Oh wow, look at that, it is still in January and there is a fourth blog entry already! How is that? Not sure how long I can maintain this momentum, but I will continue to write here and share photos whenever I can. Last weekend, I was hanging out with my friends Sim and Van and we decided to do an impromptu portrait shooting session of each other. Nothing fancy, more like you shoot me and I shoot you. No objectives really, I guess I wanted to worked the itchy fingers for some shutter action and my friends become my willing victims. If you are around me you can't escape my shutter clicks.
Van made a behind the scenes video documenting this whole session in progress, you can see me and my friends in action shooting, check out his vlog here (click).
Both Sim and Van were armed with Olympus gear, OM-D cameras and some PRO lenses. They were 12-40mm PRO, 40-150mm PRO and even 25mm F1.2 PRO. As for myself? I got lazy. I decided to bring the dinosaur Canon 5D classic, with the super cheap plastic fantastic 50mm F1.8 II. Nothing fancy, I just decided to leave my Olympus gear behind because I have been using them the entire week for shoots, making videos for my main YouTube channel, and when weekend comes, I have a change of appetite and wanted to use something else, something different. So the Canon it was. This shoot was not a paid job, I do not earn anything, so I don't have to bring my best gear. Simplicity works best here.
Of course, after we all shared our shots, it was evident that the OM-D shots were superior to the much older Canon 5D full frame, though this was definitely not a fair comparison. The 5D lacked dynamic range, the sharpness was not great (this was the biggest difference), the 50mm lens rendering was quite bad, with harsh bokeh and all assortment of lens technical flaws like severe flare, ghosting and chromatic aberration (which I actively corrected in post). The Olympus shines and I thought the gap would not be this huge, but I guess I should know better, else why do I use Olympus as my workhorse? Not that I wasn't happy with the Canon 5D, with all the flaws and imperfections, I still enjoyed using it. Sometimes, photography isn't about technical perfection. I am not talking about shooting professionally or in a commercial environment, I am using the camera as a tool for fun, to grab some quick snapshots of my friends, and photography was not even the main agenda here - spending time and catching up, that's more important to me than ultimate image quality.
Did I wish I had my Olympus gear instead? Surprisingly, not really. I acknowledge the superiority of the E-M1 series cameras and PRO lenses (again not fair to compare to the older 5D) but I like the idea of using much older, almost forgotten, cheap gear. Old cameras are wonderful cameras, if they worked well 10, 20 years ago, it can work well today. They cost so little today being obsolete, and sometimes, being able to use something different is a joy in itself.
So here are the shots, taken outdoor, with available light, all shot on Canon 5D with 50mm F1.8 II, with minimal post-processing.
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| Image by Van Ligutom, used with permission |
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| Image by Van Ligutom, used with permission |
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| Image by Van Ligutom, used with permission |
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In some photos you show here it couldn't be more obvious that the photographer is key in photography, not the gear we carry around: composition, lighting, story telling. The photographs I like the most here are No. 13 (the concrete framing), 19, 21 and 23.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing with us!
Thanks, you are being too kind. These are fun shots, nothing too serious. I won't qualify them for any professional use.
DeleteYes, I was also going to say that #13 is fantastic!
DeleteI have an old Pentax KS1 and I love shopping it because of the excellent optical viewfinder. However, besides the lenses being not so great, I think that the mirror vibrations may be very damaging for your pictures. It seems to me that Digital Is much more sensitive to vibrations than film.
ReplyDeleteHonestly I've never had any issues with shutter shock using Olympus all these years. However, there is an "anti-shock" 0 sec feature which gets rid of shutter shock completely. So it should not be a problem.
DeleteDidn't notice shutter shock on Olympus OM-D and PEN or Pentax cameras nor mirror flap induced blur on Pentax K-5II(s) or K-3II as well. I think Canon with their experience in building professional grade DSLRs (don't know the Canon lineup, but Mr. Wong bought it recently, iirc - so I assume that the 5D is an older pro grade camera) already knew how to cope with mirror flap...
DeleteBesides that I notice a remarkable amount of people taking photographs with Pentax AND Olympus/OM System gear. :D
Regards from Nottuln, Germany.
I still own that Canon combination (5D & 50mm f1.8). Note that the 50mm F1.8 II cost about $75, and has horrible bokeh when shot wide open focusing close in. Wide open the lens has relatively low contrast and sharpness declines off of center. At f2.8 the lens is very sharp across the frame. It is not surprising that the Pro Olympus 25mm is a much better lens at 17x the cost. To be fair, my Oly 25mm F1.8 is a much better lens than the Canon at only 5x the cost. Apparently the STM version of the lens significantly improved its OOF rendering and focus speed. The EM-5 (first version) has better DR and high ISO performance than the 5D, though, files shot at ISO 400 or less are still quite lovely.
ReplyDelete