Slow day

So while here at a school I shot a photo of an old paper towel dispenser with my iPhone and the camera+ app hope ya like.

Olympus E-P3 with Panasonic 7-14 f4.

As I arrived home today I was very excited to see my new lens sitting on the door step.  Here are a few shots of the lens on the camera as well as a few from the new lens.  I'll be giving a more in-depth review when I have some time to really test out the lens.  But for now here ya go (i'm hungry...)

 The E-P3 With the Panasonic on camera...

A few comparison shots...

@ 14mm

@ 7mm

Lastly a quick shot I took outside before the sun went down...

@ 7mm

Have a great day :)

The Mountain Bike is Sold.

    One might be asking themselves ok great you sold a bike here's a cookie.  Well for me selling this bike does a few things.  One its going to actually be used which it hasn't been ( I hate seeing things go to waste).  Two I have more space in my garage with it sold (yahh, which Christina will tell you I am the King of getting rid of things).  Lastly it provides me with the opportunity to purchase my first µFT (apparently µ stands for the micro in micro four thirds) lens.

    Ok so which lens will it be?  One of the new amazing Olympus lens?  Not the 45mm f1.8 this time around.  What about the Panasonic 20mm f1.7, a good choice but still not quite what I was looking at.  Ok so maybe he went with the Panasonic 25mm f1.4 to get that amazing bokeh, nope still off.  How about the amazingly beautiful Olympus 12mm f2, oh so close but nope.

The lens I finally decided on for my first µFT lens is the Panasonic 7-14mm f4 lens.

    Now the question is, why?  Well let me tell you what prompted the decision for this lens.  To start out, for my Canon I have a few lens 18-55, 28-135, 70-300, 50 prime, so this is a range I have never played with before.  I read review after review to decide between this lens and the Olympus 12mm f2.  They are both great lens with slightly different purposes.  I started looking at the wider angle due to the enjoyment I received out of shoot my little Panasonic LX-3.  Both of these lens will do landscapes well and they are both super sharp.  The main difference is that with the Olympus you can get the amazing bokeh and its a great street photography lens.  The Olympus 12mm was very appealing to me but I do not see myself using a wide angle lens for bokeh.  Sure it helps in low light situations to have the faster lens but this is not the lens I was looking for to do that (maybe either the panasonic 25mm or the 20mm for that later on).  The benefit of this 7-14mm lens really is the extreme angle and almost Olympus 12 sharpness.  Looking at some photo comparisons of the two images both at 12mm f4, the difference for me seemed negligible.  Then the idea of the added wide angle really started to appeal to me.  Looking at breakdown charts of the field of view of a 7mm (14mm equivalent) vs that of 12mm (24mm equivalent) was just amazing. I was just having two hard of a time choosing a lens.

   With a great trip coming up soon to Alaska and the Denali state park in my mind helped to convince me to move towards the panasonic 7-14mm.  Even with the picturesque images of Denali looming in my head I was still thinking about the Olympus 12mm.  So many good reviews have been writing about that lens that I feel I should jump on board.  But the same questions remained, will it be wide enough, do I want to lose the versatility of the Panasonic 7-14mm.  Then I heard my fathers voice in my head once again, "Your never really going to know if it is the right lens (camera etc) until you have used it for a few months and take a few hundred pictures with it".  With the upcoming trip I decided to take a leap and commit(for now) to the 7-14mm, thus ending my arduous decision making process.  Photos will follow when the new lens arrives, which I am eagerly awaiting.

Have a Great Day :)

A nice little $6.oo option for DSLR

In an attempt to find a diffuser for my Olympus E-P3, I came across the CowboyStudio Soft Pop-Up SLR Flash Diffuser on Amazon for DSLRs.  For six dollars I figure I would see if I could make it work on the little Micro Four Thirds...


Unfortunately I was unable to find a way to make the filter work on the E-P3, but it does seem to be a great little add on if you are looking to soften the built in flash of a DSLR.

This little kit comes with three different color Diffusers, white, blue, and yellow.  There is a little plastic clip that holds the filter that slides gently into the hotshoe.  Here are a few images of the filter differences and what it looks like on my 20D.

20D with kit on and two extra Diffusers

White Diffuser

Blue Diffuser

Yellow Diffuser

No Diffuser

If your interested in the variation of these diffusers and what changes it will make to your stock flash photos you can get a general idea from the photos above.  Overall seems like it might be worth picking up if your on a budget and what to play with your lighting.

Blog posting

I am finding that it is getting more difficult keeping up with my blog, but i'm not giving up yet ;).  Here is my photo I took this evening trying to follow the rules and shooting every day.  Hope your day treated you well.

What's wrong with Photography today...

I am personally not a huge fan of over editing.  I feel that you lose the skill and art of taking quality photos.  I have never really found myself one to look to photoshop to save photos for me.  I feel that if my photo requires that much repair it wasn't meant to be.  While I do find that enhancing photos can help the image be a little more profound, I do find there are some limits that I personally do not wish to cross.

I know you are asking yourself (Matt where is this rant going?!?) Well here it is a link sent to me by my good friend Brian regarding photoshop and some of the new features and abilities that are coming out if it.  It really makes me wonder what is going to happen to the art form that is photography.

http://youtu.be/UrlsnQ32YhY

E-P3 and Christina

As promised I have a few shots from yesterday evening taken by my beautiful girlfriend Christina.  Since I had a nice little break in my evening due to some cancelations I was able to download the photos from the E-P3 and do a little bit of editing to a few of them.  Here are two amazing shots from yesterday that Christina was able to capture.  Hope you enjoy :)

This one is Straight from camera JPEG

Blown Away!

Having a day off made for some productive picture taking.  The day started with the previous post about the giant camera (if you didn't watch the video yet you should :P).  I then proceed to have a nice day with the dog.

Uriah (my dog) and I went for our 2.1 mile run.  On our run I made note of the beautiful clouds and the gusting winds.  I proceeded to drop the dog off and run another 3 miles.  This time around I was able to notices the sky a little more and I thought to myself that I need to make sure to head down to Seal Beach later for a few pictures.

After getting home and shooting around some ideas for starting a photography business, I proceeded to take a few shots of the dog for fun...

After that I just snapped a few shots around the townhouse amazed by the wind, hoping I could catch some of its power on film.

Once Christina got home we hopped in the trusty civic and shot down to Seal Beach.  When we got their we were amazed to see a sandstorm in progress.

After hopping out of the car and being hit by the stinging wind we ventured out on the pier.  We strolled up and down the pier shaping shots while trying to avoid being hit directly by flying sand.

We found that for some reason their were other people out walking around in this weather.  There were people braving the pier...

Kite Surfing...

and running.

There were a quite a few gulls that seemed to be really enjoying the wind.

This gull seemed interested as to why we were out in this weather.

Eventually we made our way out and back on the pier with some nice photos to document our little adventure.  

Hope you Enjoy! I was shooting the 20D for this session and Christina was playing with the E-P3.  All photos today are from the 20D straight from camera JPEG.  Christina's E-P3 photos to come.

Day off.

With my day off today sitting in bed (as I type this) I came across an interesting project. Something that might be very interesting to check out if it comes near by.

A little something

Today I wasn't very good at my photography homework only taking all of 5 photos.  They were all for craigslist posting so there is nothing too exciting their.  I will share a photo that was taking from a trip to  Napa on the wine train.  This shot was taken by my girlfriend Christina using the 20d with the 50mm 1.8 while we were on the train.  I really love this photo, Christina seems to have a very good eye for framing shots as well.

1/80 1.8 ISO 200 

A Afternoon in Long Beach

  I had a wonderful afternoon today.  It started with a great little lunch at Zypher in Long Beach with my girlfriend Christina and good friend Brian (Check out his blog here http://nomadbyfate.blogspot.com/).  Afterwards Brian and I decided to take a little ride around Long Beach and see what interesting things we could discover. The most interesting thing we found seemed to be an old Press Telegram building (that appeared to have been abandoned for quite sometime), but unfortunately for us all the entrances were locked.  Even with this disappointment we continued our photo adventure and bike ride around downtown.  Here are a few shots that I was able to get with the E-P3.  Once again I am thinking that the EVF would be very useful.  All shots are straight from camera JPEGs.

Hiding behind the e-p3

Brian the Hipster

Confusion

Overall I am very happy with the IQ that I am able to get out of this little camera with the kit zoom.  As usually let me know what you think :) have a great day!

A Day In Naples With Dad

After a great lunch at Enrique's Mexican food in Long Beach today my father and I ventured down to the canals of naples to snap a few photos.  The light could of been better (dusk or sunrise) but it still provided for a few interesting shots.  Here are some from my E-P3 (once again full sun has me begging for a EVF)...

Dad Hiding in the Bushes

The Other Beast

A walk with the dog led to a few photos today.  Sometimes its the simple things.

Grass

The Beast

My Olympus E-P3 in silver with the 14-42mm Kit lens :)

20d 50mm @ 1.8

Photo for today.

While I shot very few photos today (I still took a few, don't worry i'm following the rules ;), I am going to share another photo from the weekend.  It was shot with the Canon 20d instead of the olympus E-P3.

Thankful

    I forgot to add the two techniques I used last night with the flower photos were adding water with a mister for the droplet effects, and shooting the flower in front of a black cloth backdrop.  Have a great day!

Today's Photo

In an attempt to improve my photography I am now trying to live by a few rules.  Taking pictures everyday is the first step on the road to better photos.  Todays photo is a flower photo with some tips I read about recently.  Let me know what you think :)

Olympus E-P3 First try

The camera has come, and some photos have been shot.  Here is a first take of what this amazing little camera is capable of.  Overall I am very impressed with this camera.  I enjoy it more and more each time I take a picture.  The one thing I would recommend to someone looking at this camera is to purchase the EVF.  It was definitely a challenge to shoot out in the sun without it.  I found the largest issue without the EVF is keeping everything level.  Here are a few shots from the new camera...

Master Lock (slight iphoto edit)

My Mussels (slight iPhoto edit, still not sure if I like this better or the straight from camera JPEG)

Day at the beach (straight from camera JPEG)

Fly Away (straight from camera JPEG)

Let me know what you think :)