NT

NT

It doesn't happen too often but I had to visit Berlin on business and was cought out without a camera; my definition of a camera that is. All I had was my mbile phone and that is what I had to use. I didn't expect much but I was quite surprised by the results. Not all turned out well, especially those taken in low light and by that I mean evening or shopping malls. I'm only going to show a few here because I really didn't enjoy using it as a camera and I don't think I ever will. I really missed my EVF and holding the thing at arms length I found to be a real pain.

That said, I can see what poeple see in this type of photography. I mean, who today hasn't got a mobile phone with them. It's small, light and always with you. The camera in these little things get better and better and some have a real knack of taking excellent images with them. I'm just not one of those people.

Judge for youselves if these images make the grade. Personally I found them to be acceptable, especially since I had nothing else with me.

Focusing is proving to be very accurate with this combination.

After trying out the Olympus 14-150 lens on the GX7 I decided the Tamron was next. I thought I had a problem with the Olympus lens after it's been used quite a bit in the last few years that I've had it. Now I'm not sure because I've been using it on the Olympus E-M5 body. The Tamron doesn't perform too well on that body either so I'm now thinking that the E-M5 isn't working the way it should be.

Having now tested both lenses on the excellent GX7 I really can't tell the difference between the images. So, if you're looking for an all-purpose lens for vacation time, you can purchase either of these lenses. The Tamron is a little thicker than the Olympus but has a good feel to it. Both don't have ILIS so I would think using these two lenses on Olympus bodies makes more sense. Having said that I had good results on the GX7 which has a form of IBIS but is not as good as in the Olympus bodies.

The following few posts will show the image quality from this lens.

When I have the chance I like to look at my photoblog images from different locations on different monitors, and I must admit, on some of these monitors my images look terrible; and I mean terrible!

It has shown me the importance of monitor calibration for photographers. At my workplace I have one workstation that is dedicated to my photography and the monitor I use is calibrated. Even if you aren’t a professional I still believe it’s important to calibrate your monitor as most enthusiasts like to shocase their images online in some way. A professional photographer should (and do) spend quite a bit of their hard earned cash on not only calibrating their monitor but also their printer because they want their images to look the same on their monitor and on the print; otherwise what’s the point, right?

Personally, I don’t print much, actually not at all. If I want a print made I upload the image (or images) online and get the print back within a couple of days. It just isn’t viable form e to keep a printer fort he amount of prints I make. At most I’ll print a couple dozen per year when I want to replace some prints hanging on my walls.

If you chose to calibrate your monitor it doesn’t have to cost the earth, just purchase a simple one to get the colours the way they should be. If you do print a lot then I would spend a bit more (could be about €/$400 or more) because it really is worth it.

I’m writing this post on another workstation and looking at my images makes me to NOT look at them. They really look awfull; colours are wrong and there’s a distinct lack of contrast to all oft hem but at the back of my mind I know that it’s the monitor. It’s a cheap (probably TN) nasty one and not at all meant for some PP work.

So, do yourself a favour, spend some money and watch your images come to life.

For those of you who haven't seen this system, I thought I would just post an image of the X-T1 with the Zeiss Planar 50 f2 ZM T* mounted. This is one of the best manual focus systems I have ever had the pleasure of using. No wonder that everybody (well nearly everybody) loves this camera. I will be posting some more images from thsi system as I get the time to process them. It's a system that will get used quite a lot in the future.

For those interested, it was taken with a Panasonic GX7 with the Panasonic 12-35 f2.8 lens. A system I still have to use extensively.

I was thinking about buying the 23 f1.4 for my Fujifilm system but then again I have the X100S which takes fantastic images and covers the same focal length except the lens is f2 rather than f1.4. I decided to get the 27mm instead because I needed something small with a little more focal length to it. It certainly isn't expensive (another plus) and it's very small and light. You can (almost) put the X-E2 with the 27mm mounted in your pocket. Very nice combination.

It's not the sharpest lens in my arsenal but the images sharpen up nicely and monochrome conversion is still great (not that the lens would have any effect on this). It gives you a rather strange 35mm equivalent focal length of 41mm which some people find it's not one or the other. Not wide enough or not long enough. I personally feel better with the 40mm FL than the 35mm FL. But that's just me because I see things rather longish. I much prefer using a longer FL lens than a wide one.

All in all, a very good investment to my X system and a lens I'll be using quite a bit.

My wife and I decided to take an early break and flew down to Spain for a week. This is the first real outing I've had with the E-M1 and I decided to take a wide angle lens with me this time. Weather was great at 28°C, the food was great and I got a chance for some photography (at my pace). One conclusion I came to after about the second day using this lens was that my lens wasn't wide enough. I really have to get something wider because the 9-18 is an 18-36 in 35mm terms. There is of course the Panasonic 7-14 but do I really need another mFT lens. Actually no, and I was thinking about an APS-C lens for my Fuji system, namely the 10-24 f4.

The reason for this is two fold.

1. I don't have anything wider at present than the 18-55 kit lens for this system.

2. In 35mm terms it's a 15mm lens at the wide end, it's a constant f4 and has OIS incorporated.

Both the Panasonic 7-14 and the Fuji 10-24 are about the same price but the Fuji is slightly larger I believe. Only time will tell which one I'll go for but I think it will be the Fuji.