Let’s take a break from rumors and camera reviews. Here is a list of links to articles that can help you to undertsand some scientific and technical aspects of photogaphy.
My prefered website is Cambridgeincolour.com. They recently published two new articles:
1) Reducing Camera Shake with Hand-Held Photos: “We’ve all likely encountered this problem many times: blurry photos due to camera shake with hand-held shots. It’s especially prevalent for those of us who are unfortunate enough to have unsteady hands. While it cannot be eliminated entirely, fortunately there’s a number of steps you can take to greatly reduce its impact — and hopefully prevent it from becoming visible in the first place.”
2) Using Camera Shutter Speed Creatively: “A camera’s shutter speed can control exposure, but it’s also one of the most powerful creative tools in photography. It can convey motion, freeze action, isolate subjects and smooth water, amongst other abilities. This tutorial describes how to achieve these various effects…”
A bit more complicated and scientific article has been published by Berkeley: “The human eye long ago solved a problem common to both digital and film cameras: how to get good contrast in an image while also capturing faint detail.” Read the article to understand “Why the eye is better than a camera“.
Now something more easy and funny to read (and use). There is a new online SLR Camera Simulator at Camerasim (found via Fotoactualidad). It’s a perfect site for beginners that need to learn the basics of photography!
During the last couple of weeks readers sent me links to their own works done with m43 gear. This is the summary of all of them:
1) Emmanuel (Video on top of the post) “Hi, there is a student film made in Bordeaux and Barcelona. Everything was shot with the GH2 (execpt for one shot made on 5D). In fact we had 5 GH2 ^^. The lens used was : 20mm 1.7, 9-18 olympus, 14 140mm panasonic and a 50MM 1.8 canon. It ‘s student work but we were produced at a low budget by the university (for less than 5000€) that become slowly professionnal. The last part is really impressive for the camera used. Hope you will post it on your site. Thanks for reading. Cordially (and sorry for my english).”
5) Florian: “Nice photos made with a PEN E-P2 on Flickr. Have a look. Hope you like the pictures.”
6) Luis: “I noticed your call out for any photography work that was created with m43 equipment and I wanted to pass along my own experience. I was on an assignment in Abu Dhabi this past December and I ditched my Nikon D3 + lenses when I visited a few cultural sites including the wonderful Grand Mosque. It was great fun using this light camera with it’s 14-45 kit lens. I’ve since moved on to the GH1 and I will carry it on all future jobs. Take a look at the images when you have some time. http://adventurephoto.posterous.com/where-we-work-a-tale-of-two-experiences”
7) Aaron: “I’ve been a big fan of the website and have been checking it almost daily since I got my first M43 camera almost 2 years ago. After seeing the link to Amos chapple’s website the other day (which I enjoyed immensely) it got me thinking that it would be great if you could feature the work of other M43 photographers somewhere on your site. I’m in the middle of a year long trip through Asia, and have been documenting my photos on www.aaroninasia.com all of which have been shot with the panasonic gf1 and the 20mm and 14mm lenses. (anxiously awaiting the announcement of the gf pro…). I just thought that your readers may be interested in another website updated regularly with travel photography made exclusively with the M43 format. If you think it’s a good idea, please post the link to my website, it may encourage others to contact you to post links to their websites as well. I love finding out about new gear, but sharing the photos this gear makes would be great too!”
8 ) Johannes: “discovered this guy on the DPReview MFT forums: http://www.flickr.com/photos/weesam/ I don’t think he’s a professional photographer, but I really love some of his landscape pictures!”
Editors’s note: Thanks for sending me all those links! If you find more nice works drop me a text at 43rumors@gmail.com. Keep in mind that I might link to your work after days or weeks only!
Samyang just announced on facebook (Click here) that they will release the new 7.5mm f/3.5 Fisheye lens for m43 in September. And there is now also an official statement on their website (Click here). The lens provides a 180 degree field vision and is manual focusing only. You can also see the four very first image samples (again on facebook). Those images do look very good! We have no word yet about the price but it will be certainly much cheaper than the current [shoplink 14820]Panasonic 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye[/shoplink] lens. Click here to check the price of that lens: [shopcountry 14820].
One more editors note. Samyang makes chreap lenses with very high quality! The recent [shoplink 20647 ebay]35mm f/1.4 lens for Olympus[/shoplink] is simply amazing. See the test results on a Canon APSC- done by Photozone (Click here). I do hope Samyang will make more of those lenses for m43!
Message to Samyang. Make some decent compact and fast primes and I bet you will sell tons of them!
P.S.: All Samyang lenses for Olympus can be found on eBay only and under seven different brand names (Click on it to see all Four Thirds lenses from the specific brand!):
[shoplink 20647 ebay]Samyang [/shoplink]
[shoplink 20684 ebay]Walimex [/shoplink]
[shoplink 20649 ebay]Rokinon [/shoplink]
[shoplink 20650 ebay]Opteka [/shoplink]
[shoplink 20651 ebay]Falcon [/shoplink]
[shoplink 20653 ebay]Vivitar [/shoplink]
[shoplink 20652 ebay]Bower [/shoplink]
“Life goes on… Goes to London…” from Seb Farges. SHot with GH2 and Nokton 0.95 ([shoplink 15659 ebay]Click here to see the lens auctions on eBay[/shoplink]).. This is a very personal movie from Seb: “…telling those past two months. Ending love story and a WE in London with Nina, my daughter (for those who did not noticed, there’s a lot of clue in this movie :) )“
Contax G Lenses on Lumix G cameras (simoudis.com). Contax G lenses on [shoplink 24548 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
Gastbeitrag: Wie die GF1 mein Leben veränderte…(systemkamera-forum.de). Translated it means how the GF1 changed my life :)
Just a short note for my readers. It’s my last day in France now and I had a very good vacation here. I had only good experiences and met many nice french people! I have to admit that 43rumors kept me more busy than I thought it would be. For the next time I will try to find a 100% substitute for the time I am away. As I told you months ago I will now travel a lot for work and I will need someone helping from time to time. Next week I will be on mountain trip on the Dolomites (I love to climb). And Next Month I will have a huge work to do first in Belgium than in NYC. Anyway, don’t want to bore you with my personal stories, I only wanted to let you know that I am very limited in time so please excuse me when I forget to answer your emails or when I am a bit late in posting a news.
Coming back to rumors. All I can tell you know is that both Olympus and Panasonic will have announcements in late August/September. And I heard from a possible surprise from Olympus and an almost certain huge surprise from Panasonic. I still have only few tidbits about that but as usual you should now that I am trying to post that stuff as soon as I can. The GF7 is coming (and that is not a secret anymore) and also new lenses. I got the feeling that the upcoming Sony NEX announcement (on August 24) put some pressure on Panasonic as I heard they will announce some products earlier than expected.
A very personal message: Some french friends that I met in these weeks are now reading this website. That’s a message for them: “Merci pour la journée magnifique”!!!
That sets a new record in Japan. According to BCNranking nine of the last week twenty most sold system cameras are from Olympus/Panasonic! As you can see from the image on top even the “japanese” E-PL1s does well! There are also two NEX cameras in the top twenty, that means that for the very first time Mirrorless cameras are the majority inside the japanese top 20! Now we know Nikon has their mirrorless system ready for the official presentation. Still now word about Canon…
Yasuhara didn’t manage to find any supplier in in oversea countries. And that’s why they decided to deliver the Nanoha lens directly to the users. You can preorder the lens directly at Yasuhara.co.jp. The current price is 479.50 USD. The shipping cost is not included in it. This price may be revised. Reminder: he Nanonha is a macro lens for m43 with 5x magnification. On Nonoha’s website you can find a description written in English: “The magnification is much more than ordinary macro lens. The magnification is up to x5. It means 1 pixel on the picture is about 1 micrometer on the shooting target. With NANOHA, you can find small wonders easily without using microscopes. And we added some patented features for your good shooting.” Yasuhara made some really nice lenses in the past like the [shoplink 22469 ebay]MC 50mm/f2.8 (Click here to see that lens on eBay)[/shoplink]. The company went bankrupt or something around 2004 I think, and this is new starting project.
In the meanwhile we heard that the SLRmagic 50mm f/0.95 fullframe and high quality lens is under development and that there are three focusing options. I am now curious to hear what kind of focusing mode you would chose:
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Explanation: Scalloped focus ring is the one used by the Nokton f/0.95 ([shoplink 15659 ebay]Click here to see it on ebay[/shoplink]). Focs Tab is what for example the Leica Summicron uses ([shoplink 24402 ebay]Click here to see it on ebay[/shoplink]). Regular barrel is what Zeiss lenses use ([shoplink 24401 ebay]Click here to see it on ebay[/shoplink]).