For my next trip.

Hi everyone,

For my next trip I’m going to have a “prime” day and only take some of my most under-used lenses with me. I’ve chosen to taken my M.Zuiko 12mm f/2, a lens that has had very little use over the years, my 20mm Lumix f/1.7 which I’ve only used relatively few times and the same is true of my M.Zuiko 45mm f/1.8 lens. I’m also going to take one of my tiny Lumix 12-32mm lenses as a backup and I’ll take my Olympus PEN E-P5 camera for a stroll around and see what I can find. I have considered selling these lenses along with my M.Zuiko 25mm f/1.8 and 17mm f/1.8 lenses but maybe I can find some, albeit occasional use for them.

Kind regards

Leigh

Further experiments with polarised light

November 6, 2021 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, Photography, Photography equipment | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

Here are a few shots I took with the two LED lights fitted with linear polarising filters placed at approx. 45 degrees to the vertical on mini tripods, either side of the object and a circular polarising (CPL) filter on the macro lens.

The setup, apologies for the slightly blurry shot, taken handheld in poor lighting.

CPL rotated to a position that I liked the best.

Kind regards

Leigh

Experiments with polarised lighting.

November 4, 2021 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, Photography, Photography equipment | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

Something I’ve been meaning to try for some while now. As the evenings are drawing in and the weather is getting colder I thought I’d start playing with macro photography again, I found a couple of secondhand A series Cokin linear polarising filters and attached them with double-sided sticky pads to the front of my small Godox 48 LED lights. I’ve been getting some nice results using them in conjunction with a circular polarising filter on the macro lens. It’s cheaper than linear polarising film More experiments to follow.

Kind regards

Leigh

Think Tank Turnstyle 5 v2 bag

October 25, 2021 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, Photography, Photography equipment, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

A quick follow up to yesterday’s post. I received my Turnstyle 5 bag today. My first impression was how small it is but it accommodates all of my chosen gear comprising of my PEN-F camera with Lumix 12-60mm attached, M.Zuiko 9-18mm and 17mm f/1.8 lenses as well as two 58mm filters, two spare camera batteries, USB battery charger, some moist lens wipes and my LCD hood.

Size comparison with my larger Turnstyle 10 V2 bag.

Main compartment with camera and three lenses.

For scale: PEN-F with Lumix 12-60mm lens fitted.

Kind regards,

Leigh

Think Tank Turnstyle sling bag re-visited

October 24, 2021 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, Photography, Photography equipment, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

Lately I’ve started to use my ThinkTank turnstyle 10 v2 sling bag again. I’m now suffering from all sorts of pains and I’ve come to the conclusion that this type of bag is probably the best for me unless I’m going utlra-light and just carrying a small camera with just one lens in which case one of my small Manfrotto shoulder bags is fine.

First of all I find that if I carry a shoulder bag on my shoulder then I’m always conscious of it slipping off my shoulder. If I wear it diagonally across my body, messenger style, then the strap digs into my neck and chest and makes my neck and shoulder blade really painful and it makes getting at my gear more tedious. I’ve tried a back pack but for my type of photography which I believe is commonly referred to as “run and gun”, although sadly I’m not doing any running with my leg and hip pains, a backpack is impractical as I don’t want to have to keep removing it or faff around getting to my gear.

So what does that leave me?, well a sling type bag. The Turnstyle bags, of which there are three models (5, 10 and 20), differing in capacity, offer a really practical solution for me. As I’ve gradually honed my gear more and more in an effort to reduce weight and I now only carry a camera and an absolute maximum of two or three lightweight lenses I don’t need or want a big, heavy, cumbersome bag. The Turnstyle 10 model that I have is fine but I’ve worked out that the smaller and slightly lighter Turnstyle 5 model, specifically designed for mirrorless camera systems might be an even better solution so I’ve ordered one. The different models of bag are more or less the same in terms of features.

A few things that I really like about these bags are, the comfortable, ergonomically curved-shaped, shoulder strap, being able to swivel the bag around in front of me and quickly and easily get to the gear, change lenses, batteries etc, the detachable waist belt which helps to spread the load and keep things from moving around on the move and, an absolute must have, the built in rain cover. The bag can also be swiveled round to one’s side or just hung from one shoulder, half-on rucksack style.

There is also a benefit to smaller bags as it forces one to limit the amount and, for me, the important thing, weight of the gear that one is carrying and concentrate of just taking the lenses that, from experience, I’m pretty sure there’s a high probability that I’m going to use as opposed to the “I might use it so I’d better pack it just in case” type lenses and accessories that, on close scrutiny, I rarely use. So if I only use a particular lens or other piece of gear once in every few hundred or so shots that I take then there’s no sense in habitually carrying it around unless I’m pretty darned sure that I’m going to use it. In doing this am I missing a shot or two here and there?, sure but it’s certainly not a deal-breaker as the pros far outweigh the cons and my ageing and aching limbs thank me for it!. 🙂

Olympus PEN-F fitted with Lumix 12-60mm, Lumix 14mm and Olympus M.Zuiko 9-18mm.

Kind regards

Leigh

Eyecare

October 6, 2021 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, Photography, Photography equipment | Leave a comment

Hi folks.

My eyes are so very important and I spend a lot of time in front of monitors. Two useful pieces of software. An extension for Google Chrome called Dark Reader – https://darkreader.org/ which sets website backgrounds to black rather that the obligatory white. I use this all the time, it has a facility to be activated between certain times of day and also at sunset to sunrise once you’ve given it your map location (use Google maps to get latitude and longitude for your location) but I like it all day. Another feature is the ability to bypass various sites which don’t play nicely with a black background like WordPress or to whitelist only the sites that you want to use it with.

Another useful piece of software which I’ve recently started to use is IRIS, https://iristech.co/ this isn’t free, nor is it is expensive but it is great. It can reduce the colour temperature of a monitor/s (reducing blue light) and brightness between times or, as I have it setup, between Sunset and Sunrise once you have entered your location. There are many other useful features including setting up a list of applications such as suspending the software whilst running colour fidelity critical software like all my photo editing software programs once you’ve set it up. There’s even a AI feature to hook up a webcam which I’ve done (for security with sound disabled in Windows settings and pointing at a blank wall), to automatically sense room brightness and adjust monitor/s brightness accordingly. Together they really do help reduce eye strain.

I have no affiliation to either of these companies or their products.

Best wishes,

Leigh

New video, changes and additions to my macro setup.

September 16, 2021 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, Photography, Photography equipment | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

I’ve made some changes to my macro setup.

Kind regards

Leigh

Working on my macro photography.

August 19, 2021 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, Photography, Photography equipment | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

Lately I’ve been giving a lot of thought to my small macro setup and using the opportunity of being indoors to rethink things a bit.

My macro setup comprising of Olympus EM-5 I camera, M.Zuiko 30mm f/3.5 macro lens, Godox X1-T radio flash trigger, LED ring flash/light (mounted off lens), JJC FC-03 off camera flash cable and Rollei cable release/intervalometer.

Closeup of the FC-03 attached to the camera’s hot shoe which supports TTL mode. I’ve also fitted an LCD shade and here I’m using the 10x magnification factor of the camera so that I can accurately manual focus. I’m powering the camera via the attached grip and a dedicated mains power adapter.

The business end of the 30mm lens with the ring flash attached. I’ve fitted a lens hood and circular polarising filter and then the ring flash. The polarising filter is only of use when the ring flash/light is removed and mounted separately or I’m using another lighting arrangement as it has no effect because the light direction is perpendicular to the lens. I’m going to experiment with using some linear polarising sheet which I can position in front of the light and I can use it in addition to polarise the light source.

Closeup of the Godox X1-T flash trigger mounted on top the FC-03 flash cable with the ring flash controller mounted on top of the X1-T. The X1-T, triggered by the camera, fires my Godox TT-350 flash and acts as a manual pass-through to the ring flash controller. The ring flash unit has two modes flash and light with a of 7 levels of brightness adjustment as well as one or two banks of LEDs. Using this I can either choose to use the ring flash in LED mode or flash mode and also trigger the TT-350 flash.

Goddox TT-350 flash. I’ve mounted this on a small tripod with one of my Manfrotto-style quick release plates. This allows me the option of removing it and attaching it to one of my full-size tripods which I’ve also fitted with the same quick release system and position it as I choose.

I’ve also mounted my GVM RGB LED light to another of my small tripods and attached a boom arm which gives me an additional lighting option to throw into the mix if I wish. The light has an app for the mobile phone which allows one to change the colour and brightness.

The complete setup

A quick test shot lit from above with the ring flash in LED mode, custom white balance set with a grey card. I found some sticky-back wood effect material in the pound shop 🙂 which I’ve stuck to some card to give me a nice wood-effect background. This is actually a two shot manual focus stack assembled in Affinity as I wanted to capture the background as well.

All the best,

Leigh

My “mini” studio nears completion.

August 13, 2021 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Leigh Kemp, Photography, Photography equipment | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

I’ve more or less completed my “mini” studio and I’m hoping to do some more macro stuff or maybe some time-lapse in the near future for a change.

Kind regards,

Leigh

Warning: Watch out for EVF burn.

August 11, 2021 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Photography, Photography equipment, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi folks,

I had this happen once before on my E-M5 II in Greece with green spots and again yesterday with my VF-4 in Bognor!. If you use high diopter correction as I do and are unlucky enough then it can happen in very bright sunlight as was the case today. I’d recommend that you keep the evf side to your body at all times in strong sunlight especially if you use high diopter correction. I inadvertently reversed it when changing lenses, only for a few seconds at the most and now I have large yellow streaks/blotches in the VF-4 EVF. As the VF-4 is detachable it can at least be replaced, not so nice with a built in EVF as it’s a repair job.

Kind regards, Leigh

As I sit here looking at my modern digital cameras I’m reminded of my first camera and, in particular, the first photograph that I ever took. Nowadays we take cameras and camera technology pretty much for granted but when I was a child I can’t remember many photographs. The only time our camera saw the light of day, and it had to be the light of day, as there wasn’t a flash, was on a few family occasions, the usual thing, school sports days, birthdays, etc.. My interest in photography didn’t start until my grandfather “loaned” me his camera to take with me on a week-long school trip, sleeping under canvas, in Snowdonia, North Wales. It was a somewhat battered old twin-lens reflex camera in which one looked downwards in to the viewfinder when taking a photograph.

I remember being very excited at being entrusted with the family camera, film wasn’t cheap and I had very little to no idea how to use it. The experience must have made some kind of impression on me as, after all these years, I still remember taking my first photograph. The coach stopped en-route at Blenheim Palace, the ancestral home of Sir Winston Churchill and it became the subject of my first photograph. Although, sadly, like my other photographs from the trip, it has long since disappeared, however, I really don’t need the photograph to remind me as the experience is indelibly etched on my mind. I wonder if this is perhaps where my interest in landscape photography stems from but that’s probably too much of an assumption. As far as I remember I was the only kid on the trip to have a camera, that’s how different things were, nowadays, just about everyone has a camera of some sort built in to their mobile phones. It also taught me to be disciplined to the point of being frugal when taking photographs as the trip was for one week and I only had a 12 exposure black and white film in the camera.

Some years later I really got the photography bug and bought my first camera, an Olympus OM-1 35 mm film camera and I went on to own their OM-2 and OM-4ti cameras and a range of lenses. Film was still pretty expensive considering I earned about £20 a week in my first job so I got in to developing and printing my own black and white and, later, colour films to help keep the costs down and make things more affordable. Not only did this experience teach me an awful lot about image-making start to finish, many of the techniques and skills that I learned in my makeshift darkroom, a small room adorned with genuine World War 2 blackout curtains fitted to keep out the light, another hand-me-down from my grandfather, these skills would re-surface and be invaluable some years later when I started working on processing my digital images.

I put myself through University as a mature student and I badly needed the money so I had to very reluctantly part with all my photographic equipment, but needs must. After I graduated I bought my first digital camera, a small fixed lens Kodak compact camera, reduced in a sale. It had, by today’s standards, a laughably small maximum image resolution of 640×480 pixels or, to put it another way, a stunning 0.4 Megapixels!. For all of this and further equipped with screw on wide angle and telephoto lens attachments, it proved to be a fabulous little camera which I took all over the place with me. Put simply, digital photography was a revelation, to me, no requirement for film, no real running costs and a lot of image capacity on a small memory card which I found absolutely liberating.

A few years before that I had discovered some free graphics editing software on the cover disk of a computer magazine and that started off my real passion for working with graphics and, ultimately, photo processing. So I then had all the tools I required to develop, pun intended and further, my interest in digital photography. Processing is where the magic starts for me, I am totally absorbed in and fascinated by the range of options that digital processing affords me. It encourages me, if, that is, I ever need encouragement, to constantly experiment with new styles, new techniques and is such an important part of my enjoyment and interest in photography.

I went on to own several DSLRs but, as I got older I began to find that they were simply too heavy and bulky. I switched over back in 2013 to Micro Four Thirds cameras and lenses. My choice of MFT system was heavily influenced by my experiences with my Olympus film cameras, maybe it was, in truth, part based on nostalgia that I decided on their OM-D system. As a landscape/travel photographer I have to carry my gear around all day and the weight and bulk saving is highly significant. I’ve been very impressed with the image quality of my Micro Four Thirds equipment, it has traveled with me extensively, never let me down and I have never had cause to question my decision to go over to that format.

So my 50-plus year photographic adventure has led me from twin-lens reflex and single-lens reflex film cameras to digital cameras, from stumbling around in a dimly-lit darkroom to working with my images on my computer. I’ve heard it said on occasions, including a comment I read some while back by a very famous photographer, that cameras being so much an every-day item now and available in mobile phones etc. devalues photography. I feel quite the opposite, I firmly believe that it empowers everyone with affordable technology to take photographs and enjoy photography and that, in my opinion, is fantastic. Although I’ve very much enjoyed my personal photographic journey I do confess to feeling a slight tinge of regret that the technology wasn’t available when I started out but one can’t put the clock back and I intend to keep on embracing all these great technological advancements, experimenting and enjoying my work.

Cameras:

Olympus: OM-D E-M5 Mk II (titanium) & HLD-8G grip, OM-D E-M1 Mk I (black) & HDL-7 grip, OM-D EM-5 Mk I (silver) & HDL-6 grip, PEN EPL-5, PEN EP-5 (silver) +VF-4, PEN E-PL8 (Silver) +VF4, Tough TG-5 (red), PEN-F (silver), Canon Powershot G10, Nikon Coolpix A100

Lenses:

Olympus: M.Zuiko: 12 mm f/2, 17 mm f/1.8, 25 mm f/1.8, 45 mm f/1.8, 30 mm f/3.5 macro, 9 mm f/8 body cap fisheye, 15 mm f/8 body cap, 9-18 mm, 12-50 mm, 12-40 mm f/2.8 PRO, 14-150 mm II, 40-150 mm II, 12-45mm f/4 PRO, MCON-P02.

Sigma: ART 60 mm f/2.8.

Samyang: Manual focus 7.5 mm f/3.5 fisheye.

TT Artisan: Manual focus 17mm f/1.4, 23mm f/1.4, 35mm f/1.4.

Panasonic Lumix: 14 mm f/2.5, 20 mm f/1.7, 12-32 mm x2 (black and silver), 12-60 mm, 14-42 mm II, 35-100 mm, 45-150mm.

PEN E-P5, 9-18mm,12-32mm, 40-150mm II. A lightweight kit with virtually continuous coverage from 18mm wide angle to 300mm telephoto.

OM-D E-M1 I, 14-150mm II, 12-40mm PRO. . Heavier than my other kits but with complete weather-sealing. Coverage from 24mm wide angle to 300mm telephoto with some overlap for backup.

OM-D E-M5 II, 17mm, 35mm, 12-60mm. A balance of two fun manual focus lenses with a weather-sealed body and zoom lens.

PEN E-PL5, 9mm, 15mm, 25mm, 60mm, 12-50mm. Another lightweight fun kit with a zoom option.

TG-5, OM-D E-M5 mk1, 7.5mm, 12mm, 17mm, 45mm, 30mm macro. M-CON.

PEN-F, 14mm, 20mm, 12-32mm, 35-100mm. Probably my favourite lightweight day-to-day kit. Two fast primes and two zoom with almost continuous coverage from 24mm wide angle through to 200mm telephoto.

Software:

Corel: Paintshop Pro Elite 2020 & Video Studio 2019.

Skylum Software: Aurora HDR 2019, Luminar 4, Luminar AI and Luminar Neo.

DXO Labs: PhotoLab 5 Elite, Viewpoint 3, NIK Collection 9, Film Pack 8 and PureRAW 6.

Anthropics Technologies: Landscape Pro Studio 3 and Portrait Pro.

EyeQ: Perfectly Clear

Topaz Labs: Studio 2, Sharpen AI, A.I Gigapixel, AI Clear, AI Adjust, DeNoise AI and Various legacy plugins.

Adobe: Lightroom.

GreenScreenWizard Studio Pro.

Serif: Affinity Photo

Microsoft: Image Composite Editor (Free).

Darktable (Free).

Olympus: Olympus Capture, Olympus Workspace and Olympus Webcam (Free to Olympus owners).

Sony: Movie Studio Platinum.

Lighting Gear:

Godox TT350o flash, Godox X1T radio flash trigger, Godox Lux Junior flash, LED ring flash, GVM RGB LED light, Olympus MAL-1 Macro Arm Light. Two Godox LED36 lights, Godox Litemons LED6R light. Three Bowen studio flash heads, barndoors, honeycombes, umbrellas and flash meter.