So I finally pulled the plug and decided to upgrade my Olympus Pen E-P3 to either the newer Pen F or stick with the E-P line now an E-P5 both now being about the same price. While the Pen F has a few more features and a built-in viewfinder, I decided to go with a nice used E-P5 since I liked the layout of the controls a bit more and like the optional viewfinder I have that is articulated so I can flip up to 90 deg giving me better viewing angle options. Sold the two other Pen bodies and a few lens at a local camera store, about the only real camera store left around, District Camera. Giving up the 70~300mm was a tough decision but in the end went ahead and sold it with the other stuff. Fact is being a standard 4/3 not a Micro 4/3 it was really kind of heavy which defeated the whole point of having a Micro 4/3 setup. I still have 300 zoom for my D80 so for long shots or birding its really the best shot (pun intended).
With the cash I got a sweet 60mm Macro Prime and then found a nice fast 25mm f1.7 prime international version (saves you bux but is covered by a guarantee) but how often to lenses go bad during that first year? (assuming you take care of them)
So I now have 3 primes, 17mm f2.8, 25mm f1.7 and 60mm f2.8 Macro, and three zooms covering 8mm thru 150mm. And the whole kit fits in the same space as my D80 with two lenses and weighs less.
Really digging the new lenses and camera.. so here are a few shots taken with macro and 150 zoom.
there was a nice conjunction of the crescent moon and Venus this morning. first shot with 60mm prime
the next two are with the 150
and a close up of the moon, nice detail and remarkably sharp for a zoom which sells for only $100 from Olympus
now some shots with the Macro
first two are hand held of a spider about 1/8" long with very shallow depth of field since I had to hand hold it had to use a wide f-stop so I could shoot with as fast a shudder as possible, hand-held shots are becoming more of challenge for me, thank dog for IS! The E-P5 has 5 axis IS whereas the E-P3 and 1 only had 3 axis IS (don't ask how you can have 5 axis in a 3D world, all I know is it works very nicely!). the 60mm prime I got from Olympus is pretty damn sharp and has focusing ranges down to .19 M. with a 1:1 thru 1:4 ratio. Nice!
Up close and personal with carpet fibbers, also hand-held
Some shots of Jeanne's Orchids at various depth of field and lighting, some back lit, some using reduced fill fash.
still learning about getting the right color settings in my RAW image workflow, the fact that different monitors, and even different web browsers and hosting sites all seem to have somewhat different color rendition makes it a bit challenging esp. when converting from RAW to jpegs. Garn..
RM (happy camper, or is that campy happer?)