Camera Buying Plans Gang Aft Agley

In my last post about cameras I mentioned that I would have loved to have looked at a graph produced by DXOMark comparing the Fuji Z-T2 with the Nikon Z6

Unfortunately DXO don’t test Fuji sensors – something to do with the camera’s non-Bayer sensor setup.. So I had to make do with a comparison from DP Review of the Nikon Z6 and the Fuji X-T2 at 6400 ISO.

The Nikon looked better, but would that translate to real world images?

And to make the comparison I needed to establish a baseline with the Fuji X-T2 – my current camera. So I took some photos of a dear friend at base ISO and at 3200 ISO and the evidence was there in front of me. The image degraded – the colours were washed out and the grain was very obvious.

It was time to take another, trip to the local camera shop to try the Nikon Z6 again, shooting at base ISO and then in steps up to ISO 6400

I photographed one of the men from the camera shop – and here are crops of his face at ISO 100 and ISO 3200.

Meanwhile while I was in the shop, the Lumix rep wanted to show me a camera and we ended up taking that outside as well. There was a setting on the camera that meant it would not focus, so the man from the shop fiddled about with it and took a couple of frames of my (unprepared) face at 1600 ISO.

I have to say the Panasonic looks good. And that is what I mean that the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley.

On the upside, my choices are between good and good, so I am not complaining.

Forgive the haircut – it was hot today and I was suffering.

And here is the origin of gang aft agley, or at least its most famous use in “To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest With the Plough, written by Robert Burns in 1785. It’s a reflective poem on how this little timorous beastie suddenly has its world turned upside down. This is the sixth stanza and the standard English rendering.

But, Mousie, thou art no thy-lane, 
In proving foresight may be vain; 
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men 
Gang aft agley, 
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, 
For promis’d joy!

Standard English version

But Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes of mice and men
Go oft awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!