Amsterdam Stopover

While heading back to Hoek to catch the return ferry to London, I had an hour in Amsterdam and made use of it by taking some pictures around town. Here a short series with some street photography, all pictures are out of camera JPGs.

A Day in Amsterdam

After spending the night on board the ferry, I arrived in Hoek early on Friday morning. From there it was another quick train journey to Amsterdam where I met Björn for lunch and a photo walk.

He got the change to use my GR and I had more time to use his RX1, we even got to interchange the GW-3 21mm adapter and test how it works on the RX1.

Both cameras are great tools and probably the best fixed lens cameras you can get right now. I am more at home with the 28mm focal length of the GR but the RX1 is great in use and the image quality is fantastic.

This is a series of pictures taken with both cameras, mixed together.

 

Amsterdam

GXR A12-M, f8.0, 1/330, ISO 200, RAW, 42mm (Ricoh GR f2.8 28mm L)

After an early flight I arrived to a rainy Amsterdam, lucky for me the weather changed later in the day and the sun came out to make it a nice day.

This is a quick one day stop to relax a bit before heading to Photokina to have a look at some of the new announcements. Mostly I am interested in the Sony NEX-6, the RX-1 and the RX-100 but also the new Fuji cameras and also to see what Leica has done with their first ever live view capable M camera. Of course I am hoping to get some info from Ricoh on what they are working or if anything is coming out from them.

Amsterdam Meet

(Taken with the NEX-5n and the Sony 50mm f1.8 lens) 


Yesterday, I met with Björn in Amsterdam for some drinks, photography and some gear talk.

We met at the Hortus in Amsterdam where we had a coffee to start off the meetup and give us time to play around with the cameras and enses we brought along. I had my GXR with A16 zoom and the A12 Mount with Voigtlander 12mm, Ricoh GR 28mm and the Jupiter 50mm lenses and Björn brought his Sony NEX-5n, NEX-7 and the Sony 50mm, Zeiss 24mm and the Zeiss Sonar 50mm M-lens.

It was a great and fun meetup as always and I enjoyed the conversation very much. We are quite similar in our view of cameras and photography and while we don't care too much about gear, we do like to discuss it.

We then set off to take some pictures around the botanical gardens and while Björn was using my GXR to get a feel for it, I was using the NEX-7 to see how it performs. I think we were both quite surprised as to how much we enjoyed the cameras and how easy it was to use them.

The NEX-7 with the Zeiss 24mm lens is a very nice and light combo and the AF is fast enough and does not really get in the way. The tri-navi system is very easy and fast to use and takes only a little getting used to but works as intuitive as the Ricoh interface with all the main controls easily reachable. I ended up accidentally changing settings at times but this should not be a problem in longer use.

What is a problem on the NEX-7 is the use of M lenses. While it performs well with the 50mm lenses, it does not really work with the 12mm and GR lenses and the corners and sides are very soft and lose details next to the purple colour shift.

I also found the Sony peaking not as easy to use or as accurate as Mode 2 on the GXR, at times it was not easy enough to see on the edges and other times it seemed to overwhelm the picture, this should however not be a problem with more practice and still remains one of the easiest ways to manually focus.

After my experience with the NEX-7, I would say that it is the best handling camera next to the GXR at the moment and it is quite impressive how much Sony has managed to get into such a small package, the LCD and EVF are fantastic and being able to flip the screen is great and something I want to see in more cameras, especially the GXR.
Unfortunately as nice as it is, the performance with M lenses is not very good so it will not work for me in it's current form. The Zeiss 24mm and Sony 50mm are both nice lenses but I would hesitate to buy into another electronic system after the m4/3 and don't really need interchangeable AF lenses, here the GXR A12 28mm or 50mm modules would do the job for when I am to lazy to manually focus.

So a thanks to Björn for showing me around and for the (as always) interesting conversation.

(Taken with the Sony NEX-7 and Zeiss 24mm lens)

(Taken with the Sony NEX-7 and Zeiss 50mm f1.5 M-lens)

(Taken with the NEX-7 and Voigtlander Heliar 12mm lens, the corner and edge smearing is quite obvious and makes this lens a no-go on the NEX-7)

(Another shot with the Heliar 12mm but here the corner smearing is not too distracting)

Morning in Amsterdam

This post will only cover the morning part of today. The afternoon part will be covered in a separate post.

Although the weather forecast was not great, the morning started off with great sunshine and mild temperatures. I took a walk around Amsterdam and used only the Voigtlander 12mm lens, the last picture is the only exception where I tried out the Zeiss f1.5 50mm lens wide open using the electronic shutter.

Back to Amsterdam

Arrived for two days in Amsterdam. I have been here a few times already but like the place and it's a nice change after the last 2 weeks in Germany.

Had my GXR with A12 Mount and the A16 zoom with me but only used the A12 with the Ricoh GR 28mm, Voigtlander Heliar 12mm and the Jupiter-8 50mm lenses.

NEX in Amsterdam

Yesterday, I had the chance to take the Sony NEX-3 for a spin around Amsterdam. It was very interesting and I actually liked the little NEX more than I expected.

It is not a pretty camera and too small for my liking, the 16mm pancake lens feels pretty horrible with the thin metal covering the plastic innards and you always have the feel to hold a flat can in your hand. The focusing won't win any speed records either and is slower than the GXR A12 modules with latest firmware but seems usable even in lower light.

The controls have drawn a lot of complaints when the camera has been released but to everyone's surprise, Sony did listen and has improved them. Sure, it could still do with a few extra buttons or even better an extra wheel in the front but if (like me) you shoot in A-mode 95% of the time and only realy need access to EV compensation and ISO it is pretty good. It works surprisingly well to change the EV compensation and ISO as well as the AF mode.

The best parts about the NEX are undoubtedly the fantastic flip up screen and the great peaking mode, both features that I want to see adapted by Ricoh and Panasonic in the future.
The screen is great for street photography and is so much smaller and thinner than the one on the GH2. I was worried it would feel flimsy once flipped up but it's actually very sturdy and allows for being very discreet when taking pictures.

The peaking mode on the other hand is great and the best way to manually focus and I really want to try this with a legacy lens. I really hope Ricoh takes notice of this and implements it on the upcoming GXR Mount A12 module. During my tests it seemed to work very well but the 16mm pancake is not a great MF lens so the real test will come with a legacy lens.

So overall I did enjoy my time with the NEX-3, would I buy one? No, I like my cameras to feel and handle like cameras and not like toys but there certainly are things about the NEX I like so I will keep my eyes open of what Sony is doing with the NEX-7 and if it will look and handle more like a real camera. Right now the biggets problem with the NEX are the poor native lenses so it's more a legacy lens only camera in my view.

This series is from the NEX-3, all pictures have been developed from RAW with RAW Therapee so without any corrections applied.

Amsterdam Walk

Today, I had the pleasure to met up with friend and fellow blogger Björn Utpott in Amsterdam. Despite the changing weather between rain and sunshine we had a nice walk and a great conversation over a few pints.

It is always great to meet other photographers and not only talk about photography but also go out and practice it. Björn was kind enough to let me use his new Sony NEX camera with the 16mm pancake.

Instead of posting a mix between NEX and RD1 pictures, I decided to post the series today with only RD1 pictures and do a quick post of my experiences and pictures with the NEX tomorrow. Having two series also makes sense in terms of content, it will become more clear once you see the NEXt post.

Steam Outlet

GXR, f18, 1/3200, ISO 200, RAW, 50mm

On my way back to London I had one hour in Amsterdam to spare and decided to go for a walk and take some more pictures. It was a beautiful day, warm and with a clear blue sky. I went to the Nemo museum and took some pictures around there, this I like best but decided to give it a golden tone by using the Shade WB.
Unfortunately the APS sensor in the GXR 50mm module means it has a native format of 2:3, since I dislike the 2:3 format since it's neither wide enough nor high enough and when you crop it you lose more information. I still decided to crop this picture to the 1:1 format but wish Ricoh would use 4:3 sensors or APS sensors would start using the more usefull 4:3 format or maybe have a multi aspect ratio sensor in the next GXR module.

Since I travel quite a lot, I thought I have to also mention one of the best airport experiences so far.
A while ago I complained about Heathrow airport being pretty horrible to fly from because of the terminal building but also because of the really long security checks. Well, Schipol Airport is the opposite and one of the best airports I have used so far. The reason is simple, after passport control you don't have to go through any horrible and very long 'security' check procedure. No, instead you are straight in the airport and can go about your business, then only at the actual gate will you go through the security check. This is fantastic and not only saves time and hassle but makes the whole experience so much nicer. I never had such a relaxed flight, although arriving at City airport in London also played a part in this.
From now on I will try to fly from City to Schipol more often. These two airports are so much more pleasant to fly from that it is worth paying a bit extra if necessary.

Chained Bike

GXR, f7.1, 1/233, ISO 200, JPG, 50mm

After the Dutch train company decided that a bit of snow is too much for them to allow for trains to go to Germany, I had to spend most of my day travelling instead of taking pictures with the GXR.
I still had time with the camera though and really love the feel and handling. It's a typical Ricoh in that you want to go out and take pictures with it.
Yes, the AF is sluggish compared with the direct competition of the GF1 and the LCD freeze kills it for any action use, the 50mm lens is also neither wide enough nor long enough and is with f2.5 not even fast enough. But when you adapt to the limitations and give the AF enough time or more important enough contrast (I refuse to use manual focus with any focus by wire system), it works pretty decent for the kind of shots you would use a 50mm macro lens for.
The EVF is simply outstanding and beats the one in the G1 even.

I have to return the camera tomorrow but really liked using it even with all it's flaws. Let's hope Ricoh can iron some of them out in a firmware update.

The picture from today is for Wouter.