Photography

Thoughts on Camera Gear

Soon after my first son was born I wanted a better camera than my iPhone.

That was five years ago. Long-time readers may remember that I dove deep into the world of mirrorless cameras. (I’ve put links to all those past articles at the end of the post.)

To make a long story short, in the Fall of 2012 I purchased an Olympus E-PL5. And it proved to be surprisingly awesome. Though it lacked a bunch of the knobs and dials that a more advanced photographer would want, the E-PL5 was capable of taking some incredible images.

After using that camera constantly for about 18 months, I upgraded to the Olympus E-M10. The E-M10 had all the upgrades I wanted.

Life After the E-M10

After buying the E-M10 in the spring of 2014, I pretty much stopped paying attention to all new camera gear.

Instead of following the latest gear trends, I wanted to use what I had and push it to the limits. If I hit a point where I was using my camera all the time and wasn’t satisfied with my results, then I would allow myself to look into other options. But that never happened.

Five years later, and I am still using my Olympus gear regularly (though the iPhone X is certainly giving it a run for its money) and I’m still very happy with the results.

Recently, however, I was curious what new gear there was. I started searching online and found that the Olympus and Micro 4/3 landscape is mostly unchanged from when I stopped paying attention back in 2014.

There have been steady and incremental updates to all the versions of all the Olympus flagship cameras, and there are some cool new Panasonic and Olympus lenses, but nothing significantly new or mind blowing. At least, not for me.

Now, please don’t read this as me griping or complaining against Olympus or Panasonic. There’s nothing at all bad about incremental progress. If anything, I’m bragging about the opposite side of the coin: the camera and lenses I purchased back in 2013 and 2014 are just as great as they were when I bought them.

And this is something that I’ve discovered to be true about photography gear: it doesn’t become obsolete the way other technologies do.

My iPhone, iPad, and iMac will all, eventually, become obsolete and will need to be updated.

A good camera will only become obsolete if you neglect it or else outgrow it.

* * *

I have no doubt I’ll upgrade my camera gear one day.

I’d love to move up to full-frame, and there are some excellent options: both Leica and Sony have both been pushing things forward in that area. The Leica Q is stunning, and if it came with a 50mm prime rather than the 28mm, I’d be in trouble. Likewise, the Sony RX1R is pretty awesome.

For now, what I have is still serving me well. In fact, I recently took some photos of all the grandkids as part of a gift to my parent’s on their 40th wedding anniversary. I used both my Olympus E-M10 and also my office Cannon 6D that we use for shooting video with its 50/1.4 lens.

Guess which camera I got better photos from? The Olympus. No doubt because it’s the camera I’m more comfortable with, and that results in better images. But it’s just proof that for stuff like this, tools and gear are not the most important.

All that said, here are some shots I’ve taken recently with the my Olympus E-M10.

If you’d like to read more about my foray into camera gear — and get more of the details behind why I bought what I bought — then here are links to all the articles I wrote, in chronological order, starting here, here, here, here, here, and, finally, here.

Thoughts on Camera Gear

Awesome Gear for iPhone Photography and Videography  →

True story: I decided to get the iPhone 6S Plus this year.

In part, I went with the bigger iPhone to see how the big-screened other side lives (my Android-toting cousins are never going to let me hear the end of it this Thanksgiving).

I also went with the 6S Plus because it has the best camera in a mobile device (if you can call an airplane wing a mobile device). The in-body image stabilization goes a long way with video.

Knowing that I’m not the only one looking forward to shooting with the new iPhone, over on Tools & Toys, we put together an unordered list of awesome gear to take your iPhone photography and videography to the next level. A super-cool mobile tripod, awesome extra lenses, etc. Check it out.

Awesome Gear for iPhone Photography and Videography

The Tools & Toys Review of The Panasonic Leica 25mm f/1.4 Lens  →

Speaking of awesome reviews, over at Tools & Toys today, Álvaro Serrano wrote an incredible review of what is, in my humble opinion, the best lens for the Micro Four-Thirds system: The Panasonic Leica 25/1.4.

I’ve been shooting with this lens for about a year and a half and continue to be amazed by the character and personality it gives to my photos. If you want to know about the technical details or if you just want to see the quality of photos this lens is capable of, look no further than Álvaro’s stellar review.

The Tools & Toys Review of The Panasonic Leica 25mm f/1.4 Lens

A Few Awesome Camera Accessories  →

When you buy a camera, the included accessories are usually pretty lame.

The included SD card (if there even is one) is likely to be slow and unreliable. The shoulder strap is likely to be too small (unless you want to wear it around the back of your neck with the camera hanging down in front of your belly button). And the camera bag (or pouch) may not suit your taste. Etc.

In my few years as a professional photography enthusiast, I’ve found it to be a delightful and rewarding activity. And, at least for me, a lot of that has to do with the ancillary gear I use. Though accessories are not nearly as critical as the camera you buy nor the time you make to get out there and take photos, I do think having better gear can make a difference.

A Few Awesome Camera Accessories

A Few Thoughts on the New Olympus E-PL7 Camera and the Olympus Micro Four Thirds Landscape in General

About a week ago, Olympus announced the E-PL7 camera. It’s available for pre-order now at $600 for the body only and will ship around the end of the month.

Reading the press releases and several of the pre-release reviews, ’tis clear that the E-PL7 is a significant step up from the E-PL5. The latter is a camera which I have long considered to be one of the best-kept secrets of the Micro Four Thirds lineup — it was cheap, small, and packed a lot of punch.

However, after shooting with my E-PL5 for over a year, I upgraded to the E-M10. My upgrade choice was driven primarily by my want for a manual control dial. The rest of the features of the E-M10 (view finder, better image stabilization, wi-fi, et al.) were just icing on the cake at the time, but they have proven to be invaluable.

The improvements in the new E-PL7 are almost exactly in answer to the very same reasons I upgraded to the E-M10 six months ago. In fact, the E-PL7 is such a step up from the E-PL5 that it’s now comparable to the O-MD lineup in terms of image capabilities and in terms of and what features it offers to the user.

The hallmark features of the E-PL7 include:

  • Wi-Fi
  • 3-Axis in-body image stabilization
  • TruPic 7 image processor that debut in the flagship E-M1 camera
  • A manual control dial
  • Improved auto-focus
  • New camera body design with more retro and more metal
  • Selfie-friendly viewfinder (no, seriously)
  • And there is also what looks to be an improvement to the 4-direction control nob on the back of the camera. The spin-dial on the E-PL5 turned out to be a joke over time and actually has become sometimes unusable on my camera body. Getting rid of the spinning part and just doing buttons is a good move.

Aside from Selfie Mode, the E-M10 has all these same hallmark features. And, as I mentioned above, the E-M10 was an extremely worthwhile upgrade from the E-PL5. But that’s where I wonder about the the value of the E-PL7. It’s just $100 cheaper than the E-M10, but for that $100 you get the built-in electronic view finder, twice as many custom dials and function buttons, and an arguably more handsome camera with a better grip and better build quality.

My point being, as awesome as the E-PL7 looks when compared to its younger sibling, I don’t know that it’s a no-brainer of a purchase. It’s terribly close in price to the E-M10, and the slight savings of $100 means you’re not getting things I think are easily worth that $100 (especially once you’re up in that price range already).

The Olympus Micro Four Thirds Landscape in General

There are three lines of camera bodies that Olympus is actively producing right now: The O-MD, the PEN, and the PEN Lite. And from these we have the E-Mn, the E-Pn, and the E-PLn respectively.

The OM-D line is the flagship / pro line. It currently consists of the E-M1, E-M5, and E-M10. These cameras get the latest and greatest technical improvements first, and then those advancements trickle down into the other lines.

Unlike the OM-D line, the PEN and PEN Lite lines have just one “main” or “active” camera body at a time. Right now those ar the E-P5 and E-PL7 respectively. It seems the PEN Lite cameras get the O-MD’s features first, and then they are put into the PEN family afterwards.

It’s getting to the point where all of the Olympus cameras are on a level playing field with one another in terms of their core capabilities to take great images.

All of their latest cameras have (nearly) identical sensors and processors. Which means, at the end of the day, they are all equally capable of capturing the same images.

And so, it’s what’s outside the camera that counts. Which features are important to you? What’s your budget? Which camera looks the coolest to you?

  • The E-PL5: If you want the cheapest you can possibly get, then I’d still recommend go with an E-PL5 still. There were some major advancements to sensors and processors in the E-PL5, and it’s not worth the money you’d save to get anything that preceded it.

  • The E-PL7: If you want the smallest you can get and aren’t super concerned about price, get the E-PL7 It’s just barely bigger than the E-PL5, but its improvements are significant and will be worth it.

  • The E-M10: If you want the most compact pro-level, the E-M10 is great. It is just a bit bigger than the E-PL7 and is only $100 more expensive. Yet it comes with some excellent professional-grade features that you’ll be glad you have if you plan on being even remotely serious with your photography habit.

  • The E-M1: If you want the most bells and whistles, the E-M1 is the flagship model.

For me, I’m extremely happy with the E-M10. It’s the right balance of being a small size while offering the additional pro-level features. But more on that once I wrap up my E-M10 review.

A Few Thoughts on the New Olympus E-PL7 Camera and the Olympus Micro Four Thirds Landscape in General

My WWDC 2014 Flickr album  →

Here are some shots of places and people during my time at WWDC last week.

You may see that about half of these photos I edited and uploaded using my iPhone while I was in San Francisco. Back in February I traded in my E-PL5 for the new E-M10, and I love it. The E-M10 has built-in Wi-Fi and so I can connect my iPhone or iPad to it, launch the Olympus iOS app, and save any images I want directly to my device. Then, I’ll open those images in VSCO Cam, edit them, save them back to the Camera Roll, and then upload to Flickr using the Flickr app.

It sounds more cumbersome than it is (it’s actually much faster than the SD Card → Lightroom → Flickr workflow I have on my Mac), and it’s a great way to quickly share photos I take with my best camera.

When I bought the E-M10 I mostly did so because it had the viewfinder and the manual control dials. The built-in Wi-Fi seemed like a novelty feature to me, but over the past 5 months I’ve found that I use the Wi-Fi very often.

My WWDC 2014 Flickr album

The ROI Of iCloud Photo Storage  →

Matthew Panzarino:

Consistently, when I speak to users about their iOS device woes, it comes down to running out of space for photos and video. And photos differ significantly from other data in that there is an intense emotional and mnemonic attachment to them. These are fragments of life, not just packets of data.

That’s why I think that this year would be a really fine time for Apple to start ignoring the ROI of iCloud storage.

Couldn’t agree more. iCloud’s free tier of storage and photo stream backup restrictions are the same today as when when Steve Jobs himself first introduced them at WWDC 2011.

When iCloud was announced in June 2011, the iPad 2 and iPhone 4 were the most-recent iOS devices. Since that announcement, there have been significant advancements to the Apple hardware scene related to mobile photography, and yet the iCloud services that backup and support our photography are now 3 years old.

The ROI Of iCloud Photo Storage

Shooting With an Anamorphic Lens on a DSLR Camera  →

And one more photography link.

Sam Hurd:

Back in the day when filmmakers were itching for wider and wider field of views (FOV) for their movies, it got to a point where they wanted to get so wide that the 35mm film and spherical lenses they were shooting with couldn’t hold all the horizontal imagery they wanted without cropping the image.

The solution? Literally squish the image horizontally using a special lens so it could take up more vertical space, fitting a wider image on the finite area available to them on 35mm film. They could then un-squish the footage in post using a lens with the exact opposite amount of squeeze, returning the proportions to normal. The resulting effect is a panoramic aspect ratio that has the depth of field (DoF) of a longer telephoto lens but with a wider FOV.

(Via Phil Coffman.)

Shooting With an Anamorphic Lens on a DSLR Camera

Litely  →

Litely is a brand new iPhone and iPad photo editing app from the insanely talented photographer, Cole Rise. The app uses the same filters as Cole’s Lightroom presets of the same name (and of which I am a huge fan). Litely (both for Lightroom and the new app) are the first set of filters and presets I’ve used that I like as much as what VSCO makes.

The Litely app is more than just neat filters, too. It has some great features and interactions. Sam Soffes, the developer, wrote about some of the feature implementations.

See also: Billy Steele’s review of Litely plus interview with Cole on Engadget.

Litely

Flickr 3.0

Flickr for iPhone version 3

Flickr shipped a massive update to their iPhone app just a few days ago. As an avid user of both Flickr and an iPhone, I wanted to share my thoughts about their new app and bit about the state of Flickr in general.

In short, it’s a fantastic app sporting one of the best iOS 7 updates I’ve seen. It has many visual tie-ins with the also-recently-updated Flickr website. All in all, I am encouraged about the future of Flickr and their resolve to avoid obsolescence.

Instagram Inspiration

There is a lot of Instagram-type inspiration going on, and I like it. When scrolling down the main timeline view you can double-tap on an image favorite it; all images in your main timeline view are shown as edge-to-edge squares even if the image itself is a different aspect ratio.

The notifications screen that shows all the activity happening on your account (people who have liked your images, favorited them, and/or new followers) is also reminiscent of the Instagram notification screen.

In the main photo stream timeline, when someone has uploaded several photos, you see them as a collage of 2 or 3. You can tap on one of the photos you see to bring that photo’s detail view, or you can tap the button to “view all photos” and you’re taken to a gallery-type view showing all the photos in that set.

Navigating around the app

Virtually everything within the app is tappable as a link, which is great. It’s very easy to find and explore new photos and photographers, and thus it’s easy to drill down deep within the app.

Alas, there is no shortcut to get back to any of the top level tabs of the app. Suppose you tap on someone’s photo, then go to their profile timeline page, then tap onto another photo in their timeline, tap onto the comments of that photo, and then tap onto the someone who left a comment to view their profile timeline. Well, now you’re 5 layers deep into the app and it will take 5 taps to get back to the top. And, to add some lemon juice, to exit out of an individual photo view, you have to tap the “x” that’s in the top-right corner of the screen, but to go back a level when you’re on someone’s profile page, you have to tap the back arrow that is on the top-left of the screen. Moreover, since the Flickr app doesn’t have any gestural-based navigation (you can’t swipe from left-to-right to go back), the only way to navigate out of someone’s profile photo stream view is to scroll to the top to reveal the back button.

Overall, the app is extremely well designed and easy to navigate and figure out. The nature of the design and content encourage (in a good way) getting lost in the app and discovering photos and photographers. Just an easier way to get back to the trail head is all I’m asking for.

Pull to Refresh

The pull-to-refresh animation is quite clever. If you’re at the top of the main timeline view, pulling down reveals a white dot. As you continue to pull down to refresh, the white dot gradually turns pink as it simultaneously gets surrounded by a thick blue line (the two colors of the Flick logo). Then the blue line and pink dot separate to form the the two-dot Flickr logo and they sort of spin/orbit around one another.

This animation is even cooler when you pull to refresh from someone’s profile page. The blue line forms around the person’s circle avatar, and those two dots orbit around one another as the page refreshes and then the avatar sort of slingshots back up to where it was.

Auto-Uploading and Privacy

The Flickr app can auto-upload your iPhone photos just like Dropbox does.

So far as I can tell, once you’ve enabled the app’s auto-uploading feature, only your preceding photographs (and screenshots) will be uploaded to Flickr. It won’t begin uploading your whole iPhone Camera Roll.

All your auto-uploaded photos are automatically set to private. This is, in fact, a setting that you cannot change. I like that it’s a non-adjustable setting because it means nobody will accidentally set all their uploads to be public.

Photos that are set to private won’t show up in any public timelines and they are hidden from anyone who views your Flickr profile. You, however, will see the photos the same way all other photos appear in your timeline, and you can set any image to be public if you wish.

Within the iPhone app, photos that are set to private have a little lock icon in their top-left corner. On the Flickr website, the only way to know if a photo is set to private or not is by going to the image’s permalink page where you can see a lock icon.

On the left is what my Flickr photo stream looks like to me, and on the right is what it looks like to others.

Flickr for iPhone version 3

p.s. Here’s what it looks like in a web browser.

For photos that you upload manually from the Flickr app, you are given the option to set the photo’s visibility to Public, Private, Friends only, Family only, or Friends and Family only. (For those not familiar with how Friends and Family works in Flickr, when you chose to follow someone you can define if they are a friend or a family member. Thus, you’re given the option to also set a photo’s visibility to only those groups. Which is actually really great.)

You can also share the upload to Twitter, Facebook, and/or Tumblr. As well as adding the photo to a location (via the Foursquare API), and adding to any of your Flickr Albums (or create a new Album).

The idea of Flickr as a photo Syncing and sharing service

Flickr gives you 1TB (!) of free photo storage, which is pretty amazing.

That amount of storage is certainly enticing when trying to consider a photo backup service to use, but I see two downsides:

  1. For one I’m not sure if I want all my iPhone photos to be in my Flickr account. The past couple years I’ve been only putting my best / favorite photos up to Flickr. There are a lot of silly, blurry, goofy images on my iPhone’s camera roll.
  2. Secondly, not counting the iPhone app, there’s no automatic uploading of my photos to Flickr. I have to manually upload my images. And, suppose I were to upload today all my photos from 2013 — they would appear at the top of my Flickr timeline, because Flickr doesn’t auto-sort by original photo date.

While there are some cool possibilities with using Flickr as a hub for photo sharing and syncing, it’s still not there yet.

In-App Filters

The Flickr app continues to let you take and edit photos as well.

Below is an image of my wife, Anna, holding our new nephew, Simon. The image itself was shot with my E-M10. In clockwise starting with the top-left image: (1) the original out-of-camera JPG; (2) a version edited with the new Flickr app using the Brooklyn filter; (3) edited on the iPhone VSCO Cam app using the F2 filter; and (4) a version edited in Lightroom on my Mac using the VSCO Film 05, Agfa Vista 100 preset.

Flickr for iPhone version 3

(Tap the image to bring up an enlarged view.)

I tried to pick the filter in each app that I liked best for this photograph. Here, comparing them side-by-side here, the Flickr version looks the most dramatic and “cheesy”. I think the VSCO Film version looks the most natural and nice. The VSCO Cam version looks great as well, though it too — for a one-tap filter application on an iPhone, I’m impressed.

Miscellany

  • For a few days, if you installed the Flickr iPhone app onto your iPad you got a watermelon icon. Apparently it was an easter egg placed there by Flickr as a hint that the iPad app is coming soon.

  • When you’re in the detail view of a photograph, you can “toss it around” just like you can with Tweetbot 3 for iPhone. This is a neat and fun touch. However, it’s also the only way to exit the detail view aside from tapping the “x” in the upper-right corner.

When you tap a photo, it brings up that image in full-view. Tap it again and all the text and photo info on the screen disappears, giving you the “lightbox” mode. Tap in lightbox mode to go back to image-only view with the relevant text again.

  • When leaving a comment, there is no way to reply to a particular person’s comment. You can only type your comment out, but not have it be an “@reply”.

Wrap

The new Flickr app is one of the nicest iOS 7 apps I’ve seen. Its links and tappable areas are clear, it does a great job using blur effects, and it’s easy and delightful to use.

Flickr has so many things right. The whole way the site works is clever, thought through, and useful. But times are changing and so there is still much that Flickr needs to catch up on. But I love that it’s making serious strides forward, and that Yahoo is taking the service seriously. I’ve been a Flickr user for years and I use it now more than I ever have. It’s encouraging and exciting to see these improvements to their website, service, and mobile apps.

Flickr 3.0