Council House

iPhone 4, f2.4, ISO 80, JPG, Hipstamatic App

Just having some fun with the iPhone camera and the Hipstamatic app.

Holyhead - Day 2

I had selected 5 pictures for today but I ran out of disk space on Picasa and now need to devcide if I want to pay them or pay Flickr instead.

So to see more pictures head over to my Dropbox gallery.

Holyhead - Day 1

The first day in Holyhead was all about hiking over the mountain all the way to the South Stack lighthouse to take pictures. After much deliberation I decided to take the GXR with 28mm A12 module but instead of taking the 50mm A12 module alongside I went for the GF1 with the 50mm Nokton lens to see how it fares when used for landscapes.
Both cameras did an excellent job and especially the Nokton realy impressed me when shooting wide open, you do get vignetting and soft corners but it gives a very unique look to the pictures and almost a tilt-shift effect. I took some of my best landscape shots out of this and especially the 3rd picture is my favorite from the trip but you do need to see it fullsize to spot the boat.

If you want to see more pictures from Holyhead go to my Dropbox gallery here.

Going Up the Steps

GXR A12, f13, 1/217, ISO 200, JPG, 28mm

Running Past

GXR A12, f2.8, 1/20, ISO 400, RAW, 28mm

17:55

GXR A12, f3.2, 1/45, ISO 800, RAW, 28mm

Follow the Path

GXR A12, f11, 1/203, ISO 200, RAW 1:1, 28mm

Over There

GXR A12, f2.8, 1/30, ISO 1600, RAW, 28mm

White, Blue and Red

GF1, f0.95, 1/400, ISO 100, JPG, 50mm (Voigtländer Nokton f0.95 25mm)

Drawing

GF1, f0.95, 1/40, ISO 320, JPG b&w, 50mm (Voigtländer Nokton f0.95 25mm)

Dark Clouds Passing

GF1, f1.4, 1/250, ISO 100, RAW 16:9, 50mm (Voigtländer Nokton f0.95 25mm)

A Good Book and a Pint

GF1, f0.95, 1/80, ISO 640, JPG b&w, 50mm (Voigtländer Nokton f0.95 25mm)

I only had the Nokton for a week and did not even have that much time to go out and take pictures with it but I can't see myself going back to the 20mm Panasonic lens after using it.
The character of the Nokton is just so much better than the 20mm lens that it makes a huge difference for me. I guess it shows where optical quality comes in to play instead of just fixing stuff in software. The pictures are just not the same, no mater how much Panasonic and Olymous try to fix in software, it's not the sharpness nor the technical quality, it's the character that suffers and pictures look technically perfect but flat and boring with software corrected lenses.

Seeing Double

GF1, f0.95, 1/160, ISO 640, JPG b&w, 50mm (Voigtländer Nokton f0.95 25mm)

The Nokton is a fantastic lens and gives a very film-like quality to pictures, especially if you set the camera to b&w. I just love the character of this lens and aside from my Leica f2.8 28mm R mount lens this is my favorite lens for the GF1 and shows that opptical quality beats software corrections anytime.
But not just the quality is fantastic also the bright aperture allows for very fast shutter speeds at low ISO even in very dark conditions.

The only problem is at times to nail the focus and although I did not do it in this picture I still like it best from today.

Light Trails

GXR A12, f10, 5 sec., ISO 200, JPG, 28mm

This picture is not all that great but while reviewing it, it did give me an idea for another picture I will try to take.

Chimneys

GF1, f0.95, 1/80, ISO 800, JPG, 50mm (Voigtländer Nokton f0.95 25mm)

Street Photography at f0.95

Having a new lens is always great, each lens has it's own character and feel to it so it's almost like getting a new camera with each lens puchase.
The weather was great today and I decided to go for a walk around Greenwich to take some pictures and see how an f0.95 lens peforms wide open for street photography. I really like the feel of the lens and the smooth manual focus but struggle with the limited movement from 2m to infinity, especially when guessing the distance and not looking at the screen like in the last 3 pictures in this series.

I have decided to post a small series just to show what can be done on a first outing with this lens, aside from the first 2 pictures all were taken and focused from the hip without using the LCD screen but the last one has been heavily cropped.

Closeup at f0.95

GF1, f0.95, 1/30, ISO 200, JPG, 50mm (Voigtländer Nokton f0.95 25mm)

It was tempting to post some street shots or low light hots I took with the lens but after my complaint that the Nokton does not allow for enough finetuning of the focus between 2m and infinity while offering very good close up focusing abilities.
To test this, I decided to actually take a picture and it does indeed a very good job at it and allows for precise focusing. This picture is focused at the closest distance or 17cm.

Drumming

GF1, f0.95, 1/80, ISO 800, JPG b&w, 50mm (Voigtländer Nokton f0.95 25mm)

Happy New Year to everyone!

As a nice new year's present I decided to get myself the Voigtländer Nokton f0.95 lens for m4/3, I found it for a very good price on Amazon.fr and could not resist. Amazon is excellent and very fast with the shipping so it meant I already got my lens last night but it was to late for some serious shooting.

Although it was busy in he office I did go out at lunch for some shooting and when I met with friends in the evening it was a perfect opportunity to really test the lens.
It is fantastic and allows for very fast shutter speeds at low ISO, something not possible with the other lenses but at the same time it has a much better quality and look.
While I like that it focuses very close and is almost usable as a macro lens (this is the lens Ricoh should have put on the 50mm A12 module), I am not at all happy with the little distance you can move the focus ring to go from 2m to infinity since it does not allow to be fast or precise and it does not have enough DOF that you don't have to care about accurate focus after 2m. Other than that it's a fantastic lens and feels really good although it is heavy.

So far I would say this is the best quality lens for m4/3, does not need software corrections, is built out of metal and has a proper MF ring around the lens.

Treetrunk

GXR A12, f3.5, 1 sec., ISO 400, RAW, 28mm

Nobody Around

GXR A12, f2.8, 1/17, ISO 800, RAW, 28mm

The Tree

GXR A12, f4.5, 1/16, ISO 400, JPG sepia, 28mm

Took this while out for a walk through Greenwich Park today, the mist gave the scene a nice mysterious feel and I decided to use sepia with a very low contrast to capture this.
This was my first real outing with the new 28mm A12 module for the GXR and so far I am very impressed with it and would say it's the best module for the GXR so far.

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays to and a fantastic New Year!

Hope you all enjoy your holidays with the people you love to and are where you want to be, not stranded somewhere at an airport.

Last Walk Through

GXR A12, f2.5, 1/400, ISO 3200, JPG b&w, 50mm

After 9 days in Morocco it's time to head back to the UK and while I will miss some aspects of Morocco it did not grow on me as much as other countries have done so I don't feel like I am missing much. Marrakech is certainly an interesting city but I did not really warm up to the people and found quite a lot not to be honest, the mopeds driving through the Medina were also driving me crazy after the first day where I found this quite interesting.
So to sum it up, it was a great holiday full of photo opportunities and I am happy I could see Marrakech and especially Essaouria but I am in no rush to come back.

Views from Essaouria

The trip to Essaouria definitely proved to be one of the best decisions I have made during this holiday and I could not stop taking pictures and have taken some of my favorite pictures of the holiday here.
On my 2nd day I decided to see more of the city with it's blue doors, windows and boats at the harbour but also go to see the 'Castle in the Sand' which according to legend/myth was the inspiration for Jimmy Hendrix to write his 'Castles Made of Sand' song that you can listen to here.

Overall, I can only recommend a trip to Essaouria and while I am not sure if I would go back to Marrakech, Essaouria is a place I would actually like to visit again at some point.

Arrived in Essaouria

GXR A12, f5.6, 1/500, ISO 200, JPG, 50mm

Since 3h each way to Casablanca in the train were not enough I figured I take another 3h bus ride and go to Essaouria today. Essaouria has been recommended to me to visit by everyone I talked to since I arrived at the airport so I figured a visit would be in order and after just an hour or so walking around I could see why.
I can also only fully recommend a visit to Essaouria and should I come back to Morocco, I will raher stay in Essaouria than in Marrakech.

You can see the full Essaouria gallery here but tomorrow will be my 2nd day in Essaouria so you'll get more pictures then.

Casablanca or what's in a name?

After having wasted 3h on the tarmac at Casablanca airport only last week, I figured why not spend another 3h in the train to go to actually see Casablanca.
Most people know the movie Casablanca (if you don't, go and watch it!), so I wondered how the city is and if the city is anything more than the name for a movie?

Well, my answer came pretty quick once I arrived and saw hat it's pretty much all run down and the only thing worth seeing happens to be a ridiculously huge mosque that must have cost a fortune to build which would have been way beter spent on improving the city and it's infrastructure or trying to make sure people have water in thir homes instead of having to get it from outside. This just shows how stupid religions can be if they spend so much time, money and resources building a silly mosque when they can as well just pray everywhere else if they really have to instead of spending it for something that makes sense and really improves people's lives.
The only other attraction is Ricks bar, a quite pricey restaurant themed after the movie but without being quite as classy and set it a poor neighbourhood.

So if you ask me if you should go and see Casablanca all I can say is definitely but make sure it's the movie and not the actual city. Unless of course I missed all of the good parts of the town which is certainly possible in only a few hours I had there.

Here a small series of my impressions from Casablanca, more can be found in my Dropbox gallery here.

Walking Past

GXR A12, f5.6, 1/320, ISO 200, JPG, 50mm

The first thing I noticed was the wall texture with the way the light and shadow looked. Since 50mm is not wide enough to stand opposie and get a good picture I had to include the street and there the people which in this case worked very well.

The Eye

GXR A12, f 2.5, 1/80, ISO 3200, JPG b&w, 50mm

Today was not such a good day photographically speaking, only got a few good pictures. It also looks like I have a theme going with my daily posts, one high ISO b&w picture followed by a color picture. It is not planned bu just happened that way.

More pictures as usual in my Dropbox gallery here.

Waiting by the Pool

GXR A12, f4.5, 1/640, ISO 200, RAW, 50mm

After seeing almost all the other gardens, I decided to walk all across town to the Menara Gardens near the airport. While the gardens seem very popular with the locals they were not really worth the walk but I still got a few nice pictures there.