Brasilia with the GX7

Here are some photos from my weekend in Brasilia and the Chapada area: https://www.storehouse.co/stories/VD1cJY6HCxmz

They are all taken with the Panasonic GX7 and the Panasonic 12-32mm. You will see that the lens is far from great when it comes to architecture photography due to its heavy distortion on the wide end. But it compactness makes it great for traveling, thinking of maybe buying the Panasonic 14mm which seems to be quite compact as well. Anyone that have any experience with that lens?

Anyway - hope that you enjoy the photos, it is a very interesting and unique city!

Best regards,

Kristoffer

Very cool... I can't say that I'm not envious, because that's a place that I'd really like to visit (the country and the town) as well as the fact that you got to shoot it with gear that I'd be happy to have with me. I looked at that GX7 and ended up going with a E-m10 for my latest camera, but I like Panasonics (I have an older GH2) and that camera seems very nice... I'm sure that I'd love it and if I had the money to throw away, I surely would have gotten both of those.

A nice collection of photos that make me more than ever want to visit there. The processing (or JPEG settings on your camera) seem to be producing a bit of a film type look with the kind of color that you're getting and the blacks being a bit blocky... I think that it works well for these shots and especially the ones in the city because that place has such a "lost in the 20th century" vibe and the film look is perfect for it. I don't own that lens so I can't comment about specifics, but it does seem like it might be a nice lens for shooting these kind of architectural shots 'coz it goes down to 12mm (my Panasonic kit zoom only goes down to 14mm). As for the distortion you're getting, it seems like the kind of thing that you could easily fix with software. If I had that lens, I'd just shoot the building stuff from a bit further back, straighten the lines in post and then crop out the edges (you have to crop out edges because correcting the lines bends the edges of the photo in a bit).

Brasilla certainly seems like a fascinating place... I love that kind of "what the future was then" mid-century architecture and that place seems to be ALL that. I understand that as a piece of urban planning, the city is a utter failure, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it's a very fascinating, very innovative and very unique experiment. There was an Australian documentary series called "Shock of the New" that was one some years ago about various art and design movements and there was an episode called something like "Failed Utopias" which featured Brasilia in a big way... Fascinating stuff!

KristofferG wrote:

Aaron801 wrote:

Very cool... I can't say that I'm not envious, because that's a place that I'd really like to visit (the country and the town) as well as the fact that you got to shoot it with gear that I'd be happy to have with me. I looked at that GX7 and ended up going with a E-m10 for my latest camera, but I like Panasonics (I have an older GH2) and that camera seems very nice... I'm sure that I'd love it and if I had the money to throw away, I surely would have gotten both of those.

A nice collection of photos that make me more than ever want to visit there. The processing (or JPEG settings on your camera) seem to be producing a bit of a film type look with the kind of color that you're getting and the blacks being a bit blocky... I think that it works well for these shots and especially the ones in the city because that place has such a "lost in the 20th century" vibe and the film look is perfect for it. I don't own that lens so I can't comment about specifics, but it does seem like it might be a nice lens for shooting these kind of architectural shots 'coz it goes down to 12mm (my Panasonic kit zoom only goes down to 14mm). As for the distortion you're getting, it seems like the kind of thing that you could easily fix with software. If I had that lens, I'd just shoot the building stuff from a bit further back, straighten the lines in post and then crop out the edges (you have to crop out edges because correcting the lines bends the edges of the photo in a bit).

Brasilla certainly seems like a fascinating place... I love that kind of "what the future was then" mid-century architecture and that place seems to be ALL that. I understand that as a piece of urban planning, the city is a utter failure, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it's a very fascinating, very innovative and very unique experiment. There was an Australian documentary series called "Shock of the New" that was one some years ago about various art and design movements and there was an episode called something like "Failed Utopias" which featured Brasilia in a big way... Fascinating stuff!

Thanks Aaron,

I tend to shoot with just standard profile in jpg since I usually like to edit the photos at the gate and on the plane flying back from whatever place I have been - since i don't bring a laptop I like to use VSCO cam on either my phone or iPad.

I wish the camera could provide a little better dynamic range, but I guess i would get that if i would shoot raw and then in post bring back some of the highlights/shadows but then again it would be another step and I would end up never "developing" any photos by telling myself "I will do it later when I have more time".

I can recommend going to Brazil, there is a lot of nice places over here, even if I only have had the chance to see a few of them yet.

Best regards,
Kristoffer

Yes... Shoot RAW and deal with the images with some software and you'd likely get more dynamic range out of the photos. Also, and this is something that you may already be aware of, but as much as possible I try to do all of my shooting well away from the noon hour as I find that the light is just too harsh to get really great results. Even having additional DR to work with doesn't always make for nice looking images. I find that a polarizing filter helps though for when you need to shoot at these hours, which if you're on vacation I realize you may need to do. For dealing with RAW, I've been using a free downloadable program called LightZone that's a bit limited (you can't do those perspective corrections on it that I mentioned above) but still has some nice features and is pretty easy to use. I'm not sure though if it'll run on an iPad. I have to assume though that there's some RAW development app that does work on that though... Seems to me that if your doing processing anyway that you may as well shoot in RAW and get the benefits of that, especially for the kinds of stuff that you're shooting.

Brazil having a "lot of nice places" seems like a bit of an understatement as it's  huge country with a lots of different climates, landscapes and cultures. I haven't been there, but it's an area of the world that I fascinated by so I've read up a bit on it... You've got to post more images of more of the country, once you get to that...

Hello Kris

The GX7 and 12-32 is my walk around combination too. Great outfit!

KristofferG wrote:

Here are some photos from my weekend in Brasilia and the Chapada area: https://www.storehouse.co/stories/VD1cJY6HCxmz

Some excellent pix. A city designed for cars and "the look" -- not people. looked like that the day it was built and stilllooks like that.

They are all taken with the Panasonic GX7 and the Panasonic 12-32mm. You will see that the lens is far from great when it comes to architecture photography due to its heavy distortion on the wide end.

That is very easily fixed in PP. I PP in Photoline using a P'shop compatible plug-in called PTLens (it also comes in stand alone). PTLens has an algorithm that automatically removes the barrel distortion for the 12-32 (and distortion of various types in many other lenses too). Costs little.

But it compactness makes it great for traveling, thinking of maybe buying the Panasonic 14mm which seems to be quite compact as well. Anyone that have any experience with that lens?

I used the 14mm as my standard lens for a long time -- an excellent lens. Then the 12-32 came along and I found I simply did not bother with the 14 any longer. Sold it on eBay.

But I have nothing but praise for it.