I think I'm going to buy it. The E5 gets released in October and after listening to the interview above and thinking about my current use of my E3 and Canon 5D mkII I think the E5 is an important camera for me to own. I was just editing some images from our last wedding and looking at the straight out of camera quality from my E3 vs my 5DmkII and the E3 was much more satisfactory at ISO 100 for an outdoor ceremony. The files I shot with the E3 I was able to pretty much just crop and export directly for the customer, the Canon files needed work. Now in all fairness, the Canon files can be abused more in my experience in post processing and still hold up, whereas the Olympus files tend to fall apart quicker when pushed around. Either way, I admit, I'm still a fan. Maybe the brand is dying, but I think I'll go down with the ship. Care to join me?
Of course I reserve the right to be flaky and change my mind!
We just finished our last wedding of the summer yesterday. It was a great year for us, very busy and we saw our business grow quite a bit in a recession year which has us excited about next year. We are also signing a lease on our new studio this week and will be renovating it over the next month or so. Hopefully I can blog about renovations as we do them, but I think budgetary concerns aren't going to allow us to get too crazy with the project.
Either way, as I was packing up my gear today and cleaning it all up, I was thinking about my transition this year from neck straps to the Black Rapid R-Strap. I bought my first R-Strap last year and bought a second one this year at my week long Image Explorations Photography course when I forgot my original one at home. I've blogged before about the improvements to the strap, so I won't repeat myself. What I wanted to talk about in this post is the absolute difference using these straps have made to the health of my neck and back. Having a camera draped across your body and not hanging from your spine is a really great thing. If you haven't made the switch yet to a strap like this, do yourself a favour and at least try it.
There has been one downside to the straps though for me and that is the coupler straps that I bought that are designed to put two Black Rapid straps together for using them with two cameras at the same time. They hold together on your back and the straps hang over each shoulder instead of across your body. I learned early that it is best to put the straps on first and then attach the cameras to avoid having them bang around while you are putting the harness on. But the big downfall is that the straps just don't feel secure. I have tried this twice now at two different weddings during the ceremony, a time that I like having two cameras (one with a long lens, one without). The straps feel like they are going to slide off your shoulder so I end up hunching my shoulders and that strains my back. I constantly adjust them and worse even still, when in that position the newer R-Strap of my two likes to work it's way loose by lengthening itself. I have to give a huge thumbs down to this double camera solution from Black Rapid. So, for next year I'm going to buy a proper double camera strap for use during wedding ceremonies or corporate events when I like having two cameras. Suggestions are welcome. I know Black Rapid makes a dedicated double strap that is attached front and back so I'm considering it.
So, the Sigma SD1 looks interesting. Did I hear that right? 46 megapixels?!?!? I think with the foveon sensor it actually is three different colour channel sensors at about 15 megapixels each. I'm not entirely sure of the science behind it, but I must say it is the first Sigma camera ever to interest me in the least bit. I appears that it is planned for a spring 2011 release, but if I remember right the SD15 was announced several times and dates were pushed back several times, so I wouldn't hold my breath.
The Panasonic GH2 was also released and looks like, as predicted, a pretty sweet little video camera. OK, I know it is a still camera that does video, but it seems to me that it's video capabilities are the real selling feature. Pretty slick camera actually. I'm seeing Panasonic gathering steam with their products. Interestingly all I see from Olympus since the E5 announcement is more defending of their commitment to four thirds, not less. I've never witnessed such a PR disaster. I did see some full sized samples from the E5, and they look good up to about ISO 1600, usable (barely) at ISO 3200 but terrible at ISO 6400. It is just weird that putting out a new camera has seemed to create more fear of their lack of commitment to the format than less. Their political non-answers to questions don't help much either. Olympus, you need better PR people. Trust me.
All this hub bub has me thinking. I had been quietly waiting for a retro styled micro four thirds or similar style camera with a viewfinder to add as my family carry around camera. It hadn't appeared yet exactly as I wanted it, and then boom, Fuji announces the X100 and it looks cool. It does have a fixed lens though. But it is an f2.0 lens. It had me thinking. With camera manufacturers being shackled by their legacy lens lineups, and with companies like Olympus appearing to be on the verge of dumping lens formats, maybe for a small high quality camera buying into an interchangeable lens system isn't the smartest thing. I mean there is no way I can afford to keep buying lenses for my current two systems (Olympus four thirds and Canon full frame) and add yet another in micro four thirds or whatever. It just gets ridiculous. Possibly the sensible answer is something like the X100. Keep it until you want something different or it breaks and get whatever new fixed lens camera suits your fancy. No lens investment to leave behind, switch brands at will. I'm really starting to feel the X100. Olympus seems to be thinking the same thing and is building an LX5 killer. It looks a little drab in the beauty department to me. I had the LX3 and sold it. Nice camera, but no viewfinder and small sensor.
We did this image for one of our recent Bride and Grooms really quickly as they were short on time. It was inspired by Jerry Ghionis but also by the famous painting that has escaped my mind right now in name. I was really proud of our ability to pull off several strong images in a matter of minutes for this couple and it is an important skill for any wedding photographer to have. We used one light, a small flash on a monopod through an umbrella.
I just picked up another book called 'The Digital Eye; Photographic Art in the Electronic Age,' by Sylvia Wolf. I had seen it in the bookstore and flipped through it. Some of the images pulled me in so much I had to go home and order it on Amazon.
In the book are several artists I've never heard of. Most notably Loretta Lux, Simen Johan, Anthony Goicolea and Keith Cottingham really caught my eye. Loretta's haunting, yet surreal photos of young children are totally unbelievable. There are also lots of photos in the book that I completely can't relate too. No matter how I try I just can't get jazzed about photos of millions of pop bottles, kitchen sinks or non-descript ink blots. But I do appreciate them in the same way I appreciate paintings that aren't my thing. I just assume they are beyond what I can appreciate intellectually.
Anyway, like I've said before in this blog, I think good photographers appreciate and surround themselves with work that inspires them. I truly believe that for us to grow we have to be consumers of our craft as well as producers. Books like this are a great source of inspiration for me.
I can't recall ever being interested or excited about a Fuji camera before, but this one has popped onto the scene and has me very intrigued. This is what a camera should look like, has a great lens, has a shutter speed dial on top and a proper aperture ring on the lens where it should be. This might be the micro four thirds camera I've been waiting to buy but was never made. Extra huge bonus, it has a viewfinder! Olympus, Panasonic, Sony and Samsung guess what? Fuji has just leapt over you in design and at a price far below what the Leica X1 cost. Ok, so it has a fixed lens. At least it's a good one. Welcome to my long and distinguished camera lust X100.
Oh, and Tyler, the really cool folks at CSN have come through. I just received delivery notice on your lens bag you won here on the blog. Should be coming soon. I hope you send me your thoughts on the product.
I just spend the day doing a big bridal model shoot. I'm hoping to put up some video we shot of the day as well as the photos themselves and how we did them. I used the Olympus 14-35 f2.0 lens (rented from the fine folks at Lens Lenders in Canada) a lot today and it performed really well. Liked it a lot. I'll be comparing it to the Canon 24-70 f2.8 lens in an upcoming post.
Well, I finally joined Model Mayhem. I actually tried to join over a year ago but had problems uploading photos and never got back to it. I decided that it was time to join though as I want to work on some personal photography over the quieter winter months. My immediate goal is to meet more models and makeup artists that live near me. I might need some for some jobs in the future, but also I want to find some like minded people for some black and white portraits that have been bouncing around in my head. I think it's really important to not only keep working (paying the bills, working under pressure and satisfying paying clients), but also to keep playing with your photography as well. Anything I learn while on personal projects I can bring to my paid work to help elevate the level of my craft. Plus I get to satisfy those creative itches that aren't necessarily marketable to the general public. Isn't it great when you have a job you love so much that you want to do it in your free time too?!
Shot with the 5DmkII and 24-70 f2.8 lens at 3200 ISO. The light was going away quickly and I was changing the settings on my camera rapidly to try and get some ambient light in so the church was visible. Used an off camera flash dialled way down through an umbrella camera right fired by Pocket Wizard.
I've been slowing down on my obsessive following of the Photokina news and camera releases. I get like this sometimes when I burn myself out by continuously checking the internet for news about gear I will probably never even own. It gets ridiculous. I'm still kind of undecided on my opinion about the Olympus E5. It holds some promise if the photo quality is as advertised, but I just need to see full sized RAW samples first. I'm pretty sure I'll be buying it, but not until it drops to clearance prices unless it proves too tempting with quality images.
Straight from the camera from the 14-35mm f2.0 Olympus SWD lens. My kid playing at the local playground. She makes a great model!
I've been enjoying the 14-35mm f2.0 Olympus SWD lens I rented. I haven't had too much time to run it through its paces, but I plan on bringing it on Sunday to a shoot we have planned. We have a model that will be spending the day with us getting some new images for our portfolio. We want to spark the imagination of our brides next year with some new and inspiring images on our website. Ones we have created without the expectation of a paying client. Hopefully, or at least the theory goes, the images will attract the kind of clients that we want to work with. Ones that aren't simply looking for a competent photographer to capture their day, but someone that will provide them with some really unique an amazing non-traditional stuff as well. We'll see how it goes, but you get back what you put out there right?
Anyway, if you are on Model Mayhem please feel free to add me as a friend. I have a grand total of two right now, so I definitely need more! I'll leave you with an E5 un-boxing I found on YouTube. I still don't get these, or understand why they are done so often (un-boxing videos) so I think I'll do my own soon, why not?!
Well it is here and it is.....well.....an EPL-1. In an E3 Halloween costume.
The Good:
It now has an SD card instead of an XD card
It has a bigger high resolution LCD screen
It kept the weather sealing and rugged build
It kept the big bright 100% viewfinder
they simplified the button layout, but kept the main parts the same
they added video (had to do it)
The Bad:
It is hinging itself on the fact that it has a True Pic V+ image processor. Otherwise it is basically an EPL-1
This isn't going to cut it. I'll wait for the final camera reviews to start trickling in before I pass any further judgement, but if this doesn't finally signal the end of four thirds then I don't know what does. I'll pass final judgement when I own one.
Own one? Yup. This camera will not sustain its initial pricing. It can't. When it drops in price I'll grab one to get a couple of more years use out of my Olympus equipment. I might even buy some SHG lenses as they get cleared out if the price is right. This is all a disappointment, but there is no sense getting in a huff over it. For that, go to Dpreview's Olympus forum where the sky is definitely falling.
This is definitely the end of my professional use of Olympus products. In fact I just bought my third Canon lens today, the 20mm f2.8 prime. Looking forward to using it and taking advantage of the full frame's natural wide angle of view. I found it hardly used from someone local that bought it but never got around to using it. The new 70-200 f2.8 is next.
All good things must come to an end.
As for the winner of the lens bag in this blog's first ever giveaway, well DaveG, you never contacted me so I'm picking a new winner. Sorry friend. Tyler Rogers, assuming you live in Canada or the USA, please email me and I'll get your loot on the way. Congrats!
It is starting to look like the new E5 is real, and that it is pretty much an Olympus EP-2 in a big weather sealed DSLR body. That is a huge disappointment if it's true and might even be worse than them not releasing anything at all. If that is what it turns out to be I'll buy one, but not until the lack of orders forces them to lower the price to fire sale levels. I initially thought that Olympus was going to dump DSLR's altogether but it looks like I may be wrong about that. Now it seems they are just throwing out unimpressive products. I hope that's not true. This could be a huge gaff by Olympus. I admit I'm going to go troll the internet forums and read the waves of disappointment just out of sheer instinct to watch a train wreck in action. As a fan of Olympus products I'm let down, but maybe they have a trick up their sleeve I don't know about. If not we could see some expensive SHG lenses on fire sale from lots of Olympus owners jumping over to Canon and Nikon.
Speaking of the Super High Grade lenses, I rented one from Lens Lenders, the 14-35 f2.0 lens. I'm looking forward to playing with it, but while it was due to arrive on Friday it is yet to be delivered. That is disappointing. I wasn't counting on it for a job as I've pretty much moved over to Canon for work, but still you always hope to get something on time when you order it. I contacted Lens Lenders and they are going to extend my rental period for the days I've missed. Since I'll have it this weekend I'm going to bring it out on a Bridal fashion shoot I have planned to really put the lens through its paces. Possibly one day I'll be able to purchase it at a really big discount when they start getting flogged by unsatisfied Olympus owners. Aside from rainy day work I've pretty much at this point decided that Olympus will fill my camera needs for my hobby photography and nothing more.
I recently earned my first badge from being a member of the Digital Wedding Forum for over a year. I put it on my website and once the PPA finally processes my membership I'll put that logo up as well. I'm not sure if people put much weight into having these kinds of things on websites, but I suppose it doesn't hurt. At the very least it probably appears to lend some credibility to your skills and dedication to your craft. The logo leads to this page for customers if they want to learn more.
Lastly, our winner of the lens bag hasn't claimed his prize yet. DaveG I'll give you a couple more days and then I'm going to pick a secondary winner.
Is the E5 real? It's getting closer to the supposed release date and it looks like there is a chance I'll be eating my words when I said in this blog that I doubted the camera was a reality. Question is, if it is real, will it be able to compete with the Nikon D300s and the Canon 7D? If it can, then wow (good), if it can't then wow (bad). I admit I'm more curious than ever.
Pentax released its not so surprising Kr, which is a successor to the much heralded Kx. I recommended the Kx to a lot of people based on its easy to use interface and wicked low light performance on a budget. I'm curious about the Kr, it looks like a mild refresh, but why ruin a good thing. The Kx was a huge sales hit for Pentax and it was a product they desperately needed to do well for them.
And as for our first little contest, DaveG you are the winner. My magic little in head number was the third comment. I'm a baseball nut, so the number 3 is pretty significant to me. Anyway, Dave get me your mailing address through email and I'll send the friendly folks at CSN your info to mail your lens bag. I'm hoping to do this again sometime. Turns out I enjoy giving away free stuff. We'll see if CSN is up for it, but I appreciate everyone taking part.
So this online store contacted me about a week ago wanting to do a promotion on this blog where I could either get an item and review it or just give the item away to one lucky reader to help promote their stores. I was tempted to just add to my collection of really cool things (I really like cool things) and do a quick review but upon reflecting on it I thought it might be even more fun to give stuff away. The company is CSN and they have online stores for just about everything from toys to luggage, home improvement, furniture and camera stuff. We all know how much I like camera stuff! They even have a website that only sells console tables! I know! Cool huh?
Anyway I decided after chatting with the friendly folks at CSN that we should stick to some photography related giveaway and I chose a lens case for one of your lenses that might feel left out in the cold. It will hold a lens up to 8.5x3.75x3.75 inches in size. If you are like me, you've lost a bag, bought a lens second hand and it came without a bag or you just like any cool gadget that happens to be useful for photography. Yes it apparently attaches to your belt or over your shoulder on a strap. If you want it, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post saying "Neil, give me free stuff." I have some random number in my head right now and if you are the right person, in the right order to post a comment, you win it. Easy as that. So help me out with my very first giveaway and leave a comment!
Sorry, only people in Canada and the USA are eligible to receive the free stuff.
Done at dusk with a video light. Just asked the Bride and Groom to step outside quickly for a photo. The video light is pretty useless until it gets dark or you are shooting indoors. Then that LED panel just rocks for the right amount of light. Though I still had to shoot at 3200 ISO.
Camera news has been quiet lately. Definitely the calm before the storm of Photokina. The rumours about the new Panasonic GH2 sound interesting. An 18 megapixel sensor? I'm suspecting this thing will be a video machine to drool over and I'm pretty curious about it as I've been planning to use this winter as a time to learn the ins and outs of producing acceptable video. Also the new little Samsung EVIL camera looks nice. Too bad it has no viewfinder I think the first company to come out with an EP-2 or GF1 type camera with a built in viewfinder is going to earn my purchase.
So at our last wedding we were pretty rushed for time when photographing our bride and groom. We usually ask for at least two hours photo time, but were given an hour and a half. Thankfully this Bride and Groom were keen on some twilight photos later during their reception just before we packed it in for the night and I think they will be rewarded with some really strong photos from the end of the evening.
Anyway, we were due to be back for dinner in about 15 minutes and I remembered that I hadn't taken my Bridesmaids photos during the getting ready time when I like to usually do them. We ended up losing a Bridesmaid as she had left her shoes in a car and we were rushed so there was no time in the morning. Anyway I've learned a couple of standard shots that work for me that I pull out when I'm in a hurry because I know they are popular with the Brides and I can do them quickly when I don't feel I have the time to be creative. With our last 15 minutes we had to get as many Bridal Party photos as we could at the Mini-Golf course we were at and drive back in time for dinner. Since Adam happened to film part of the shoot while playing with his 7D's video function I thought I'd use it as a way to show a small fraction of what we do in a days work.
So I found an interesting wall where if the girls stood in front I knew they would be in the shade. As the wall was also in the shade I started with nice flat light that was easy to use. I just asked the ladies to get super tight and lean into the camera at the waist. This helps to get rid of any double chins, though these women were all thin and beautiful so it wasn't that big of a need. It also looks more intimate and friendly when everyone is so tight like this. After-all they are all close, or they should be if they were invited to the Bridal party. Cropping in close either with the camera or in post can help if any of the ladies have a bigger arm as you crop half of it off and it still looks natural. Also raising up the flowers serves two purposes. Firstly the flowers cost the Bride a lot of money and she wants to see them in some photos. Secondly if you have them leaning forward for this shot and they are wearing a strapless dress it takes away the worry that you will have appeared to have shot down their dress which wouldn't be appreciated.
I had Adam firing a flash for me through an umbrella on a monopod. We use Pocket Wizards and fire our flashes on manual mode. In this case because I was in a hurry and I had the luxury of dealing with Bridesmaids with thin features I didn't feel the urgent need to short light their faces. I had the umbrella pretty much beside my right shoulder which you will be able to tell from the video as Adam is holding it and his 7D while filming me. This meant that I could just pretty much flat light their faces with only a hint of shadow and get the shot quickly without having to adjust the pose. I was really looking for some nice light as I want my subjects to be slightly brighter than their background. I did create some shape to their faces and some nice catchlights in the eyes. In a case like this where you may have one girl heavier than the others I'd place her furthest from the light and angled toward it so that the shadow side of her face was facing the camera which would slim her face. Conversely if you had a person that was very thin you could put them closest to the light with their face angled away from the light so that they would be broad lit which would help their features appear more full. Lighting people directly on (pretty much) like I have here can brighten up their face and eliminate shadows which will even out their features making them look younger and have smoother skin.
Anyway, if you can't hear it in the video, Adam and the Groomsmen were mocking me and giving me a hard time. Adam and I like to make fun of each other and tease each other as it helps lighten the mood and get people laughing. Our goal is to make great photos, make them quickly, and have Bridal Parties tell us they had fun doing them. Here is a short video that Adam took while messing around with his 7D while I was shooting. How he balanced a monopod and his camera is beyond me all while coming up with witty comments about how funny looking I am. The ultimate multi-tasker.
Notice that I chimped after each photo? Bad bad bad. I was looking for the highlight warning blinkies on my LCD screen to make sure I wasn't blowing out the flowers with the flash. Oh, if you keep people in groups of threes roughly in a triangle with their heads it is more pleasing than having them all straight and even.
Final Image:
We ended up being 5 minutes late for dinner and yes we did get in trouble from one of the guests that felt we held things up. The caterers hate photographers that run late too, so it is best if you make every effort to keep on schedule as you want your reputation to be that of a professional. We always make every effort to be on time but ultimately sometimes it just doesn't go that way.
So we went to Butter Church in Duncan yesterday as well as two other old churches to do some after wedding photos (they were married in March) of a couple. I had the heeby jeebies all day in some of the areas that we were in. I'm not usually the superstitious type, but after the couple asked to lay in front of some tombstones and we did a photo with that each location had a feeling of ghosts. Anyway, aside from that it was awesome. The couple were very adventurous and willing to settle in for some cool shots and take the time for us to set up lights etc. At one point she grabbed my iPhone and videoed us working while she waited for us to set up some lights. You can see the clip below.
I also discovered something new in Lightroom 3 today while trying to finish off our last wedding edits. When I'm selecting photos I'm using P for pick or U for unpick and scrolling through them narrowing down my selections. Well I hit the 'I' key by mistake and up popped this information about the photo. I'll bet everyone else in the world knows this and I didn't but the information about your camera settings displayed is really handy for the times when you are trying to remember what you did to a shot. Not sure if it works in Lightroom 2, but probably. So the next time you are looking at a photo in Lightroom and want to know what your camera was set at without going back to the library screen or looking at the exif data just hit the I key anywhere in Lightroom.
Held the Sony NEX cameras today in Future Shop. Actually not as awkward to hold onto as I thought they would be given their design. The screen was darker than I thought it would be and the little flash attachment seems kinda useless except it appears to be able to bounce upward. The Panasonic G2 was there too, and it was about the same size really in the way it felt in your hand. Both nice little cameras that would benefit from ditching their kit lenses and putting on a pancake prime.
One of our last brides, moments before she walked down the aisle. All window light.
This flower seems sad and lonely to me surrounded by darkness, and yet really beautiful too.
I'm sitting editing wedding photos and I'm having this really unsettling moment where I know I'm not doing a great job on the creative computer end of things. We did a wedding last week and we knocked it out of the park. Looking through some of the photos I see some of our best work of the year in front of me. The couple was so great and I can't wait to show them, but for whatever reason I'm really slow to edit tonight. It could be just an off night. I'm wondering as the summer wedding season starts to wind down if my mind just needs a change of scenery. But we have a week left to deliver on time as promised so I've put the editing aside for now as I don't want to mess up what looks like some great work.
We don't have a wedding this weekend, but we do have a trash the dress post wedding shoot on Sunday which I'm looking forward to a lot. Tomorrow, Saturday I'm attending a wedding as a guest which will be my first in years. I'm NOT bringing a camera.
I've noticed tonight that the latest update to Lightroom 3 now has direct exports to Facebook, Flickr and Smugmug built right in which is really cool! I used it tonight to upload the photo of the flower in this post. Another time saver which makes me very happy indeed! I have been really enjoying Lightroom 3, very stable, very fast and with all the new goodies it is hard to beat. I still get a couple of annoying bugs, like my photos going fuzzy on occasion unless I zoom in and zoom back out on them, but I'm so used to it now that I don't even think about it.
Still no news from Olympus on the E5. No surprise to me, but I'm curious nonetheless. It is like watching a slow motion train wreck. Too bad, I continue to use my E3 almost exclusively for outdoor wedding ceremonies and my 5D almost exclusively for everything else.
I honestly can't recall if I mentioned it, but Adam and I are about to sign a lease on our first away from home studio space. It needs some renovations, but is a great space that has very high exposure for our brand on a busy street. I'm pretty excited about it. We plan on renovating in October and opening in November. I'll be sure to post up some before and after video or photos as we go.
Speaking of video, I recently saw some from the new Sony NEX camera. Wow, it was amazing in quality. I honestly felt it looked better than from any other 'still' camera I've seen yet, though it could have been a canned test that favoured Sony. I'm still germinating that distant itch to begin video usage myself. I just know I need for October to come and wedding season to slow down before I have the time in invest in a new learning curve.
Before I go I wanted to mention that I'm currently negotiating with an online store to do product reviews and possibly prize giveaways on the blog. I'm not sure how it will work out yet, but if it all comes together it will be great fun to give away some free stuff to the readers of the blog!
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