Olympus PEN EP-5 first look

I have a confession to make. I am a gear addict. There, I've come clean. There isn't a camera in the world I wouldn't own if I could!

My usual everyday cameras are Nikon full frames (D700 and the D750). Prior to that I was Canon with the 5D but I got sick of fighting it for focus and made the big switch and am very happy; especially now with the 750D which feels like the perfect camera fit for me (the D700 is just a tiny bit big for my hands to be 100% comfortable).

So with all the recent talk of mirrorless cameras I became intrigued. Many of my friends are making the switch completely to mirrorless and I decided it was worth delving into. After a lot of research I decided that the Olympus Pen EP-5 seemed like a great fit for me. It's not as expensive as the OM-D EM-1 but it has great specs and looks awesomely retro!

First look after unboxing! How cool is that styling!

I haven't had much chance to use it as battery charging took absolute hours, but my first thoughts on it are:

1. Battery charging takes HOURS! I'm definitely going to have to invest in a spare battery.

2. This camera looks and feels amazing. I absolutely love it. It's a little slippery on the back because of the screen, but the weight feels perfect and I just love the way it looks.

3. This is a complicated piece of equipment. It took me ages to figure out how to change the aperture and even longer to find out how to turn off the annoying beep. The menus are not really intuitive. I couldn't shoot with it straight out of the box; it really involved reading the complete manual first! Having said that, for anyone just shooting straight out in auto it would probably have been pretty quick and easy. I have ways I like my cameras set up which always makes things that bit more difficult.

4. The camera came with the 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 kit lens. I also bought the 17mm f1.8 as I'm not a fan of variable aperture kit lenses.  In a quick test, the 17mm is really, really nice. Very sharp and lovely colours. The Olympus definitely has a 'look'. I was quite surprised by the quality of the kit lens too. It is sharp (not as sharp as the 17mm but far better than the Canon kit lens I owned years ago) and really quite useable. I always shoot RAW but I'm curious about how the jpegs straight out of camera would look. I'm thinking pretty nice.

I'm going to spend the next week running it through its paces and will then give my thoughts on it and some example shots after I've had time to spend really getting to know it. Should be fun!

Day 8/365

It's Summer in Australia and the fields are golden with hay. Many of our country lands are bordered with old stone walls, originally built by convicts. I just love the atmosphere of history.

With images like this I love to create a couple of different renders and then blend them together. This one has two different renders; one created to look like a painting and the other a sketch. I then blended then together with the sketched one just barely showing through, just to give it a slight bit of definition.

The colours of Australia in Summer

iPhone 6+

Snapseed
Impresso
PencilFX
Juxtaposer

Day 7/365

A week gone already! I'm loving this challenge. I'm finding that I'm starting to see patterns to my shooting and the things that catch my eye and imagination. I can see that there's a recurring motif relating to solitude and aloneness, which I find interesting as there are definitely elements of me in there. It'll be interesting to see where this goes by day 365!

Lone tree. Photographed on a back road heading towards Steiglitz, Victoria.

iPhone 6+

Snapseed
SimplyB&W
Wood Camera
MonoVu
Mextures

Day 6/365

Abandoned factory

Abandoned Phoenix Wool Scouring Works, Geelong - factory. So sad and lonely.

iPhone 6+

SKRWT
Perfectly Clear
Snapseed
Wood Camera
Mextures

Day 5/365

Office at abandoned wool factory, Geelong

Lots and lots of layering involved in this one! Front office of the former Phoenix Wool Scouring Works, Geelong.

iPhone 6+

Perfectly Clear
Snapseed
Impresso
Glaze
PencilFX
superimpose

Day 4/365

Pier at the Waterfront, Geelong

9.30am and the waterfront was just about deserted, it was so peaceful and quiet. I was surprised by the lack of people enjoying the sunny morning.

iPhone 6+

Snapseed
PhotoCopier
WoodCamera

Day 3/365

Detail view of roof of carousel building on the Waterfront, Geelong.

Love the shapes and patterns the structure forms.

iPhone 6+

Apps:
Adobe PS Express
Snapseed
 

Day 2/365

I just love photographing flowers; their texture and shape really appeals to me. I bought this one from The Red Poppy on Pakington St, Geelong West. I have no idea what flower it is and the woman who served me said she knew most of them that came through but not this one! So if you know what it is, please leave a comment!

Unknown flower

iPhone 6+

Apps used:
Snapseed
Wood Camera
Mextures

365 Project - Day 1/365

I'm starting a 365 day mobile photography project to see where it will take me. I've become obsessed lately with creating images on my iPhone; it's so much fun and really challenges the way I see and create images.

My goal is to celebrate the things that make Geelong unique and special; to find those things that most of us who live here go past everyday without paying any attention to. There's a lot to love in this strange little city and I'm sure I can find at least a few of them! (Plus cats...coming from me there has to be at least a few cats photos included in this project - my apologies in advance to any non catlovers!)

Lookout at Gaylard Avenue, Newtown, Geelong

Taken on the iPhone 6+, using the wide angle Moment Lens attachment from momentlens.co

Apps used:
vividHDR to shoot
Provoke for b&w conversion
Retouch
Snapseed for frame
 

How to: Macro Photography

Using a macro lens can be a lot of fun. Not just useful for photographing things close-up, they’re often great portrait lenses too. But in this short how-to guide I’m going to concentrate on getting in close to your subject.

There are quite a few different brands of macro lenses but most work on pretty much the same principles. You might find some differences in the macro ratios; that is how magnified the subject will be when taken. 1:1 signifies that the subject will be life-sized on the sensor and this is the type I’m concentrating on. Your ratio might be different but this just means the subject may not be as magnified.

To start with, this is my macro lens. I use the Tamron 100mm f2.8 macro on my Nikon cameras as, while Tamrons aren’t quite as solid as Nikon lenses, I love their sharpness, and even though I use them professionally, I tend to baby my lenses so I know that I don’t have to worry too much about potential damage.

Focus Limiting

Generally somewhere on your lens will be a switch that ISN’T your focus switch. On my Tamron it says FULL/LIMIT (as you can see in the image), on the Canon 100mm it has two distance ranges, the IS version has FULL and 2 distance ranges and the Nikon 105mm has FULL and a distance range. Your lens may be different but you get the idea and hopefully you’ve found it. What these do is to tell the camera that you’re either using it normally and the autofocus will search for the focus point through the entire operating range, or by choosing LIMIT or the lowest of the distance ranges it lets it know you’re doing close up and so reduce the amount of hunting it may otherwise do.

Comparison showing the same subject photographed from the same distance but one with a crop sensor and the other full frame. Both images uncropped. I like that crop sensor cameras make you feel like you're getting that bit closer. All other images on here taken with the D300 because I wanted maximum closeup straight out of camera as I prefer to get my composition as right as possible in camera and so I feel the crop-sensor D300 allows me to get that right for these types of images.

Manual Focus

After saying all that, I find that I actually use manual focus for the most part when doing macro photography. Because I’m usually working at the closest possible distance to the lens I set my focus on the very closest it will focus, leave it there and then move my body to actually get my subject into focus. You’ll notice that it doesn’t take much to lose focus on the subject when you’re that close, the slightest breeze and your subject has moved! If you have the setup, a tripod is invaluable for these types of images if your subject is a static one and not flying around!

Spiderweb in log. Nikon D300 with Tamron 90mm macro. ISO400 1/160 @f4.5

Exposure 101

As for exposure, you can find that close up work can often fool the meter if you’re working in auto or semi-auto. Now’s the time to learn a little bit of manual photography if your camera has a M setting. It’s incredibly easy and well worth learning!

When it’s metering, your camera is looking to create a neutral grey as output. This is its purpose and it will do it relentlessly. Which is fine if you’re shooting a grey bug on a grey background. However, take a closeup of a black fly on a green leaf and all of a sudden it’s overexposed. Why? Because the camera sees the green leaf as neutral grey, but the fly is black, so:

 grey + black = camera decides it needs to lighten things up to get an average grey

So what do we do? Easy-peasey! Grass, surprisingly, is very close to neutral grey in tone. If you’re somewhere outdoors, set the camera to M, aim the camera lens at a patch of grass in the same kind of light that your subject will be in and move your dials to get correct exposure. Hopefully you have a little knowledge of shutter speeds, apertures and ISO, but if not basics are the higher the shutter speed number the more you stop motion (and help with camera shake), the lower the aperture…e.g. f2.8 the less of the image will be focused, giving you that lovely out of focus backgrounds, but also restricting how much will be in focus so you have to focus VERY carefully. If you want the whole flower or insect in focus, move the aperture number up higher, say f8 or over. The good thing about digital is it doesn’t cost to play around and test these things for yourself.

Lots of green and perfect exposure from metering the green. Nikon D300 with Tamron 90mm macro. ISO 400 1/160 @f4.5

Now if you’re not outside, or there’s no grass around, human skin is generally quite close to neutral grey. Hold your hand up with the palm facing you, meter from that and then OVEREXPOSE by about 1 or 2 stops depending on your skin tone. You might have to have a play around with this one, but it’s all fun and makes life so much easier (and people will look at you and wonder why your hand is so interesting when you do this at a job ;) )

So there we have it, that’s about the basics to close up photography. Now go out and play and have fun with it!

Any questions please ask below!

Cherry Blossom. Nikon D300 with Tamron 90mm macro lens. ISO 800 1/125 @f11

All text and images copyright Anjella Roessler Photography 2014.