Hurry
I had hosted Nifty for quite some time–too long really by the somewhat loose rules of the Nifty exchange program–so it was time to say ‘goodbye’. The night before I was to pack him up for his trip to his next host, I took him up to the top level of the parking garage next to my office and took some shots, including the last two posts here and here. Jackson doesn’t have much of a skyline, but I showed Nifty the sights anyway. He’s the silent type, so I don’t know what he was thinking, but I think it was a bitter-sweet moment for him too. We’ve had some good times together these past few weeks. » Continue Reading…
Nifty arrives safe and sound
I’m a regular at the Photography-on-the.net (POTN) forum–a forum for (surprise!) photography, specifically for those who use Canon equipment. The E-P1 has been claiming more and more of my leisure photography time, but my Canon 5D is still the go-to guy for most photographic opportunities.
At POTN there’s a thread entitled “Where’s Nifty?! #2″. It’s a lens sharing thread, the premise being that a donated Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 would be shipped from forum member to forum member, staying with each member for a while during which time said member would take some photos with “Nifty”. Neat, eh? For those not familiar with the lingo, “Nifty Fifty” is a commonly used nickname for the 50mm f/1.8. Now there are 2 other Nifties floating around–1 in Europe and 1 in Australasia. » Continue Reading…
Painting by Charlotte Meadows
After the portrait session with Ella and Emma, we were invited in to take a look at a painting. We had shot a portrait session with the girls last year too, and from that session one photo was selected to be converted into a painting by an artist named Charlotte Meadows. I’ve never had any of my photos converted into a real-deal painting before. Pretty cool, eh? Not that anybody asked me, but I heartily approve of this work. Oh, and here’s the original photo from last year as reference:
Original
Charlotte, if you’re out there please send me your contact info so I can let people know how to get in touch with you.
Ella and Emma
Denise and I shot a portrait session with these darling twin sisters Ella and Emma a few weeks ago. Kids are always a challenge to photograph as they are very much their own creatures–posing kids is very much a broad strokes and hope for the best type of exercise. Thankfully I’m not the posing type anyway, and these girls played happily while I snapped away. Thanks for such a fun photo session! » Continue Reading…
"C" is for "cookie"
Last year as Denise was driving back to the house she spotted an airplane doing stunts in the sky. She promptly searched and called around to see what the deal was and found out about the Hawkins Field Airshow. We were too late to go to it last year, so we put it on our running fun-things-to-do calendar for this year, and since it was held on a free day for us we were able to go see it a couple days ago.
For those looking for airshow photos apologies ahead of time for the boring personal family pics, and for those expecting Denise and Sofia pics apologies ahead of time for all the boring airplane shots! » Continue Reading…
EF to m4/3 adaptor
Part of the appeal of the Micro 4/3 (m4/3) format used on the Olympus E-P1 is that it’s highly adaptable. I think it might be the most adaptable lens mount to date, in that just about any lens ever produced can be mounted onto a m4/3 camera like the E-P1 as long as you have the right adaptor(s).
Pictured above is the Canon EF to m4/3 adaptor (taken with E-P1 at 84mm equivalent, 1/2 second shutter speed–thank you, in-camera image stabilization!), which is used to mount Canon EF lenses onto a m4/3 camera. The label says “EOS-m4/3″, but I believe the correct terminology is “EF” instead of “EOS” since “EF” is the name of the actual lens mount. Pedantic much? Why yes–yes indeed. As a Canon user, I can now mount all of my Canon EF lenses onto my E-P1. » Continue Reading…
E-P1 and accessories
After using the E-P1 extensively for the past few days I feel that I have a good grasp of what it’s about, so I’m putting together a mini-review based on my experiences so far. For those of you not used to reading camera reviews by outfits such as DPReview, Imaging Resource, DCResource, etc., this will seem like a very long review. The camera nerds among us know better though. The standard DPReview… er… review is 32 (!) pages long, so I classify this as a mini-review, even though it will most likely be the longest post I’ve written on this blog to date once I’m through with it. » Continue Reading…
Pentimento book store
After seeing the reptiles, we had some time to kill before lunch, so we visited the Pentimento bookstore in downtown Clinton. They’re a locally owned bookstore that sells new and used books.
Inside Pentimento
The picture above shows most of the shop. There’s a few small rooms in the back for children’s books (their children’s book room has quite a few nice books), clearance books, and a stock room. You can see a doorway leading to those back rooms in the middle of the picture, and there’s a bookshelf there that contains the few photography books they had alongside some art and architecture books. I think the photography book section was half a shelf’s worth of books. But look what I found in that small collection of 15 books or so: » Continue Reading…
Ooh, pretty
I rode the fence for a few days on this, probably bugging the crap out of Denise with my back-and-forth. I had almost decided that it wasn’t a good value proposition at MSRP despite my heart really wanting one when I saw on a forum I frequent that somebody was selling one practically brand new but with the optional flash and a 2GB SD card for the same price as I would pay for one new without the flash and SD card. Plus I could expedite shipping for cheaper than I could with the online stores. You had me at “bargain”. » Continue Reading…
Until I started looking into Olympus’s cameras I didn’t know who Kirk Tuck was (embarrassingly enough since I own one of the books he’s written), but I’ve come to enjoy reading his blog The Visual Science Lab. He’s a very accomplished photographer and a good blogger, but I’ve got to pick on him for his recent article “Practice makes competent. Plus some Sunday observations.” It’s not obvious from the title of the post, but in it he talks about his preference for Olympus despite many rational reasons for choosing other brands for professional work (I can identify. There’s more to photography than noise measurements and resolution charts.), and he also talks about shooting RAW vs. JPEG. » Continue Reading…