Northern Lights

in Olympus E-System , Saturday, February 25, 2012

Well after 8 days in Iceland I have maintained my perfect record of Aurora Borealis dodging. It has rained, snowed, and in between there has even been the odd patch of light illuminating iconic photo opportunities to which we have been delivered by our tireless guide, Daníel Bergmann. This has been my second ever group photo tour. I don’t usually find that I can really photograph in a group, especially with people I don’t know, but this time Marissa, Leslie, Ed, Patrick, Shane and Peter have made it a real pleasure.

I don’t know yet if I got any good photos, but my first experience with the Olympus E-5 has been pretty positive. There are a few things that I think the E-3 does better, but that might just be down to familiarity.

Hvitserkur, straight out of camera, with a nice big raindrop waiting to be edited out

We have a few more hours of potential photographing around the Reykjanes peninsula, but anyway, I think there already a few shots in the tin.

12 views of Kerlingarfjöll

in Photography , Tuesday, January 31, 2012

For quite a while I’ve wanted to try the 500px photo sharing site.  I’m pretty bored with Flickr, although I’ve got some friends over there, because I don’t think it presents photos very well, it’s become very cluttered, and it is very, very focused on the now. I don’t think the date I took a particular photo has much bearing on what I set out to do. 

So I’ve gone back a bit and assembled a specific 12 photo portfolio looking at one specific place, Kerlingarfjöll in Iceland.

All of the photos in this set were taken with “ancient” technology, the Olympus E-1, a camera limited to 5Mpx output. And they were taken before I’d really got a grip on digital, and generally the apertures are way beyond the diffraction limit. So they’re not going to be exhibition prints.

But as an exercise in revisiting the past through a completely new portal, it’s quite interesting.

Seems a little less trivial than Flickr, somehow, and more worth putting some effort into.

11 photos from 2011

in Photography , Sunday, January 08, 2012

Although the whole end-of-year list thing makes me a bit nauseous, I’ve seen so many “Top 10”, “Best of 2011” etc lists of photos that I felt I should do my own.  Actually it wasn’t very easy. I didn’t think I’d taken 10 good photos on 2011. I’m still not sure I have, but anyway, here are 11 I like. And it’s quite a diverse set.

2011 was probably not a classic year for me so far as photography is concerned. Work, and especially commuting, really eats into my time and destroys inspiration.  Nevertheless, according to my Aperture library I took 3915 photos, and that doesn’t include film. In 2011 I completely avoided high latitudes. The highlight was 10 days in the Aeolian Islands in March. I didn’t quite get the shots of Stromboli erupting in winter light that I envisaged, but I got closer than before. I also greatly expanded my library of Ticino mountain streams / rivers, especially Verzasca and its tributaries, and Calanca. I should probably do something with those one day. The rest largely come from various short breaks and holidays.

January: Plaine Morte glacier, Valais, Switzerland. Olympus E-PL2.

February: Rome at night, near the Trevi fountain. Olympus E-PL2.

March: Stromboli eruption, from outlook on the old summit trail. Olympus E-3.

May: Tuscany, the standard shot. Olympus E-PL2.

May: Tuscany, Abbazia di Sant’Antimo. Olympus E-PL2.

August: Ticino, Val d’Osura. Olympus E-3.

August: Sea cave, Marettimo, Aegadian Islands. Olympus E-PL2.

September: Cefalu, Sicily. Olympus E-PL2.

October: Val Calanca, Graubunden. Olympus E-3.

November: Val Verzasca, Ticino. Olympus E-3.

December: Val Bedretto, Ticino. Olympus E-PL2.

Do you detect any kind of personal style in this motley collection ? I don’t!

 

 

m.zuiko 45mm f1.8

in Product reviews , Friday, October 28, 2011

One of my favourite-ever lenses was the Canon FD 135mm f2.0.  This fast telephoto would let me pluck a detail out a scene, beautifully sharp, with the fore- and background smoothly blending into a creamy smooth bokeh. And it had great contrast. And I gave it away, with most of my Canon FD gear, to the daughter of a friend who wanted to study photography but had no way of affording the gear. 

I never really found anything to compare to that lens, but now maybe I have: the Olympus m.Zuiko 45mm f1.8, which has the added advantage of being almost absurdly low-priced.  Mine arrived today. And here’s a sample of what I’ve found it can do.

Stray leaf. Olympus E-P2 with m.Zuiko 45mm f1.8, wide open

So far I’ve found that the E-P2 tends to underexpose by 1/3 to 2/3rds of a stop with this lens compared to the 14-45mm. But that’s not much of a problem.

This is a fun lens to use, much more so in my opinion that the highly-rated Lumix 20mm. It is light, but well built, with a large, well damped focus ring. It looks gorgeous. And the results are pretty much guaranteed to bring a smile to your face. This is a must-have lens for and Micro Four Thirds camera owner. And an absolute bargain.  I’ll post some more examples soon.

Gear Malaise

, Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Every now and then my thoughts turn to new cameras. Although I certainly keep up with a fair sampling of camera pr0n sites, I don’t really get caught up much in day to day gear lust these days. There’s very little that excites me, and most new releases nowadays are 90% marketing and 5% rehash. Look at the Olympus E-P3 for example: a smoke & mirrors AF system (well, actually no mirror, but whatever) and a new screen which isn’t actually much of a step forward. Yawn.

What ails me now is more of a gear malaise.

I’m not even vaguely under the illusion that a different camera would make me a better photographer, but I do wonder if maybe there is some scope for making more of my opportunities.

I’ve got lots of cameras. On the film side I’ve got a full Hasselblad XPan system, which hopefully will last many more years. On the digital side, I’ve got the Olympus E-System, with E-3 and E-400 bodies and a full set of mid to high range lenses, several of which are widely considered to be top of their class. I’ve got a Micro Four Thirds system for casual use, and finally a Ricoh GRD for when I’m feeling minimal. And they all get used.

It’s the E-System which seems the weak point. This is what I use for “serious” photography, and it fits the bill - up to a point. The E-3 body is a fantastic tool and an excellent piece of engineering - albeit without the “inspiring” feel of the E-1. The 12-60 and 50-200 lenses are gorgeous. But there’s no getting around the image quality issues. It isn’t bad - in fact in many situations it is more than adequate - but it has relatively narrow dynamic range, relatively poor high ISO performance (offset by a very, very good image stabilisation system), and relatively low resolution. Relative to what? Well, almost all the competition, sadly. The question of course, is does it make a real difference ?

There are a lot of arguments in favour of sticking with the E-System. I’m very attached to the 4:3 aspect ratio; I originally went for this because of it’s close match to the 645 format of the unfulfilled object of my lust, the Pentax 645. I’ve invested over 8 years of time & money in this system, and I’m very familiar with it. Again, and always, those Zuiko Digital lenses.

Then of course there’s a big argument against. Although rumours of an E-50 are floating about, there is a very strong possibility that the E-5 could be the last of the line.

So what about camera envy? Well by and large, and on the basis of real world experience with friends using top end Canon and Nikon systems, I don’t really suffer from it. There’s something about Canon cameras that doesn’t appeal to me, and Nikon is like a foreign country. I could not make head nor tail of a D700 I picked up, wanting to take a quick shot. But there is one .... the Sony A900. That is close to nirvana. Huge sensor, huge viewfinder, and crammed full of Minolta DNA. Back in the old days I really, really admired the Minolta Dynax 7 & 9, and the A900 is a direct descendant of these. And then there are those Zeiss lenses.

And then there would be the crippling invoice. I don’t even dare to think how much it would cost to build up an A900 based system with the range of my Olympus setup.

And the A900 has a fairly big drawback, in that it doesn’t have Live View and a hinged screen like the E-3. It looses out in versatility, but the trade offs are pretty attractive.

Of course there is another option: the Olympus E-5. It’s practically identical to the E-3, and has the same basic 12mp sensor as the E-P2, but according to reviews, it manages to extract a remarkable amount of detail and finally matches the potential of those lenses. It sounds good, but then again, it’s very incremental, quite expensive, and probably not the quantum leap I’m looking for.

The MFT system is ok, but has certain serious drawbacks, as I’ve mentioned, and doesn’t seem to be likely to accomodate an f2.8 200mm in the forseeable future. It’s good for wide to short telephoto focal lengths, but not longer.

And then of course there’s the fact that to the average viewer none of these amounts to much. World-class photography can be done on most systems.

And yet, I have this gear malaise…

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