Photos are such a funny little thing, aren’t they? They don’t have limits like words do when it comes to telling a story and this is understandably why photography is still one of those things that people across the globe, regardless of what language they speak, can all agree on.
The first Lumix camera I had was very unplanned. It was a gift given to me back in spring of 2014 (can’t remember the exact month now) and it was just before starting Hand Luggage Only. To be perfectly honest, I’d never even used or considered a Lumix camera back then and in fact, it was the first time I’d ever even heard of ‘mirrorless cameras’. I love my gadgets so I wasted no time in getting to grips with it.
Within a few quick photo sessions, I was hooked – the photos that came out of it were so effortlessly brilliant and I have to admit, I took as much credit for it as possible, all the while knowing it was this camera that was doing all the heavy lifting. The camera back then was the Lumix GX7 with the 20mm F1.7 lens and it was one of the best gifts I’d gotten in a long while. Till date, this camera is still very much in use!
Fast forward to September 2016, and just before we went to Peru, I’d decided I’d had enough of a different video camera I’d been using and wanted to get one to capture all the sights properly. I went on Amazon and after about 4 days of searching (and watching A LOT of YouTube reviews), I finally decided on getting a camera upgrade (I’m usually very impulsive so 4 days of waiting to decide was torture 🙂 ).
At the last minute, I remembered how brilliant my older Lumix was and found out that there was an updated version – the Lumix GX8 which did 4K videos (amongst many other things) and decided to go with that. As soon as I watched back the first video recorded on the GX8, I knew I’d made the right decision. 4K video is brilliant! (Plus, you can get stills from the video which helps if you’re trying to capture really fast subject).
Random aside: One of my favourite things about it is the time-lapse videos you can do on the GX8 – it’s such a fun little feature! Here are a couple of videos we did while we were in Peru (below). They’re posted on Instagram so the quality has been changed (which happens with all Instagram videos) but you can still get a sense of what the camera is capable of. 🙂
A video posted by Hand Luggage Only (@handluggageonly) on
EXCITING NEWS
Shortly after we came back from Peru, we got an email from the Panasonic team, saying they loved our photos and asking if we would like to be Ambassadors for the Lumix camera! I was like…”Errr, is water wet? Of course YES!” and so we’re very pleased to announce that we’re ambassadors for the Panasonic Lumix cameras.
At the time, I don’t even think the team at Panasonic knew that I already had two Lumix cameras and I remember just thinking how much of a perfect match it was. To top things off, we were given a Lumix GX80 to test drive on our travels. Lumix cameras are fairly easy to use but given the fact that we already had a couple of these in the past, we got into the swings of things VERY easily with this camera!
*It came in so handy for videos and photos when we were skiing (check out the video here) as it comes with a really good stabiliser and is light enough to ski with and not be distracted (or terrified of breaking).
It’s sooooooo easy to be excited and enthusiastic about a camera like this that I genuinely enjoy using and one which makes things so much easier for us! Like one time, in Iceland – Lloyd forgot to try to figure out the settings for taking Northern Lights photos on his old camera…and to top things off, his camera back then wasn’t charged and so when the Northern Lights came out in full force, he couldn’t take a single decent photo of the lights. Cue the Lumix GX7 and within a couple of minutes, he was able to set-up the Lumix camera and take even much better photos of the Northern Lights than the rest of us who came properly prepared.
Anyway, rather than carrying on rambling (and trust me, I could honestly carry on for ages), I wanted to show you exactly what the Lumix range of cameras are capable of. (*I honestly started off this post thinking I would be so structured in telling you all the stuff I wanted to and looking back now, its just turned into this one long ‘gushing session’ about the Lumix cameras…)
THE PHOTOS
Before I carry on, I would like to point out a few quick things:
1.) There was no special setting used to take these photos – it was pretty much just point-and-click (asides for the Northern Lights one which was done in manual using the settings from this post here).
2.) I’ve included the photos from all 3 cameras (clearly marked) so you can see how well they consistently perform across the board.
3.) Editing was done in Adobe Lightroom (my go to photo editing tool).
If you haven’t gleaned by this point – these cameras are the photography hack you’ve been looking for! They take effortlessly brilliant photos (especially the 20mm lens – boy is that a lens and a half) and you’ll probably see why I’m crazy about them in my idiot-proof photos below. 😀
PHOTOS TAKEN ON THE LUMIX GX7
PHOTOS FROM THE LUMIX GX8
PHOTOS TAKEN ON THE LUMIX GX80
GET YOURS
*Edit: I didn’t have this section when I first put this post up but decided to include this retrospectively in case you wanted to get your hands on them (I have included links above take you to the camera specifications only) – to buy on Amazon you can use the links below:
LUMIX GX 7 – Amazon USA and Amazon UK
LUMIX GX8 – Amazon USA and Amazon UK
LUMIX GX80 – Amazon USA and Amazon UK
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