Nikon D300 arrives

My 'new' Nikon D300 arrived last week and I had a chance this week to try it out. It was a mixed bag to be honest. Some good, some not so good, and some horrendous! Let me explain...

Coast Road King Tide. Nikon D300 with Nikkor 18-70mm f3.5-4.5. f8 @ 1/640th - ISO 200.

First, the good. I really do love the weight, the feel, the ergonomics - and even the shutter sound - of a Nikon D300. It's an amazing tool, and a real photographer's camera. It took me a couple of days to set up - creating four different custom settings for all types of photography I might find myself shooting. Generally I will have it on Group A: Landscape/Travel. But I've also set up groups for Sports, Portraits/Wedding and finally Point & Shoot. The Point & Shoot setting is really only for times when I might hand the camera to somebody else to take a photo, since all the other groups are set up for back button focusing - removing the focus control away from the shutter button. Point & Shoot is, instead, a fairly standard configuration.

I had to travel to Westport for work soon after the D300 arrived, and decided to take it with me for a couple of shots on the way up and way back, just to give it a quick test. I'm so glad I did.

Only 10 minutes down the road, I stopped to take a photo along the coast because the tide was high (it was a king tide) and the light was wonderful.

Coast Road King Tide 2. Nikon D300 with Nikkor 18-70mm f3.5-4.5. f8 @ 1/400th - ISO 200

I jumped out of the car, attached the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 that had also arrived for the camera, and set myself up to take my first image with the D300. Pushed the AF-On button on the back to engage focus and; whirr-click-whirr-click-whirr-click - the Tokina went ballistic! Confused, I focused about one-third into the frame, and the lens locked on focus. I then recomposed and focused on the hills at infinity - and the lens went ballistic again! Bugger! No matter what I did, when I tried to focus on infinity, the lens shuddered, clicked and whirred uncontrollably. Not the way I had hoped my first shot with a new camera system would go!

Was it the camera, or was it the lens? I turned the camera off, then on again - still no joy. I took the lens off and then back on again. Still no luck focusing at infinity. So I took the lens off, replaced it with the Nikkor 18-70mm, and crossed my fingers. Prefect focus at infinity. No clicks or whirrs - just beautiful silent focus. Damn. The Tokina 11-16mm has a focusing problem.

Coastal Sea Spray. Nikon D300 with Nikkor 18-70mm f3.5-4.5. f8 @ 1/400th - ISO 200

For the rest of the day, I stuck to the Nikkor 18-70mm f3.5-4.5, which is no bad thing. It's a truly cracking lens. I have no idea why Nikon stopped making it. I guess they have a plethora of 18 to 120 or 140ish focal length lenses that kind of make the 18-70 somewhat redundant. But for me, the 18-70mm is almost the ideal walk-around lens that will stay on my D300 90% of the time. As already stated it has near silent and super quick focusing. It also has a fairly solid construction (with a metal lens barrel), and a reasonably fast aperture (1 stop faster than the other Nikkor consumer grade zooms). The 28 to 105mm equivalent focal range is a classic range - bigger than the 28-80mm range, but not as excessive as the 28-200mm super zooms that create a few more image quality compromises.

No, it's not all perfect - there's some vignetting wide open at the 18mm end, and barrel distortion as well. But nothing that can't be fixed either immediately in-camera, or later on in post. The images I get from this lens are gorgeous. Sharp even wide-open, but even sharper when stopped down a stop or two. For the price (around $120 - $150NZ) it's an absolute no-brainer of a walk-around/travel lens.

Great Coast Road View. Nikon D300 with Nikkor 18-70mm f3.5-4.5. f8 @ 1/160th - ISO 200

But I purchased the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 as my 'main' landscape lens, so I was a bit bummed that I couldn't use it. Further investigation as to the cause of the focusing issue is required, and I will follow up in another post and let you know how I get on.

I also noticed another 'quirk' with the D300 - battery indication. It seems to be having an issue with showing a full charge of the Nikon batteries (and they are Nikon original batteries, not cheap Chinese knock-offs). I know the batteries have a full charge (I've charged them myself), and that they should last upwards of 1000 shots. But I can take a few images with the indicator at full charge, then turn the camera off, only to have the level read '0%' when you turn the camera on again 5 minutes later! Taking the battery out of the camera and popping it back in resets the level to 100% again and your good to go. But I'm never sure whether it's going to show me full power, or no power, whenever I turn the camera back on. Annoying....

I've Googled the issue and it seems that updating the firmware to the latest (1.11) can sometimes fix the problem. Also, cleaning contacts for the camera and battery is a good idea. I've done both last night, so I'll see how that works going forward.

Coast Road View 2. Nikon D300 with Nikkor 18-70mm f3.5-4.5. f8 @ 1/100th - ISO 200

The camera arrived in good condition cosmetically, except for one small thing - the rubber around the hand grip was coming away at the side (by the CF card door). This is also a common issue. Both D200's I've had have suffered from the grip coming loose - around the thumb area at the back of the camera. On the D300 I could pull the hand grip rubber back quite a way to expose the bare plastic underneath. Not ideal, and something that will drive me crazy. So I decided that was my first 'fix'. Initially I tried some double sided tape to see if that would hold it down enough? No joy there. So, in the end, I resorted to a couple of dabs of industrial strength super glue (being careful not to use too much) and it worked a treat. Don't think the rubber grip is going anywhere in a hurry, and it now feels very secure and comfortable in the hand. Job done!

Coastal views. Nikon D300 with Nikkor 18-70mm f3.5-4.5. f8 @ 1/100th - ISO 200

So yes, It's a mixed bag really. A few cosmetic issues that are being dealt with (if a battery issue could be called cosmetic), a major lens disaster that I'm following up on presently, and a few images in the bag that I'm happy with.

I didn't expect it to be perfect (hoped, but didn't expect), since it is an 11 year old camera. But then again, it has only done 30,000 clicks, so it's got plenty of life left. The peeling rubber was an easy fix. And I'm hoping that the battery issues also turn out to be sorted with a contact clean and firmware update? Time will tell on that score.

The Tokina lens focusing issue... well, that's going to take a little more sorting out I'm afraid. It may even get to the lens dismantling stage? But that's another post for another time...

Nikon D300 wins - this time...

Every year around winter time, I sit back and take stock of my photography gear. Literally. I do a kind of a stock-take, making a list of what I have, and what I use (or more importantly - don't use). I do this for a couple of reasons. First, I'm a bit of a gear horde and love to collect all sorts of cameras and systems I discover throughout the year. And second, I have a very small office space in which to keep all this gear. So an annual stock-take (and clear out) is part of my photography routine.

I decided this time around that I was going to sell off some of my film gear I wasn't using. Especially the 35mm stuff. When I shoot film (and I regularly do), I prefer to shoot my medium format Bronica over 35mm. So a lot of 35mm film equipment was sitting around not being used. Decision number one; sell some 35mm film gear.

Having done that, I then began to ponder over the digital gear I'm currently using (which I also seem to do every year). I don't shoot professionally any more, apart form the occasional wedding for friends. So my gear 'needs' (not wants) have changed over the years. In the last two posts, I've written about the Olympus Pen EP3, and how I still prefer to use a dedicated camera system for photos. But I also suggested that this was a very close thing, and that my iPhone could very easily replace the Pen in the near future. Especially if I can get some money together to upgrade to an iPhone 6s Plus or maybe even iPhone 7.

Anyone who has ever followed any of my ramblings on this blog will also know that I'm not wedded to any particular system. Quite the opposite. As a photography educator, I actually like the fact that I use almost all the systems. So that when I have someone turn up on a workshop with a specific issue, I can usually help them navigate menus and buttons particular to their camera. It does, however, mean that I'm changing systems a lot.

So with some money from the sale of film bodies, I began to ponder over my current Canon digital gear. I love the ergonomics and handling of my Canon 50D, and the Sigma 17-50mm f2.8 is a stellar lens, especially for the price. I have even been buying up a few little bits and pieces over the last few months to add to the kit (some spare batteries and an intervalometer). But I have always been a little unsure about the 15MP sensor that Canon used in the 50D.

Canon released the 50D towards the end of 2008, when the megapixel wars were in full swing. Many of the camera lines were being 'updated' simply with a slightly higher resolution sensor, and companies pushed the limits of the technology so they could be the first to release cameras with more megapixels. With the 15.1MP sensor in the 50D, I think Canon pushed it too far too soon. It's known as a fairly 'noisy' sensor, exhibiting some noise even at ISO 100.

Of course noise is somewhat subjective. Photographer's tolerance levels to noise in an image will vary widely. I actually have a fairly large tolerance for noise in an image. I still shoot film after all. But I do think that Canon pushed the 15.1MP sensor out before it was ready. I may be wrong, but I think the 50D and 500D are the only cameras that use the 15.1MP sensor? That probably says a lot right there!?

So if the Canon 50D isn't for me, then what is? What do I need as a predominantly landscape-based photographer (with the occassional wedding thrown in)? A quick google search for 'best' landscape cameras all came back with the same specification - full frame. This is born out by most of the Youtube landscape photographers I follow. The common theme is either a Canon 5D Mk4 or Nikon D850 (or Sony A7III). All full-frame cameras. And all horrendously expensive! Not only in terms of bodies, but also lenses. That Canon 'L' glass might be nice, but it sure ain't cheap! So that would be a 'no' for going full frame then - right?

Hang on - don't dismiss full frame so quickly just because of price. Full frame has been around for quite a while now, and maybe the bargain of the decade is the Canon 5D Mk1 - the original full frame classic. OK, it's only 12.8 megapixels, as opposed to the 5D Mk4's eye-watering 30.4 megapixels. But I've argued dozens of times on this blog that 12 megapixels is the 'sweet spot' for sensor size IMHO. And the 5D's 12MP's are on a full-frame sensor! So for someone like me, who hardly ever crops their images, 12MP is seriously more than enough. Seriously.

The other good news with the 5D Mk1 is that enough time has passed since its introduction (2005) that it is now an absolute bargain on the secondhand market for a full frame camera. Bodies in good condition can be had for around $450NZ and sometimes even cheaper. That's a fairly achievable entry point for full frame camera goodness! So I started looking around for a 5D body, and even put in a couple of bids on Trademe (NZ's answer to eBay).

Never one to shy away from a complete system change (as mentioned earlier), at the same time as I was looking at Canon 5D bodies on the used market, I also looked in to other options at roughly the same price. The Fuji system has always interested me, so I looked at a couple of XT-1's. Sony has also intrigued with the A7's, but unfortunately even the A7 original goes for more than I was willing to pay. And that's when I saw it. A low-ball auction price for a used, but not abused, Nikon D300.

Me and the Nikon D300 / Canon 5D association go way back. We have history together. Unresolved history.

Long story short, back in 2010 I was using a Nikon D300 system after my Canon 5D (that I was still paying off but was out of warranty) died on me. The information in the viewfinder stopped working and was going to require an electrical circuit board replacement. Wedding season was fast approaching - I had a few weddings already booked - and I needed a new camera. I started my digital journey with the Nikon D70 and had even shot my first wedding season with it. So when I needed a new camera to replace my 5D I decided to try Nikon again, with the D300. I loved that camera, but eventually did manage to get the Canon 5D fixed, so I had a tough decision to make (which I wrote about here).

Long story short (again), I went with the Canon 5D. But it was a decision I rather regretted. Fast-forward eight years, and it looks like it's a decision I can reverse this time around. Having initially convinced myself that I 'needed' a Canon 5D full frame for landscape photography, it was the D300 that was calling the loudest. And that price! It was almost insanely low. So I ended up bidding on the D300, thinking it would go much higher than my bid. But it didn't. I won it for $176.00NZ - body only - with just shy of 30,000 shutter actuations (the D300's shutter is rated for 150,000)! That's just crazy talk!

The D300 is a joy to use, and hits my 12 megapixel sweet spot perfectly (at 12.3MP). No, it's not full frame, but I'm not anti APS-C sensors. In fact, I prefer the 1.5x crop of the Nikon sensors over the 1.6x of the Canon. It's just that teeny bit wider. ISO range is comparable to the 5D, as is noise even though it's a smaller sensor.

Of course it hasn't arrived yet, so I'll have to reserve judgment on overall condition til then. But it has only had one owner in its 11 years, so on average he's only taken around 2700 images per year with the camera. That's not heavy use in anyone's language.

Since it was sold body-only, and since it was such a bargain (we'll see), I also had enough money from my film camera sales to buy a general, all-purpose lens. I went straight back to Trademe to find one of my favourite lenses of all time - the Nikkor AF-S DX 18-70mm f3.5-4.5 IF ED!

This is the lens that first came out with the D70. I guess you could call it a D70 'kit' lens? But this ain't no kit lens in the traditional run-of-the-mill 18-55mm kit lens cheapo plastic sense of the definition. This 18-70mm is a cut above. Both optically and in build quality. It has a metal mount, weather sealing, an excellent focal range (27-105mm equivalent), and is fairly 'fast' at f3.5-4.5. It has ED glass, silent and quick internal focusing, and excellent image quality (albeit with a little vignetting apparent wide open at the 18mm end). It ain't perfect, but I love this lens. I snapped one up as soon as I found a decent 'Buy Now' price ($150NZ with free shipping).

Now that I had decided to dive back into the Nikon system, it was full steam ahead with selling my Canon 50D gear. As I write this I have already sold a few items and have just a few more to go. This has facilitated my second (and third) lens purchase(s). Next on the list of 'must-haves' after the Nikkor 18-70mm was a fast prime - the Nikkor 50mm f1.8D. Nikon's version of the nifty fifty (although better built than Canon's version of this lens).

The 50mm prime is often the first lens purchase for someone looking to improve their images on a budget. The fast f1.8 aperture is ideal for low-light, and gives buttery-smooth background bokeh. A great cheap portrait option on APS-C cameras, since the 50mm focal length crops to a mid-telephoto 75mm f1.8 field of view. It may not get a lot of use, but since it's so small and light, it's no big deal to carry it with you on the off chance you may need a small, fast prime lens.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again - I'm not a big telephoto shooter. As a landscape photographer, wide-angle is more important to me (initially at least). So of course my third (and final) lens purchase (for a while at least) needed to be a wide angle landscape lens.

Enter the Tokina SD 11-16mm f2.8 IF DX AT-X Pro. On an APS-C camera like the D300 (which the lens was designed for) it equates to about a 16-24mm full-frame lens. Plenty wide enough. And fast for a wide angle with a constant f2.8 aperture. Looks to me like a perfect astro lens, and I can't wait!

I've been wanting to do some astro photography for a very long time, but have never had the right lens for it. I get the feeling that this has now changed! Tokina even advertises this lens on its website as an astro lens. Wide, fast and sharp! And that's according to the reviews I've read online. I'm a big fan of Tokina lenses on Nikon cameras. They are all very well built, with excellent image quality, and they often produce lenses that sit outside the 'normal' focal ranges of all the other brands. I think I recall reading somewhere that Tokina was started by two ex Nikon engineers who left Nikon because they weren't being allowed to design unusual focal length zooms. That's a story for another time maybe? A review of the 11-16mm f2.8 Tokina will definitely follow once I've had time to play with it.

So there you have it. My switch back - this time around - to the Nikon D300. It should be here any day now. I'll let you know what I think of the actual body once I have it in my hot little hands. Exciting!

Olympus Pen EP3 sensor struggles

In my last post I talked about why I would still choose a compact micro four thirds camera kit like the Olympus EP3 to take travel photos with - over just carrying around my iPhone. At the moment.

This is likely to change, probably in the not too distant future. I'm looking at 'upgrading' my current iPhone 6 to a 6sPlus, or maybe 7 - ostensibly for better video. But I'm sure the camera upgrade will also be nice to have as well.

For the time being though I prefer the ergonomics, extra control and far greater lens selection of the Olympus EP3, especially if I can get an evf accessory to go with it (anyone out there in internet land got one they would like to send my way?). The larger m4/3rds sensor is also nice to have and offers a slight IQ boost as well, although it does have its limits. I discovered what these are traveling home from our recent trip to Christchurch.

Olympus EP3 unedited RAW capture

For all of our trips over to Christchurch this winter we have been blessed with fantastic weather. And none more so than on our last trip back. Heading towards the West Coast at about an hour before sunset, the clouds and light over the mountain range was simply beautiful. I just had to stop and capture what I was seeing - with my Olympus EP3.

Fortunately, with just my wife and I traveling, we aren't really constrained by time (or bored kids), so I've been able to stop and take my time shooting the landscape. Having said that though, it is mid winter, and was absolutely freezing cold getting out of the car. After only about 5 minutes I couldn't feel my fingers anymore, it was quite windy in places, and I had only brought my flimsy travel tripod with me. All of which is to say that I didn't want to spend hours setting up shots and bracketing hundreds of exposures. I was working fairly quickly.

As you can see above with the unedited RAW capture of one image, the dynamic range in the scene was off the chart, requiring at least some bracketing to capture all the information. So bracket I did - mostly. But I'm also pretty sure that with some of the images I took, the histogram on the lcd screen of the EP3 was telling me that I had captured the information, without clipping the highlights or shadows? In fact, I'm pretty sure that's what it was telling me about the above RAW image (but I could be wrong)? If it was telling me that, then it lied. Because once I got the images into Lightroom, it became obvious fairly quickly that some of the highlight areas had blown completely. Still, there was something there, so I decided to work on the image anyway.

Springfield light. Olympus EP3 with Zuiko 14-42mm lens. f11 @ 1/250th, ISO 200

The final image, cropped to a pano format to hide the blown out clouds, is ok - but it required a lot of work to get it looking like that. Maybe that's not surprising, given the RAW file? But a lot of the work was in dealing with the noise from the smaller senor. Even with the initial poor exposure (my fault), there was more noise in the image than I was expecting using it's lowest ISO 200 setting.

Heading home. Olympus EP3 with Zuiko 14-42mm. f9 @ 1/250th, ISO 200

Even when the dynamic range wasn't too vast for the sensor to handle, working on the image in Lightroom was always about balancing how much noise was left in. I guess this should be no great surprise? The laws of physics will tell you that smaller sensors = more noise. It's just a fact. But I guess I'd been a bit spoiled with my previous micro four thirds cameras (the EM5 MkII and EM1), whose 16MP sensors I found quite remarkable. It's no surprise that the more 'consumer' oriented 12MP EP3 isn't in the same league - especially when the sensor is pushed to its limits.

Don't get me wrong, the image above isn't horrible. In fact I like it a lot. But I have had to do a lot of noise reduction work on it to get it to where I'm happy with it. Of course, in strong and evenly lit conditions (during most of the day) when the sensor isn't being pushed to its limits (see images from previous post) the noise at ISO 200 is negligible. Yet still probably more apparent than on my Canon 50D.

Waimakariri River Lookout. Olympus EP3 with Zuiko 14-42mm. f9 @ 1/25th sec. ISO 200. 3 exposure blend in Photoshop

Of all the images, I guess I'm most disappointed with this one. I don't think the final image does any justice to the scene I saw in front of me and tried to capture. And despite freezing my butt off getting it, I took my time with this image to make sure I had what I needed.

I bracketed exposures (2 stops either side) to make sure I had the dynamic range covered, and once again still found that the highlights had blown. Shadows struggle to hold any detail and quickly turn to mud, and contrast seems low - on all the images I took with the EP3. Even with good light during the day, the clarity and dehaze sliders are used immediately in Lightroom to bring some life back into the images. Maybe again this is good? Maybe RAW files are supposed to be flat? Well, maybe. But having done this for quite a while now, I feel that the images coming from the EP3 just need that much more? And it's very apparent that the images from the 12MP m4/3rds sensor don't handle vigorous post processing manipulation.

The Waimakariri River Lookout was processed using Photoshop's merge to HDR function - which gave a lot more control, and a better result, than Lightroom's version did. I can't say for definite that I would have got a better result had I used my 15MP APS-C Canon 50D, but I get the feeling that I would have. I used the 50D on a previous trip (post here) - in better lighting conditions to be fair - but I still like the 'look' of those images much more than I do the ones coming from the EP3.

Maybe all of this is just user-error? Maybe I really don't know what the hell I'm doing (very possible). I know a 'professional' doesn't blame their tools etc, etc.... But this is the first time in a very long time that I've been so disappointed with a set of images, and struggled so much to process them to my liking.

So maybe it is the sensor on the EP3 reaching (and in some cases exceeding) its limits? Maybe it wasn't made for high dynamic landscape work? Or maybe I'm just a little deflated since my 'vision' wasn't matched by the final result? Maybe I can't answer that question objectively at the moment? And maybe, just maybe, the next time I go away I might bring my 50D with me for those landscape shots taken in tricky light on the way home?

Brighton Rocks! (with apologies to Queen) - Olympus Pen EP3 at New Brighton

In a very recent post here, I described how my wife and I have been traveling over to Christchurch a lot recently. The trips continue, although it may be slowing up soon? I'm enjoying the long weekends, and I'm also enjoying the chance to use a different camera kit each time I go. Last trip, I decided to travel light and bring my Olympus Pen EP3 along for the ride.

Beach Walk. Pen EP3 with Zuiko 14-42mm II. f4 @1/500th - ISO 200

On the Monday morning, after my wife's appointment, we decided to head out to New Brighton. Neither of us had been there for many years, and while it was a bit chilly, we thought we'd go for a walk along the New Brighton Pier. When we arrived, I parked the car in a carpark along the beach and the shot above was the first thing I saw when I got out of the car. On some of the images, there was a man walking his dog up the path. But in the end I preferred the shot where I waited for him to crest the hill and move out of the frame. I think this works more on a visual level as the path now invites the viewer to walk along it, rather than already have a figure occupying the space?

New Brighton Pier. Olympus Pen EP3 with Zuiko 14-42mm. f5.6 @ 1/250th - ISO 200

The light wasn't anything special - it didn't even look this good (it's amazing what the Clarity and Dehaze sliders in Lightroom can do for a flat image). I really only took some 'record' shots as we wandered around mid-morning. But then again, that's what the little micro four thirds Pen EP3 excels at. It's a very compact, very lightweight, yet very capable travel camera - perfect to record those day trips wandering around a city being a tourist.

New Brighton Beach from the Pier. Pen EP3 with 14-42mm. f5.6 @ 1/250th - ISO 200

As we wandered along the pier there was some reasonably nice light looking out across the beach. I envisaged this photo in black & white as I was taking it. The scene was already very monochromatic, so converting to black and white (later in Photoshop) was always the intended result. Once again, I've made use of the clarity and dehaze sliders, as well as some slight burning and dodging to boost the contrast in the image. I don't think I've taken it too far - black and white images seem to be able to handle a little more vigorous processing - but it is easy to push things a bit too much. Especially with the smaller 12MP micro four thirds sensor. I prefer my b&w images to be slightly more contrasty than normal colour images. I was taught a long time ago, in my film days, to create a print with "black blacks and white whites", and that's what I always try to do with my monochrome images. Who said that paper-white and absolute black was a bad thing?

Brown speckled Seagull. Pen EP3 with Zuiko 40-150mm f4/5.6. f5 @ 1/400th - ISO 200

Not surprisingly, where there is a beach, and where there is a pier, and where there are people fishing, there will always be seagulls! And these were some of the biggest, noisiest and bolshiest seagulls I've ever come across. I think the seagull above is a juvenile - but it was the biggest damn seagull I've ever seen! The photo doesn't really do it justice since there's no comparison for scale, but it was 'big'. If it is a juvenile, then I hate to think what size it will get to as an adult!

The shot was taken with the small, lightweight, but exceptionally sharp 40-150mm f4/5.6 telezoom kit lens. It weighs practically nothing, but has an 80 to 300mm reach (in 35mm full frame terms). This is another reason why the small micro four thirds EP3 is an ideal travel companion.

New Brighton Grafitti. Pen EP3 with Zuiko 14-42mm. f5.6 @ 1/100th - ISO 200

It was getting a bit chilly on the pier (and we were both recovering from the flu), so we decided to head into the township and check out the New Brighton CBD. Unfortunately, it's not a pretty picture. New Brighton has struggled to attract visitors to its shopping area for a long time, despite having the beach and the pier right on their doorstep. I can remember going there over 20 years ago and thinking it was struggling to attract people. Twenty years, and several earthquakes later, and the prognosis is a lot worse. Lots of empty, dilapidated shop fronts and buildings are the norm, with only a sprinkling of outlets open for business. Very sad. There was, however, some very cool graffiti to photograph - so that's what I concentrated on.

The Best Things in Life... Olympus Pen EP3 with 14-42mm. f4.9 @ 1/60th - ISO 200

In terms of a micro four thirds camera, I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the EP3. I love its styling and retro looks, its compactness and light weight, and it's a fairly responsive wee camera. It's quick focusing (much better than the previous EP models), has 'enough' megapixels, and supports the vast range of super primes that both Olympus and Panasonic produce.

But I hate (and I mean hate-with-a-passion in the strongest sense of the word) the fact that it has no evf (electronic view finder) built into the camera. Yes, I get it - adding an evf would have made it more bulky, and ruined the slimline form factor they've got going on. Don't care. I would have lived with a little extra weight - and form factor be damned - I want functionality! And yes, I know you can get add-on evf's for it - and if I end up keeping the EP3 long-term then I think that's exactly what I'll do. I really do hate the 'hold-the-camera-out-at-arms-length-and-use-the-rear-lcd-screen" method of composing - and taking - an image. It's just so wrong on so many levels. I'm prepared to live with it on a cellphone, because it just is what it is. But this is a camera for crying out loud. Please don't make us buy an accessory just to get an evf! Ooops - too late...

"I yam wot I yam". Olympus EP3 with 9mm fisheye lenscap. f8 @ 1/125th - ISO 200

Ok, despite my pet peeve, it's still a fun camera to travel around with. I just think it would be even 'funner' with an evf! 😁

Plonk the 9mm Olympus fisheye bodycap on the front and you have a truly pocketable camera (albiet with a fixed f8 fisheye lens). I love the fisheye look - used sparingly. With a subject like the graffiti wall above it works perfectly. And it's pretty sharp too - especially centrally.

The camera with three lenses (from 9mm fisheye up to 300mm telephoto), spare battery and spare SD card, fits into a camera bag not much larger than most women's make-up cases. Carrying it around all day is truly a breeze. Why wouldn't you?

New Brighton Graffiti 2. Olympus EP3 with Zuiko 14-42mm. f5.6 @ 1/100th - ISO 200

Being a slightly older generation 12MP micro four thirds camera (it was released in 2011) means that the sensor does have its limits - as we'll see in my next post (oh you tease!). It gets noisy fast at higher ISO's and in lower light, it's 'only' 12MP on a smaller than APS-C sensor, and it doesn't have the high dynamic range capabilities of later micro four thirds or DSLR cameras with larger sensors.

Yet as can also be seen in all the images in this post, if you use it in half-way decent light, at the lower ISO's, then the results are sharp, punchy, colourful and impressive. Would I continue to carry this in preference to my iPhone for travel pictures? Yes, I would. Why - you ask? And it's a very good question.

Pier Side. Olympus EP3 with Zuiko 14-42mm lens. f5.6 @ 1/125th - ISO 200

Why? Because it's a far more versatile system for taking photos with. As already mentioned, I can go from fisheye to 300mm with the change of a lens. It also gives me more control over the final image and how I want it to look - especially with apertures. The micro four thirds sensor might be small, but it's still bigger than an iPhone's, and background blur is more achievable (look at the seagull image). IQ (image quality) is probably quite similar, although I'd still give the edge to the larger micro four thirds sensor in the EP3. And of course, until I get an evf accessory for the Olympus, both still force you to use the 'compose-with-the-lcd-screen' method.

So I would say that, on average, the dedicated camera system is still the way to go - for me at least. Still, two or three years ago I wouldn't have even considered the comparison. It would have been a 'no contest' win to the EP3. But times they are a changing. I am using my cellphone to take more travel images. And I can carry around a few tiny additional lenses to increase the capabilities of the iPhone's native lens. Maybe an EP3 vs iPhone 6 image quality comparison is in order? I feel a new blogpost coming on...

Long exposure iPhone images with Spectre

When I wus lad (he said, using his best cockney accent) there was a hair cream advert on TV that used the catch-phrase "I never thought I'd see the day..."

Fast forward forty years, and this phrase is playing over in my head as I sit to write this post.

I've written previously, probably many times in this very blog, about my dismissal of the iPhone (and mobile phones in general) as a 'serious' image capturing device. Nevermind that the weight of popular opinion would suggest otherwise. Flickr's 2017 data has the iPhone as the most used camera with 54% (over half) of the top 100 cameras used by photographers. Canon is next with 23%, and Nikon is 3rd with 18%.

Now granted, Flickr probably isn't the powerhouse photography app it used to be, and probably only a tiny fraction (if any) of those statistics relate to professional photographers. But still, it's a very impressive win for the iPhone in the 'every-day' photography category - which we all know makes up the bulk of today's plethora of image taking.

Does that mean, therefore, that my opinion of using an iPhone/mobile phone for photography has changed? Well yeah, it kinda does. And actually, it changed a couple of years ago when my daughter got her new iPhone 7Plus. The dual 12MP rear cameras (one 28mm wide and one 56mm telephoto) are capable of taking stunning photos. So much so, that the iPhone 7 was the 'camera' Emily used to create her Yr13 Photography portfolio.

I have an iPhone 6, with a 8MP rear facing single camera (about 30mm wide), so it's not as good (not surprisingly). In good light it's not terrible, but it's also no Canon 5D Mk4 (although neither is the iPhone 7 to be fair). Yet if we look at mobile phone companies like Huawei, who are partnering with Leica to produce a 40MP camera on their phones, then it's quite obvious that it's only going to get better and better. Will the camera phone seriously challenge the DSLR eventually? Probably.

Spectre iPhone app - an AI powered 'long exposure' app

Where am I going with all this? (Yes, for heaven's sake, get to the point man)! All that is to say that 'yes', I am using my iPhone more for taking photos (and certainly for capturing video). And a perfect case-in-point was just the other night when I went to my local camera club's monthly meeting. I was there to push (err, I mean discuss) my 'advanced' photography workshop running this weekend (as I write this). But it just so happened that this coincided with a hands-on practical session photographing dancers.

I didn't have my camera with me (big shot advanced photography teacher who doesn't bring a camera to a photography club gathering), but I did have my iPhone (of course). The lighting in the hall where the meeting was being held was tricky (some spotlighting, some dark shadows, some bright colours), so I decided to shoot long exposures on my iPhone using a recently acquired app - Spectre. Yeah, I know, sounds very cool - right? Very James Bond. And it is very cool - for an iPhone camera app.

Dancers. iPhone 6 with Spectre app. 3 second long exposure.

The app is actually designed to help you create long exposure shots of waterfalls and such so you can achieve that silky smooth smokey water effect or long light trail images. You can choose between 3, 5 and 9 second exposures, and can even get away with the 3 second exposures hand-held if there's enough light around. Pretty impressive in theory, but I'd never actually used it in practice.

At the Bar. iPhone 6 with Spectre app. 3 second long exposure

Because there definitely wasn't enough light around, I knew I was going to get a lot of blurring in the final images. So I chose a 3 second long exposure time and tried to use the blurring of the dancer's movements in my favour. Using the app was as simple as choosing the 3 seconds on the dial, pushing the shutter button, and watching while the image blur built up on the screen. Very cool.

If there was too much subject and camera movement, the final result was almost unrecognisable. But if I timed it so that there was a short period of static pose before movement, then the resulting image seemed to make more sense.

Twirling Dervishes. iPhone 6 with Spectre app. 3 second long exposure

I'm a huge fan of ICM (Intentional Camera Movement) photography, so this was right up my alley. I wasn't worrying about taking sharp, clear images - in fact just the opposite. If there was a lot of movement happening in front of me, then I just held the camera reasonably steady and captured the movement of the dancers. If the scene was more static, then I moved the phone itself to create the motion blur.

Ethereal Dancers. iPhone 6 with Spectre app. 3 second long exposure

I love this last image, especially converted to black and white. It has a beautifully spooky yet graceful quality to it. Could I have taken the same shot with my DLSR? Yes, of course I could. You might even argue that it would have been even better, since I would have had even more control over shutter speeds (you're limited to just the 3, 5 and 9 with Spectre). And yet, looking around the room at the other images taken that evening - all on DSLR's - there weren't any that looked quite like the ones I'd managed to capture on my iPhone using Spectre. There were some great images, don't get me wrong. But mostly they had gone for telephoto, close-cropped, sharp results. Everything I couldn't do on the iPhone 6, even if I'd wanted to.

Using Spectre on the iPhone was also just a whole heap of fun! Far too often we, as 'serious' photographers, disregard the fun factor. I know I do. The simplicity of whipping out your phone, clicking on an app, and creating beautiful images in seconds - with the minimal of fuss and gear - is also quite liberating and can't be stressed enough. It was actually being limited by the gear that I was using that forced me to think differently, and thereby craft images that I might not otherwise have considered taking.

So maybe it isn't the iPhone that's going to revolutionise photography or our images going forward? Maybe it's using the tools we have at our disposal and then thinking creatively, outside the box, to craft images that stand out from the crowd, no matter what we're using to create them with? Just a thought...

Traveling to Christchurch - Landscapes on the Road

My wife and I have been traveling to Christchurch regularly over the last two months (overnight trips every fortnight) for medical appointments, and have been enjoying playing 'tourist'. We both spent our 20s and early 30s living in Christchurch, so know it very well. But having lived on the West Coast for the last 18 years, we've been 'rediscovering' areas that we havn't been to in a good long while.

I don't 'do' selfies, but when in Rome (as they say), if you're going to play tourist you may as well act like them. So with iPhone in hand, we posed for a very rare selfie in the recently re-opened Christchurch Arts Centre (closed after the Christhchurch earthquakes). The front-facing camera on the iPhone 6 isn't the greatest camera in the world, but you get the idea, and it's only for posting on the web anyway. Fortunately, I've also been bringing my Canon 50D with me as well.

It's mid-winter here in New Zealand (as I write this), and on our last trip 'over the hill' (as we locals call it) - the Southern Alps were spectacular. Dusted with a layering of snow and lit by beautiful winter light.

Southern Alps towards Arthur's Pass. Canon 50D with Sigma 17-50mm f2.8. F8 @ 1/400th, ISO 200

This is a scene I have driven past many times and always wanted to stop and photograph. Often it hasn't been practical to do so (kids in the car, time constraints, horrible conditions), but on this trip the photography planets aligned and I had the time, conditions and obliging travel companion (thanks honey). What has always caught my eye in this scene are the braided rivers leading towards the mountains. Add with a dusting of snow, crisp light and blue skies, you have the right recipe for my kind of photo!

The Great Alpine Highway. Canon 50D with Sigma 17-50mm f2.8. F8 @ 1/320th, ISO 200. Cokin Polariser

Sometimes leading lines and perspective works in your favour. In the above image, the road, fence posts, icy puddles, car and power lines all lead your eye towards the hero of the image - those beautiful snow covered hills. This is a shot I've stopped and taken before, but never in quite these conditions. I find the clarity of the light quite intoxicating.

A light dusting. Canon 50D with Sigma 17-50mm

This is from the same spot, but an entirely different angle. In this image I was attracted to the clumps of snow in the grass that lead the eye up towards the hill and sky. Similar in effect to the image with the braided river and Southern Alps above.

I'm a bit of a fare-weather photographer if I'm being honest. I love blue skies with white clouds, crisp, clear days and deep greens and blues. Some photographers look for the dark, stormy and moody, preferring to go out when it's wet and wild. There was a popular catchphrase among Youtube photographers in the UK recently that said "Embrace the Grey". One photographer I follow even grumpily announces on his videos that he 'hates blue skies'. Not me. I love them.

Don't get me wrong, I like a bit of drama in some of my images - of course I do. But I prefer a clear day to a rainy one. In fact if it's wet and rainy (which it often is here on the West Coast), then I don't go out at all. And yes, that does mean that there are many weekends that I don't go out and shoot. So be it.

Mid-Winter at Castle Hill Sheep Station. Canon 50D with Sigma 17-50mm f2.8. F8 @ 1/100th, ISO 200. Cokin Polariser

Castle Hill is one of those well-photographed locations. Hundreds of people from all over the world visit it every day (probably thousands in Summer) - especially since it appeared in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies (minus the sheep).

This is about as picture perfect as it gets and I'm delighted to now have the shot. Picture perfect images, or 'chocolate box' photography as it is often derogatorily referred to, has gotten a bad rap for many years. Probably still does to be fair. For decades in the artworld, 'beauty' was a taboo word. "Embrace the beauty" I say. I'm lucky enough to live in a jaw-droppingly beautiful part of the world, and be damned if I'm not going to try my best to capture and honour that in my photography. Chocolate box be damned!

Gondola ride, Avon River. Canon 50D with Sigma 17-50mm f2.8

And it doesn't get more Chocolate boxy than a Gondola ride on the Avon River at the Christchurch Botanic Gardens! Maybe it's a bit late in the season for the complete chocolate box package - some more autumnal leaves on the trees would be nice. But I've got some autumn colours there, and the light is gorgeous.

My wife and I spent a lovely morning wandering around the gardens. Me snapping away at random gondola riders, and she patiently stopping every five minutes for me to take said snaps. She got her payback later in the morning when we discovered the Botanic Gardens gift shop which is a new addition we hadn't visited before. A pleasant hour was spent looking around the gift shop, oohing and ahhing at the wonderful products they have on display there. Many of the gifts are garden themed (a lot of William Morris products), but all were rather beautiful (there's that word again). Well worth a look if you are ever in Christchurch and visiting the Gardens.

Homeward Bound. Canon 50D with Sigma 17-50mm f2.8. F11 @ 1/250th, ISO 200

I've called the last image Homeward Bound for fairly obvious reasons really. This was taken on our trip home, the next day, with conditions almost as good as the previous days trip up. Almost, but not quite. I still like the image, and I'm glad I stopped to take it, but I don't think it will win any awards.

But then again, photography's not always about the awards, is it? At least it shouldn't be. More often than not it's more about capturing memories. Memories of a trip away with my wonderful wife, on a beautiful mid-winters weekend. Of picture-perfect scenery, gorgeous light, crisp air and blue skies. My kind of photography heaven.

Iboolo 8-in-1 Mobile Phone lens kit review

Since deciding to vlog more often with my iPhone 6, I've been considering the limitation of using just the wide(ish) lens. I don't want to use the digital zoom function on the camera - it just turns the footage to mush - so telephoto shooting is out. And the only way to get a 'wider' angle, especially when using the front-facing selfie camera, is to physically move the phone further away. This creates problems, not only in terms of using something like a selfie stick (perish the thought), but also for audio quality. The further away the camera is from the subject talking (i.e me), the harder it has to work, and the more the gain needs to be ramped up. Not ideal.

There are two solutions to this problem. First - get a new phone 😁 Something like the iPhone X with its dual camera setup - one wide angle and one telephoto - both image stabilised. Nice. Unfortunately, a new iPhone X isn't in my future (present or distant). I'd like to stay married. And at currently $1,500.00NZ it's more than I'm ever going to be able to justify spending on a phone. I am thinking of upgrading my iPhone 6 to a 6s Plus (hi honey) for better video quality (noteably 1080p for the front-facing camera). But that's also in the future. And it still won't fix the wide angle or telephoto shooting issues.

Enter solution number two; lens accessories for the iPhone. This is by far the cheaper, and probably easier solution to the problem of getting different focal lengths on any mobile phone - and it might just mean I stay married for a bit longer 😜 But are they any good? Great question... read on to find out how 'good' the cheaper lens accessory kits are.

First, we need a 'control' image for our little experiment - a shot taken with just the iPhone 6 main rear-facing 8MP camera - 'naked' (ooh-err) as it were - sans lens adapters. And here it is...

iPhone 6 8MP rear-facing main camera

Not bad - and gives a field of view (fov) roughly equivalent to 35mm on a full frame digital camera. Wide, but not excessively so. What if we want to go wider?

iPhone 6 with the Iboolo wide angle (0.63x) lens attachment

That's much better. We're now looking at a fov of roughly 28mm, which is certainly better wide-angle coverage, and should make vlogging much easier by including a little more 'breathing space' around the frame. What about image quality though? When you attach any extra glass over a lens you run the risk of softening the image and adding unwanted fringing.

Well, actually, it's not too bad. Centrally, it's about the same as the unadorned lens, and would certainly hold-up for video footage. It's the edges of the frame where things start to look a little soft and distorted, but not alarmingly so. I would happily use the lens for vlogging. Might keep my DSLR setup for my important landscape images though 😉 Can we go even wider still?

iPhone 6 with the Iboolo super wide angle (0.36x) lens attachment

Sure can, and it is certainly much wider. I'd say about 18 to 20mm in standard DSLR terms. However, going 'super' wide is pushing the limits of the lenses capability somewhat, especially at the edges.

Top right corner with the 'super' wide. Nothing but mush!

As can be seen opposite, the corners and edge of the frame basically turn to mush, and for print images are pretty much unuseable. Still, for video work it probably isn't a deal-breaker, as long as the main subject is kept fairly central in the frame. In fact the blurry and smudgy edges could be seen as 'artsy' and something that was done in post-production to produce a vintage lens type effect. Or am I making a silk purse out of a sows ear?

Just looking at the two wide-angle options, I think I would be more inclined to use the standard wide adapter on a daily basis, and keep the 'super' wide for those time when I simply have to go wider and damn the consequences. Also, it's worth noting that placing the lens attachment as centrally as possible over the phones lens is absolutely critical if you want to avoid edge distortion. I placed the clip onto the phone without any lenses attached first, so I could align the hole centrally. Then I screwed the attachment lens in place when I was happy that the holder was positioned perfectly.

iPhone 6 with Iboolo x2 Telephoto lens attachment

Ok, so that's the wide angle side of things. What about telephoto? The 8in1 kit I purchased has one telephoto lens in it - a x2 - which I guess means an equivalent 60 to 70mm reach in traditional film terms? As with the standard wide attachment, the telephoto holds up well centrally, but has a little edge distortion. Once again, probably a pass for video footage, but not stellar for actual photography. I compared this image with simply cropping tighter on the original file sans lens attachment, and the original file was actually crisper. Especially around the edges of the frame.

iPhone 6 with Iboolo Polariser lens

One of the lenses that I might end up using most often is the polariser. It made quite a difference to the colours when I attached the polariser and twirled it around, without compromising on the quality of the phones in-built lens. Everything is nice and sharp, but the image exhibits a bit more 'pop' than without the polariser. Not surprising really, since that's exactly what a polariser does! Unfortunately, you can't stack the lenses, so it's the polairser or the wide angle - it can't be both.

Attached to the standard wide angle (screwed in below it) is the Macro lens. The image opposite is the standard close-focusing you can get from the iPhone 6, which isn't bad, but it isn't great either.

Using the macro lens attachment (by unscrewing the standard wide angle lens that's on top of it) means you can get closer - a lot closer - for some rather impressive macro images. In fact, you can get so close, that I thought the front element of the lens was in danger of touching the plant I was photographing! When I first put the macro lens on the phone I thought it was broken - the image was all blurry, fuzzy, and out of focus.

iPhone 6 with Iboolo Macro attachment

Then I realised that I wasn't placing the lens close enough to the subject! Once I figured this out, and started placing the lens directly on top of the subject, the macro image jumped into focus. I love the image of the flower stamen above - an impressive, and clear result with some lovely background blur.

So that's five lenses down - three to go. The final three are what I would categorise as 'novelty' lenses. To be used sparingly (if at all). The first of these is the Fisheye lens.

iPhone 6 with Iboolo Fisheye lens

Fisheye lenses are fun, no doubt. But lets face it, they are also limited fun. Too much fisheye is like too much Wasabi paste. A little goes a long way. So although kinda fun, the fisheye accessory lens has limited use. But uses it does have. Unlike the next novelty lens which, having used once, I don't think I'll ever use again...

iPhone 6 with Iboolo Kaleidoscope lens attachment

That's just strange. Seriously. It's not even so bad as to be kinda good. It's just bad. So scratch the Kaleidoscope attachment off the list of useable attachment lenses.

And the last one is also really only a novelty attachment. It's a Starburst filter effect - again not something I think Ill ever use. Haven't even bothered trying it out yet to be honest.

So of the set of eight, I'm probably going to use two of them quite a bit (the wide and polariser), two occasionally (the super wide and macro), one every so often (the x2 telephoto), and three probably never (guess which three 😉).

Quality-wise, the wide and polariser are the best of the bunch, producing the cleanest and sharpest images. The super-wide is pushing it for quality, although it will still probably be ok for video footage, and the x2 telephoto is ok, but probably no better than digital cropping of the original file.

Was it worth the $30.00NZ I paid for the kit? Absolutely it was. They may not be the best quality attachment lenses ever made, but it's given me a taste of phone attachments, so I know what I'm looking for if I want to spend a little more for a better product later on. You can get some more impressive (read more expensive) wide angle attachments made specifically for the iPhone, and that might be where I'm headed in the future. But for the time being, the 8in1 lens kit from Iboolo will do the job nicely.