SLR Magic 26mm f/1.4 Toy Lens

Eric Flexyourhead lent me his most current acquisition, the SLR Magic 26mm f/1.4 Toy Lens. I want to thank Eric first before anything else because this post won't be existing if not for him lending me the toy. Also, I want to note that this is not a review of this lens. This is a blog of my experience using the lens and I have to say I had so much FUN! All images in this post link to flickr. Click any image and you'll be able to see EXIF data and a larger version if desired.

So what is it about the lens that made it fun to use. For me it was about the unique images you can produce from this toy lens, size & weight (it was very light) and ease of use. The lens reminded me of how enjoyable it is to make photos when your camera and lens combo is light and comfortable. I'm using it on an Olympus OM-D E-M5 and a quick google tells me that it only comes with a M4/3 adapter. I believe it is a cine lens or a CCTV lens with C Mount. The SLR Magic 26mm f/1.4 + OM-D E-M5 combo is swell!

Subject Isolation

There are five ways to isolate your subjects, by:

• Light
• Depth of Field
• Colour
• Texture
• Motion

You can combine all to increase visual impact. Subject isolation is important because it helps to direct your viewer's eyes to the portions of the frame to which you want them to pay attention. The better isolated your subject is, the stronger your composition becomes, and the less distracting any other potential unintended (or uncontrollable) elements in the frame are. Paying attention to subject isolation also makes you pay attention to the subject itself in the first place. You must know the subject of your photograph is, if not then you should really question why you are taking the shot in the first place.

Panasonic Leica DG Summilux 25mm F1.4 ASPH

This blog post is to show photographs made using the Pana-Leica DG Summilux 25mm F1.4 lens. This is NOT a review of this lens. I've used the lens for about a year now and it is my most used lens on my Olympus E-P1 and OM-D E-M5. My goal for this post is to provide real world examples of:

• How the lens produced bokeh
• How it performed in low light
• High ISO
• Long exposure
• Portraits
• Flare
• And some black and white conversions

All photos on this blog post link back to my flickr account where you can see the EXIF data. Enjoy!

Balance, Symmetry and Use of Empty or Negative Space

Assignment 3 is done and it is getting more interesting and tougher. Ming Thein has been true to what he said since the beginning. No sugar coated comments and he is a very tough (extra tough, I'd say) critique with very detailed descriptions of why your submissions are good or bad. All that is great because it is meant for learning and nothing is personal. So what about the assignment, it is mainly to make conscious use of negative/empty space while maintaining balance. 

Fit the Frame to Subject and Vice Versa

I just finished my last assignment and it was a great one. As the title says it’s about fitting the frame to subject and vice versa. It sounds quite easy specially when you take the meaning literally but it is not as simple as framing your subject. For this assignment cropping is allowed but only to a non-native aspect ratio. This means one of the dimensions must always remain the same as that of the camera. Cropping smaller is both lazy composition and will change the perspective properties of your lenses. The primary goal of the assignment is to learn how to use space and essentially how to create a balanced looking image. Does it still sound easy? For me it wasn't quite so until I realized what I needed to do and the realization came from two things:

1. Looking at many photographs online, mainly of my teacher/mentor, Ming Thein. Photographs on flickr and also portfolios of professional photographers.

2. Two comments made by Ming through our email discussions. They were "It is about how you use space period." and "Ultimately...images are just a collection of shapes."

Motivation and Inspiration to Photograph

What do you do when all of a sudden you find yourself NOT wanting to photograph? Maybe due to lack of motivation or inspiration. I think we all experience this stage and it's not just in photography, it happens in all walks of life. Here are a few suggestions that could perhaps bring back the motivation and inspiration to keep on shooting and wake up that creative side that we have in us.

Perspectives

Can you tell me the story of the photo above? The main subjects here are the people and their reflections but why are they so small. They seem to be secondary objects only to this vast open beach. The foreground is mainly empty and there's also a lot of sky. If you're curious I used the M. Zuiko 12mm f/2 here, wide at 24mm equivalent. I should have gotten close to my main subject (the people and reflections) with the 12mm or better yet I should have used a telephoto to compress my subjects and be more clear with my photographic story telling.

Not so long ago I was told there are two perspectives, wide and telephoto. There is also normal (somewhere in the middle of wide and tele) but depending on how you use your foreground and background a normal lens can render as either. Wides are all about the emphasis of foreground. Things placed closer to the camera will be emphasized over things further away. Like in the photo above, the sand in the foreground is emphasized because it is closest to the camera. The closer the subject and the wider the lens the more extreme this emphasis becomes. One of the tricks to using a wide is to get close, NOT to get everything in or to get more in. Telephotos on the other hand de-emphasize the relationship between foreground and background, they will look relatively about the same size. You use a telephoto to get a compressed effect, to separate your subject from background using focus planes rather than because you want to get closer. Understanding perspectives is one of the fundamental tools of photographic story telling. This is important because it lets you dictate to the viewer how important the subject is.

The OM-D's IBIS

Taken during blue minute :). I thought I should take advantage of the great weather in Vancouver before more rain comes.

If you click the photo it will go to my flickr account and you'll see 2 more photos both created using a Nikon D80. First one is SOOC and the second is processed using HDR techniques using 1 single raw file. I must point out 2 things:

1. The photos on my flickr account were created many summers ago while the one above is during fall time.

2. The one above is handheld at 0.4 seconds while the others were on a tripod.

I had to process this photo because it was underexposed for my taste. I must say that I really love the 5-Axis IS of the E-M5. There were about 2-3 more photographers at Science World when I was there, all of them were using tripods and DSLRs. You can argue I might have been able to produce better results with a tripod but I intentionally went there without a tripod. 2 reasons, first because I want to push the E-M5 and see what I can produce in situations like the above without using a tripod and purely handholding shots. And 2nd, I know during this time of the year the blue in the sky doesn't last very long. I have limited time and I had several POVs in mind and they weren't close to each other. And as you can see there was a cloud cover so the view of the sky is limited, and it was really quick to become dark, as in really dark. I know that with a tripod in hand I will be taking longer exposures and I know that it will most likely produce some cool cloud movement in the photos but I'm totally happy with the photo above and plus a few others that I will be posting in the near future, stay tuned :). I hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend!