Thursday, December 15, 2011
It's All About the Small Things
I had a couple days of vacation I needed to burn before the end of the year, so I took Thursday/Friday off. The weather wasn't the greatest to head out on the road to do some photography, so I stuck around the house. In the back yard I have a couple small Maples which have lost all of their leaves, but still had a few seeds hanging on. So I grabbed the 7D, slapped my 100mm f/2.8 Macro on and started snapping shots. There was this one small group which were especially interesting since they were entangled in a spider's old web. I didn't even notice the spider web until I snapped a couple shots and checked my focus. Isn't it funny how you sometimes don't see the little details until they smack you in the face. :-) Hope you enjoy.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
New Toy
So, for some reason I've been wanting a new camera. Don't get me wrong, I love my Canon 7D. It's just that I wanted something a bit more portable when I go on trips where I'm not primarily taking photos (yes, it happens once in a while). I also wanted a small camera that takes great photos and still gave me control over the aperture, shutter speed and so on. I could of just gone with a point n shoot, but the quality of the photos just wasn't up to my fairly high standards.
So, what did I end up getting? The Olympus E-PM1 (Pen Mini). It's small, takes great pictures and I can change out the lens when I want to. Just to give you an idea on how small it is, here's a pic of it sitting next to my car keys.
I've taken it out a few times to fool around with and so far, I'm pretty happy. The User Interface is a pain to learn at first, but once you figure out how to turn on the Power User mode, it's easy to switch up settings and get what you want. You can also customize buttons / dials to what you want. I have the wheel on the back programmed to control my aperture.
One note, if you want to work with RAW photos, leave the Olympus software that comes with the camera in the box. It has a horrible GUI and is SLOW as hell. Seriously, I have a high end powerful PC and I was sitting there waiting 5-7 seconds for each setting I changed to take effect. When you're adjusting say the contrast 3 or 4 times to get it just right, you're wasting a ton of time sitting there waiting. I wouldn't want to even think how long it would take to work through a hundred or so photos on my PC, besides a computer from 5 years ago. I don't understand how Olympus can put this kind of crap SW out there with a straight face. Luckily I have Adobe Photoshop Lightroom which makes things much easier/faster to work through my photos.
How are the pictures? Well, here's a couple samples. These were taken with the standard 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 "kit" lens that came with the camera and edited in Lightroom.
As you can see, the quality is pretty good. I can get some nice Bokeh, even with the relatively slow kit lens. I picked up a Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 for low light shooting. Haven't had a chance to get out and really test it out though. I think it will be great to use as a primary lens when I want to travel lite.
So, what did I end up getting? The Olympus E-PM1 (Pen Mini). It's small, takes great pictures and I can change out the lens when I want to. Just to give you an idea on how small it is, here's a pic of it sitting next to my car keys.
I've taken it out a few times to fool around with and so far, I'm pretty happy. The User Interface is a pain to learn at first, but once you figure out how to turn on the Power User mode, it's easy to switch up settings and get what you want. You can also customize buttons / dials to what you want. I have the wheel on the back programmed to control my aperture.
One note, if you want to work with RAW photos, leave the Olympus software that comes with the camera in the box. It has a horrible GUI and is SLOW as hell. Seriously, I have a high end powerful PC and I was sitting there waiting 5-7 seconds for each setting I changed to take effect. When you're adjusting say the contrast 3 or 4 times to get it just right, you're wasting a ton of time sitting there waiting. I wouldn't want to even think how long it would take to work through a hundred or so photos on my PC, besides a computer from 5 years ago. I don't understand how Olympus can put this kind of crap SW out there with a straight face. Luckily I have Adobe Photoshop Lightroom which makes things much easier/faster to work through my photos.
How are the pictures? Well, here's a couple samples. These were taken with the standard 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 "kit" lens that came with the camera and edited in Lightroom.
As you can see, the quality is pretty good. I can get some nice Bokeh, even with the relatively slow kit lens. I picked up a Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 for low light shooting. Haven't had a chance to get out and really test it out though. I think it will be great to use as a primary lens when I want to travel lite.
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