I have not had much time to shoot for myself lately. Since my return to KL (after a hiatus of about a month away to Kuching), I have been busy with all the reviews of Olympus latest products, the M.Zuiko 300mm F4 IS PRO lens, and of course the beautiful, sexy PEN-F which was just launched about 2 weeks ago. I have spent most of my previous two weekends shooting for the reviews of the above-mentioned products and the remaining hours writing my blog review entries.
Thankfully, I am having a short holiday of Chinese New Year celebrations, which is a huge deal in Malaysia. I am not celebrating this year, and will be spending my holidays in Kuala Lumpur. That also means, plenty of opportunities for shutter therapy and catching up on my much needed rest. The first thing that I did in the weekends to kick start the holiday was to spend an entire day roaming around the city with a 35mm perspective. I brought along the Olympus PEN E-P5 and mounted a 17mm F2.8 Pancake lens on it. I was joined by Ananda Sim, who is based in Melbourne, Australia but is currently home in KL for Chinese New Year celebrations.
I have loaned Ananda the new PEN-F and he has put in a great deal of effort in penning his thoughts down. Do pay a visit to Ananda's write-up on PEN-F at his blog: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.
Oh how I have missed the Olympus PEN E-P5. I only brought my OM-D E-M10 Mark II home to Kuching during my one month disappearance from KL. Now that I am back, I find myself drawn to the E-P5 for street shooting!
This shot was taken with the 9mm F8 Body Cap Lens. I applied distortion correction in post-processing to get rid of the fisheye curvature.
All images from this point onward were taken with the M.Zuiko 17mm F2.8 Pancake lens on the PEN E-P5.
Morning view of the KL City Skyline. It is frustrating to think that the sky is this beautiful, and the air is this clean and clear when I am NOT doing a lens or camera review. Almost every single time I came here for review purposes, it was hazy, or cloudy, or worse, in a thunderstorm! If there was such a thing as a "photography god", I must have wronged or angered him in some ways.
Portrait of a stranger.
What Fuji skin tone? OLYMPUS SKIN TONE ALL THE WAY.
Obviously my fanboy-ism mode is still on.
In Between The Buses
An Ugly Mural/Painting
Playful
I think I have enough witnesses now, to see that acts actually came and played with me. Not the other way around. They love me. Believe it.
That Songkok looks a bit like Santa Hat.
Push
A door
Taking A Break
Probably my most vulgar photograph in this blog
And Amir caught me in action. I was waiting for the man in the previous photo to come into the frame. Camera was at stomach level.
Amir and Ananda. Both great photographers whom I am proud to be shooting alongside with. I am in the process of chasing Amir to speed up his blog setup process. Come on man, your beautiful photos deserve to be showcased in an awesome blog.
Remember my Street Photography FlowChart? end the day with an overpriced cup of coffee.
KLCC By Night.
I have missed shutter therapy sooooo much.
I am just glad that I finally had some time for myself, and I can just shoot for the fun of it!
And I would like to think I am getting better and better with the 35mm perspective game. Sure, there is plenty of room for improvement, but hey, I am moving at my own pace, and I am slowly getting there!
To all my beautiful readers who celebrate Chinese New Year, here is me wishing you and your family a prosperous and blessed Monkey Year ahead.
GONG XI FA CAI!!
It sounds like you love more the Ep5 than the pen f :) Great pictures Robin as always, well done.
ReplyDeleteI love the E-P5 because it is my own camera! Ownership does create certain bias. If I can afford a PEN-F, surely I would get one!
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ReplyDeleteWhether you are officially at home in Kuching with your mum or not, CNY is inevitable, in your heart and soul. We, your friends and companions celebrate with and for you. :-)
ReplyDeleteI also swear the cats refused to be bothered with me but that one played up all over the floor to you. Nice fresh shots too, I was within waving distance of you but didn't "see" all your shots
We all see different things when we are on the street, and that is the beauty of street shooting, there is something for everyone. You have got some good shots happening on PEN-F as well!
DeleteLooking forward to this weekend already.
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ReplyDeleteWow Robin, just goes to show what a good photographer can do (lots of people say this lens is the weakest M.Zuiko). I think your definitely growing into the focal length - "Playful", "Push" and "KLCC By Night" are nice examples of this.
ReplyDeleteI do feel more comfortable with the 17mm lens now, and compositions do come by more naturally. Thanks for the kind words!
DeleteI'm going though the same thing. Despite having heard this advice many times, it's sometimes still a conscious effort to remind myself that the wide perspective is great for getting closer, not just getting more in the frame.
Delete恭禧發財!
ReplyDeleteYou always compel! I especially love the graffiti in "An Ugly Mural/Painting".
I thought that was quite an ugly graffiti!
DeleteSomeone worked very hard on those and it's certainly more than some people who call themselves artists do. Plus, it looks better than mildew and cracking paint, which I see on many buildings.
DeleteRobin, I find it always very refreshing how you take two lenses which are considered being among the worst in the Olympus line-up and just make great pictures. A real relief from all those other blogs which consider only the 75mm 1.8 and the 40–150mm Pro just barely usable. (I'm probably exaggerating a bit, but I guess you understand what I mean.)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the kind words John. These two are amazing lenses! Do not let other people tell you otherwise.
DeleteThis lens looks darn good. It will be even more easy to use as m43 sensors improve in ISO.
ReplyDeleteThere really is nothing to improve in these shots in terms of technicalities, they were all shot in ISO200 at optimum aperture. Shooting them at ISO12,800 on an improved image sensor will not make them any better than they already are.
DeleteNot talking about these wonderful shots, mostly talking about low-light handheld situations when people would use the f1.8 version of this lens instead.
DeleteIn this post, there was nothing taken in low light. There was not even a mention of an F1.8 lens. Man, I honestly do not know what you are trying to say or do here.
DeleteLovely photos. As always, Robin, you get the best out of any lens. A lesson to all of us who make excuses for our photos by blaming our equipment. As it's said, it is a poor carpenter who blames his tools. :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the kind words. Our greatest weapon as photographers: vision!
DeleteHello Robin,
ReplyDeleteI never placed a reaction on your blog, as far as I remember. But I am always reading with interest about your experiences with Olympus equipment. Although I have tried several other brands in the course of time, I am still buying things Oly since the OM-1 :-)... I realise this Pen F is a street photography tool. However I have seen some reviews elsewhere that it does a bad job continuous autofocusing with longer telephoto lenses like the new 300mm. What are your thoughts on that ? Is it worse then other Oly cameras. Is that lens needing better firmware ?
I have not tried C-AF with the Olympus PEN-F. Maybe I should do the test soon since this is generating a lot of interest.
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