cat – Page 21 – Wolfgang Lonien

February 2, 2016February 2, 2016

A simulated film look

Yes, I sometimes use film in my Olympus OM-2N camera. And so does Zuleikha in her Olympus OM-1. But how do you get close to the look of film when using digital cameras? Easy, you say: buy Silver Effects, bind it into Photoshop or Lightroom, done.

Not so fast, young lad…

Last week, Olympus came out with their digital reincarnation of the Pen-F camera they once had (and which used film, but made two exposures on each 24x36mm frame in portrait mode). This new Pen-F has both colour and black & white film emulation modes, like some other cameras (Fuji for instance) had it before. And then there’s the Leica Monochrom of course, and people love all these. Film look out of the camera; perfect.

So does that mean that you have to spend money on a new Pen-F, any of the Fujis or even that Leica? Or spend money for Photoshop, Lightroom plus 3rd party plugin software?

Not really. Since a while we have that in open source land as well – Pat David and some others created a very nice “film pack” for both Gimp and also RawTherapee – see his website for all the possible emulations.

I have that in RawTherapee since a while as well, so let’s have some Kodak Tri-X look on two of yesterday’s photos:

Both taken with my Olympus OM-D E-M10 camera and the Zuiko Digital 50mm/2 macro lens at f/2.8. “In-camera” black and white conversion simulating an orange filter, which you can also apply afterwards in Olympus Viewer 3 (I’ve got the brand new 2.0 version today, for free). Film simulation with RawTherapee, and the “film pack” described above.

No, it’s not film. But it comes close.

Oh, and Zuleikha took my photo – danke Schätzchen!

P.S.: here’s another one which I took some minutes ago. Same processing, same Tri-X emulation:

Thanks for viewing.

February 1, 2016February 1, 2016

January: 2 “explored” images

I took lots of photos in January, well relatively speaking, for an amateur who still has a day job and not really as much time for photography as one would like to have. All in all, there are over 500 photos left in my January folder (and some didn’t even make it there from the cameras), resulting in 9.5GB of occupied space on our hard drives.

Of course I uploaded some I considered good enough or some I wanted to write about to Flickr, and of these, two were “explored” and as such they also got lots of views and “favorites”. These two were:

Cat in a box (1,259 views, 59 faves, and 4 comments as I write this), and

Zuleikha, January 2016 (5,831 views, 98 faves, and 11 comments as I write this).

None of these were lit on purpose; the first one was taken with our normal room lights turned on in the evening, the second one was mainly daylight from a window behind me (and the veranda door / big window on Zuleikha’s left side). Both with the lenses used wide open, the first with the PanaLeica at f/1.4, the second with my older Four Thirds 40-150mm kit zoom at 76mm, where wide open means f/4.7. First with ISO 3200, second with 1600 – so in both cases there wasn’t too much light.

Anyway – if you were amongst the ones who “liked”, or in Flickr parlance, “favorited” one of these, then thank you. Sometimes it just feels good to have a little feedback just like this. Oh, and Zuleikha loved those faves as well. I bet Tuna is a bit jealous now that Zuleikha has some more… 😉

And as always, thanks for reading.

January 31, 2016

Getting close with my 50mm macro

Two portraits from today:

Thanks for viewing.

January 30, 2016February 17, 2016

Trying different focal length lenses

Olympus Germany has some special offer which runs out tomorrow. You can get some of their single focal length lenses (primes) for Micro Four Thirds discounted, between 50€ and 150€ cheaper than usual.

I thought about the 17mm for a while, but we have 14mm (me) and 20mm (Mitchie). I also thought about the 60mm macro, but we have two 50mm macro lenses, one OM which is still a manual one, and the ZD 50mm/2 macro from my Four Thirds camera which has autofocus and a one stop advantage over the newer 60mm one.

And then there is the 75mm/1.8 on offer, and it’s about 30% cheaper than usual. Surely an incredible lens, and a very good offer, tho it still costs some serious money – more expensive than any of our camera bodies for instance.

So like I usually do, I take some of my kit zooms and try them on the focal lengths on offer. Did (and showed) a 17mm portrait of my colleague Arno lately, and today I was testing my longer zoom at 76mm inside of our flat.

And that is the keyword: indoors. I knew from my days with a film camera that a 135mm lens was always a bit too long for me, at least when using it indoors – so during that time I always wished for a 100mm or even a 85mm. And today? Let’s see:

Tuna with 76mm

Tuna with the 50mm macro lens

Zuleikha with 76mm (across the dining table)

Zuleikha with the 50mm macro lens (same distance)

I’ve tried some more, but what I found is the same as some 30+ years ago: indoors, a lens of 135mm or even more (the 75mm Olympus one would have an angle of view like a 150mm lens on film) is good for only one purpose: really tight “head shots”. If you don’t keep some distance you have to use it in portrait orientation to even get the shoulders.

Which means that my 50mm macro or the 45mm/1.8 M.Zuiko lenses we have already are much more useful when space is restricted.

That 75mm lens would be wonderful to have for things like half portraits (belly-up) outdoors – when used wide open at f/1.8 that would blur your backgrounds quite nicely, almost like that 135mm/2 from Canon which can really separate things from the backgrounds. Or rather like a 85mm/1.8 on film (most of which aren’t as sharp as this Olympus when used wide open).

But indoors? I think we can be glad with what he have already.

Technical: the first three photos were taken with a mix of daylight and some lights which were switched on during the day. The last one was taken using two studio strobes, one from above through a gridded beauty dish, and one reflected from a wall on the other side of the table.

P.S.: here’s another one I took using my 50mm macro today, a still life:

Oh, and before I forget it: since late last year, an Irish photographer sold a photo of a potato for 750.000 Pounds (approximately a million Euro or Dollar), I’m offering this one on Alu Dibond under Acryl in 30x40cm for the sum of 2.000.000,-€, no negotiations possible. And all those who don’t have that much can still download it in full resolution on Flickr – see side bar or click on the picture to get there. If you have it printed yourself, you’ll save some spare change, which you can send to us. SCNR… 😉

Thanks for viewing.

January 15, 2016January 16, 2016

Cat in a box

Thanks for viewing.

P.S.: this photo was just “explored” on Flickr – so thanks for each view, and for each comment and/or click on “favorite” there as well!

January 10, 2016

Three photos of Tuna

Two from yesterday:

And one from today:

Thanks for viewing.

January 3, 2016

First (low light) cat portrait of this year

It’s still a bit too warm outside for this time of the year, but we are getting some rain from the West and – elsewhere – some colder air and snow from the East. Anyway, it’s cloudy and not too bright, and Tuna (our cat) is seeking the warmth wherever she can get it. Like on Mitchie’s lap, who was sitting in front of her notebook. So, lit by pretty much only that laptop, here’s a first picture of Tuna for this year:

Tuna the cat, January 2016

Thanks for viewing.

December 23, 2015December 24, 2015

Season’s greetings, and happy holidays!

It’s one day before Christmas eve, and Zuleikha wanted to show us something she saw when visiting the Christmas market with her class and schoolmates. So we went to Frankfurt after shopping, only to find that the market is being disassembled already, and not a single booth was left open. But the weather was nice (at 12 degrees plus, it’s really too warm for the start of winter which was yesterday), and so we walked the city a bit, down to the river and back. And I took some unusual Christmas photo of some birds in flight:

Seagulls and swans at the river Main in Frankfurt

We’ll be off for a few days, visiting relatives we don’t see that often, and Tuna the cat will guard the house:

Tuna the cat, December 2015

Some friends will care for and feed the cat while we’ll be gone.

So whatever you will celebrate (or not), have a good time.

And as always, thanks for reading.

P.S., with technical info:

I’m back to my 25mm lens on the E-M10 camera, and it felt a bit like coming home – maybe I really got used to this 50mm-equivalent focal length. So the photos above from today were both taken with that combination, the one of Tuna with f/1.4 (lens fully open), hand-held at 1/8s at ISO1600 (thanks for the in-body image stabilisation!), and the bird photo with f/4 and 1/1000s at ISO200.

P.P.S.:

Here’s another one, taken today (Dec. 24th) in our living room. Same lens, this time with an aperture of f/2:

Zuleikha, December 2015

Again, season’s greetings and happy holidays from us.

Thanks for reading.

December 20, 2015

During and after a short Sunday walk

We were out for a short walk today, and I took this one of Zuleikha:

Then later we split – Zuleikha and Mitchie wanted to deliver some invitations for Zuleikha’s upcoming birthday party, and I turned back home. On the way I saw one of the two Maine Coon cats of a neighbour family. It wasn’t easy to take her picture, because most of the time she was smooching around my legs, and much too close:

Back at home, I had cleaned up part of our bookshelf lately, and emptied it of lots of old and outdated computer magazines. Tuna liked to scratch those magazines, and to sharpen her claws on them, but now she made use of the empty space:

All photos taken with the Olympus OM-D E-M10 (my personal “camera of the year”), and with the Olympus M.Zuiko 45mm/1.8 at f/2.5.

Thanks for viewing.

December 17, 2015December 17, 2015

The Tools and Toys 2015 list

The staff over at Tools and Toys just posted their list of some favourite things they’ve found or bought in 2015. Some of that stuff is expensive, but it’s still a worthwhile read. And at the bottom of their article, I’ve found their test of Mitchie’s 20mm/1.7 Panasonic lens which I have on one of my cameras since a while. Took this one of our cat today using it:

Tuna the cat – full, nice, and warm

In fact what they tested is the version 2 of the Panasonic Lumix 20mm/1.7 lens, and they also have tests of some other lenses we have, like the Panasonic Leica DG Summilux 25mm/1.4, and the Olympus M.Zuiko 45mm/1.8.

This end of the year period is always the time when lots of people make such lists, and LensRentals is no exception. Their list of most rented and highest rated new stuff is even a bit more on the expensive side, since many people just rent what they can’t afford (or don’t need so often that buying the stuff would calculate right).

Hoping that this might be useful for someone, as always, thanks for reading.