Decided

In the last post I talked briefly about the Canon 24L, 85L & 100L lenses.  I also mentioned that I didn’t end up choosing any of those for my next purchase.

Here’s the reason

What you see in that video is the new Canon TS-E 24mm f3.5L II.  That won’t mean a whole lot to most of you, so here’s a couple of points.

The good:
- Replaces the Canon TS-E 24mm f3.5L (notice the II at the end of the other name)
- Minimal chromatic aberration
- Close to no visible distortion
- Awesome build quality

The bad:

- 82mm filter diameter, means I now have to get ripped off by Hoya on filters
- Manual focus, but then again that’s with all tilt-shift lenses.
- EXPENSIVE

As far as sharpness goes, this lens is easily sharper than the 16-35L, 24L, and 17-40L, this site here shows the comparisons between the lenses.  Here’s the thing, it’s not a little bit sharper, its noticeably sharper than the other lenses.  The capabilities of this lens stretches beyond anything else on the market at the moment.  According the DP review, Nikon’s PC-E 24mm f3.5D comes close but not quite. 

So what can one do with a lens like this?

- Architecture photography: Buildings that are straight in real life will look straight in the photos.  



Imagine if the buildings on the left didn’t lean towards the centre
of the image. 




- Landscape photography: This lens gives you the ability to tilt the plane of focus you can have as much or as little of the field in focus. 
- Product photography: same principles as above
- Portraits/weddings: A whole lot more creative options open up with tilt shift
- The “toy village” effect

Click here for an example of this lens in action in architecture photography. 
And here for landscape, here for portraits (notice the background)

Here for the toy village effect
And of course, the image that put the nail on the coffin (could not have been done any other way)

As soon as I get my hands on this lens, I will definitely be trying out all of the above.  The main reason for deciding on this lens though is that it opens up so many windows of creative opportunities.  There are certain things that you can only do with a tilt-shift lens. 

There is probably a handful of people in Australia that owns this lens, many will have the original version, but the MkII is something else.  And plus, I figured if I was going to buy something, I’d go all out. 

In conclusion, the TS-E 24mm f3.5L II with my 5D MkII is a killer combination.  With this lens in my kit, there really isn’t a whole lot that I can’t do. 

I leave you with a collection of tilt-shift images by Tim Grimshaw.

Here’s what happens when a tilt-shift lens and stop animation decides to hook up and have a kid (don’t worry, it’s work safe and you MUST see it)

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Spending Season

Over the last 2 years or so, I’ve sold many cameras and lenses to all kinds of people.  People who have absolutely no idea what to look for, people who were trying to decide between a couple of cameras, and people who knew exactly what they wanted and all I had to do was swipe their Amex.  I made the process seem easy and straight forward, I would ask them a series of questions and “decide” the right camera for them.

When it was my turn to buy something, I had absolutely no way of deciding (at first).  Here’s the story, a wise man once said “if you work hard during Christmas, Canon says you need to buy some new lenses”.  Of course I agreed, what good is money if you don’t spend it?  Before long, I had it narrowed down to a few lenses to add to my kit.

 

Here’s what I already have:
- Canon 5D MkII
- EF 17-40mm f4L

- EF 24-105mm f4L IS USM
- EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS USM

- EF 50mm f1.4 USM
- Tamron 90mm f2.8 macro

I’ve got most of it covered, but as some of you may know, you can never have enough lenses. 


Here’s what I narrowed my choices down to:
- EF 24mm f1.4L USM II
- EF 85mm f1.2L USM II
- EF 100mm f2.8L IS USM macro

24mm f1.4L II: Beautiful lens, nice and wide on my full frame body, and a huge aperture for a lens of this focal length.  Not to mention the corner to corner sharpness and wonderful build quality and balance when fitted on the 5D MkII.  If I bought this lens, I would be pushing some serious low light wide angle shots without needing a flash and some wide angle shots with a LOT of bokeh. 

Cons - as with any other wide angle prime lens, its great when I use it … if I use it. 

85mm f1.2L II: 85mm works out to be the perfect portrait range for a full frame sensor.  The massive f1.2 max aperture is … incredible.  Not to mention it’s also incredibly sharp, but you would expect that from a lens that has a RRP of ~$3600 AUD. 

Cons – same as above, perhaps even less versatile than the 24mm 1.4L for what I need.  It’s also the kind of lens that screams “cock” and “I like to get ripped off by Canon” every time I take it out at a photo shoot. 

100mm f2.8L macro: The most versatile and the cheapest of the bunch (RRP ~1500 AUD).  Only came out a couple of months ago, building on the strong platform laid by the non IS version many years ago.  It’s sharper, focuses faster, much better built, and has IS.  All this for only an extra couple of hundred bucks in the price tag.  This much improved performance means I would be able to throw away the Tamron macro, and also use it for portraits.  In fact, it’s such a good lens I think it matches up really well with the highly acclaimed Nikkor 105mm micro. 

Cons – not much, apart from the fact that I would be replacing a lens rather than adding one to the kit.

So those are the 3 candidates, each with their own qualities and drawbacks.  No I don’t actually need a new lens, but where’s the fun in that?  At this point I should add that there were a few other lenses that were thrown in the discussion.

Honourable mention:
- EF 14mm f2.8 II
- EF 135mm f2L

- EF 180mm f3.5L

For most of you this discussion will be pretty useless, but for those who have most of the zoom lenses covered and are feeling a little rich … then this thought process could help.

NB: I actually didn’t end up deciding on ANY of these lenses, I’ll explain next time.

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My Top 10

It’s been a while, and in my absence I’ve managed to compile a list of things that really grinds my gears (so to speak).  Some of you thought I was slacking off, but in reality I’ve been busy saving the world … but that’s for another day.

10. Allen Iverson: After 10 years with the sixers, a fallout caused him to be traded to Denver, who subsequently traded him to Detroit where he was forced to start on the bench.  Like anybody else with an ego the size of Russia, the disgruntled all-star left for the Grizzlies (who were the only team that wanted him).  The Grizzlies soon found out that they were actually a better team with AI on the sidelines, which annoyed him even more causing him to retire.  Over the next couple of days, past and present players expressed their support of his decision, highlight reels were compiled, and a retirement ceremony was planned.  3 days later, guess what I saw on the headlines of NBA.com? “Iverson to sign with sixers”.   Here we go again …

In honour of AI, let us relive his finest moments

9. Khloe Kardashian: If you don’t know, she’s Kim Kardashian’s sis and the wife of Lamar Odom.  She walks around Staples Centre like she owns the place.  Soon we may even see her in the starting line up alongside Kobe and Pau.  Enough said.

8. Staff Parking at Castle Towers: On an annual basis, without warning, security guards magically appear at the car park entrances of Castle Towers shopping centre to tell employees to turn around and park in the outdoor parking across the street.  Which means after a long 8-10 hour shift of dealing with customers, I return to my car which has been transformed into a sweltering mess of a rust bucket by the Australian summer.  Christmas is truly the festive season. 

7. 9 AF points on the 5D MkII: Don’t get me wrong, I love my 5D MkII and I’m not regretting the purchase in ANY way ... but it could be better.  Minor quirks that canon will no doubt iron out for the MkIII over the next couple of years.  Speaking of camera gear, I’m struggling to decide on my next lens purchase (more on that later).

6. Facebook: No, I will not send her a message to reconnect with ___________

5. Flickr: Ever heard of Flickr Explore?  Well its a thing on their site that finds the most “interesting photos” and gives it more exposure.  Turns out they favour certain photographers.

4. You know the world is messed up when a man injects his wife with HIV

3. Christmas Island & Macquarie Island: Both amazing places and plenty of photo opportunities, but due to certain restrictions they’re not as accessible as I’d like.  Coconut crabs at Christmas Island should make for some amazing documentary style photos/videos.  Macquarie Island … well that might as well be a planet of its own, until you see it you would never know a place like that ever existed.

2. The crackdown on sport stars: Listen people, we pay them to play the game, not to be a role model.  I couldn’t care less if Tiger Woods was a cheating bastard or a saint.  Likewise if Kobe Bryant decided to have another affair, I wouldn’t think less of him.  Honest or not, they’re still the best in their respective sports, and plus, who are you to judge?

1. Following on from #2, a couple of days after suspicion of an affair hits the news, more women put their hands up about past relations with ________.  Yes, it happens, and it happens too often.  Just let the man play in peace.

 

And with that bombshell, I leave you to ponder on my thoughts over a glass of hot chocolate.
p.s. I haven’t forgotten that this is a photo blog, I promise there WILL be some of my recent photos in the next few posts :)

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Here comes spring

That’s right, it’s spring time … and there’s no other way for nature to tell us than with a sudden influx of insects.  So many in fact, that I don’t even have to travel further than my balcony to get a day’s worth of shots.


Camera: Canon EOS 5D MkII

Lens: Tamron 90mm macro

I’m not actually sure what this is, but it’s definitely a young one.  It wasn’t moving a whole lot either, in fact it only flew away when a bug half its size chased it away.


Again, I have absolutely no idea what this is (I’d make a terrible entomologist I know)

I definitely know what this one is though :).  This is a baby dragonfly, or whatever they call them these days.  As photographic subjects, dragonflies are probably the most beautiful insects.  They come in all sorts of colours, sizes, shapes even.  Unlike some other insects, dragonflies look amazing at all stages of development.  I;m assuming there is a nest (resting place) near my balcony so I’ll continue to monitor the area and hopefully catch them in future photos as they become fully grown.

It’s hard to appreciate these insects until you see them up close.  Maybe next time I’ll catch some HD videos too, Sir David Attenborough style.

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Full frame anyone?

Today is the day we officially welcome a new member to the family.  It’s probably time I change the name of this blog as well since my primary camera won’t be a 50D any more.


Ladies and gentlemen, the 5D MkII has been added to the collection =).  Full frame has been everything that I expected and more.  The colours seem richer, the images seem to have that extra wow factor, and to top it off … wide angle is actually wide angle.

Both shots were taken with 5D MkII & 24-105 f4L IS.  (NB: San Churro had some of the best chocolate I’ve ever had”.  The video capability of this camera is great, when used properly the results are amazing.  Most people will say that they don’t care for it, but those people don’t know what they’re missing out on.  Since I can take photos while I’m shooting a video, I can now take more cinematic/documentary style photos that I never would have picked up on with the old 50D. 

Did I mention the high ISO performance was AMAZING?  Here’s the settings for the above image, and you can decide for yourself.  1/15, f4, ISO 12800.  That’s right, 12800.  In case you it didn’t get through to you earlier, here it is again … 12800 .. that’s 1-2-8-0-0 or twelve-thou-sand-eight-hun-dred.  I didn’t even dare think about using that type of ISO on the 50D. 


As always, there’s plenty more to come, so stay tuned for more.

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The start of something new

Today could have gone in 2 directions, we have now headed into the 2nd direction …

Most of you will know, that after the unbelievable run at the end of the season where Parramatta won 10 of the last 11 to go from nowhere to the grand final has ended in disappointment (figuratively).  As players and fans openly wept in disappointment after perhaps the biggest game of rugby league to date, it’s hard not to be excited for the future. 


Ofcourse we all wanted the fairytale finish, and nobody wanted it more than the carryovers from the 2001 grand final defeat.  The final score isn’t too much different from that game in 2001, but this is different.  2001 left a taste of bitterness and frustration in an embarrassing defeat.  As a result, players left, coaches eventually found new teams, and the eels crashed back into mediocrity.  2009, same spotlight, still a defeat, but as the camera showed the myriad of young faces on the Parramatta squad, you can’t help but be excited for the next few seasons. 

 

The likes of Mortimer, Hayne, Moimoi, Inu, Grothe and Reddy flanked by seasoned vets such as Cayless, Hindmarsh, and Burt already sounds like a promising future.  Let’s not forget the return of much loved centre Timana Tahu, and the additions of Shane Shackleton and Justin Poore starting from next season.

I hope the young players remember this feeling and hold onto it until they win a grand final.  This feeling is what’s going to drive them to victory, it’ll make them work that much harder in training and in the off-season.  And Hindmarsh … well we all just want to see him win.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t do it today.  But we got a great young team, and we’ll give it a good crack next year” Nathan Cayless during the post game ceremony.  All Parra fans should be proud of this team and how far they’ve come, you’ve done us proud and we’ll definitely be there in support come opening game next season.

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Shades of 2001

“Once again our second half defence was absolutely outstanding” ~ Daniel Anderson

It was a game that had the feel of a Grand Final, loser gets sent packing, and winner takes all.  It wasn’t, but for

the players and the 74549 fans, there couldn’t have been a better game of footy.  Friday night was about Hayne, it was about El Masri, and it was about Sydney.  But throughout the course of the game, there was trouble for the stars. 

Patten taking an accidental knock to the head in the first play for the bulldogs.
Hayne on report for coming in with his knees when Goodwin scored the first try.

El Masri moving the fullback to accomodate the loss of Patten, and thus exposing the doggies right side defence to the brilliance of Inu and Burt.
Parra skipper Nathan Cayless limping down the tunnel with a hamstring injury

With all this going on, it’s easy to get sidetracked and lose your way in a game as important as this.  Fortunately for Parramatta, the supporting cast stepped up to keep the pressure on.  Eventually, after 70minutes of see-sawing scorelines, the tries came rolling in.


The win on Friday night was a credit to the underrated players of today’s game.  Starting with Ben Smith (left), was once a part of Parramatta’s backline.  After being sidelined with injury, is now in the 2nd row as a strong defender and reliable attacker.  Let’s not forget the awesome catch he made against the Titans to score a try.

Jeff Robson (middle), before last night, did you even know who he was?  Now you can refer to him as the “landscape gardener on minimum wage who got man of the match in possibly the biggest game Sydney has ever seen”  Sure he’s not the most exciting player, or even the most skilful.  But he brings solid defence, great organisational skills and a steady hand in possibly the most unpredictable team in the comp. 

Joel Reddy (right), always overshadowed by the great accomplishments of his father Rod Reddy.  When he’s not being compared to his dad, he’s being called mini-Hindmarsh (the resemblance is justified).  He is definitely the most underrated player in the team, he scores tries, saves tries, and even puts the Guru through a gap every now and then. 

We all love the stars of the game, but we can’t take these guys for granted.  The guys that throw “hand-grenades” before being held in a tackle, the guys that are always in support (ie the try by Daniel Mortimer), and the guys who spend half the match with their faces in the turf to keep the ball in possesion.  Grand Final is ours to win or lose, we’ve made history over the last 11 weeks, we just need to do it for another 80mins. 

At the end of the day, Jarryd Hayne’s Dally M medal, 7 game win streak, beating the Dragons, Titans and Bulldogs in succession … all this will have been for nothing if the Grand Final isn’t ours.  Nathan Hindmarsh knows what I’m on about “we’ve come from nowhere to being 8th and now in the grand final … but we haven’t won anything yet” ~ Hindy during the postgame conference.  Oh by the way, congratulations on 259 career games, tied in 1st with Ray Price. 

Maybe next Sunday can erase the bitter taste that I’ve had in my mouth since the 2001 grand finals. 

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The Impossible Dream

Not too long ago everybody wrote off the Parramatta Eels for this season. Inconsistent form, frustrating combinations, handling errors and a genuine lack of creativity from key playmakers turned what was supposed to be a promising season into a landslide.

Fast forward a month or two, the eels officially had no mathematical chance of making the finals. Nathan Hindmarsh once said on the footy show “we need to win 9 out of our next 8 to make the top 8”. The next night Parra played Melbourne in Hindy’s 250th career game for the eels, we won.

We also won the next 6 games, finishing off with a great game against the West Tigers. The city of Parramatta was buzzing, the papers couldn’t get enough of Jarryd Hayne, these 7 straight wins were a direct result of his brilliance. All of a sudden people were calling the Eels premiership contenders, they were talking about Hayne the way people talk about Kobe … “we know he’s going to get the ball, we can’t stop him, all we can do is try to limit his chances and make it harder for him”

The following week, Eels played the Dragons, who at the time were in a heated battle for 1st place alongside the Bulldogs. I remember saying “we’re going to beat the dragons, we’ve won 7 straight, they’ve lost 3 straight”. The scoreline … 37 – 0, Dragons win.

1st week of finals football, Parra played the Dragons (yes, again) 1st vs 8th, and after the 37-0 drubbing the previous week there were a lot of doubts over this game. In a remarkable display of hard-nosed defence and a bit of luck, Parra won the match by 15pts at Dragons home ground.

Parramatta fans flooded to Sydney Football Stadium the following friday to play the Gold Coast Titans in the quarter finals. The motto was to take it one game at a time, and the Titans were the 3rd seed with a great halfback-fullback combination in Scott Prince and Preston Campbell. But a spirited performance from the supporting cast such as Todd Lowry, Ben Smith and Jonathan Wright helped bring the Parramatta faithful to their feet.

Notable performances include:

- Nathan Hindmarsh (as always) : 49 tackles, 10 Hitups … and a fair few crucial tackles at that
- Jarryd Hayne (why is nobody surprised?) : 165 Run meters, 357 Kick meters, 17 Break tackles (17!)
- Fuifui Moimoi : Just because he’s FUUUUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

"The confidence comes from just playing in tough matches week after week,”

"Realising we are good enough to withstand pressure and counter-punch.

That is what the confidence comes from."

With that being said, I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself. But we are all witnesses, friday made the history books, Eels had never beaten Titans before (EVER). Time to make history again, win the premiership from the 8th position and get some redemption from that 2001 season.

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Good things come in 3’s

Product photography is something that I haven’t really done before, despite being still life there’s plenty of room for creativity.  You can play around with the lighting, the arrangement of the objects, the background/backdrop and even camera angles. 

I had 2 energy efficient light bulbs on left and right of the picture, softened with white semi-transparent sheets.  The background was created with a black piece fabric.  Photo taken with an EOS 500D and the standard EF-S 18-55mm IS lens as I didn’t have the 50D with me today.  Fortunately I did have access to these 3 lenses, which was what inspired me to attempt this shot. 



Starting from the left we have the EF 16-35mm f2.8L MKII.  Great lens, extremely wide on a full frame body, and the fast aperture makes it a great lens for both photojournalists and enthusiasts alike. 

In the middle is the oft forgotten EF 24-70mm f2.8L.  It’s a mystery to me why this lens doesn’t really come up in conversations.  Everybody talks about the 16-35, the 24-105, and the great canon primes, but this tends to be forgotten.  In the short amount of time that I had to play around with this lens, it’s a fantastic piece of glass, has rock solid build, and a monster of a hood.  Construction of its lens elements is quite unique, you can see in the image that the lens is at minimum length at 70mm, and the barrel extends as you zoom out … making this mechanism the opposite of all other canon lenses.  This also explains the ridiculously large lens hood, which I think looks great by the way.

Finally, on the right we have the popular EF 17-40 f4L.  Construction and build is very similar to the 16-35mm, and the only real difference between the 2 is that the 17-40 is smaller and has a slower aperture.  This is definitely a lens for the landscape shooter, extremely sharp, strong build, fairly versatile in terms of focal length as well.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the 16-35mm, but the 17-40 is about $1000 AUD cheaper while producing an image quality very similar to that of the 16-35. 

I strongly recommend the 24-70 for full frame users, but if you’re a full frame user you don’t need me to tell you that.  For the landscape enthusiast, go for the 16-35 if you can, but if you’re on a budget get the 17-40 and spend the rest of the money on filters :)

Surprisingly, product photography was quite enjoyable so I might have to look further into it.  Like I said in previous posts though, there’s plenty more to come.

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Too much IR

ohh kay, I admit I’ve been neglecting you guys for almost a month now.  I know you’ve heard it all before, but there’s good reason to that.  Rather than read about my bitching and complaining about my workload I thought I’d let a picture do the talking.  This is a photo blog after all.

 

 

Photo taken with the good old Panasonic Lumix LX-3
That’s a typical view of my work desk while I’m doing reports.  I don’t really know why I decided to take this photo actually.  But since the table has IR spectra all over it, I put an IR filter in photoshop to make it seem less ordinary. 

That’s it for now, don’t worry, I got some big things planned for the future. 
By the way … if anyone can confirm that the middle IR spectrum is for acetanilide, that would be a great help haha.

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It’s an Arms Race (Chapter 1)

Admit it, photography has come a long way. Gone are the days where you pretty much need your own photographic darkroom for processing and development to be called a pro. In fact, pros now have a digital darkroom in a workstation as small as a MacBook Pro. This should make things easier … right?

Well … technically no. I’ll provide a structured series of arguments to sway any doubters, and if there are still doubters after that we can settle it with a bar fight lol.

Before you read on .. make sure you WATCH the videos, they’re awesome. Even if you’ve seen them before you’ll enjoy watching it again.

The Cons of using film:

- overexposed and underexposed negatives when taking the photo is harder to fix
- If you have your own darkroom and do your own developing manually, there is a chance of overdeveloping or underdeveloping the film. Which makes the negs pretty poor quality despite how good you took the photo

- If you use a manual enlarger, there is the change of overexposing or underexposing when transferring the image from the neg to the light sensitive photographic paper

That’s 3 major steps where minor mistakes will affect the desired result out of your images. If you are careful enough, most of the time things go well, but sometimes you just can’t do a whole lot about it. After reading that, it would be safe to assume that being a digital professional is much easier.

In that respect … yes (not to fret, I haven’t changed my mind). Sure I can take photos in RAW format (giving me ample room to fix exposure), and sure if I mess something up in processing I can hit the undo button. Even the printing of photos are neglected as most people would prefer a copy of the images on a CD so they can facebook it. As a result of this, in today’s photographic world, it makes it really hard for an individual to stand out. When people apply for photographic positions, they often get asked what equipment they have. If I was an employer I would favour the candidate with the more serious equipment over the one with basic equipment.

I know what you’re all thinking, it’s the photographer not the equipment. And I would say that you’re correct, however that’s just not the way society works. Many brilliant people get overlooked no matter how good their work is all because their gear wasn’t as serious as the guy next to him. I don’t blame them because that’s just the way it works. When a customer is asking me about DSLRs and he brings up the fact that he used to be a “pro”, I automatically ask what lenses and what bodies he worked with. And sure enough after telling me his life story, he’ll name some of the lenses that he has and I’ll end up thinking “are you serious? That’s some pretty basic stuff” And eventually I would see some photos that he did back in the glory days and I’ll think to myself “If I had a son, and he was 3yrs old, he could take better photos than that”

The problem here is that film SLR pros don’t understand the nature of digital photography. They even undermine it and brush it away, while us digital users do the exact same to film people. I’m not saying there weren’t any great photographers back then, there are … Max Dupain, Kiichiro Ishida to name a few. But there are a lot of people that will think “I can tell this kid I was a pro and he’ll believe me because he’s young enough to be my grandson and that digital photography will never match film photography”.

If you are one of those people, read on. If you’re not, well … read on anyway.

The game has changed, and if you’re not willing to hop onto the bullet train we’re leaving you behind. Gone are the days where you could win the dunk contest with a tomahawk, these days you’ll need to dress up in green and jump over a 7ft tall superman and complete the dunk to get a good score.

The simple truth is … digital photography has taken photography as an art, as a source of communication and a source of evidence to new heights. With film, 400 ISO provided some pretty grainy photos … on the Canon 5D MkII … what grain? Too dark, cant shoot? Let me just pump up my ISO to 6400 while you sit there and ponder how you’ll get a shot that doesn’t turn out pitch black.

Digital will never reach film? Please, us digital shooters are so multitalented that we can even piece together some hectic short videos shot ENTIRELY on an SLR. Go on, watch the video

What up? That’s another point to the digital crowd.

I won’t overload you with too much info in one go. In fact I haven’t gotten to the heart of my real argument. Think of this as an intro if you must, but things will make more sense as I post up the rest of my beef over the next week or so.

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Busy Days

Many of you will have noticed that I haven’t been writing anywhere near as often as I used to. There’s a very simple explanation for that … wait for it .. UNI. Between Organic Chemistry and Inorganic Chemistry and Analytical Chemistry and Physical Evidence, it’s hard to find time to write these days.


Lucky for me, I still find a small amount of time to get inspired and take the occasional photo. In fact as I’m writing this I’m watching the Wallabies vs Springboks rugby match (Steyn is a magician out there). The world champs are really flexing their muscles right now.

I won’t reveal too much, but there’s some exciting movement in the photographic plans at the moment which involves some possible new equipment along with some other stuff that could lead to more shoots and more work. On a side note, I’m writing & posting this using Windows Live Writer which is surprisingly intuitive and easy to use.

Oh and how rude of me … I introduce my brothers Chuck and Cam

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The Persistence of Our Memories

There is an interesting concept about time. If I was to describe time not in hours or days or years, I would have to describe it relative to another significant moment. Many before me have tried to define it, many have tried to control it (albeit unsuccessfully). Me, I just want to capture it, freeze it, and imprison it for all to see.

Space and time are merely human inventions in a crude attempt to comprehend the world. Philosophers, physicists, religious leaders have all been able to come up with a feeble attempt of describing the phenomenon that is time and space. The most noble attempt by far has to be from the self proclaimed genius Salvatore Dali in his painting "The Persistence of Memories"

This painting is absolute genius. The feeling you get when you first see this painting is impossible to describe. It's a mixture of shock, awe, bewilderment and wonder. To top it off, nobody knows what it means. Why melting clocks? Why FOUR clocks? What is the meaning behind the ants crawling on the clock in the bottom left corner?

In this painting, time has forever been immobilized by Dali. Three watches, suffering the same creative death while a fourth lies mysteriously in its own secluded corner oblivious to its own impending disaster. It doesn't tell time, perhaps it doesn't even have hands. This fourth clock lies there, mocking us in its self-sufficiency, inviting us to come and open it and forever tame its secrets. These watches melt so that our time on earth is not represented by a ticking time bomb.

The persistence of our memories, at times liberating and at times suffocating, but always fleeting. Its meaning? Elusive

NB: On a completely different note, perhaps Dali just melted some chesse which instantly inspired him to paint this cacophany of madness onto canvas.

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Serene

To many people, silence is the solution to a lot of problems in their lives. There is something quite serene to being alone in certain places. I'll admit that I prefer not to be alone in most situations, but there are a select few moments/places where the silence is golden. After all, silence is the real conversation between friends, not the saying but the never needing to say is what counts.

In situations like this, there is nothing like being alone. This is the foyer of The Venetian, often crowded with gamblers and tourists, it's rare to be able to get a photo with absolutely nobody around. For a split second, it is as if you own the place, and you're not sharing it with anybody else.

Leonardo Da Vinci once said "If you are alone you belong entirely to yourself. If you are accompanied by even one companion you belong only half to yourself, or even less, in proportion to the thouglessness of his conduct; and if you have more than one companion, you will all more deeply into the same plight.

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Light Show

Perhaps the hardest type of landscape to capture is cityscape at night time. The lights from buildings are contrasted against the dark shadows and a lot of the time it doesn't turn out the way you want it.

The easiest way to capture a night landscape is to use a long exposure on a tripod. This was a 5 photo HDR merged with Photomatix Pro 3 and processed in Photoshop CS3. It's a slightly different representation of HK harbour, with much more contrast and mood than what you normally see. Personally I quite like the big white halo of light suspended above the main tower, I actually have no idea what it is (but it's in most of these photos).

In any major city there will be photo opportunities like this, but here's my list of what I think are the best for night landscape:

- Las Vegas (Casinoes, bright lights, interesting personalities ... what more do you want?)

- Macau (like a mini Vegas, great if you're not 21 or can't afford Vegas)

- Paris (Art, fashion, culture)

- Beijing (those Olympic buildings look great at night)

- Alaska (aurora borealis ... enough said)

So ... if you live in or near these places, what are you waiting for? If I were you I'd be out night after night trying to improve on my shots. After all, Sydney only gives you a certain amount of options before you get sick of it.

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Why not

Every so often, we feel an urge to do this ...

Yes, you do

Maybe you don't go through the thought process of "I don't feel like waiting for the traffic on my side to clear so I'm going to take my bright red scooter through absolute chaos and see if I make it"

But surely there have been times where you just go "I'm going do something completely out of the ordinary just because I feel like it". Every once in a while, something like this will happen even if it makes no sense whatsoever.

Have a look around you, you'll see examples of this all over the place.

Maybe I'll even be there to photograph it ...

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Another game, another milestone

On monday July 20th 2009 Nathan Hindmarsh played in his 250th career game.

Over his years as a Parramatta Eel, Hindmarsh has been the face of consistency. Every single week, no matter how bad the Eels are playing, you can count on him to have a stat line of 45 tackles and 15 hit ups ... easy. If an opposing player was on the fly to score a try, he'll be there. If an opponent is trying to barge over the defensive line and score from close range, he'll be the one lying underneath the ball to hold it up. There was nothing spectacular about the game he had against Melbourne, but guess what, he had 48 tackles and 13 hitups while inspiring his team to a hard fought victory. If every player on the team played with the same commitment that Hindmarsh does, Parra would be a much better team.

Did I also mention all 250 games were with the Eels? In this day and age where club loyalty isn't a big thing, that kind of milestone is just unheard of. I'll throw in some examples:

- Craig Wing signing with Japanese RL (wtf?)

- When Willie Mason, Mark O'Meley went to the roosters (cmon now .. )

- Tahu to union

- Brett Finch (enough said)

I'll just say that not too many of these deals went down too well in public opinion, except maybe for Tahu, only because he's such a cool guy.

Let's not forget Hindmarsh is only 30 years old, there's plenty more mileage left in those legs and I have no doubt that he will make it to 300 games AND end his career with the Eels. When it's all said and done, Hindy will go down as one of the greatest forwards, second rowers, Eel to ever play the game.

Yes, he still hold the record for most tackles in a single game: 75 tackles vs ... Melbourne Storm in 2007. What kind of monster finds the strength to make 75 tackles? He has got to be the most underrated player in the league right now, he's so good that people take him for granted. The last 2 years he's been snubbed from Origin for players like Laffranchi and Learoyd Lahrs (how many people even know him?), yet he continues to play like a man inspired night in night out.

Good on ya Hindy, the way you play the game is a testament to rugby league.

And another thing ... he blogs too

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Parra Eels vs Melbourne Storm (18-16)

In what was advertised as Parra legend Nathan Hindmarsh's 250th game for the Eels, this game quickly turned into a showdown between 2 of the best full backs in the league. Whenever one would pull off something brilliant, the other would answer back with a show of his own.

Jarryd Hayne continued his brilliant form sparked mid-season by State of Origin, and proved a handful for the Melbourne defense whenever he got the ball. On offense he continuously got involved in set plays and made half breaks to keep the Storm on their toes. On defense he ran down Billy Slater multiple times (which isn't easy) and saved a number of tries with his excellent positioning.

As always, Billy Slater looks dangerous every time he touches the ball and if it wasn't for some hard nosed Parra defense the score line would read a Melbourne victory. Slater played an important role, along with Greg Inglis (origin center) and Cooper Cronk to lead a late rush after being down by 10-0 at the half.

Don't worry I haven't forgotten that this was supposed to be Hindmarsh's game, I'll elaborate more on that in tomorrows post with some more photos from the game.

Both photos were taken with the EOS 50D and EF 70-200 f2.8L IS USM.

Settings: ISO 1600, 1/320, f/2.8

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New plug-in ... Color Efex

On a night where you're bored, there's really nothing to do but shoot.



The steps I used included:
- HDR merge 5 exposures using Photomatix Pro 3

- B&W conversion using Color Efex Pro 3 plug-in for Photoshop CS3

- Minor sharpening to finish it off

This is the first time I've used the Color Efex Pro plug-in, and its conversion of colour to B&W is way better than everything else I've used. Some people will simply desaturate a photo to make a greyscale image, more experienced users will use the built in channel mixer in Photoshop CS3 ... and they both work fine.

But why settle for the ordinary? In one step, I can now produce the same result as I used to when I needed to use 3 or 4 steps in photoshop.

So definitely check it out guys, Color Efex Pro

Oh by the way, this photo was done pretty late at night at ANZ stadium (in case you couldn't notice the big sign) ... and the rangers don't exactly like it. So if you want to get in there and do some shots, get what you need asap ... and if they show up, atleast you already have what you want. They'll just rave on about how the car is parked illegally and you're not supposed to be taking photos etc, ignore them and move along :)

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Small Planet

On August 24 2006, Pluto was officially demoted as a planet. Pluto is now known as a "dwarf planet", which is in itself an oxymoron (planets aren't exactly dwarfs). So I've decided to make my own planet, still just experimenting so hopefully I'll have some better ones up in the near future.

It's quite simple to do as long as you have the correct images to start with. I took a 360 degree panorama at Homebush Bay (bird sanctuary), merged the lot on photoshop, then used the polar co-ordinates filter. After that all you have to do is clean it up a little bit with the clone stamp and healing brush and you're done! More in depth tutorial can be found here.

You might also notice my font is different, many users will know that the basic windows fonts don't provide too many cool fonts to work with. Theres a website (click here) where you can download fonts, then simply drag them into your fonts folder in control panel to install them. The one I used this time is called Waltograph (actually looks pretty similar to what the name suggests).

Like I said I'll be workin on more stereographic projections, but in the meantime you can have a browse at this flickr pool dedicated to these images.

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Cokin neutral density filters ... not so neutral?

There is a saying that every photographer lives by. No matter what they major in, whether it be sports, landscape, wildlife or even paparazzi ... they all say "if I can get one good photo out of this shoot, I'm happy". After all, it only takes one great photo to make people say wow.

Today's shoot was pretty much based on one subject, and I worked mainly on one angle. Not something I normally do, I normally like to explore my options when I arrive on site ... but today I went there with one photo in mind and I wasn't going to go home without it.

This photo is actually not as photoshopped as it may seem. It is a 5 photo HDR (all photos approx 30secs in shutter speed). After merging the 5 photos, it was simply minor colour and levels adjustments to different parts of the photo.

One thing I should say though, that blue/purplish tinge in the sky and water are straight out of the camera. When I do landscape photos, I almost always use a Cokin graduated ND8 filter. Whenever I use this filter along with a long exposure, this colour cast always crops up. Some photographers hate this cast, but I quite like it, especially during the twilight hours.

p.s. This shipwreck is at Homebush Bay, Sydney. Yep, bet you didn't know that did you?

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Abarth, it's poetry in motion

There's a lot to say so I'll get right into it. Here's a car that I wouldn't mind having ... Ran into it on my way home from work, it's not exactly a mean looking car ... but you don't see a whole lot of these in Sydney. In my street you see a lot of Range Rovers, R8, Cayenne S, 300C, and the occasional AMG or Gallardo (owned by rich real estate agents).

But this car ... you definitely don't see too many of these. Yep, it's the Abarth powered Fiat 500. If you're thinking "are you serious dude?" or "what the f@$*?". Well I like cars that are unique. There aren't even that many Brabus Mercs around here, so seeing an Abarth Fiat 500 was quite a sight. If you don't know what the fuss is about ... go right ahead and google it.

I know all my readers are lazy, so I did the googling for you. Read car reviews here and here, and believe me ... the Abarth treatment is definitely worth the extra money.

By the way, even Michael Schumacher drives a Fiat Croma as a family car. I'm not lying, just watch Topgear season 13 episode 1.

Last wednesday I posted a pre-hands-on preview on the Olympus Pen E-P1 (you can read it here). The Olympus sales rep for our store came in today to let us play around with the camera and see our input. The first thing you notice when you hold the camera is the exceptional build quality. The all metal body, with a shiny silver finish across the middle (undoubtedly inspired by the old Pens) puts it in a class of its own.

The next thing you notice will be the kit lens 14-42mm that retracts in a locked position (much like the LX-3) when not in use. Both zoom rings and manual focus ring are nicely dampened, reassuring the user that the Pen is more than a compact camera. All the camera functions are easily accessible, changing the shutter speed, aperture, ISO quickly became 2nd nature. Manual focus was VERY easy, I found manual focusing on the E-P1 easier to do than in DSLRs (I'm not kidding).

So you've heard me talk up the build, ease of use and how nice this next generation Pen is .... but what about image quality? I'm going to go out on a limb and say ... its GREAT, AWESOME, SURPRISINGLY GOOD.

This photo was taken with the Olympus Zuiko 17mm f2.8, wide open, manual focus and at 800 ISO. Yes, 800. You can't judge it very well from this image, so hopefully I'll put up some 100% crops soon. Take my word for it, it's sharp, colour rendition is nice, and keep in mind this is STILL not an SLR. Long story short, I love this camera.

So now that you're more informed about the world (or just my world) ... until next time :)

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Moment of madness

By the time you read this I may have already had a heart attack, possibly in the hospital recovering from a quadruple bypass (if that's even possible). No I'm not suicidal, but as I am writing this I'm trying to get into the website which reveals my uni results. After what seems like a million attempts of refreshing the page and retyping my password, I still haven't gotten in. There is a ridiculous amount of nervous energy and adrenaline flying through my limbs as I sit idly in this cold, wooden chair.

I think I'm in ... hold on

No ... wait the page didn't load properly

This must be what gameshow contestants and reality TV stars suffer through as they announce the correct answer (or the winner). Fuck, this is annoying.

Here we go, I'm in for real this time

FUCK YES!

Ladies and gentlemen, I stand undefeated.

If I was a boxer, this would have gone down to the wire, and it would have been a points decision. If this was basketball, it would have been like that 6OT game from the 09 NCAA Tourney.

The rush of relief when the letters P and C came up next to the subjects was comparable to hitting a game winning shot, or coaching a winning team.

Nerve wracking would have been an understatement.

Oh, and that photo above? That is the most correct representation of my mind through this state of affairs. No, not blurred (or bokeh), more like an organised mess. Please excuse the short, choppy sentences and the butchered english language. In this case, it seemed fitting :)

p.s. photo was shot at f/2, manual focus (deliberately out of focus) with the Panasonic LX-3

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Name this bug

Camera: Panasonic Lumix LX-3

Settings: ISO 80, 1/50 sec, f/2, manual focus at minimum focussing distance

Since I have a Tamron 90mm f2.8 macro for my SLR, I rarely use the macro function on my compact. This photo here ... I was walking home and saw this little furry bug glued to the glass window outside my door. Me being me, I took a photo (couldn't be bothered to run upstairs to get the SLR).

I switched the camera to manual focus, set it to minimum focussing distance (0.01m), and moved in and out until I got a sharp picture. It took a couple of goes to get a decent photo, and this is definitely harder to do with a compact compared to an SLR. After some basic processing in Lightroom and CS3, I flipped it to B&W to see what it would be like. Interestingly enough, the monochrome made the insect look even more alien the original photo in colour. I still have absolutely no idea what this thing is ... but if a moth had sex with a sea monkey (somehow), this is without a doubt what it would look like.

Being a macro post, I can't end this without mentioning the best (and affordable*) macro kits commercially available (SLR & Compact).

- Nikon D300 + Nikkor AF-S 105mm f2.8 micro ... totals to roughly $4k

- Canon 5D MkII + EF 100mm f2.8 macro ... roughly $4.6k

Compacts are harder to judge, as they tend to give different magnification ratios. From playing around with different types of cameras at work, the compacts that impressed me with their macro include:

- Canon Powershot G10

- Canon Powershot SX10/SX1 IS

- Lumix LX-3

- Ricoh R8

You might notice there aren't any Nikons in the compact list, and it's because I havn't been impressed with a Nikon Coolpix since 2001 (seriously). The P90 arrived in store today, and since it was one of the most hyped up Nikon compacts (EVERYONE asks about them), I decided to crank it out and do a quick hands-on analysis.

I was NOT impressed at all, and I DON'T understand what all the hype is about. First of all, it's an ugly camera, I thought the lens looked flashy but everything else screams 1980 (in a bad way). The rear LCD screen had terrible resolution, compared to some of the newer canon screens anyway (G10). I'm sure the camera had image stabiliser, but it might as well have been non-existant. Colours were a bit cold, but that's ok cos some people like that. Images were not particularly sharp ... and it performed averagely at ISO 800. It's not the most terrible camera, but it's not for me, and definitely not for that price (~$779)

As usual, I went off track near the end of the post but you guys should be used to it by now. I make this up as I go and I'll put down whatever pops into the front of the queue. My mind is a cluttered mess, and not even I know how to sort it out.

p.s. Have a click on the links on this post, the reviews give some good insight into the type of image quality that I'm so picky about.

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Photomatix Pro 3 (finally got rid of 2.5)

I finally decided to update my HDR software. The one I've been using since I discovered HDR was Photomatix Pro 2.5, I now use Photomatix Pro 3.13 (or something like that). The differences are subtle, a slightly modified UI (User Interface), and the menus are in language that the layman can understand (more or less).

To understand why computer generated HDR images are necessary, we have to get a little more technical. To start with, a camera with a higher dynamic range allows you to capture more detail in the highlights and shadows of scenes. When you look back at your images, you may notice blown out highlights (that stay white no matter what you do), and dark shadows (that stay black no matter what you do). A camera with a higher dynamic range will actually give you some detail in those parts.

This is getting more and more important as a lot more people (from a wider market base) are buying DSLRs. Traditional film has a dynamic range of approx 15 stops, the dynamic range for my EOS 50D is approx 8.5 stops. To get around this massive shortage of dynamic range, us digital users can do 2 things:

1) Live with it (and you actually can ... most of the time)

2) Take a few photos. Underexposed, correct exposure, overexposed (doesn't need to be in that order)

Once you have taken those photos, a program like photomatix can be used to blend all of them. After minor adjustments, we end up with a photo like the one above. There is detail in every single part of the photo (where there is supposed to be). At 100% view on the original edited photo, the detail is astonishing.

Apart from getting an incredible amount of detail, you can get quite a nice effect on the photos as well. Give it a try.

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Insignificant

"Ideas are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny"

Carl Shurz (1829-1906)

When looking up at the stars, we are in effect looking into the past. We see history unfold right before our eyes, we never see what they really are, just past representations of each of them. Their light takes so long to reach us that all we ever see of stars are their old photographs.

This image took 30secs for my camera to capture, at the end of those 30secs, and the next 2secs for me to press the replay button ... it is most likely that I took a photo of them from 8years ago.

Hypothetically, if I stood out on my balcony right now and an alien from another galaxy was to take a photo of me (right now), by the time his/her/its "camera" finishes capturing the image ... back here on earth years could have passed. Yet this would be happening in real time and parallel to each other. In effect I am coexisting at different stages in my life perceived from different locations throughout the universe.

Which brings me to this conclusion.

- If you stand in front of me, I will appear as I am (19yrs old)

- If you look at me through a telescope (a massive one) from mars, I would appear younger (lets say 16years old)

- If you look at me from pluto (through an even better telescope), I would appear to be 8.

- From the next closest star (proxima centauri), to you I would not have been born.

Some food for thought

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Who killed Black & White?

From the days of the Daguerreotype, calotype and even the tintype, a majority of the history of photography was captured in monochrome. The images were a black and white rendering of real life scenes and situations. Even when colour photography first came around, it made more sense to capture in black & white. Colour processing was very expensive, and the images were poor.

The quick expansion and improvements in colour photography made black and white processing a chore to find and develop. Less and less stores carry B&W film, less labs process in B&W, and colour was a breath of fresh air to a tired and worn out hobby.

Good news is ... black and white is back!

In a world where everything is saturated in colour and dominated by pixels, B&W gives off the illusion of "real", and to many ... it seems fresh (we love the retro stuff). The driving force behind this movement is that shooting in B&W allows the photographer to learn more about how highlights, shadows, lines, patterns, exposure all affect the final product. A lot of times, colour assists in hiding the imperfections of the final product e.g. a saturated photo can make a low contrast photo look acceptable. As a result, many photography students learn the basics of photography with B&W Ilford film and darkroom processing.

The image above was taken with my EOS 50D, but I decided I needed a different outlook to a tired and overblogged landscape. Initially it was a 5 photo HDR, but the post crop and monochrome afterwards made the difference.

NB: Need some new locations to shoot, let me know if you have any suggestions

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Why we love panos

Panorama photos have always held a spell over me. When I first saw them, I couldn't see what the big deal is. If anything I thought panos were stupid, they're long, odd shaped, hard to frame, and have no standard in sizing.

Soon after the purchase of my first SLR, the EOS 400D, I realised the limitations of taking a single photo to capture a landscape. When working with lines such as the horizon and the contours of mountains, valleys & coastlines, it is natural to utilise a wide format frame.

This technique in photography have become such widespread that some photographers have dedicated themselves to panoramic photos, Ken Duncan is a well known example. What makes him so well known is not only his dedication to panoramic photos, but his style of image processing after taking the photo. In this day and age, an artist's post processing style is as unique as his signature. All successful photographers have a fine tuned way of processing their images that are instantly recognisable by those in the field.

Post processing has become especially important as almost anybody mildly interested in photography is likely to own an SLR. No longer will resolution and turn around time separate the amateurs and the pros, the market has become much more diverse and it will come down to how well you process your photos that will set you apart.

Me, I'm still working it out :P

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Somebody say Pen?

The original Olympus Pen camera, revolutionary, sharp, simple, ingenious. By using the half frame format (rather than 35mm film), Olympus was able to reduce the size of cameras while still maintaining great image quality. These Pen series cameras sold over 17 million units before eventually giving way to the Olympus Pen F cameras which were capable of interchangeable lenses.

In mid 2009, amidst masses of leaked information and rumours, the camera gods stepped beyond the golden arches and sent the son of the Pen down to earth.

I present ... The Olympus Pen E-P1, a new breed of compact digital cameas that utilises the "micro four-thirds" system (used also by the Panasonic Lumix G1/GH1). Camera enthusiasts will appreciate the retro look despite almost 30years since the last Pen camera was made.

Key Features/Specs

- 12.3 mp Live MOS sensor

- TruePic V Image processor

- Micro four-thirds mount

- Sensor shift stabilization

- HD (720p) movies with stereo sound

- HDMI output

- SD card! (thank god, those flimsy XD cards were the downfall of Olympus)

- Interchangeable lenses

- Hot shoe

- Built in pop art filters (much like the Olympus E-30, E-620 DSLR)

- 3in Hypercrystal LCD

- In camera RAW processing

In other words, this is an SLR without the mirrors in the camera body, allowing it to be much smaller while still retaining SLR quality to an extent. Regardless of how the camera performs, it will almost certainly outperform most compacts released to date. If not for the Panasonic G1 and GH1, this new generation Pen would be in a class of its own (it could still be).

If you are as intrigued as I am about this camera, you can read more at the Olympus website here. No doubt this camera will be a hit and you can order this camera at most camera houses.

Why is it so good?

- It's small

- It's EASY to use

- Timeless design with good build quality

- Interchangeable lenses

- It was made to be perfect for EVERYBODY (in EVERYDAY situations)

- SD and SDHC cards :)

This camera actually makes me want the original Pen camera to have in my camera cabinet. if anyone is selling, let me know :)

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What ... it doesn't come with a card?!

As a salesperson at Camera House, I get a lot of camera enquiries. Most of the time, the conversation goes well, and the customers leave either with a brand new camera or freshly learnt info about photography and what's right for them.

The end of the conversation typically goes like this (other salesmen will feel my pain)

Me: Yep so this seems like it'll do what you need. Good sized screen, Li-ion battery, 10x zoom.

Customer: Sounds great

Me: mmmhhhmm

Customer: So how big's the memory card that you get?

Me: It doesn't come with one, but it takes SD cards, and you can have a look at our range of SD cards over here *points to accessories cabinet*

....

and from here I generally get a variey of responses ranging from complete understanding to complete outrage. Depending on that response I'm either cracking jokes with the customer or left trying to defend the manufacturer (I seriously don't get paid enough to argue this every single time :P)

Today I had an absolutely brilliant classic from a customer during this conversation. When told that the Panasonic TZ-11 doesn't come with a card ... he said "But when you buy a car, it comes with batteries". I stood there and thought "This guy just threw the worst argument at me", but me being on the clock I restrained myself and politely said "Well when you buy this camera you get a battery too". Needless to say, this sequence of events left him wondering how on earth he lost that argument.

Everyday I wonder why people expect to get a memory card with the camera (free). I always tend to end up saying to the customer "When you bought your film camera, it didn't come with film either ... and I'm also pretty sure that it didn't come with free processing". This notion of NOT getting everything you need is not new, it's been around for ages ... so I just can't understand why people ONLY expect this kind of freebie when buying a camera.

To assist my argument I will come up with a list of examples (just off the top of my head) that I have/will use when people complain about not getting a card.

Customer: Well the camera's useless without a card, why don't they give you one?

Me: - Toasters don't come bundled with free bread, what good is a toaster if you don't have bread? Go complain to Myer about that before you ask me that again.

- Your CD burner didn't come with blank CDs

- That wallet you're holding didn't come with free money

- The toy that your kid's playing with ... I'm sure batteries weren't included

- Did your iron come with free shirts?

- These photo frames don't come with photos either

- My car didn't come with free air con ... and I didn't complain

- That $4000 camera over there *points at the 5D MkII*, that doesn't come with a card either

- Those professional photos you got printed a week ago, you had to pay extra to get the photos didn't you? That's what I thought ...

I can go on and on and on about this, and if you work in this industry you'll know the frustration so feel free to go ahead and use these arguments. If you are a customer, and have asked that question before, I hope you now know how annoying and how wrong you were (or still am). Since manufacturers (Nikon, Olympus, Canon, Sony etc) don't have to deal with these questions, I'll take one for the team (for FREE) and I hope I've changed your way of thinking with this blog. I guess what I'm saying is ... take this advice, it's FREE advice and it's good advice.

Tomorrow's blog will be less ranting and more reviewing, stay tuned for a preview of the much anticipated Olympus "Pen" E-P1 camera that even the layman can undestand.

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