Photographs With Panasonic GH2, 90mm Summicron at South Korea

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Jeonju, South Korea. Panasonic GH2, 90mm Leica Summicron @f2.8


Okay, as promised! Today I went to nearby Jeonju to visit a “traditional” Korean village. It isn’t the most traditional if I’m honest, and neither was the camera combination I decided to bring. Meet the Panasonic GH2.

Jeonju, South Korea. Leica X1

I’ve been long in search of some sort of camera that could be my video solution as well as be a backup for the M9. 
It’s a weird realm looking for such a camera and there aren’t many choices. 

I’ve tried a lot of different options including the Nex5 from Sony and almost all of the Pens. I’ve even had Panasonic’s 
GF1 as well. While all great in some ways, none stayed around long.

Jeonju, South Korea. Panasonic GH2, 90mm Leica Summicron @f2

























Today was a holiday here in Korea so Dani and I (as well as two other friends) decided to get out of the city and 
head to a traditional village in Jeonju. Some of you may remember it from my blog last week in which I shot the 
same place with only my iPhone. Today was a little different. It seemed a good opportunity to try out the GH2 
and see how it fared as a stills camera. I shot the day with the Leica 90mm Summicron f2 mounted on the Panasonic 
via adapter. It gives a crazy 180mm equivalent f2 on the tiny GH2



Jeonju, South Korea. Panasonic GH2, 90mm Leica Summicron @f4



Jeonju, South Korea. Panasonic GH2, 90mm Leica Summicron @f4
It took me a while to get used to shooting at such a range. It’s a completely different feeling to how I normally shoot with the M9. I found myself often getting too close to frame properly. Although, eventually I started to get the hang of it.

Jeonju, South Korea. Panasonic GH2, 90mm Leica Summicron @f4

Standing from the same spot (relatively) I took this. I never would’ve been able to get so close with the X1, at least not without interrupting the natural flow of their game. The GH2 started to make sense right about this point. The superb 90mm ‘cron was producing beautiful images just like it always had, just at 180mm instead. The little sensor on the GH2 was resolving the detail well.

Jeonju, South Korea. Panasonic GH2, 90mm Leica Summicron @f5.6

I started to look for images in places I might not otherwise. I could never take this with the M9 or the X1. Okay, so I’m no bird photographer. In fact, I have no idea what kind of bird this is. My buddy Chad jokingly laughed that it might be some rare species that isn’t often photographed. Looks more like a relative of the pigeon to me, lol.


Another thing I should say about the GH2 is that it has something that would make it trump all the other – can take M lenses small cameras – and that’s a viewfinder. It isn’t much bigger than the GF1, yet has a spectacular viewfinder. It’s very easy to manually focus in the viewfinder even with the limited depth of field I was working with today. A lot of people will argue that they’ll take the handsome looks of a Pen or GF1 over the built-in viewfinder. I don’t care much about looks when it comes to cameras. The M9P is a beautiful camera, but the most beautiful part is the way it feels to use. The GH2′s viewfinder makes it trump the rest in terms of usability as far as I’m concerned.


Written by Dani Kim