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Olympus Tag

05 Nov

Posted at 07:30h in Blog, Dick's Rant by

You might be forgiven for thinking that wireless triggers are simple things. So they are, when all you wish to do is tell a circuit to close at a distance from the camera. You put a transmitter on the hot shoe of the camera, a receiver under the speedlight out in the distance, and fire away. As long as the things are plugged in correctly and the AA batteries are fresh, it works every time. When you start to go TTL, however, and start to introduce different models of different maker's flashes, the whole thing becomes as complex as a spider's web. Here's a collage of images from the different trigger systems here in the shop on just one day. Beware that not all triggers made are shown - you have miles to go in this forest before you can sleep...

16 Oct

Posted at 07:43h in Blog, Dick's Rant by

The one with the Olympus Voice Recorder in it, please. I want to remember your every word. To be honest, I want to remember every word I've spoken as well, and I can't. This makes it very awkward later in front of the partner, kids, and in-laws. They cross-check my stories and you only have to get it wrong once to never hear the end...

01 Oct

Posted at 07:10h in Blog, Dick's Rant by

Not to mention the camel exhausts and general air pollution of Cairo and surrounds. I not to mention this because a friend is  touring Egypt - the cities and the Nile up as far as Aswan - and has sent back some glorious photos via our social network. Unfortunately, I think many of them have been taken with a mobile smartphone and the lens has not coped well with the atmosphere. Perhaps it has been fingerprinted as well...

20 Sep

Posted at 07:49h in Blog, Dick's Rant by

I have to be careful with that title - I tried typing in Olympus Superzoom to the net to see what help it could be and it routed me off to old eBay sellers who have 35mm cameras for sale. Eek. I wanted to see if there was a comparable model from them that matched other major makers - something that had a small sensor but an enormous lens out the front. The sort of thing that cruise and safari tourists take overseas. It looks as though they might have had something like that some while ago, but are concentrating now on the things that can be done with their Micro 4/3 line of mirrorless cameras - and that they have just come out with a new lens to do it. The lens Carlos showed me is the Zuiko 12-200mm f:3.5-6.3 - possibly the longest zoom range lens for any mirrorless camera. It's the 35mm film equivalent of 24mm to 400mm. And we never thought of that in the day...

10 Jul

Posted at 09:07h in Blog, Dick's Rant by

I stopped dead opposite the Olympus binocular shelf at the Murray Street store this last week - and that's exactly what the Olympus designers intended me to do. That's why they made the 8 x 21 RCII WP field glasses in four colours. For visual appeal outside to match the optical appeal inside. Other makers have done this as well with smaller sets of binoculars. I won't detract from Olympus here by adding another brand name but suffice it to say that if you had wanted their small field glasses in bright yellow or aqua you would have been set back a considerably higher price than these. If you want style for value, Olympus are your go. Who needs 8 x 21's? Race goers who don't want to carry massive glasses with them. Tourists on Alaskan cruise ships who want to see the bears or moose close-up. Mountain hikers - indeed anyone who has to hoof it and wants to see further without bearing weight. Who needs colourful 8 x 21's...

08 Mar

Posted at 08:53h in Blog, Dick's Rant by

The heading image is not manipulated, apart from increasing contrast and dropping tones to give a silhouette. It shows the newest of the Olympus micro 4/3 mirror-less cameras alongside a workshop example of my first digital camera - a Nikon D1x. They are continents apart in digital performance and capability but look how close they are in physical size...

20 Nov

Posted at 07:57h in Blog, Dick's Rant by

Like the nose you need not pick, the fight you need not pick is a dark place, best avoided. This can be difficult for photographers when the manufacturers of cameras would like you to become passionate about something. In most cases, the passion they would like to foster in you is the desire to spend money. Of course you understand that this refers to the recent introduction of 24 x 36mm sensors into mirrorless cameras...

21 Sep

Posted at 08:16h in Blog, Dick's Rant by

Well, that's what the pack reminded me of when I saw it on the Olympus shelves - the Micro 4/3 specialists have decided to make an especial offer for people buying their OM-D E-M10 MkII cameras - three matched lenses in one box. This is both wonderful and dangerous...

23 Aug

Posted at 09:38h in Blog, Dick's Rant by

I sound too boastful - I defeated it only by one day. It doesn't pay to be lazy when the sun is out in winter - you only get small windows of possibility. The student flyers at Jandakot know that well. I was sure that, as Tuesday was fairly fine, they would be circuiting as hard as they could go to get time in before the big fronts hit the coast. Sure enough - the rotary as well as fixed-wing students were up and down as fast as they could taxi. The M Zuiko ED 300mm f:4.0 IS PRO is the angular equivalent of using a 600mm lens on a full-frame camera. That's well into shake territory, but there is stabilisation both on othe lens and in the body. I have no idea which mechanism was working, but as soon as I took a half pressure on the shutter button the EVF image settled down and I could clearly frame the subjects. I read the manual and set the camera to do a pre-shot continuous focusing as well - As I kept the rig pointed...