ROBIN WONG

I recently went through this strange phase of a photographer's journey, when nothing I shoot is good enough, and me being the judge of my own photographs. I remembered in the beginning (many years ago) when I started to venture deep into photography, each photograph was a new discovery and everything was a wonder. I could not wait to share my photographs because I want to share the joy and wonder with the world. It does not matter if anyone thought the photographs were mere snapshots, not that I would mind a few critical comments, but it was the act of putting my photographs out there that brought much excitement. It still does and I still get the kick out of flooding my blog with photographs I took on my regular shutter therapy sessions. The difference now, I felt they could be better, or I could do better. 

A part of me felt that is a natural process to doubt my own capabilities, after all as I went further, met more photographers, witnessed more and more amazing photography work by local and other photographers from many parts of the world, I always admit that I am a learning photographer and there is so much more for me to learn and be exposed to. Lately, this has been incredibly true and I guess the only next logical step forward, is to really reflect on my current photography activities and take a deep look at my photographs. Yes, I can do better. 

So here are some shots from my latest shutter therapy session, with thoughts on how they could have been better in at least a dozen or more ways. 

All images were taken with OM-D E-M1 and M.Zuiko 45mm F1.8 lens

Work and life have been busy lately, hence no shutter therapy for the past weekend. The consequence? I do not have photos to share here. Nonetheless, I spent some time digging up some shots of random stuff taken from all over the places from the past few weeks, and I decided to just put them together here. 

There is nothing more that I want for my weekend than a walk on the streets, doing my usual shutter therapy. I had a good one last weekend, joined in by a few good friends. 

I have decided to take less close up portrait shots and focus more on what I can shoot instead. I have flooded my blog posts with headshots and super near portraits. Somehow, this session I wanted to fall back a few steps and catch the wider view, or shoot people from a distance. That is the beauty of my shutter therapy, there is no fixed rules chaining you up on what you can or cannot do. 

Everything was taken with Panasonic GM1 and Olympus M.Zuiko lenses 25mm F1.8, 45mm F1.8 and 12-50mm F3.5-6.3. 

I was at KLCC yesterday, hoping to find Kirk Tuck's book "The Lisbon Portfolio" at Kinokuniya Bookstore (though in the online listing it was out of stock, I was hoping it was wrong, but it was indeed out of stock) that I randomly checked my Facebook timeline, and I saw that Ariff AB was going to perform at a festival happening at Dataran Underground. Time of the performance was scheduled at 4.15pm and what a bummer what I saw my watch, it was already almost 4.30pm! I rushed from KLCC to Dataran Merdeka via the LRT and arrived on location at about 4.45pm, and I went straight to the book festival, and noticed that the stage was rather empty. I sat around hoping that perhaps the show was delayed. Out of nowhere, Ariff actually appeared and guess what, he was performing alright, but on an entirely different stage (which was NOT underground, where I was). 

It was not all lost. He was performing again the following day, at the same time and location. I only had my Panasonic GM-1 with me and I did not bring any tripod (for video recording), and I was running out of battery from my prior shutter therapy session. So I returned again the next day, armed with OM-D E-M1 and ready to shoot Ariff's awesome performance!

Oh dear, I have disappeared without any blog udpates for almost 2 weeks! Since my last writing on the Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II, work has been excruciatingly busy leading up to the Chinese New Year holidays, thus the unintended silence. I did get a long weekend off and I finally had some time for myself, which I originally wanted to do a lens review for the newly launched M.Zuiko 14-150mm F4-5.6 Version II. Unfortunately prior arrangements disallowed me to have the lens during the holidays and I shall have to delay my review for that lens. Here I thought, with a few days off I might just do shutter therapy with revenge, to make up for lost times. Strangely, I opted for a slow paced, relaxing, do nothing and lots and lots of sleep kind of holiday. Yeap, it is true. Robin Wong chose sleep over the camera over the holidays. Maybe the world is ending after all. 

Well I did not entirely abandon the camera. I did bring it out wherever, and whenever I was out. I did spend some time catching up with friends, and along some random chances I snatched a frame or two. Mostly I had the E-M1 and the OM 55mm F1.2 lens. Oh how I adore that lens!

So here is a short compilation of the random shots I made throughout the past weeks. Perhaps, it is not too bad to slow down a little. 

Important Note:

1. I am an Olympus Malaysia employee. 

2. This is a user experience based review, based on my personal opinion which can be subjective.

3. All images were shot in RAW and converted directly to JPEG (High Quality) via Olympus Viewer 3, with exception of 40MP High Res Shot which were straight out of camera JPEG (Super Fine)

4. General camera settings, Noise Filter = OFF, Contrast/Saturation/sharpness = 0, White Balance = Auto (with an option maintain warm color = OFF), Gradation = Normal

5. Minimal post-processing applied to the images, with slight brightness/contrast balance tweak. All images were almost as good as straight out of camera, with minimal cropping for better presentation.

This blog entry serves as an extension to the Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II Review which I have posted last week here, hence if you have not read that blog post kindly do so before continuing with this extension. In this particular extension I am looking specifically into the items pertaining to the OM-D E-M5 Mark II:

1) 40MP High Resolution Shot - answers to many questions, with sample images as well as comparison with the native 16MP shot

2) Bundled Flash unit FL-LM3 - capable of bounce flash

3) Video Recording Sample in challenging lighting situation

4) High ISO Shooting - tortured the camera in difficult low light condition

Important Note:

1. I am an Olympus Malaysia employee. 

2. This is a user experience based review, based on my personal opinion which can be subjective.

3. All images were shot in RAW and converted directly to JPEG (High Quality) via Olympus Viewer 3, with exception of 40MP High Res Shot which were straight out of camera JPEG (Super Fine)

4. General camera settings, Noise Filter = OFF, Contrast/Saturation/sharpness = 0, White Balance = Auto (with an option maintain warm color = OFF), Gradation = Normal

5. Minimal post-processing applied to the images, with slight brightness/contrast balance tweak. All images were almost as good as straight out of camera, with minimal cropping for better presentation.

Almost three years ago, Olympus shook the photography world when they introduced their first OM-D camera, the E-M5 (2012), which gained favourably positive reception,  It was the gamechanger, the first Mirrorless Compact System Camera to be taken seriously by photography enthusiasts and even professional photographers alike, with the first E-M5 delivering blazing fast autofocus performance, world's first and still most amazing 5-Axis Image Stabilization system built into the camera, admirable image quality output rivalling even the best APS-C DSLRs at the same time, yet having all that in a super small and compact camera body, which is ruggedly built and weather sealed. E-M5 was the camera that ticked all the right checkboxes for what a photographer desired. It was no surprise that much hype has been built up to the coming of the successor model for the E-M5.

The new Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II is officially launched today.  

For the past few days, I have had the opportunity to bring the E-M5 Mark II out for a spin around Kuala Lumpur. I have taken tonnes of photographs, and this time, even video clips with the E-M5 Mark II, and I have compiled the images and videos into this blog entry, sharing my experience and feedback using the camera. If you are new to this blog, I adhere strongly to my photography gear review style which is user-experience approach and mostly non-technical.