Picture of the Day - September 22

I didn't take this photo.  I friend of mine, Kathy Wicks did.  (Kathy, I hope you don't mind it being shown here.)  She showed it to me and I thought it was just a very cool shot.  I've got no info about it other than I know it was taken through her car windshield with some type of point-and-shoot compact camera.  Another good example of how any camera can take an excellent photo.

Enjoy!
Tom Laux
September 22, 2009

Help for living without a viewfinder

If you've been reading this blog for a while you know that a lot of the focus so far has been documenting my experiences with the new Olympus Pen E-P1 camera.  I've been doing this as it's a brand new camera in a brand new category and I believe will be a real game changer for many photographers.  Having DSLR quality and interchangable lenses in a package just slightly larger than most point and shoot systems is a real winner in my book.  To date I've been quite impressed with the system and while I'm not ready to go sell all my Canon gear on eBay I am more than happy to leave it at home when going out to shoot or especially when doing some travel.

But the new system is not perfect.  The major complaints so far voiced on many opinion pages have centered around the camera's very average auto-focus time, the lack of a built in flash and the lack of a built in viewfinder.  Olympus has already been working on the auto-focus issue a bit as new firmware was recently released to help with that issue.  Honestly, given the way I'm using the camera (i.e. I'm not trying to capture sports or fast moving action) I've really not had much issue with it.  It's way slower than my top of the line Canon "L" lenses but about on par with the consumer grade Tamron's and Sigma's (and even Canon kit) lenses.  I'd say not perfect, but certainly in the "acceptable" range.  As to the issue of no built in flash, that's just a non-issue to me.  When I bought the camera I also ponied up an extra $100 for the FL-14 external flash.  It's very sleek, very small and looks great on the camera.  I also get better results with it than I would expect out of any "pop up" flash.  And truthfully I don't usually like to use flash anyways.  I'm much happier with my photography when it's done in natural light.  (I also don't mind carrying the little flash unit in my bag, but that is because I'll usually have all the gear in a small bag so I can also take the extra lenses.  If not I'll just pop the flash on the camera before I head out if I think there's a chance I might need it.)  End of story.  No big deal.

But the missing viewfinder.  Hmmm....  When I was purchaing with my Canon G10 and G9 before it (which the Pen replaced) one of the selling features was the fact that both of those cameras had a built in finder while still being very small and pocketable in size.  In reality I found that I rarely would use it though.  The field of view through the finder didn't match what the camera took (I think it might have been 93% or 94%) and it was really quite small and a little tough to see through.  So I usually just got used to framing up shots using the LCD.  So when the Pen came out without a finder I thought "no big deal".  Maybe it was because the Canon's (especially the G10) have a superior LCD on the back but I've now been in a number of situations where I was simply guessing at composition with the Pen.  In bright sunlight it just becomes a complete crapshoot as to what you'll get.  Olympus let us down a bit with the quality of the LCD which can wash out so much that it becomes almost unusable.  I'll bet when the next version of this camera comes out that is one of the major upgrades.  But in the mean time how to deal with this problem?  I've found a pretty good solution in the Hoodman HoopLoupe 3.0.  (Please note that I have no affiliation with Hoodman and purchased my equipment myself.)  The HoodLoupe is basically a loupe that you can hold up against an LCD screen of up to 3" in size and peer through it's viewfinder to get a magnified view of the display.  It's also has a +/- 3 diopter to allow adjustments for up with less than perfect eyesight.  With the Pen in bright sunlight it's a pretty good solution.  The loupe comes with a lanyard to hang it around your neck when you're not using it or you can buy some optional (and way overpriced) rubber bungie cords and fasten it to the camera.  I have the cords but don't know yet if that's the best way to use it or not.  But in bright sunlight it does allow you to bring the camera up to your eye just light a DSLR and compose a proper shot and review it all without too many issues.  The loupe and bungies together cost about $100.  Probably overpriced but it is effective and I think I'll be happy I made the purchase.  I'll post some actual pictures of my Pen and HoodLoupe a little later when I get a chance to shoot them.

Enjoy!

Tom Laux

September 21, 2009

Picture of the Day - September 18

This little brown butterfly was taken the first day I got my new Olympus Pen camera.  I was just out on the back deck noodling around with it, learning all the controls and such.  I love shooting macros and will probably invent in a micro four thirds macro lens as soon as one hits the market, but for now this is about as close as I can get.

Enjoy!
Tom Laux
September 18, 2009

Picture of the Day - September 17

Went back into my archives to find a favorite to post for the picture of the day.  This was shot a couple of years back using every bit of length I could get out of my lenses.  That meant my Sigma 100-400mm f/4-5.6 at 400mm plus a Sigma 1.4x extender while being shot on a Canon 40D with it's 1.6x crop factor.  This gives a 35mm equivalent length of 896mm.  Taken on a very clear and bright fall night at f/8, 1/350 sec using ISO 400 using a cable release and mirror lockup.  The RAW image was processed three times, once for the shadows, once for the mid-tones and lastly for the highlights and them combined in Photoshop CS3.

It's still one of my favorite images.

Enjoy!
Tom Laux
September 17, 2009

New Firmware Released for the Olympus E-P1

Yesterday Olympus pushed out the first firmware release for the new E-P1 and the two accompanying lenses.  They are saying that the v1.1 camera software improves the continuous auto focus system and the lens updates (performed separately for both the 17mm pancake and the 14-42mm zoom) also improve the auto focus systems.

The software is downloaded and installed via the Olympus Master software that comes with the camera and is transfered via USB.  (I learned for the first time today that the mini-USB connector on the Pen is not a standard mini-USB and had to dig the cable out of the box before I could make the proper connection.)  The upgrade is straightforward and painless and worked exactly as described on the Olympus web site.  I've read many times now that the auto focus of the Pen is one of it's weaknesses but in real life use I'm not having any issues with it.  It is not lightning fast like my Canon is when a nice "L" lens is attached, but I find it more than acceptable and seems to well out perform my Canon G10 that this camera replaced.  I tested each of my three lenses (two Olympus and one Lumix) after the upgrade and all seem to autofocus reasonably quick with little hunting.  I can't really say that I notice much of a difference from before the update however.

Details can by found on the Olympus web site or simply by opening the Olympus Master software and selecting Camera Update from the Tools menu.

Enjoy!
Tom Laux
September 16, 2009

Adobe Lightroom 2.5 Released

This morning I jumped into Lightroom for a minute and got a pleasant surprise when the program loaded.  The newest update has been released!  This is a typical Adobe interim software build which primarily adds support for new cameras, in this case the Nikon D3000 and the Olympus E-P1.  As I'm shooting quite a bit with my new Pen and almost always shoot in RAW I've been anxiously awaiting this release. (Adobe did push out a new version of the DNG converter a few weeks ago which supported the Olympus RAW files but that's an extra step and quite a bit more disk space taken up as each .ORF file would have a new .DNG file of approximately the same size created.)

Installing the software is a typical Adobe install although at about 140Mb it's a pretty good sized download.  I imported the last set of RAW files I'd shot two days ago in and made a few adjustments to see that everything works as expected.  It did and the results are shown above.

The Windows update can be found here:
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/thankyou.jsp?ftpID=4572&fileID=4246

The Mac version can be found here:
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/thankyou.jsp?ftpID=4569&fileID=4250

Enjoy!
Tom Laux
September 16, 2009

A new lens for the Pen!

Last week I added a new lens to the Olympus Pen E-P1 kit I'm building.  With the Olympus supplied 17mm pancake lens and the 14-42mm zoom the short end of the scale is almost covered.  But with a 2x conversion factor in 35mm photography terms 42mm didn't quite give me enough reach, especially as I'm planning on using it for video when my high school son's diving season starts up.

The four thirds world is still pretty new, meaning there is not a real wide variety of choices and the micro four thirds standard used by the Pen has even less choices.  (There are four thirds to micro four thirds adapters but I didn't want to invest in a $170 adapter just yet unless I really have to.)  Panasonic has some very nice and fairly expensive longer lenses available but what caught my eye was the quite affordable Lumix 45-200mm f/4-5.6 zoom.  At just over $300 this is very much a "kit" lens.  It's not very fast and the optics are not pro lens caliber.  But the quality of it is quite good, the zoom and focus rings have just the right amount of resistance and when zoomed out to 200mm (equivalent to 400mm) it's still very compact.

I haven't really had a chance to take the new lens out for a good evaluation, but at lunchtime today collected some weed flowers growing outside my office door and did a little macro shooting.  (Well as close to macro as the lens will focus, which isn't all that close.)  As expected it's a little slow focusing and doesn't have a near/far switch to help out, but the lens does have stabilization built into it (but of course so does the Pen so that's not really needed).  I think I'll like this lens for it's intended purpose and, as I'm building this kit as a travel outfit, the versatility at it's compact size should be just right.  I'll post most images from this lens as I get a chance to shoot more.

Enjoy!
Tom Laux
September 14, 2009

Nature Shooting

Ran a hard race last night and have another 10K scheduled for tomorrow morning (being an avid runner as well as photographer) meant that I was taking a rest day today and thus no morning run.  This left me with just a little free time but not really enough to do any kind of good nature shooting.  But I've been neglecting my Canon gear lately so I wanted to get back out with it.

Grabbed the 40D and one of my "good" lenses, a Canon 300mm f/4 L prime lens and headed to the park where I usually run.  This time of year spotting deer is almost always a sure bet, but seeing a buck like the young one here is a little more rare.  (Seeing a full grown buck in the park almost never happens.  They stay well hidden while the doe and fawns will wander out of the woods regularly for food.)

With less than an hour to shoot and not really dressed to go trudging through the muddy woods I did a little car wandering and was about to give up for the morning when I spotted the doe pictured here.  And when you see one deer you'll usually see more so I jumped out of the car and managed to shoot them both out of the woods and in for about 10 minutes until they wandered off father than I wanted to follow.  Truthfully I'm not real pleased with anything that I got today but this is always a fun fall exercise, one that I'm sure I'll repeat quite a few more mornings until it gets too cold to keep up.

Enjoy!
Tom Laux
September 11, 2009

Backyard Portraiture

Over the Labor Day weekend I got a request from my sister-in-law to come by and shoot some new pictures of their girls for she and my brother.  Payment would come off the grill and in the form of golden liquids so I couldn't hardly turn the offer down.  Since acquiring my Olympus Pen a month ago I haven't touched my Canon equipment but for portrait work nothing beats my 50mm f/1.4 "normal" lens attached to my 40D.

Having taken plenty of classes on lighting and portrait work, I've acquired my share of lights, backdrops, standards, etc.  Sometimes all that stuff is just overkill.  Sometimes it's just about going out and getting good shots.  That's what seemed like fun last weekend.  About the only accessory I brought along was a large 5-in-1 reflector/diffuser and my wife who will often play assistant.  We headed out back at about 5 PM as the light was getting a bit soft and just let the girls sit, stand and climb on the benches and chairs and also do a little posing next to the "Halloween Tree" (a big dead tree waiting to be taken down).  All the shots were taken with the lens wide open in aperture priority mode to get a really nice blur in the background, paying close attention to what was showing in the background.  The girls can both be quite shy at times and it took a little while to warm them up but, as I've found works well with kids, I let them both take pictures of each other with my camera and then showed them the instant results.  This got them smiling and soon the poses (and outfit changing) began.

I really enjoy taking kid pics and going simple with natural sunlight and a single lens choice made it all the more fun.  Here are a few more samples from the shoot.

Enjoy!
Tom Laux
September 9, 2009

Fireworks with the Pen

Labor Day weekend in Cincinnati means one thing... the annual fireworks show on the Ohio River.  This is one of the bigger pyrotechnic displays in the country where two barges and two bridges are stuffed full of things that glow, sparkle and go boom in the night sky.  The display runs for well over 30 minutes and is expertly choreographed to music by a local FM radio station.

This year my family was invited to a fireworks party held at a house about four miles upriver from the show with a great backyard view of all the goings on.  Armed only with my Olympus Pen, the 14-42mm lens and a small Slik carbon fiber tripod with a Manfroto ball head I decided to see what kind of shots I could pull in.  I brought the small Pen instead of my Canon DSLR as I knew there would be a lot of people at the party, space would be tight and I didn't want to be obnoxious and rude trying to shoot with a full system with so many people around.

The Pen has a wide variety of automatic modes, most of which I never touch as I almost always shoot in aperture priority.  In this case though I decided to use the dedicated "fireworks" mode which set the camera might as I would - wide open at f/5.6 (at 42mm), 4 second exposure and -1 exposure compensation.  All images were recorded in RAW so I didn't have to full with the white balance.  (This was one advantage I've found with the Pen over my old Canon G10.  If you used any of the preset modes on that camera it would always shoot jpegs.  For some reason Canon decided if you need to use the preset modes you must not be serious enough to want the exposures recorded in RAW.)

Being so far away from the action and with very little reach from the lens (only 84mm in 35mm terms) each image captured lots and lots of extra space.  But I was really pleased when I pulled all the shots into Lightroom and cropped down to just the fireworks part of the image.  The resolution was still outstanding!  Each of these shots probably has 60-75% of the extra black space cropped out.  In addition to cropping each image had the blacks pumped up a bit, the clarity turned up as well as the vibrance.  The result are shots that look very close to what we saw in the night sky.  A good night of shooting.

Enjoy!
Tom Laux
September 8, 2009

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1

I've been writing an awful log in this blog about my experience with the new Olympus Pen E-P1 Micro Four Thirds system camera that I've recently invested in.  Panasonic has also been in the Four Thirds game for a while now and they just announced a new Micro Four Thirds camera, the Lumix GF1.  This camera seems to be looking to fill the same niche as the Olympus Pen does, that of a very high quality but small sized near professional system with inter-changeable lenses, Live View, HD movie recording, etc.  It looks like they've one-upped Olympus a bit by including a built in pop-up style flash as wells as an optional Live View shoe mounted finder.  (My Pen has an optional finder that is strictly glass and is only in scale when used with the 17mm pancake lens.  I also need to put on the very stylish flash gun to use that option - no built in flash on the Pen.)  Amazon is taking pre-orders for the camera and it looks to be priced in line with the Olympus.  I'll be curious to read the reviews and comparisons that will be done between these two systems.  To date I've been nothing but pleased with my Pen but could I have jumped the gun too soon?  We'll find out.  One thing I do know for sure is that having another Micro Four Thirds system on the market is a good thing as that should translate into a slew of new lenses that are sized appropriately for this format and won't require the use of an adapter.

Enjoy!
Tom Laux
September 3, 2009