Tag Archives: Photography

Olympus PEN-F, a passion.

by in Leigh Kemp, Photography, Photography equipment, Travel and tagged , | 2 Comments

Hi everyone,

What follows is probably going to sound more than a bit flowery and nostalgic but it’s true to my feelings. When Olympus released the PEN-F camera all I could do was look longingly and admiringly at pictures of it and marvel at its beautiful retro rangefinder looks. That’s all I could do as I certainly couldn’t afford to buy one. Years later I found one going second hand in mint condition at a price I absolutely couldn’t resist and so I took the plunge. It was a very long time since I was that excited to see any piece of photographic gear arrive on my doorstep.

This camera, more than any other camera I’ve owned in years, has served to reignite and fuel my passion for photography. One only has to look at it and hold it in one’s hand to get a buzz of excitement. Every time I use it I’m transported on a journey back and I’m seventeen again using my first Olympus 35mm film camera. Of course this is my very personal experience, not only does the camera look a thing of beauty it has everything and more that I require in a camera. If it wasn’t such a joy to use I’d put it in a display case where I could sit and look at it’s beautiful looks but that’s not what I bought it for. 🙂

This camera is just made for anyone who shares my passion for classic styling with the obvious benefits of modern technology. I don’t know if we’ll ever see its likes again, this camera has achieved cult status in a relatively short period of time. No camera is perfect but it suits my needs and comes as close as I’ve ever experienced to the simplistic joy of taking photographs. There’s something indescribable about the feeling one gets when using it.

Kind regards

Leigh

I bought a new lens, TTArtisan 23mm f/1.4.

by in Leigh Kemp, Photography, Photography equipment, Travel and tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

I’ve been looking at this lens for some time now and finally decided to pull the trigger and purchase one for £83 UK with free delivery from the manufacturers in China, when it comes to such things it doesn’t get much cheaper than that 🙂 . The lens is the manual focus TTArtisan 23mm f/1.4 which, as a 46mm full-frame equivalent, should fit in nicely with my favourite focal lengths. The lens gets pretty good reviews across the board as long as one is aware of it’s limitations and stopping down to f/5.6-f/8 would seem to be the accepted way of getting the best out of it but that’s probably true, to a greater or lesser extent, for a good many Micro Four Thirds lenses. I’m very much enjoying a retro “filmic-look” experience right now both in gear and in processing and I’m really liking using lenses with less than clinically sharp rendering and saturated colours as is the case with my other TTArtisan lenses. When I say that I’m enjoying the retro-look I think that I always enjoyed it even back in my film days when it was current and not “retro” and I shot with Fuji, Kodak and Ilford films on small, solidly-built, lightweight Olympus 35mm film cameras and lenses. 🙂

I can happily live with such things as less than tack sharp edge-to edge/corner to corner sharpness, vignetting, slight barrel distortion, chroma etc. it doesn’t bother me in the slightest that’s what gives these kind of lenses character. 🙂 The thing is that now, thanks to modern digital post processing one can correct for these sort of things as and if one wishes something that simply wasn’t possible back in the analogue days when it really was a case of what you got was largely what you lived with. I’m really looking forward to trying it on my all-time favourite digital camera my Olympus PEN-F, a modern classic in itself. I’ll post my experiences with the lens and some shots when I’ve been out and tried it. I think that it’ll make a nice compact manual-focus companion to one of my similar focal length auto focus lenses such as my Olympus M.Zuiko 17mm and 25mm f/1.8 or my Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/17,

Kind regards

Leigh

Revisiting manual focus lenses.

by in Leigh Kemp, Photography, Photography equipment, Travel and tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Hi all,

Just lately I’ve dug out my TTArtisans manual focussing lenses, my 17mm f/1.4 and my 35mm f/1.4. It’s been a long time since I only packed manual focus lenses. Whilst I fully appreciate the value of autofocus especially when it comes to ultra quickly nailing focus, there’s something about manual focusing. It hard to put into words exactly but it’s not a hinderance given my typically slow-paced landscape photographic interests where I’m not capturing fast action or have the need to zone-focus. Not only has it taken me right back to my film days but most importantly it has slowed me down and somehow concentrated my mind and involved me more in the shot. Of the two lenses I surprisingly prefer the longer focal length which equates to 70mm in full frame terms. They both have their quirks but this gives them some character, they’re not the “sharpest tools in the box” and, if edge-to-edge image quality is absolutely paramount, then “these aren’t the lenses you are looking for” 🙂 but, for the price, they’re a lot of fun and a good buy. I decided to pair them with my old, largely redundant, Olympus E-PL5 camera in order to make things as compact and lightweight as possible. I’ve fitted step up rings and lens hoods to suit my preferred filter size of 58mm.

I call this my “Silver Machine” 🙂 Olympus E-PL5 and TTArtisans 35mm f/1.4 lens.

Kind regards

Leigh

The joy of small, lightweight cameras and lenses.

by in Leigh Kemp, Photography, Photography equipment, Travel and tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Hi all,

Lately I’ve been drawn more or more towards my smallest cameras and lenses such as my Olympus Pen E-PL8 camera. For many years now I’ve realised that I hate carrying heavy kit, what’s taken me a lot longer to somewhat reluctantly fully come to terms with is that it’s not just a case of likes and dislikes but that I can no longer physically do so. Fortunately my photographic interests lend themselves to small cameras, small lenses and a small camera bag to carry my gear in and that, for me, has always been the beauty of the Micro Four Thirds system it’s what first attracted me to it and as my physical health has changed I’m more than glad that I did so. Just about all modern cameras and lenses are extremely fully-featured and capable of producing excellent results. The system is also blessed with an excellent selection of very small and lightweight lenses which suit my purposes pretty much exactly.

I always chuckle when I hear terms like “entry-level” and “kit lens” used to describe gear made for casual usage and suited for “noobs” and those who don’t take their photography seriously. In my opinion they’re more than often hyped-up marking terms designed to make one feel the need to upgrade to more expensive gear in the belief that more expensive gear makes better photographs or at least that’s how it’s often perceived as if the person behind the lens doesn’t figure in the equation. I’ve got a 4ftx3ft framed landscape picture on our living room wall which has all the detail that one could want taken on a 16 MegaPixel sensor-equipped “entry level” camera 🙂 . It’s not about the gear, it’s about what one “sees” and how one uses it. If I take a shot that I’m not happy with it’s me that’s at fault, not the camera or the lens’ fault.

If one takes the EPL-7 or E-PL8 and similar cameras for example they have just about all the day-to-day features than one could ever want unless, understandably, some genres such as wildlife photography, astrophotography, sports photography etc. demand the use of more specialised gear. Sure many models like the E-PL8 have just an LCD screen, something that I personally don’t like, but add on the optional Olympus EVF and it has the best of both worlds just like it’s bigger and more expensive brethren. It’s metal-bodied, small, lightweight, beautifully styled, discrete and unobtrusive and doesn’t scream overly expensive and, when fitted with a small lens like one of the pancake prime or zoom lenses, it becomes pocketable!. The E-PL10 even has an electronic shutter which is a feature that I use frequently when I’m shooting HDR but, for some reason best known to Olympus, they dispensed with the ability to fit an add-on EVF so I personally wouldn’t buy one purely for that reason.

So, in my opinion, anyone looking for small, lightweight camera gear to carry around for genres like landscapes/cityscapes, portraiture, walkabout street photography and when travelling these cameras and lenses make excellent sense and anyone used to habitually carrying heavier kit will find the experience nothing short of liberating, I certainly have ever increasingly grown to do so.

Kind regards

Leigh

My night time settings

by in Leigh Kemp, Photography, Photography equipment, Travel and tagged , | Leave a comment

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. 🙂 .

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.

Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain :)

by in Leigh Kemp, Photography, Photography equipment and tagged , | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

Probably the best fifteen pounds worth I ever spent on camera accessories, my camera rain cover. Used it again the other day when it was raining heavily and everything stayed bone dry. Very simple design, just a waterproof fabric funnel-shaped cover with an elasticated end at one end and a drawstring at the other. I added one of my Think Tank “Red Whips” to give it extra cinch at the lens end and prevent it slipping off of the hood. Because it’s pretty big, suited for a longer lens and my cameras are on the small side, there’s plenty of room to get one’s hand in and operate the controls and it’s also completely covers the camera when its hanging around one’s neck, I just pull it back a little and I can put my eye to the viewfinder. I also carry a clear protection filter which screws into the end of the lens hood which is quick and easy to clean and prevents rain getting in that way. Seen here with my M.Zuiko 25mm f/1.8 lens or what you can see of it. 🙂 The thing that I’m most interested in protecting are my prime lenses which don’t have any weather-sealing, not that I completely trust weather-sealing in heavy rain. I prefer the peace of mind of a rain cover any day.

A tip: two things I do when caught out in the rain or if I know that I’m going to be shooting in the rain is, if it is at all possible, find a dry place to fit a fully charged replacement battery and a new memory card as you can almost guarantee that one, the other, or both will run out of capacity whilst out in the rain just when one doesn’t want it to. You really don’t want to be changing either or both in the rain or have to break off shooting and find somewhere dry to do this. Unlike some rain covers I’ve used which have to be completely removed to gain access to the camera’s battery and memory card compartments, this one just rolls back and can stay on the camera throughout. Sometimes the simplest of solutions are the best and it’s so quick and easy to fit and remove and takes up next to no room in my camera bag.

Shown without the front filter fitted .

Kind regard

Leigh

Pixis at the end of my garden! :)

by in Photography and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Great title huh! 🙂 , I was going to take a picture outside but the light’s pretty poor at this time of day so you get this one instead.

Hi everyone,

For some years now I’ve occasionally used my Manfrotto Pixi table top tripod. This little tripod has come in handy a few times. It’s small, light and pretty sturdy and best-suited for one of my smaller cameras and lenses but it has its limitations. The height cannot be adjusted and the ball head does not permit portrait orientation shots to be taken. I decided to get one of their Pixi Evo 2 tripods to address these issues. It is a bit bigger and heavier but still just small enough to slip into one of my camera bag compartments. Unlike it’s smaller sibling, the ball head is loosened and tightened by a three-sided knob rather than a hold in button. The head can be adjusted to facilitate portrait orientation shots and the legs can be adjusted individually to heighten the tripod with click stop positions, nice for uneven surfaces. There’s also a wheel with which to tighten the tripod thread unlike the Pixi which requires the whole tripod to be turned. Lastly there’s a small lever on the side which allows the legs to be adjusted to lay flat albeit significantly reducing the tripod height and having a much wider footprint. In that position, as one might expect, the tripod is extremely stable. The weight handling is claimed to be 2.5Kg which is comfortably more than enough for my cameras and all but my heaviest lenses. The tripod is heavy enough not to blow away with the slightest puff of wind. How it might hold up to the Winter winds straight from the sea on the Bognor Regis seafront is yet to be established 🙂 and it might also make a nice compact chest pod.

So all-in-all a worthwhile and, as these things go, relatively inexpensive upgrade which, who knows, just might encourage me a bit more to take a tripod with me on my travels. 🙂 I’d have liked to see a quick release mechanism incorporated similar to the Gorillapods but I can add one of mine but it would add extra weight and bulk, my bête noire, so for the times I foresee myself using it, I probably won’t bother at least to start with. I’m not a Vlogger but if I was and I was using the tripod as a hand grip/ selfie stick I’d probably still go with my smaller Pixi tripod as the Evo 2 is somewhat larger and heavier in one’s hand and thus grip-wise it doesn’t feel so secure unless one has somewhat larger hands than mine but because of it’s adjustable legs it does have more reach which, I guess, might be desirable.

Best wishes,

Leigh

Wake up and smell the coffee

by in Leigh Kemp, Photography and tagged , , | 2 Comments

Hi everyone,

Long term I don’t see a very rosy future for the camera manufacturers unless they wake up and smell the coffee. It seems that the only way that they can try and entice everyday folks into buying their gear is by incorporating more and more useless tech and pushing the illusion that these features will magically enable folks to take amazing photographs and/or video that their smart phones aren’t in any way capable of and, in order to do this for a shrinking market they’re making their gear un-realistically priced and un-affordable to many which is in total contradiction to selling their products and this, the size, bulk, complexity and weight of the gear isn’t going to temp that many mobile phone users into buying their gear. A camera is just that a one-use tool, one more thing to buy and carry around whereas mobile phones have many uses, they’re smaller, cheaper, easier to carry and affordable to upgrade. as well as being second-nature to operate for many, especially those of a certain generation.

The camera manufacturers need to seriously re-evaluate their strategies else they will sooner of later, probably sooner, find themselves producing ever more costly cameras for a dedicated niche market in a law of diminishing returns which can only have one outcome and those of us that enjoy using a camera will find ourselves sustained by the used camera market until we are confined to history . They’ve lost the plot, it’s not just all about how many megapixels or AI etc., it comes down to affordability, rational design and inspired marketing, look what David Bailey did for the Olympus Trip, I still have folks, old enough to remember, come up to me sometimes and say “who’d you think you are, David Bailey?” (wish I had his money) 🙂 that’s clever mainstream marketing, we don’t ever see any camera adverts on TV nowadays, nothing to raise awareness, tempt people and capture their imagination so what’s to make people aware of a thing called a camera? and why they might want to buy one. What little marketing one does see is largely aimed at photographers, we know what a camera is and what it’s for, preaching to the converted!, they’re repeatedly fishing in the same small pond. Is this a mixture of arrogance and complacency on the part of camera manufacturers? if so as the old saying goes “pride cometh before a fall”. Yoshihisa Maitan’s inspirational vision to empower people with affordable, lightweight, well-built cameras to take pictures has never seemed further away.

CC. OM Systems, Nikon, Fuji, Canon, Sony et. al.. 🙂

Here endeth the lesson for today 🙂 🙂

Kind regards

Leigh

We’ve forgotten about the art of photography

by in Leigh Kemp, Photography, Travel and tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Hi everyone,

I watched an interesting You-Tube video by my friend Jimmy Cheng which reinforced points made in an earlier video by Peter Forsgard. The title of Jimmy’s video being “We’ve forgotten about the art of photography“. In the videos they both made what I think are very good points which have my full agreement. The points made regard the increasing number of sites that simply review camera gear, produce test shots, test charts and pixel-peeping etc. and don’t discuss photography itself either techniques and/or by way of real world shots.

I’ve always tried to make my blog a mixture of my work, my techniques and sometimes hands-on reviews of the gear that I use especially related to my love of photography, travel and travel/landscape photography in particular and not about all the technical mumbo-jumbo which, personally, I couldn’t care less about. I’ve NEVER been asked what camera and/or lens that I used for a particular shot as folks don’t generally care about such things and why should they?.

All the gear that I use has been paid for entirely out of my own pocket and I’m not trying to sell anything. I like to share my experiences especially so when I find a technique or bit of gear that I find useful and that I think will be of interest and useful to others. In an ideal world the balance of my posts would always favour sharing my work but it’s not an ideal world and, when I cannot get out, I like to take time to share my experiences and thoughts about the gear that I’m using in the hope that it might be of benefit to someone.

Kind regards

Leigh

Follow up post to my Geotagging post.

by in Leigh Kemp, Photography, Photography equipment, Travel and tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Hi everyone,

I thought I’d post a couple of example screenshots showing a track file that I recorded on my GPS Data logger when I visited Brugge some years ago. The first is from Geosetter and the second, of the same track as displayed in GPS Track Editor.

On the left one can see the list of folders containing one’s shots, select the appropriate folder and then the images can be Geotagged to the location information contained in the selected track file and displayed on the map.

On the right of the shot one can see the individual track points and one can edit these if one wishes. It also gives an indication by colour on the map of the speed of travel as well as direction of travel arrows. One can select multiple track files and overlay them on the map so if one has recorded several days of travel around an area they can be viewed at the same time.

Apart from Geotagging my shots I have a love of maps, I studied Geographic Information Systems which included Satellite Remote Sensing at University so I really enjoy viewing my travels especially on a street map at ground level in Google Earth. 🙂 To give an example, when strolling around one takes a picture of a building eg. a beautiful church and one doesn’t know it’s name but can subsequently easily locate it on the map and use it when naming one’s shot which has been useful to me on numerous occasions.

Kind regards

Leigh