"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…
Today my persistent E-P1 itch forced me to call up the local camera shop Deville Camera to see if they had a demo E-P1 I could play with. Whaddya know? They did! So after work I stopped by Deville Camera with a co-worker to see if the Olympus E-P1 is really all that. Thanks to Greg at Deville for letting us check it out.
The main draw of the E-P1 for me is its size. My main camera both for work and play is a Canon 5D, which isn’t the largest camera in the world but isn’t exactly svelte either. There are times when I just don’t want to lug it around, but I invariably wish I had when a photo op comes up that I’m not equipped for. Compact cameras have tiny sensors in them that are ultra-noisy, especially after being used to the clean high ISO of a 5D, so compacts are out of the question. The E-P1 looks on paper to be a great compromise between a big ol’ SLR and a tiny compact, incorporating pros and cons of both.
So how small is the E-P1? » Continue Reading…
Olympus Pen E-P1 with 17mm f/2.8 lens (34mm effective) attached and optional optical viewfinder on top
“It’s not a compact. It’s not an SLR. It’s a Pen.” That’s the slogan Olympus are using for the official announcement of the Olympus Pen E-P1 camera. It’s not a compact because you can change lenses on it. It’s not an SLR because SLRs use a mirror to reflect the image to a viewfinder whereas the E-P1 has no mirror (the Micro Four Thirds standard is designed to get rid of the mirror box, thus reducing the lens-to-sensor distance, which in turn enables smaller cameras and lenses). This is a whole new category of camera, and frankly one that is way overdue–a small camera with a large sensor, that can also take a variety of lenses. Oh, and it records 720p video also. Veruh nass. » Continue Reading…