New Olympus gear — a preview of coming attractions

Posted on 12 May, 2015 by Eric

Olympus just announced some interesting new items in the high end of their micro-4/3 system line-up. I’ve been shooting almost exclusively with Oly gear since I went digital years back, so thought I could add a useful thought or two based on my experiences.

First off, Olympus announced a special, limited edition of the OM-D E-M5 Mark II. The E-M5 was just “refreshed” to the Mark II model (with lots of interesting new capabilities) a few weeks back — this new special edition is limited to 7,000 copies world-wide, and comes in a special titanium finish (for the top and bottom plates).

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Indoor peak

Posted on 3 May, 2015 by Eric

On our trip to Iceland this January, we got to see a new perspective on a subject we’ve had earlier experiences with — lava tubes. Formed when lava flows crusted over and subsequently drained, we’ve walked through some in Hawaii — but never previously seen one in a colder clime.

So this is what happens near the Arctic Circle where there’s a lava tube “skylight” (localized collapse of the tube’s ceiling). Continue reading →

Hanging on for dear life

Posted on 3 April, 2015 by Eric

We recently took a family “spring break” trip out to Washington D.C. As part of a “behind the scenes” tour of the National Cathedral, I spotted this little gargoyle through a tiny window in a service door:

Even from just a few steps away from the door, it took 110mm of focal length (220 in full frame terms) to capture the little guy.

Love locks

Posted on 15 March, 2015 by Eric

A relatively new phenomenon (for Paris), the Pont des Arts bridge has gotten covered with “love locks” since about 2008.

If you’re not familiar with the meme, the idea is that couples write their names on a padlock, lock it on the bridge, then toss the key into the Seine river as a show of their everlasting devotion. The problem, though, is that the bridge wasn’t really designed to handle this kind of a load (it’s estimated that nearly a million locks, weighing 60+ metric tons, have been snapped onto the bridge).
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Unselective color

Posted on 19 February, 2015 by Eric

When we traveled to Iceland a few weeks back, we were primarily hoping to see the colors of the northern lights. We inadvertently saw some more urban colors as well — this time, in Reykjavik:

Many of the more-traditional buildings in Reykjavik tend to be painted in fairly muted tones. One swath of buildings near the harbor is dressed in a more modern fashion, with saturated solid colors. This one apparently got a bit of help from some of the younger locals — its sky blue front was augmented at some point with a variety of colorful graffiti. When we passed by, the interior appeared to be in the process of being rebuilt — into a shop, or restaurant, or whatever — hard to say. Regardless, it was a welcome splash of semi-chaotic color on an otherwise drab day.

The Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 lens for butterfly photography — a user experience review

Posted on 16 February, 2015 by Eric

Some months back I purchased an Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 lens (officially, the M. Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm F2.8 Pro lens) and MC-14 1.4x teleconverter for my E-M1 body. I’d given them some exercise on a road trip previously, but when an opportunity came up for a “Tripod Session” at a local butterfly pavilion, I thought I could give them a real workout on the facility’s residents.

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Convoluted

Posted on 13 January, 2015 by Eric

An HDR view from Upper Antelope Canyon, near Page (Arizona), converted to black and white:

I’ll be posting a longer comparison of Upper to Lower Antelope Canyon at a later date. For now, let’s just say that a walk through the Upper Canyon is a crowded experience — even in the “off-season,” even on a “Photo Tour.” So taking shots facing the sky is a good plan. In any case, the canyon is a unique experience, and always a reliable source of geological abstracts.

The many faces of Church Rock

Posted on 4 January, 2015 by Eric

Over the holidays, my family took an old-school road trip down to Arizona to visit relatives. Along the way, we came across an interesting geological feature that I’d never even heard of before — an old, eroded bit of volcanic material called Church Rock:

Located 10 miles east of Kayenta, Church Rock (nicknamed after its supposed resemblance to a cathedral from some angles) is part of a whole string of interesting geological features in this part of the country. On the far horizon, you can see the chisel-shaped tip of Agathla Peak, in Monument Valley. I think the line-up of features makes a good composition, although something like a 16:9 crop would reduce the impact of the foreground nicely.

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Steinland

Posted on 1 December, 2014 by Eric

A scene from this year’s “Christkindl Market” in downtown Denver, Colorado — shelves of beer steins on sale at a vendor’s stall:

Oddly enough, it was only on a recent trip that we discovered that while the word stein is German, this style of beer mugs is only called a stein in English-speaking countries. Stein is an abbreviation of the German steingut (stoneware), the material they’re made of. But in Germany, bierstein (“beer stone”) is the term used for a scaly deposit built up in poorly-cleaned brewing vessels. A mug like one of these would be called a krug, or more properly a bierkrug.

So there’s your language lesson for the day, more about the “Christkindl Market” in subsequent posts.