Category: photography

Today I took some photos with the DSLR again. And I even took off the 50mm macro lens which is normally mounted, and used the weakest one I have, at the weakest focal length and aperture. 10 Megapixels, and “only” about 10 stops of dynamic range when used at the lowest ISO setting. Did it matter? Not at all…

Lavandula angustifolia

“nubi”

Thanks for viewing.

Just came back home from a meeting of the IBM photo club, where a colleague brought his new Fujifilm X-T1 camera. He let me try it for a while, even with my own SD card in it, so I could take some photos home. Very nice, tho my raw converter doesn’t know the camera yet, and doesn’t demosaic its raw files which are not in the typical Bayer pattern. So I’ll show you some non-people shots, first of and then from the camera (from jpg in this case):

Fujifilm X-T1 (shot with Olympus E-PL5)

Olympus E-PL5 (from a jpg image out of the Fuji X-T1)

Nice camera. Oh, and it’s true what they say about its built-in electronic viewfinder – it’s gorgeous. As are the 23mm and the 56mm lenses (didn’t try others yet).

But even much more interesting were Alexander’s big prints which he also brought in a huge map. Like this one for instance:

One of Alexander’s photos (most probably taken with a Nikon camera, not this new Fuji)

Next time I’ll ask him if he has some of them online, so I can link to them.

Thanks for reading.

Today I mounted the Micro Zuiko 45mm/1.8 lens onto my camera. It’s my go-to lens for portraits, and it’s Mitchie’s go-to lens for about everything. And since I was thinking about that “everything” part, and the angle of view which you get with a lens which compares to 90mm on an older film camera, I pretty much knew what I would get. Here are a few shots I took:

Flowers

Clothespins

Clothespins

Cup

Flower

Speaker terminal

All of these were taken with an aperture of f/4, and all except the last one hand-held, so yes, from a composition or separation point of view, you could get almost the same results with a kit lens. Maybe just a tad less nice and acute than with this one (your typical kit lens would be at f/5.6 when zoomed fully out to 42mm, but to get sharp photos you’d probably have to step it down to f/8).

Still, as one who loves to take portraits, this would be the first lens I’d buy after a kit lens, even before getting a fixed focal “normal” lens, which would have around 25mm length for the (Micro) Four Thirds sensor.

You see, we both love this lens, and consider it essential. But as a “normal” kind of person, how should you decide which perspective and focal length you should get when buying your first prime after a zoom lens? Simple: leave your kit lens at 42mm for a week, and photograph everything with this focal length. Then, after a week or so, leave it at 25mm for another week (or even at 20 or 17mm). You’ll learn pretty fast what kind of perspective you prefer. And then go for it, you won’t be disappointed.

Thanks for reading.