critique my pen ep-1 setup and photos (rookie)

[timothy.]

Hey all

what a great set of forums. i just had to sign up and start participating when i saw the 'porn' thread on the ep-1 and wasn't disappointed when the pictures turned out to be of cameras, and not fiery biscuits. the lack of disappointment confirms this rookie's been bitten by the camera bug

anyway just seeking some feedback from more experienced shooters on my setup and advice on what lenses to carry. i've been shooting with the 17mm 2.8 'pancake' lens for the past month and recently went and bought some additional lenses and the mmf-1 adapter. the 14-42 kit lens irritated me for some reason. the zoom length just didn't seem useful as i could nearly always just walk closer to what i wanted to capture, and the images weren't as bright, so after a few dismal outings with the 14-42 i shelved it. maybe i'm just not using it properly.

anyway freshly unwrapped are my new sigma 30mm 1.4 and the olympus 40-150mm 4-5.6. I'm thinking these will be what i carry around most of the time. i really liked the sample shots i've seen with the sigma, so i hope to be able to reproduce with the pen. any shooting tips? anyone got this combo or lens? and the oly cheapo zoom lens... well i might have similar experiences to the 14-42, but 150 is a lot further and might be fun. seeking some shooting tips on that one too.

 

[mackigator]

Let me be the first to say it: Welcome. And you have great hair.

Rather than comment on your setup - one that I don't have - I'll point you to some examples of good work. I've found that once I have inspiration - the idea is more important than the lenses involved - I figure out the technical.

Play some of these photo essays:
http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/

And a good book on the basics for learning some technique (camera neutral):
Understanding Exposure on Amazon.

Good luck!

 

[timothy.]

thanks for the welcome and prompt reply!

these photo essays look great, cheers

 

[Kevin]

Hi Timothy, your shots (and hair) look great!
Welcome to RFF!
So you didn't pick up the Panasonic 20mm yet?
I think you ought to look into it ;-)
Cheers!

 

[bronney]

Hey Tim, great shots full of life. Don't get hung up on gears, you will definitely be one of us sooner or later lol. If you like shooting close to people, get a cheap M to M3/4 adapter and get the Voigtlander 15 4.5 old version ASPH, then shove it in their face! Be very careful once you have a leica M adapter, it's all downhill for your wallet.

Recently I am trying some cine lens but until the adapter issue settles I don't recommend it yet.

 

[timothy.]

a few months on and a report on the sigma 1.4 30mm lens on the ep-1.

i've learnt a lot through trial and error re: exposure. fwiw the auto modes on the pen almost always choose something worse IQ-wise than when I select them manually now. it seems the pen is a demanding camera when it comes to light with its smallish sensor. the sigma on paper seemed like a good idea because of the aperture and the focal length/AOV being good for portraits (although 30mm i've found can be a little short, the AOV is good).

unfortunately the auto focus does not work at time of writing. i read in many other places that the service centre can calibrate it to auto focus to the body but i haven't had time to get to one (there's one in my city - "CR Kennedy" are the dists in australia). what a pain in the arse. so the shots in the gallery link below are all manual focus. it has been good practice for manual focus i guess but i will probably get a lot better use from this lens once i have autofocus fixed. not sure what the service centre will say considering i am using an adapter with this lens. for what it's worth the autofocus on a normal four thirds system was very hit miss too with most of the shots back or front focussing wildly. so the lens needs replacing or calibrating. still, i quite like the shots i get assuming they're in focus. manual focus with the pen is actually pretty good in live view with 10X zoom on the LCD. about half of the time I am getting a very good focus. not great but it's still given me my best shots so far.

i sold the 4-5.6 lens because i carried it around in my crumpler 4MDH for about a month and it only left the bag once. the shots i took with it seemed pretty good though. the autofocus worked great and in good light the IQ was great too. sharp and colourful and bright and at the time I was using it I didn't know much about stopping down to get extra sharpness, so I was shooting wide open 100% of the time and it was still very sharp. surprising for such a cheap lens.

I find myself hungering for wider angles on the pen than the 34mm equivalent from the 17mm kit lens.. so i got a 8mm samyang fisheye from ebay (nikon mount, came with a free nikon-m43 adapter, yay!). It arrived a few days ago after 1 month. it looks and feels like a very nice lens but the shots i've taken with it at night so far are really poor heh. i think i'll need lots of light for this to work on the pen. i'll post in a little while with hopefully some good results.

the jpg download option full res should have settings embedded. very little post processing was done. SOME white balance tweaking (the auto white balance of the pen seems real crummy, anyone else have this?). let me know what you think.