London Night Out - Black and White

During a night out in London, I took my Olympus OM-D EM10 with me fitted with Panasonic 20mm f1.7 lens.  Black and white suits the look I was looking for.  Here are the results.  All photos converted in Lightroom.

Hoya 200mm F3.5 M42 Lens on Olympus OM-D E-M10

I am not a heavy user of long telephoto lens.  The longest lens I own is the Olympus 40-150mm f4-5.6 on Micro Four Thirds camera.  During the summer I was going to a motor sport events and needed a longer lens than that.  The Hoya lens was spotted on eBay and purchased for very little money. I know it is only 50mm longer, but on a MFT camera, the view is more like 100mm lens.  It arrived in good time for me to practice.  So, how does it perform in real life?  The lens is much bigger than the Pentax 135mm f3.5 M42 lens.  It does have a built in sliding hood.  This is a lot of convenient than the screw on hood of the Pentax.  The focus ring on this example is not very smooths which make the focusing slower and more difficult.  On a better example, it may well be easier.  The aperture ring can only be adjusted in full stops.  Rather disappointing as I would much prefer at least 1/2 stops increment.  After shooting with it for a week I was ready to shoot fast moving cars.

Rather than writing about it, here are some photos shot using this lens.

I will come out and say focusing is difficult with this lens.  It is mostly because shooting at f3.5 to 5.6, the depth of field is quite small at this focal length even with a M43 camera.  There is very little margin for error.  You can get reasonable shots with this lens if focus is accurate.

Here are a few more photos from a hot summer's day in Cambridge.

After shooting with this lens for a few weeks I can say the sharpness is less than desirable.  Contrast is quite poor and you do have large amount of blue/green fringing on high contrast areas.  If you shoot raw and prepare to put some time in to process the images, you can get some decent images.  I would rather spend a little more money and get a better lens.  Even though this is my first 200mm lens I tested, I am sure there are better ones out there for not much more money.  My verdict is don't bother.  I will stick with my Pentax 135mm Super Takumar or Olympus 40-150mm lens.

Wolinska Fashion Shoot - with BTS Video

I was very excited to collaborate with Gosia Wolinska, a designer based in London.  It is always great to have a great team together.  The model for this shoot was Mylene Vaeringstad with Robyn Webb doing the hair styling and makeup.  Gosia styled the shoot with Helen Daniel assisting her.  Here are the images from the shoot.  There is also a BTS time lapse video of the day.

A behind the scene time lapse video of this collaboration shoot with Wolinska label.

Sandra in the Forest

This summer was quite wet in the UK.  I was luck on the day of the shoot with Sandra.  It was raining hard all week until the day of our shoot.  The location of Epping Forest which I've used quite a few times before.  I kept the lighting very simple and used my Strobeam DL4 portable light with a reflective softbox for all the images.  Simply matched the ambient light with my flash.

Model: Sandra Embassa

Using my Sigma 85mm F1.4 lens for the whole shoot. Ultra shallow depth of field was not the look I was looking for, so I stopped down to F2 or F2.8 for most of the images.

I don't do much black and white but which version do you like, colour or black and white?