Hi folks,

My two Lumix 12-32mm lenses mounted on my PEN-F and E-M5 mk II. I still haven’t managed to fully test the new one but I’ve done some testing and it seems just as sharp as my older one. I went out earlier to get a few test shots to a local common type area which was very heavily waterlogged after all the rain we’ve had of late, slipped with the camera in my hand and got myself and my gear thoroughly covered in very slimy mud but shot nothing of interest. 🙂 On my return I wiped it down first to get the worst of the mud off, removed the lens, fitted a weather-sealed one and thoroughly washed the camera (the E-M5 II) down, dried it, and after gently cleaning the lens, refitted it, as good as new, you got to love Olympus’ weather sealing when you need it!. 🙂 I always buy lens hoods for all my lenses, I think that they’re an essential accessory, these ones, by JJC, have the benefit of having a 58mm filter thread on the front and thus accepting an easier to attach filter like my variable ND filter and lens cap which, as they’re screw-on lens hoods is a very useful feature as you don’t have to remove them to fit a filter, a neat design feature I think.

I did a couple of test shots indoors of some ornaments, I love art deco 🙂 , and our music room AKA dinning room, “Eat to the beat” 🙂 , she loves Elvis, I tease her that there’s always been three in our relationship. 🙂

And, as they used to say in Blue Peter TV program when I was a kid, “here’s one I made earlier” in pre-lockdown Bognor Regis, shot at f/5.6 ISO 200 as a five-frame handheld HDR, which I think that you’ve seen before which does nicely illustrate how sharp these lenses are.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/leighkemp/50791211762/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/

All the best,

Leigh

Hi everyone,

I’ve never bought two of any piece of major photographic gear before. Firstly I most certainly can’t afford to do that and secondly I have to justify my purchases and spend my money carefully and choose gear which extends my photographic options but I’ve made an exception to this. I’ve come to love the tiny Lumix 12-32mm pancake lens so much for its compact size, light weight and sharpness, especially when stopped down to f/5.6 or f/8, it’s a “gem” of a lens, that I’ve bought another one as this has, nine times out of ten, become my go-to lens. The first one I bought as a white box, split from kit purchase and, like a lot of my gear, this one is a used item at a fair price. It also has the benefit of, when married to a small Micro Four Thirds body, being very lightweight and inconspicuous, which suits me just fine. 🙂

But you don’t have to take my word for it. 🙂

I love this:

Kind regards,

Leigh

Hi folks,

I got myself a crystal ball!. Okay, just to make it clear, I’m not turning into “Mystic Meg” nor have I any desire to look into the future even if I could. What I have got is an 80mm crystal ball to have some photographic fun with whilst stuck indoors. I did a quick test shot with overhead LED lighting and my E-M1 mk 1 and M.Zuiko 30mm macro lens. I think that this will be a fun thing to pass some time. They’ve been around for years apparently but I’ve only recently stumbled across them. I’ve probably never come across them before because this isn’t my interest in photography and for a tenner from Amazon complete with stand I thought it worth a punt.

“Biggles having ball”

Kind regards,

Leigh

Hi everyone.

I know that it looks quite a bit like something out of a SCIFI movie 🙂 . A while back I bought one of those cheap helping-hand things and also some small battery-powered clip on LED spotlights. I thought I’d combine them and here’s the result for a fraction of the cost of a similar proprietary one that I saw advertised. Cheap and cheerful but effective. 🙂

Kind regards

Leigh

PS. Mk II version  I added some PVC tape to the cross bar so that the lights grip better, don’t slip and stay as set.

Hi folks,

Hope that everyone is staying safe, greetings from my “Bunker in Bognor” or so it feels as I’ve not left it for over a week now, AKA my Man Cave 🙂 and I’m going more than a little stir-crazy. As I can’t get a haircut I’m also starting, more and more, to resemble a Yeti. 🙂 .

I’ve been giving some thought to my passion for processing my images (still hate the word). If someone offered me some money to spend as I wished on photographic equipment, as unlikely as that ever might be, I’d choose to spend the lion’s share on software. My passion for photography really starts when I’m working on my images, Subjective as of course it is, I just couldn’t go out, take some shots and not work on them. I’m fortunate that I don’t have deadlines to meet or have to mass-produce images to a formula but even a few simple adjustments will bring one’s imagery to life. I’ve raved several times before about Viveza, part of the NIK collection of software plugins now owned by DXO with it’s selective adjustment control point technology and I think that it’s an absolutely fantastic piece of software that has been the most useful and creative software that I’ve ever purchased, I use it at some stage in every image that I work on.

Stay safe, kind regards,

Leigh

Hi everyone,

A while back I started experimenting with video streaming. I bought a couple of bits of kit that work very well. As some of my cameras don’t allow one to monitor the video in live view with and HDMI cable plugged in I bought a plug in HDMI to USB video capture device and also a 1 in 2 out HDMI splitter. This works very well as I can plug the HDMI output from the the camera in to the splitter with a suitable HDMI cable, plug one of the outputs to a small HDMI monitor and the other output to an HDMI cable plugged into the HDMI to USB capture device and this into the computer. The HDMI splitter device has a micro USB socket so that it can be powered by USB and includes a cable for this. This combination works great and allows me to simultaneously monitor the picture whilst streaming to the computer. So far I’ve used this setup with ZOOM and also with OBS Studio and it cost me approx. £33 UK plus a suitable HDMI cable to fit your camera’s HDMI output.

I have no affiliation with the companies that manufacture these products, as always, I share because I hope that it is of interest.

Stay safe and kind regards,

Leigh

Hi everyone,

Hope you’ve all had a great Christmas. This morning to pass the time with no public transport running around here, nothing open, the weather dull, dreary and pretty uninviting and no way of getting anywhere interesting I thought I’d do a very lazy and simple macro shot of my new watch. Thing of beauty as it is it’s the only thing I can do with the watch as it needs quite a few links removed as I don’t have wrists like an Olympic weight lifter and, anyway, there’s no jewellers open in the foreseeable future until we come out of lockdown again. whenever that might be. I decided not to use my normal macro setup and just pop my Sigma ART 60mm lens, a very affordable and very sharp lens, plus Olympus M-CON macro converter on my Olympus E-PL5, stick it on a tripod with a self-timer and light it with an overhead LED light, it doesn’t get much more simple than that.

No focus stacking, just a plain and simple macro shot. Macro doesn’t have to be expensive. It’s like any other form of photography it can be (become) 🙂 as expensive and technical as you want to make it.

Kind regards

Leigh

Hi everyone,

I share his thinking on size, weight and the difference between expensive, faster, and by definition, heavy, lenses and their more affordable counterparts as well as photographic philosophy. I own quite a few of the small lenses that he features in the video (Panasonic Lumix, 12-32mm and 20mm 1.7, Olympus 17mm 1.8, 25mm 1.8 and 45mm 1.8) and they’re all extremely good as is the Lumix 14mm 2.5, another great little pancake lens. Another bonus I should perhaps mention is that the 14mm, 17mm, 20mm and 25mm all have a 46mm filter thread and the 12-32 and 45mm have a 37mm filter thread so it’s economical on filters and interchangeability.

Kind regard, Leigh