Chichester Canal at Christmas

Hi everyone,

Buying one of those Black Mist filters has really been fun trying out at night. I’m very impressed with the low light performance of my Olympus cameras. I took my E-M5 II and M.Zuiko 17mm f/1,8 again on this trip.

Best wishes,

Leigh

“Four of our Reindeer are missing!”

Hi all,

“Four of our Reindeer are missing!”, Chichester Canal by night

Best wishes,

Leigh

“Welcome to the Picturedrome”.

Hi everyone,

One of Bognor Regis’ most iconic buildings the Picturedrome Cinema by night.

Kind regards

Leigh

Inside the Cathedral at night.

Hi everyone,

Chichester Cathedral interior night time shot.

Kind regards

Leigh

Not sure if I like this one or not

HI everyone,

This one fought me all the way. πŸ™‚

Kind regards

Leigh

The gloves are off, and on and off again. :)

Hi all,

I’ve been looking for some gloves for the cold weather. I didn’t want to buy so-called “photographer’s gloves” as they are, in my opinion, ridiculously over-priced. I ‘ve been looking for some warm ones with just the tips of one’s thumbs and index fingers exposed and a good grippy surface on the palm. I found these cycling and running gloves on Amazon and they’re nice and comfy, warm and, above all cheap at Β£7.99 UK πŸ™‚ Good for operating camera controls and/or touchscreen devices, I don’t know how long they will last but at this price I can afford to replace them as and when they need replacing. One size fits all so don’t know if they’re good for everyone but they fit my hands pretty well. These are very useful not only for operating one’s camera controls or mobile phone but even the simplest of things like zips on my jacket pockets or a compartment on my camera bag, fitting/removing a filter or lens, a battery or anything else where you need to operate something without having to constantly take them on and off which somewhat negates the purpose of wearing gloves.

You have to hand it to the Chinese manufacturers (no pun intended) πŸ™‚ they often seem to include a small gift of some kind like a microfibre cleaning cloth or suchlike. In this case it was a keyring combined bottle opener and fingernail trimmer!, which I unexpectedly discovered inside one of the gloves when I tried to put it on. I don’t need this unless I’m out and about and have a hangnail and/or suddenly fancy a bottle of beer but it’s very good sales psychology on their part, they understand that everyone likes the feeling of getting something for free. I wish it’d catch on in Japan and the camera companies would give me a free couple of lenses when I buy a new camera. Maybe I’ll suggest it to them and see what they have to say. πŸ™‚

KXF Winter Warm Fingerless Gloves For Men Women Windproof Thermal Gloves

Kind regards

Leigh

Good service from K&F Concept.

Hi all,

As you might remember I recently started using K&F concept 1/8 and 1/4 strength black mist diffusion filters. I bought their least expensive series of filter and noticed a green halo effect on quite a few of my images, they’re still very useable filters and excellent value for money but one should watch out for this effect. I contacted their support and they kindly offered me a refund of Β£25 UK to spend on a purchase of their Nano X top of the range series which I’m very keen to try out. I’ve never had any issues with any of their filters and I own VND, CPL, VND/CPL combined filters which have all worked very well but I think that it’s probably better to stick with their Nano-X series filters. I am impressed with the efficiency and helpfulness of their customer support which is first class.

Kind regards

Leigh

Now for something completely different :)

Hi everyone,

As they used to say in Monty Python’s Flying Circus “Now for something completely different”

I’ve never really used Olympus’ Art filters but thought I’d do a fusion of two images for fun, one with the Key Line 1 filter and one without and a bit of further post tweaking.

Best wishes,

Leigh

My night time settings

Hiya,

Before I started out on my two recent night time photographic adventures I took a bit of time to program into the Olympus camera’s MYSET settings two additional sets of settings, one for handheld and one for tripod-mounted, the later of which, I didn’t end up using. I took one of my fastest lenses, my M.Zuiko 17mm f/1.8. The only other thing that I took and used was my Kenko Black Mist 0.5 filter, Here’s my settings:

Handheld: (Walkabout street shooting etc.)

Auto ISO, I set the upper limit to ISO 6400 with a threshold of 1/60th second, probably could have been less at 1/30th or even 1/15th of a second thanks to IBIS and a moderate wide-angle lens but I decided to play safe. As it was I never exceeded about ISO 2000 even in the dimmest light.

All axis Image stabilisation set to on, a must unless you have very steady hands. πŸ™‚ .

Aperture Priority.

I set low speed burst mode so as to take short burst to increase my hit-rate and this worked very well.

Single autofocus with manual focus adjust (SAF/MF), a quick way of tweaking focus if required. I prefer this to using the manual focus clutch on this lens or switching to and from SAF to MF with a programmed function button.

Focus-peeking and image magnification set to on.

Aperture set when switching to this MYSET to default to the widest lens aperture (f/1.8 with the 17mm) and I can adjust it from there as desired.

Tripod-mounted: (Longer exposure landscape shots, not just for night time shots)

ISO 200

Image Stabilisation (IBIS) set to off.

Aperture Priority.

Custom self timer set to wait 3 seconds and then take 3 shots at 0,5 second intervals. I prefer this method to keep on plugging in and unplugging a cable release.

Single autofocus with manual adjust (SAF/MF)

Focus-peeking and image magnification set to on.

Aperture set when switching to this MYSET to default to f/5.6 and I can adjust it from there as desired.

Kind regards

Leigh

PS. I might also set live view boost to the 1 setting if required in very low light, pity that one cannot map this to a program button.

“The black and white one”

Hi everyone,

Thought I’d do a black and white shot.

All the best,

Leigh