, and vigorously swam towards me, with the swans actually waddling ashore and looking at me first expectantly, then in annoyed disbelief. Good grief, I concluded, they wanted to be given a tip for a photo!

So I switched to the 12-32 and took a couple of pix:

And then I overexposed so the black, which is a pretty strong black for you, the great unwashed not familiar with black swans because you inhabit other, lesser locations on the earth, turned out a dishwater gray and the white pinions were totally blown. Sucks, doesn't it, when you have a magnificent subject and the only photographer on the job isn't up to it!

BUT better luck at the Williams Landing railway station when I got there. The sun had come out again and the train didn't play ducks and drakes with me -- it just came swanning in on schedule. I got off three shots from the end of the platform with the 100-300 and was extremely pleased with the result -- partly because I am such a superb photographer, of course, and partly because I actually used a half decent shutter speed for the hand-held shooting.

100% from the middle of the frame. Nice bit of sharpness, eh?

The full frame. I added some contrast and pulled down the curve in the middle range during PP. No sharpening, though.

I am really pleased with that sharpness, that is what I am looking for with this focal length.

While I was waiting for the train, I took a shot up the track from up on the entrance ramp.

Haze and thermal distortion effects at 300.

Got a nice bit of thermal distortion effect at 300. Thermal distortion? Are you mad? It was clear and sunny, sure, but at 14 degrees with a stiffish southern wind blowing, it was bl**dy freezing by my standards! LOL.

A little note -- I took the train pictures from the end of the platform and afterwards turned around and took a couple of (unsuccessful) shots of passengers boarding. Then I took the camera away from my eye in order to walk up to catch the train myself. WALK?! The nearest door was about 30 meters away -- which I had not been aware of looking through the zoom! Some very brisk walking (I might even have run a few shambling steps -- the days of 11 seconds for 100 yards are long gone) just got me through the door a moment before it slammed shut! LOL.

I took a couple of experimental food shots with flash back/rim light at a local coffee shop the other day. Today on the way back home from my weekend away, I called in at the same coffee shop for a hot chocolate and experimented with direct sunlight from the back and the GX7's pop-up flash to fill.

The container on the right holds a candle. You sit the mug on it between sips to keep it hot. A picture of the mug sitting on it would have been nice, wouldn't it, so where is it? I'm not showing it, sorry, because it has so much blown highlights on he table that it is plain embarrassing. Keep to diffused southern (for me, possibly northern for you) window light in future, is the lesson. The dribble of chocolate sauce down the side of the cup is intentional, by the way, we scrape it up with the spoon, add a bit of froth from the cup, and lick that up for a concentrated chock treat. Some of the less couth of us might even just lick it straight from the side of the cup -- but not in mixed company, of course!

The pop-up did a nice fill job, as I knew it would. Both the flip-up on the G6 and the pop-up on the GX7 are invaluable for this stuff.

I won’t mention that I spent the weekend with friends at Frankston and yesterday (Sunday) morning we went for an early morning walk along the boardwalk and near areas. It was superb, dead calm, not a breath of wind, pearly gray with a touch of blue, air clear, one or two boats out, fisher folk on the beach and the pier, etc., etc., etc.

Naturally, for reasons not known to nobody in the entire universe, I had left my camera back at the house.

Yeah, good one, young fellow!!! Beautful scenics missed and you're trying to get away with a so-so shot of a cup of hot chocolate with blown highlights? When will you learn???