ROBIN WONG

In the lazy weekend morning, life is bustling at the local wet markets. Early morning light is usually the best for available light photography and being at a place full of activities and friendly people just gets your finger clicking the shutter button away endlessly. How can you not enjoy shutter therapy when there is so much life to see, to touch and feel, and to shoot! Was it worth sacrificing that 2-3 hours worth of morning sleep to get out there and shoot? Certainly, for whatever sleep loss I shall compensate right after I got home from the shutter therapy session, with the satisfaction of memory card filled with good sights and memories I have encountered and experienced!

About a month ago I have reviewed the Olympus Stylus 1, the new flagship advanced compact camera. The day before the review was published, I released a teaser blog entry (click) that displayed 7 images taken from Olympus Stylus 1, and I asked my readers to guess what camera was used to take them. 90% of the people guessed it wrong, with answers wide ranging from E-M10 (then not released yet) to M.Zuiko 40-150mm F2.8 Pro lens, 25mm F1.8 lens and 75mm F1.8 lens. The consequence was unintended, as I posted the teaser to give myself some time to compose my blog entry which I did not manage to publish in time. Nonetheless, one very important point was shown from that teaser blog entry and the wide responses from the crowd: the Olympus Stylus 1 can produce excellent results. In this particular blog entry, I want to explore the relevance of an advanced compact camera such as Stylus 1, as well as its strengths and how to exploit them in order to optimize image output from the camera.  

Kindly take note that this is NOT a blog review of the Olympus Stylus 1, as I have already published my review here (click). Kindly treat this as an extension to that original review, and I will be posting a whole new set of images taken with the Olympus Stylus 1 here. I went to Pudu Market, Bukit Bintang Area and KLCC, spending the whole Saturday to gather these images. I call that, a shutter therapy with revenge. After all, it was fitting to counter all the traumas and dramas that happened after my comparison blog entry recently.

RELEVANCE OF AN ADVANCED COMPACT CAMERA

With all the availability of smaller and very capable cameras such as Micro Four Thirds system (Olympus and Panasonic), Sony NEX system, Fuji X-series and even Nikon 1 system, compact cameras are slowly and surely losing its ground, mainly because the small and lightweight advantage is not unique to compact cameras anymore. In fact, with the quality of camera smartphone catching up, certainly the spot of compact cameras are severely threatened. This leaves very little room for the slot of compact camera category, and I strongly believe it still has its place but only for the compact cameras offering very unique features and shooting capabilities that smartphone cameras cannot do, and bridging the gap to higher level cameras. 

The answer to the relevance comes in the form of new generation advanced compact cameras such as Sony RX100 (mk2), Panasonic LX-7 and of course, Olympus Stylus 1. All these cameras (in varying degrees) offer capabilities that are superior to ordinary compact point and shoot cameras. In the case of Stylus 1, the long zoom (10x zoom, 28-300mm lens) with constant bright aperture of F2.8 throughout the full zoom range, capable low light shooting, fast focusing, high quality Electronic Viewfinder (similar to OM-D E-M5) yet having a very small and light package, I still think that Olympus Stylus 1 is a good choice for many photographers looking for a second camera, or an advanced everyday camera (travel would be perfect). Sure at its price point, you can get a DSLR or a mirrorless ILC camera, but I shall point out one very crucial point: lens versatility. With a basic DSLR or Mirrorless ILC camera, the kit lens usually is only 3x zoom with varying slow aperture (F3.5-5.6) and has rather limited close up shooting ability. The Stylus 1, on the other hand offers 10x zoom all the way to 300mm, and has very decent macro shooting. The lens is sharp from wide all the way to the farthest tele-end, maintaining wide F2.8 aperture, which is no small feat. 

Yes, we know that cameras with larger sensors will have definite advantage and lets not get into that argument. I wanted to talk about the things we can do with Stylus 1, and how that camera can help get images that other ordinary compact cameras may not be able to do (certainly the smartphone cameras cannot for now) and may even render results similar to larger sensor camera systems in some ways. 

All images were taken with Olympus Stylus 1, and post-processed. 

I thank you all beautiful people for showing up and taking some time to respond to my previous blog entry (here). I appreciate the show of support and the kind words. Photography is about shooting and sharing images, and I will continue to do so regularly on my blog. I have enjoyed doing so for so long and I will continue doing so here, you will see. 

I was away to Penang for almost one week for business trip, and while I was there, I only had very little time to go out and shoot on my own. With whatever little time I had, I used the Olympus OM-D E-M10 and M.Zuiko 25mm F1.8 lens to shoot on the street, and gathered a small collection of photographs to be shown here. After all the dramas happening recently, I decided to just shoot the way I wanted to shoot, processed the images the way I wanted to process them, and just share the photos here as my usual shutter therapy sessions. I enjoy shooting on the street, I love the 50mm perspective, I have come to love the new OM-D E-M10 and the M.Zuiko 25mm F1.8 lens, and I really fell in love with Penang streets. I think Penang is a street photography heaven. I only wish I had spent more time there and explored further. It was such a joy to just shoot and not think about anything else for a while. 

Rest assured my review blog entries are still on the way. I needed this tiny break. I needed to just shoot for myself, not for reviews. I hope you guys enjoy the photos, as much as I did shooting them. 

There is a strong reason why I have always chosen not to do any comparison (except within Olympus' own products) in my blog reviews. It is just impossible to answer every single question from everyone. 

If you have been following my review work for a while now, you will understand that my methods of reviewing a new gear may be unconventional and less technical, but more practical and closer to real life usage of the gear. Cameras and lenses can do only one thing, to take photographs. Therefore my review style has always been consistent, using the new camera or lens to take as many meaningful photographs within the short period of time I was given as I can. Based on the outcome of the photographs I have gathered and the experience while using the gear, I compose my review. Consequently my review was not meant to be an all-in-one definitive guide, but merely a crude indication of what you can do with the camera and lens (not what the camera and lens can do for you). 

I do not do technical tests (charts, graphs, numbers), I do not shoot in very controlled laboratory environment, because there are other reviewers doing so, and there is no way I can do better than the big boys like DXOmark and DPReview. Why should I do what I know will be done and within my limited resources and capability I might not even be able to reproduce results with similar accuracy? Let's leave the numbers, graphs and charts to those who really know what they are doing. While those big boys are focusing on getting as technically accurate data as they can with controlled tests, I on the other hand provide you with different perspective of the gear, how it does out there in the open, in the hands of a photographer-enthusiast. 

I had access to studio equipment last weekend, hence I thought why not do something completely different, something I have not done before for my blog reviews. Friend Carmen was generous enough to "volunteer" (more appropriately, becoming my victim of this experiment) as the model of the day. Kudos to being such a sport, Carmen!