Olympus Announces E450

Well, Olympus announced the new tiny E450 camera today at the bottom of their dslr line, replacing their E420.  I'm a bit underwhelmed by it.  It is the worlds smallest dslr.  They have added art filters and changed around the nob on top a bit.  Otherwise its pretty much the same.  This kind of camera has a lot of appeal, especially with the one Olympus pancake lens.  The only thing is that they just announced the E620 which is only very slightly larger and way more feature packed for not a lot more money.  It seems to me that they are over-producing budget minded cameras to reflect sales trends in todays economy.  I'd hate to see dslr's going the way of point and shoot cameras where you have 20+ versions of basically the same camera from the same company.  But then again, I'm sure it makes marketing sense on some level.  

No word yet on the replacement for the E3 from them, though I'm hopeful to hear something before the Olympics in 2010.  Pentax has announced a new medium format camera that should sell for less than $10,000 and will support their lens lineup made for the film MF 645 camera.  This is pretty exciting.  While $10,000 is a lot of money, it is far cheaper than the Leica, Hasselblad and Mamiya MF cameras (about a third of the cost).  I'd love to own one someday.

Olympus put an E3 on the space shuttle.   It should be up there right now taking photos.  Pretty cool.

I saw a guy shooting my hockey game last night with an entry level Nikon dslr.  He was obviously struggling and I noticed Adam chatting with him.  I think Adam helped him out with his black images.  It amazes me that people go out and buy a base Nikon or Canon with the kit lens and assume they can shoot anything.  It's all marketing, but this poor guy was trying f5.6 at ISO 100 in a dark hockey rink.  Good luck.  I blame it on camera salespeople.  "Yeah, this camera is great....you will be shooting like a pro in no time."  Uh huh.  It is, in my opinion, all in the lenses.  Invest there first and the camera body can be changed time and time again around a great set of lenses.

Finally our website is still down (grrrrr) but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will be back up tonight and Adam has revamped it, so I think it will be a huge improvement. 

Our site is down!

Our site has been down since Friday.  We apologize, but our web hosting service hasn't been much of a service lately.  We hope to get it back up very soon!

iMac

Well my frustration with my old pc finally boiled over and I bought a Mac.  Lightroom was always sluggish on my three year old Dell computer and I was putting off buying new software as I knew that I wanted a Mac.  At my 'day job' I had bought three new PC's with Windows Vista on them and I hate them.  Sluggish, don't work properly and even the computer expert I had to bring in struggles with them.  I knew I didn't want to go from a three year old XP machine to a new Vista nightmare....so I converted to Apple.  

My first impressions of the 24" iMac are that it is fast, has a beautiful screen and is simple to use.  It comes with several great programs (i Life most notably) and none of the bloatware that PC's usually come with.  I don't know how to use the OS X very well yet, but I'm sure I will learn.  I can see why photographers and people that do a lot of graphical and video work like Mac's.  

Video

The Panasonic LX3 does high definition video (720p), and I haven't really had a chance or cause to play with it yet until yesterday. I had the camera around my neck and turned the video on while I was helping my daughter skate. Pretty fun to use and produces nice quality video. I had it on 4:3 aspect ratio instead of 16X9, but it does the wide screen format nicely as well. Anyway, thought I'd put up a sample.

Soloist

I was thinking today while driving home from my hockey game and listening to a photography podcast about how so many photographers work alone. They fly solo. It made me think about why I enjoy working with Adam so much. To me, working alone in a bubble has so many disadvantages. Firstly, Adam is a great photographer. He shows me images on a regular basis that blow my mind. I'm always happy to see them and proud of his work, but also realize it brings up my game. Being a naturally competitive person I want to exceed the quality of his photography, and I'm sure he feels the same way. He is far better than I am on the computer with photoshop and I hate that, so I'm determined to learn. Having that motivation, and that person to feed off of on a regular basis really has propelled my photography to levels I don't think it would have if I were alone.

Another thing that occurs to me is that we often shoot sports, corporate events, portraits (and soon weddings) as a pair and this gives us a huge advantage over other photography companies. I can shoot wide while he shoots long. I can go for intimate shots and he can get the larger perspective shots. We never have a lead photographer, but work in natural tandem. Everyone has bad days as well, and I can tell when Adam is on, and when he is not. If he is off I know I have to pick up my game, and vice versa. He has seen me fail, seen me miss shots and agonize over it, but usually he gets the shot so our failure rate is much lower.

Why write this post? I think just to say that it perplexes me that so many photographers choose to go it alone in this business. They miss out on sharing, competing, picking each other up and having built in critics of their work that are honest and want you to improve. It's not to say that I don't shoot alone. I did today as a matter of fact, but then again I'm always curious what feedback I'll get on my solo work. Adam, it is a pleasure, and for those other photographers that might be reading this I'd love to hear about your experiences.

Photo Walks

I found a new place to shoot photos. Every once in a while I come across a place that just seems like it lends itself naturally to environmental portrait shots. I took my daughter out to test it out, and I'm happy to say that I love it.

I ordered the Sigma 50mm f1.4 from Henrys yesterday. It is a special order lens, but hopefully I'll get in quickly. Definitely a lens I've been dreaming about owning. I only wish Olympus would put out a f1.4 lens in the 85 to 100 range.

Little Printers

I bought a little Canon printer, the Selphy CP760. It is about the size of a large paperback book and allows for portable printing just about anywhere of 4x6 prints. I'm wanting a big Epson printer at some point, but in the meantime my home HP printer makes really horrible prints. This little Canon does a great job, is really fast and produces durable small prints. My plan is to bring it to events and instead of just handing over business cards and telling people to go online or email for small prints, I'll hand them one on the spot. Pretty handy.

We photographed basketball last night at Oliver Woods. It was interesting. Adam and I tried foofing even though all the lights were on and we didn't need too. The bounce flash is actually a lot of fun to use. You have to watch what you are bouncing it off though as you can get some pretty interesting colours from blue and red walls.

As for the long awaited composite image, its not done yet. Adam is a bit backlogged on computer projects so the non-paid work keeps getting pushed back. Hopefully we can get it done soon!

What the Duck

I've recently been turned on to a comic strip called 'What the Duck' by Aaron Johnson. It is a photography based comic, and if my sense of humor means anything, it's hilarious. Check it out! I've made a permanent banner ad at the bottom of the blog to link to it.

Adam recently purchased a new flash, the Pentax AF540FGZ. Long name, cool unit. He hasn't figured it out yet but it has wireless capability. Most importantly it has four batteries, so faster recycling time and MORE POWER. OK, I had to capitalize that. More power is always better. Anyway, as a result we will be foofing away with our flashes every chance we can get (I'll give credit to that term to Chris Boar, a really good wedding photog that presented at our last photo club meeting).

Lastly, we were recently hired by the University of Victoria Alumni to photograph an event of theirs in Nanaimo in April called 'Galaxies, Like Grains of Sand.' It has to do with the development of a thirty meter telescope. Pretty cool.

Oh, no wait... really lastly now...if you are a really great swimmer we need you! We've been working on the project for Parks and Recreation and have this idea to do some shots of swimming. Well, it could turn into quite a big production if I let my brain take me where I want these shots to go. What we need is someone who does a really good butterfly stroke, and doesn't mind doing it over and over until we get it right in camera. So if you know anyone (or you yourself are quite good) we want you, and in exchange I'll make sure you get a print of the photo. Email me.

PMA

Well, PMA is here and I have nothing much to say. The only dslr announced so far is the Olympus E620, which looks pretty cool but is more of a consumer camera. Pentax has announced a new superzoom, really again a consumer camera so Adam has nothing to dream about yet. Guess we will just have to settle with what we have! Which really isn't so bad is it?

I just wanted to point out this photographer. Her name is Kara May and I have been following some of her photos for about a month now. She is an amazing talent. I am a huge fan of her 'look' and can't get enough of it. I think it is important as a photographer to be a fan of others work, and to love photography. Anyway check her out!

In the meantime....our composite image is done. Adam is deep in photoshop as I type this working on the final touches. I just finished post processing all my images to date for our City of Nanaimo Parks and Recreation project. Still have baby ballet, kids cooking, futsal (I didn't know what it was either), volleyball, basketball and some other activities to shoot for them. It has been a blast so far. A very fun, engaging and rewarding experience.