Sunset

Sometimes mother nature can just take your breath away. A beautiful sunset can leave me speechless in wonderment. Living in the city, we don't often see the sun disappears into the horizon, at least not for me, but the exquisite colours temporarily paint everything into an amazing picture. This is one of the many reasons I always have a camera with me wherever I go.

Port of Toronto in Sunset - Olympus E-M5 & Jupiter-3 5cm f1.5. Click for larger. 

Cranes - Olympus E-M5 & Jupiter-3 5cm f1.5.

Shooting in Low Light with Olympus OM-D E-M5

One of the strongest and best features of the Olympus E-M5 (and the E-M1) is the 5-Axle In-Body Stabilization. After a few days of use with the E-M5, and shooting in various lighting conditions, I can confirm that it's extremely effective, easily as good as the lens-based stabilization, and it works with all lenses attached to the body. I am absolutely loving this amazing feature.

I took Mike Aubrey's advice, and set the ISO to a lower maximum of 1600, so that the Auto-ISO will force the shutter speed to be lower, since the E-M5 seems to favoure higher shutter speeds (higher ISO). With a 50mm lens (100mm equivalent in 35mm), I can shoot at 1/25s and the images are sharp; even at 1/13s, it's still tack sharp. With a very fast lens, you can practically shoot in the dark with very little available light. I wish the NEX-6 (and the A7/A7r) has this incredible IBIS feature.

William - E-M5 & Kodak Anastigmat 50mm f1.6 Cine Lens. Click for larger.

Port of Toronto at night - E-M5 & Kodak Anastigmat 50mm f1.6 Cine Lens. Click for larger.

Never ending snow - E-M5 & Kodak Anastigmat 50mm f1.6 Cine Lens.

Voigtlander Nokton 40mm f1.4 Classic - Couple of Samples

By most people's standards, the Cosina Voigtlander Nokton 40mm f1.4 Classic in M-mount is a desirable lens; small, sharp, well-built, and good looking. It is especially well suited for mirrorless cameras like the Leica Digital Ms, NEX and Micro 4/3 (sorry Samsung NX, your designers really screwed up by designing the sensor to lens register just slightly too long for M-Mount lenses).

Dillon has had this lens for a while, but I doubt he used it much. It's really a shame the lens is not used more often. After the death (at the moment any way) of the EF 200mm f1.8L, I have a new appreciation of manual focus lenses; it's better to invest in good quality manual focus lenses than AF lenses, in the long run, unless your must have AF do to the job. The mechanical nature of these lenses are far more likely fixable than AF lenses decades hence.

Old, New, and Newer - Sony NEX-6 & Voigtlander Nokton 40mm f1.4. Click for Larger

PINEGLEN the ship - NEX-6 & Voigtlander Nokton 40mm f1.4

Sunset at Port of Toronto

We have been having a lot of rain the last few days, but yesterday evening we saw a beautiful sunset, which is a treat.  More rain is expected in the next few days, thanks to Hurricane Sandy.

Sunset at Port of Toronto - NEX-5N & Wollensak Raptar 50mm f1.5. Click for larger.

Shades of Gray

Dark Clouds over Port of Toronto - NEX-5N & Olympus OM 35mm f2. Click for larger.

All my pictures are shot in RAW, and naturally, in colour, but I also love black and white (technically, gray). With certain subjects, the elimination of colours seems to add more impact and power.  Unfortunately for me, I am not very good at converting colour to black & white, so most of my black and white pictures are converted with pre-sets in Lightroom or filters in Photoshop with some slight tweaks.

Auto Chinon 55mm f1.7 M42 - First Look

The Auto Chinon 55mm f1.7 is a sister lens of the Chinon 55mm f1.4.  Aside from their size difference, they look very similar, as the picture shows below.  Both are possibly made by Tomioka and probably share the same optical formula, as the pictures from both have same kind of look to them.

There are at least two versions of this M42 mount lens.  The one below shows the older (probably the original) version, and there is also one with rubber focusing ring.  Not really sure what the differences are, as I don't have the other version.  I would imagine the later model would have better coating.  Also, there is a K-Mount version as well.

Chinon 55mm f1.4 on the left, Chinon 55mm f1.7 on the right. Click for larger picture.

This lens is quite inexpensive.  Often selling for about $10 to $50 depending on condition.  The build quality, like most of the lens of its kind from the same era, are excellent when you compare it to how the entry level lenses are built today.  Remember, this f1.7 lens is the cheap version of the f1.4 version, but the built is identical to the expensive f1.4 counterpart.  Even after many decades, the focusing is still supremely smooth with just the right amount of damping.  Turning the focusing ring will remind you that you are holding and using a precision instrument.  Simply joy for the senses.

Fence -- NEX-5N & Auto Chinon 55mm f1.7 wide open.  Click for larger.

If the lens simply looks good and feels good in the hand, but performs poorly, it would be just a nice paper weight.  Fortunately, beauty is more than skin deep.  Wide open, contrast and sharpness is not great, but even very expensive lenses would perform better stopping down a little.  This is not to say that you can't use the lens at f1.7.  In fact, for portraiture, it's quite fine using f1.7, as long as you can find the focus point.  From f2.8 to f5.6, this lens shines.  Sharpness and contrast rivals today's auto focus 50mm f1.7/f1.8 lenses.  Even the edges are very good at f5.6 on APS-C sensor.

Ship - NEX-5N & Auto Chinon 55mm f1.7 @ f5.6. Click for larger.

I find the bokeh quite acceptable, but it's a subjective thing.  Certainly there are lenses that produce better bokeh, but we are looking at a very cheap lens here. I don't have anything to complain about, when taking into the consideration of cost, and its good built quality.

Would you pay more for the f1.4 version for 2/3 of a stop more light?  If the price is not too great, I would say yes, but this lens is great for people who just want to test the waters on manual focus lenses.  It's well built, optically competent, and most important of all, it's cheap.  You can get beautiful pictures out of a lens like this.

Lock - NEX-5N & Auto Chinon 55mm f1.7 @ f1.7

Another Sample from the Carl Zeiss Jena Flektogon 35mm f2.8

Tim S. Dool -- NEX-5N & Carl Zeiss Jena Flektogon 35mm f2.8 @ f2.8

I have been using this lens quite a bit lately and really start to like it a lot, and I am wondering why modern 35mm lenses aren't designed like this one: very close focusing, sharp, and great bokeh.  Very hard to find wide angle lenses that have nice bokeh and this Flektogon is one of them.

Just out of curiosity, most container ships seem to stay at the port for a long time.  Two to three weeks is not uncommon.  This Tim S. Dool ship has been at the port for at least two weeks now. That seems very inefficient use of the ships.  Does it take that long to load/unload the goods, or there are other reason for the long stay?  Curious!

Third Party Batteries -- Part II

I have been buying third party batteries for many years, starting with my Panasonic Mini-DV camcorder.  I wrote about it before, and this is an update to the original post.  My experience was that with third party batteries, you pay less for more, because these batteries frequently last longer than OEM batteries.  I have bought third party batteries for all the Canon cameras I have ever owned.  Never a problem and always happy, until the last two batteries.

The first bad one was the battery I bought for my 7D, which I also mention in this post.  That battery lasted about 1/4 of what the OEM battery would.  I got a replacement from the seller, but by the time I received  it, I already sold my 7D, so I didn't get a chance to test it.

The Sony NEX-5 is a battery hog and it doesn't last very long.  It's a far cry from more than a 1000 pictures I could get out of from a Canon camera.  In fact, the third party batteries  in my 1D IIn lasts at least two thousand pictures.  I hardly need to charge them.  So, I bought a NEX-5 compatible battery from eBay, and it arrived in two days, since it was shipped from the same town I live.  Immediately, I had a bad feeling about this battery, as it weigh quite a bit less than the OEM version.  This battery, like the 7D version, never charges to 100%.  Regardless how long you charge it, it always says 99%.  It lasts about 1/3 of what a Sony OEM battery would.  E-mail the seller, and got a rude responds, to the affect that I should not expect OEM performance because I didn't pay OEM price.

My worry is that these are not isolated incidents, but a trend that quality of third party batteries are going down the drain.  Perhaps the seller was right, I didn't pay OEM prices, I should expect OEM performance.  Perhaps I should stick to brand name third party batteries, like Lenmar and Optex.

Canadian Ranger Toronto -- NEX-5 & Carl Zeiss S-Planar 60mm f2.8. Click to see larger.