Vacuum Very Much?

No idea what was going on here. The mind boggles. Just glad the cleaning fairies were out and about and doing their bit, begrudgingly though that bit might have been.

That's me had a bit of time to play around with the the Lumix and compare it to the Sony NEX 5N, and it's turning out to be a great little performer. Really like the electronic view finder and flip screen (The Sony only has the rear screen and that does flip up but doesn't flip over to protect it). The touch screen and menus seem a bit easier to work around than on the Sony though the physical buttons feel less easy to access when you've got your eye to the viewfinder. There's a standard hotshoe as well as a pop-up flash on the Lumix as opposed to Sony's proprietary flash connection but I've not given that a good run through yet. Physically the Sony feels sturdier with it's all metal construction, compared to the metal body/plastic lens on the Panasonic.

Performance wise, the battery on the Lumix is pants. I've not noticed any issues with focusing times but there's a bit of a lag after a burst of RAW images, more so than on the Sony with the same speed rated card. The Sony's sensor is larger (CMOS - 23.4 x 15.6 mm compared to 17.3 x 13.0 mm Live MOS) and this does show up in the higher ISO settings with the noise being handled much better on the NEX. They both take fine looking images though and are up there with the Canon 7D for most of the time.

As I do like a bit of HDR the Lumix has far superior control over that aspect of shooting than the piddly 2/3 stop either side that the NEX begrudgingly offers. Waiting to see if that's addressed in a firmware update though, as it has been with others in the NEX range.

With the standard kit lenses there's not much difference; a bit more barrel distortion with Panasonic, a bit more chromatic aberration on the Sony, but both easily fixed with post-processing.

I did think that I might sell on one of these originally, but there's enough interest in them in Delphwynd Daily household for them to both be in demand, especially for their very capable 'intelligent auto' settings and almost pocketable size. So, no ebay sales just yet.

Ok, off to get some grub and for a wander around some hostelries in Stirling later. Not taking any cameras, that could all get a bit too messy based on past experience.