Wolfgang Lonien

Right outside and in front of our veranda, there’s that tree. Very old, very tall, several storeys high. People don’t treat it too well, they throw cigarette butts and other things not only onto our veranda, but also into that tree. Some of its branches broke off already, and I’m not sure if that tree will make it much longer. Some day I’ll have to go out and take a proper picture of it before it’s gone. Or before we are.

This is as good as I could frame it using Mitchie’s 20mm lens, and without getting anything else into the picture:

Like an old friend. Olympus E-PL1 and Panasonic Lumix 20mm lens. Straight out of camera, only renamed for consistency.

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This is sunlight, reflected off our wooden floor:

A tripod, two light stands, and a bookshelf. Olympus E-PL1 with Panasonic Lumix 20mm lens.

Somehow I managed to focus on those photo magazines in our bookshelf instead on my main subjects. But that doesn’t matter – I wanted to show the (reflected) light here. And like every landscape photographer knows, you have to act quick. When you see it, you have to take the photo – a few minutes later, and that light will have changed dramatically.

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The weather today is a lot nicer than the one of the last weeks, so of course I also had to take some pictures whenever I saw something which caught my eye. Like, for instance:

There’s a whole wide world behind your walled gardens (or: the world through our fence). Olympus E-PL1 with the 14-42mm “kit zoom”.

Nature taking back. Olympus E-PL1 with Panasonic Lumix 20mm lens.

Mass murder. Olympus E-PL1 with Panasonic Lumix 20mm.

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It’s still cold here in Germany, so after our dinner I sat on the sofa and took a blanket. “Tuna” the cat came to me and found that wonderfully warm and comfortable as well. So I sneaked away to get my camera and to take her picture:

“Tuna” the cat, sleeping. Olympus E-PL1 with its 14-42mm “kit zoom”.

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From this morning, in my employers’ garage:

Our car (Kirk Tuck would say: the studio car). Olympus E-PL1 with 45mm lens. ISO 320, hand-held. Almost like out of camera.

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The weather is still only so-so, and most of the weekend was very dull and grey, with single-digit Celsius temperatures at times. So when the sun peeked through a few holes in the clouds today, we took the opportunity for a short walk of maybe 40 minutes or so.

And when the sun is shining, it really looks like spring now, with nature claiming back some of the space:

Spring around Robert-Koch-Str., Olympus E-PL1 with Panasonic Lumix 20mm lens

I was once again trying Mitchie’s 20mm lens which is wonderful. A 40mm-equivalent focal length sometimes just feels right. It shows a bit more context around people than a 50mm-e, but is not as wide as a 35mm-e. Very nice. Maybe it’s because it’s actually closer to the sensor diagonale than those so-called “normal” lenses…

About this picture: first I thought it was rather mediocre, not as nice as another one of Zuleikha and Mitchie (which I cannot show here because Mitchie wouldn’t want that). But then, viewed full-screen on my monitor and from a distance, I saw that that street sign almost vanishes behind those ranks, so I liked it enough to upload it to Flickr, and to show it here.

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Yesterday morning, Olympus introduced us to their newest flagship of their “Pen” line of mirrorless cameras, the E-P5. I read the first hands-on reports from Ming Thein, Robin Wong, Pekka Potka, and of course it also was published at the same time on pages like DPReview. Now it’s Saturday evening, and I’m still reading. And while I was doing this, I looked at my E-PL1 camera with Mitchie’s 20mm lens attached, and thought: “Yeah, cute little products these are – let’s take a picture!”. And so I did:

Still life with two “Pens”. Olympus E-520 with 50mm macro lens and Simock E300 Studio strobe bounced over the ceiling.

Most of the comments I read from “normal people” (which mostly translates as hobbyists like myself) are that this new E-P5 is too expensive. It costs about as much as an OM-D E-M5 and tops that if you add the new VF-4 viewfinder and a lens.

But unlike the reviewers mentioned above, most of these commenters never held it in their hands until now, and from what the reviewers report, and what the published images show us, I can believe that it’s a big difference to lesser and cheaper products indeed. Maybe like the difference between our Toyota Corolla, and a Lexus (cannot compare it to an “S” class, because that’s already reserved by Leica as well as Mercedes-Benz)

If these mentioned prices are correct, which means about 1k$ for the body, or $1449 as a “kit” with the VF-4 viewfinder and the 17mm/1.8 lens, it’s in my opinion still a very fair offer. You’d get that new big bright high-res viewfinder practically for free, and part of that very good 17mm lens as well. So what’s to complain about?

I was always of the opinion that these small mirrorless “Pen” cameras are like Leicas for the rest of us mere mortals. And this one will surely feel like one in your hands. If you see it that way, then a price of less than 1.5k$ seems downright cheap, for a premium product – doesn’t it? Still better than a Hasselblad Lunatic, or whatever they called these.

So I applaud Olympus for bringing out this one. Just like I did for whatever I used and you see here, like the E-PL1, the E-520, and last not least the OM-2N as my screen background. Plus that new E-PL5 which Mitchie has, and which has the exact same sensor like these higher priced OM-D E-M5 and E-P5 cameras.

About my photo: yes, you see dust everywhere. So what – I’m not trying to sell something here.

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Just playing around with Mitchie’s 20mm lens again:

Olympus E-PL1 with the Panasonic Lumix 20mm lens almost fully open. Minimal post-processing as always. No sharpening at all.

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