Hi everyone,

I might be able to get out today if our online shopping turns up early. It’s nice and sunny outside and I’m setting myself a bit of a challenge to only use my Olympus 9mm and 15mm body cap lenses which, given good light are capable of good results, on my diminutive EPL-5 camera. This is a very fun, compact and lightweight combination. I’ll take my TG-5 as an all weather backup in case the weather takes a turn for the worse and yes I do like red/black and silver . As my shoulder and neck are quite painful I’m not even taking a camera bag they can go in my jacket pockets.

Best wishes,

Leigh

Hi everyone,

My long-term quest for a perfect camera bag and rain cover combination to suit my requirements and, heaven knows I’ve tried quite a few, has finally ended. 🙂 A while back I bought several small lightweight Manfrotto camera bags which you might have seen in one of my previous posts and, previous to that, I bought a National Geographic Africa camera bag rain cover. I thought I’d try them out together and, because it has elasticated sides and velcro “loops/straps” to take the camera bag straps, I can leave it fitted all the time without hampering access to the bag. When I need it there’s no fumbling about in the rain fitting it and subsequently removing it, I can simply pull it over the top and, as a mate of mine from Liverpool would say “job’s a good ‘un”. 🙂 It also has the benefit that, when wet, it can stay on the bag to dry out and I have tucked a few small items like my LCD hood and variable ND filter and pouch inside between the cover and the outer of the bag. Incidentally the bag and rain cover combo cost me a very affordable £16 UK. 🙂 🙂

Takes me all of a second or two at the most and the bag is well and truly protected against the elements. 🙂

Wishing everyone a safe, peaceful and happy Christmas and New Year.

Leigh

Hi everyone,

For many years now I’ve been very reluctant to go out without a telephoto lens of some sort in my bag, just in case, but I’ve finally decided not to carry one about as, for my interests, I just don’t use them or, if I do, then the number of shots I take with them is absolutely tiny compared to other focal lengths, it’s not that they’re not good lenses it’s just that I don’t end up using them. It’s the norm for me to get back and find that I haven’t used such a lens again all day. I think that it has a lot to do with the way that I compose my shots, the framing and perspective that works best for me or maybe the way that I “see” things.

By far the vast majority of my shots are taken in the moderate wide angle to standard focal length range.  I prefer to have an ultra-wide option like my 9-18mm (18-36mm) zoom with me which is very useful, apart from anything else,  for multi-frame panorama composites but 12mm (24mm) is as far as I usually require and that’s quite often a bit too wide and this is why I don’t usually pack my M.Zuiko 12mm f/1.8  lens as it is too specialised and would get used just about as much as a telephoto would, possibly even less. I know it sounds bizarre, a landscape photographer that doesn’t want to pack a fast wide angle prime lens in the bag. 🙂 . As a general rule I prefer a somewhat tighter framing as the details in very wide landscape shots are pretty small. I like to compose and frame there and then and I very rarely crop in post.

I’ve been raving a lot recently about my tiny Lumix 12-32mm (24-64mm) lens which I’ve got to know very well and it’s so small and light in terms of sharpness, focal length coverage and weight it’s a lens that I can leave fitted nearly all the time without having the requirement to change lenses unless I want to switch to a small faster prime lens like my Olympus 17mm (34mm) f/1.8 or Lumix 14mm (28mm) f/2.5 when the light is very low or my 9-18mm if I need need to go wider or my back’s up against the wall so as to speak, 🙂 as it was ,quite literally, when I was taking these shots taken with my 9-18mm.

I guess that once in a while I might have cause to wish that I had a longer lens with me but I can live with those very rare eventualities as, after all this time having taken thousands of images, I can speak very much from personal experience, it’s just not worth the extra weight and space in my bag .

Kind regards

Leigh

Hi folks,

During Rob’s Youtube live stream yesterday I started thinking about all the reviews one sees for lenses. I have often read comparisons where the reviewer is comparing like for like lenses of a certain type and focal length. Whilst this is useful if one is looking for help choosing between such lenses it’s not, in my opinion, as useful as comparing a similar, non “PRO” lens with its more expensive rival and trying to evaluate in real world terms the pros and cons of doing so, not the least of which is the difference in cost or as my American fiends call it “bang for buck”. I also think there is an inescapable snobbery where the term Pro immediately screams better and that, in my experience, isn’t anywhere near as often the case as the marketing people would have one believe.

Some would argue that that is comparing apples with oranges well, when I’m looking for a new lens, I want to know how the lens compares with what I’ve already got or if it’s a new focal length how the cheaper and dearer options compare before I buy and then I can make my own decisions on whether the often not inconsiderable difference in price can be justified in terms of better performance, note I said performance and not paper specifications. I don’t often think that the difference is very easily justified. I’ve used lenses which have cost me a fraction of their “Pro” counterparts which have been just as sharp, sometimes sharper and considerably smaller and lighter. Sure the build quality is usually not of the same standard but, if one is careful and takes care of one’s gear then this point is not of such great importance.

Kind regards

Leigh

PS. Then there’s the size and weight of the gear to consider. Below my OM-D E-M5 II body fitted with my M.Zuiko 12-40mm constant aperture f/2.8 PRO lens. An excellent weather-sealed combination which I’d certainly prefer to use in very inclement weather. Below this, in an identical size bag, my PEN-F body fitted with my Lumix 12-32mm, Olympus 9-18mm and Sigma 60mm f/2.8 (both packed underneath on the right), Olympus 17mm f/1.8, Lumix 14mm f/2.5 and Olympus 25mm f/1.8, so all my most frequently used lenses packed on top. Five more lenses including faster primes, giving greater coverage, a good degree of overlap/backup and not appreciably heavier in weight compared with my first example.

As my principal interest is in landscapes the 14mm, 17mm and 25mm focal length prime lenses are very useful, the two zooms allow me to go wider and wider still and the 60mm gives me a moderate telephoto option and none of these lenses are marketed as pro lenses and are thus a lot more affordable, especially when purchased second-hand 😉 . For my work an f/1.2 or suchlike lens, let alone several of them in different focal lengths, collectively costing thousands of pounds and being very much bigger and heavier wouldn’t be that much good to me. Apart from the fact that I don’t shoot wide open, nor in the desert or rain forest, they’d just end up severely limiting my mobility, hurting my back, my shoulders and, to add insult to injury, my wallet! 🙂