The Little World

One of the charming little hidden programs available these days in mirrorless cameras like the Panasonic GX-7 is the "miniature effect".

When we take pictures of model train sets, model harbours, or miniature villages on a table top we generally see them from a distance and a height. Of course for more realism we go down to a scale height and maximise depth of field by nefarious means but that is secret photographer's business, and the average users never go there. they get pretty good overall pictures of he train set with just a portion of it in focus and the rest blurry. SOmetimes they wish it was different...

Well, who would have predicted that people would want to take pictures of normal scenes and produce just this same restricted effect. But it has become a much-desired special effect. The companies have made the camera keep the center of the field of view sharp while progressively blurring out the periphery - or so I thought.

I was looking down from a tall building in Tokyo at the harbour - a clear day and lots of fascinating  Japanese detail. The picture taken in landscape orientation worked. When I tilted the camera into portrait later...it all went wonky. I had not realised that the softening ran in a horizontal band.

Still artistic, but a little more random than I was aiming at...