Final Shot in Smoking Photography Series

Caravan Park Smoking Photograph

This was the last shot that I took in the smoking photography series. In many ways it is also one of my favourite shots of the project. I love the subject and I like the way the colours work in the shot. I had just been for a surf in a nearby bay in Devon and decided to go and have a look round the local caravan park. I came across this mother having a cigarette on the steps of her caravan with her baby playing at her feet. I thought it was an irresistible shot, so I asked her if I could snap away.

I thought she might not be too happy being photographed near her baby whilst she was smoking. In fact it seems didn’t bother her one bit.

I decided to enter this shot, and a couple of others in the series into the National Portrait Photography prize. The others I think were the chef and the two security guards. When I finally heard back they told me the shots had almost made it into the exhibition…. almost!! I don’t know if that made me feel better or worse about not getting in!

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Olympus E620 Digital Camera Review Pt.3

Welcome to the third and final part of Camera Advices review of the award winning Olympus E620 entry level digital camera. Here we will be discussing the focusing, live view, the cameras ‘art filters’ and general performance

Olympus E620 Focusing

The Olympus E620 has an 11 point auto focus system which gives you the option of which point to focus on. This works pretty well in most scenarios with normal lighting conditions. It’s auto focus was fairly quick (0.3 seconds, from shutter release to capture) although this does slow down in live view. It does start to fall down though when the lighting conditions become tricky. I found that when I was shooting in the indoor climbing centre with low light, and particularly with a long focal length, the camera spent a long time hunting for focus lock. This for me was the one area that let the camera down but then this is a problem with a lot of auto focus systems.

Olympus E620 Shutter Lag and Continuous shooting

Shutter lag was pretty decent with the E620 (0.02 seconds from shutter release to capture when pre focused). This is fairly normal for a camera of it’s class. This did slow down though when shooting in live view. The continuous shooting was also pretty good (4.1 frames per second with a 4 frame buffer).

Olympus E620 Live View

I have not been a big fan of live view on DSLR cameras until now, but I think I have had my mind changed by the E620. The dedicated on/off button makes it an easy option and it is simple and fun to use. There is no blacking out of the screen which happens on some systems so you can see what you are taking all the way up until the capture. The screen also has a tilt’n’swivel action so you can view the image from a variety of angles. This can be useful if you want to take overhead shots, and also if you want to hide the fact that you are taking a shot. The automatic face detection and contrast detection focus kicks in when in live view. This makes the camera behave more like a compact camera which made sense to me as an entry level digital camera. The only problem with this, as I have already mentioned, is the slowing down of the focusing. This is a little disappointing but I guess this happens with most point and shoot focusing.

Olympus E620 Art Filters

This feature was a fun option which will appeal to people who love iphone apps! It is simple to use and creates a variety of visual effects, some quite cool, others, a bit pointless. The pop art mode saturates colours, but tended to overdo reds, the soft focus was good as was the grainy film effect and the pin hole camera. The others are less interesting for my money. These are demonstrated below in this order from left to right: Art, Soft Focus, Light Tone, Pale and Light Colour, Grainy Film, Pin Hole, and Normal.


Olympus E620 Battery and Memory Card

The Olympus E620 camera is powered by a li-ion Olympus digital camera battery which takes, surprisingly, 3.5 hours to charge. The captures are stored on a compact flash card or Olympus’s own xD-Picture memory card. Each has it’s own slot.

Conclusion

Camera advice gives the Olympus E620 a big thumbs up. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I received this camera but I spent a few very happy days snapping away. The image quality was good, the camera felt responsive and good to hold, and I even liked some of the gimmicky features, like the art filters. What surprised me more than anything was how much I liked the live view, even though it slowed down the cameras focusing speed.
I would definitely recommend this as an entry level digital camera. It was a fun bit of kit and and would certainly encourage any beginner to be more creative with their photography.

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Olympus E620 Digital SLR Review Pt.2

Welcome to the second part of Camera Advice’s Olympus E620 Review. Here we take a look at the image and build quality of the E620. We also check out the menu systems in this award winning entry level digital camera.

Olympus E620 Build Quality

The E620 feels solid to hold and feels well made. All the doors for the battery and memory card are solid and responsive and all the buttons have a positive action. This gives you a feeling of confidence in the camera which I find important. Even the tilt’n’swivel LCD screen on the back felt like it could take a few knocks. In spite of this the Olympus E620 is light and small which I found a great benefit. I am so used to lugging round large professional Digital SLR cameras that I found this quite a joy to use. I could more than happily see myself using one of these as an everyday camera to carry with me to capture those unexpected moments. It is in fact one of the smallest and lightest entry level cameras on the market.

Olympus E620 Buttons and Menu

I found the menu system easy to follow. This might be because I found it similar to the Canon 5D mk2 which I often use on shoots. This may not be the case for a first time user. I do remember being pretty confused the first time I laid my eyes on the Canon menu system. Similar to the Canon it has a status display option. This means that it can use the LCD screen on the back to display all the current settings on the camera. You can also change all the settings on the this screen using the buttons on the D Pad on the back of the camera. I find this a very handy option because you don’t have to keep going into different menus and modes to change settings.

There are buttons all over this camera due to all the dedicated controls that Olympus are so keen on. I liked this feature because it meant that you didn’t have to keep going into the menu or pressing two buttons at a time to get where you wanted to go. Some may find this annoying and may be a little over cluttered. For me it also made accessing the live view option nice and easy and made me feel much more likely to use this function.

Olympus E620 Image Quality

Camera advice took the Olympus E620 up to our local climbing centre and took a couple of snaps. The results were great. The camera uses the same 12.3 megapixel sensor that goes into the more expensive Olympus E30 and I was very pleased with the results. The colors looked accurate when viewed on a monitor and it produced a nice high resolution image. The multi metering of the E620 produced slightly underexposed picture but then this tends to happen with quite a few of the automatically metered cameras. There are other metering options which give you more control over this so I wouldn’t say this was too much of a problem.

The camera also has various shooting presets such a Natural, Vivid and Muted. These create slight variations in tone and colour. I tend not to use these settings but I guess if you don’t want to bother with post production these settings will help you create the type of print you want without photoshop or lightroom software. You can also shoot RAW files and a combination of RAW and JPG if you wish. This is very similar to many pro cameras. I guess this is a lot of what this camera is about. Putting pro options on an entry level camera.

I tried the camera out on all the different ISO settings. At the faster settings as you would expect you could notice the image becoming noisier. This is something that is always an issue with cheaper and sometimes even more expensive cameras. The shot below are taken at 100 ASA, 800 ASA and 3200 ASA respectively.

Read Pt.3…

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Olympus E620 Digital Camera @ Camera Advice Review: First Impressions

Camera Advice’s First Impression

Nice…! Camera advice loves this award wining entry level digital camera. The minute I popped it out of the box it felt good to hold, looked attractive, and had all the buttons in the right place! I charged up the battery, which took rather a long time(3.5 hours) and started to play. All the controls felt easy to use and were easily accessible. The camera was light and felt good to hold. This is very important with any camera. You want it to feel comfortable in your hands when you are shooting. I don’t spend much time with amateur cameras, but when I do I really appreciate how handy they are. This Olympus E620 certainly fell into that category! It has loads of in camera features which are great if you don’t want to spend all your time on a computer, post shoot, and is also very reasonably priced.

I will not go into detail about the cameras specific functions in this article, I will split those into a couple of posts over the next week. What I do want to do here is touch on some of features that I will be talking about.

Olympus E620 Image Quality

This was all that I was expecting and a bit more in a camera of this class. It has the same sensor as it’s more expensive big brother the E30 and therefore produces very similar results

Olympus E620 Build Quality

This is a solidly built camera. The body is made of black textured plastic and feels good in the hand. All the buttons and controls feel positive and are in the right place

Olympus E620 Focusing

This is pretty good for an entry level camera. It is not its strongest point though and seemed a little slow when in Liveview.

Olympus E620 Liveview and viewfinder

I have never been a big fan of Liveview but it really makes sense on an amateur camera such as this and the swivel display was a nice touch. It is easy to use and will be a familiar feature for anyone moving up from a compact. I did find the viewfinder a little small and dark.

Olympus E620 Art filters

This is another feature I tend to find gimmiky, but with this camera found entertaining and easy to use! There are 8 options that are all created in camera.

Olympus E620 Buttons and Menu

I found the dedicated buttons a great benefit, even though it does mean the camera is covered with them! The menu was a little confusing until I became used to it but was reasonably easy to follow.

Olympus E620 Conclusion

This is a great entry level camera. Check out my more in depth reviews over the coming days. Read Pt.2…

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Camera Advice photography school: Julie Nickerson has joined

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Julie is one of three people to whom camera advice will be giving digital photography tuition over the coming weeks. Check the comments feed below to see how she and my two other internet students progress. (If you want to see the thumbnails of their digital photography enlarged click on the images).

  • Name: Julie Nickerson
  • Age: 39
  • Location: Nova Scotia, Canada
  • Photography Experience:Not much. Always had an interest in photography. Got my dslr a couple of years ago and have been going on forums and reading and practicing.
  • Equipment: Canon XTi digital camera, Sigma 17-70 2.8-4, 18-55, 75-300, Promaster 7500 speedlight.
  • Interested in photography: I’ve always been interested in landscape, seascape and nature. I have teenagers so I’ve taken a liking to seniors. I just recently done a boudoir practice shoot and I’m thinking that I would like that to.

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Camera Advice photography school (1 place for 1 month)

Camera advice is offering online tuition on how to use your digital camera (for people of any age, not just kids, as in the photo!). I have one place for one month because a student has not been able to take up the place.

I will give you instructions, guidance and projects. You will take the project photos and then upload them onto the Camera Advice site. I will be able to see how you get on, give you a crit, and answer any questions that you may have.

If anybody is interested contact me through the contact form on the site and we can proceed from there.

Talk soon,

Justin

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New Leica S2 Medium Format

Invitation to Leica

A Lamborghini speeds by as I cross Berkley Square on my way to the Leica showroom in the heart of Mayfair, central London. Camera Advice received an invite to view the new Leica S2 medium format digital camera. I don’t make a habit of attending to these events, but I thought, this being Leica, and, their first medium format pro-camera with autofocus, it might be worth a squint.

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Leica Showroom

The showroom is down a small mews, and the interior is reminiscent of an exclusive jewellery store. The lighting is subdued, and glass cases display gift boxes containing brightly coloured, beautifully crafted Leica cameras and lenses. I am ushered upstairs to the studio on the first floor where I have my first glimpse of the camera.

Leica S2 Body

The body is beautifully minimal and owes more to the looks of a 35mm camera than a medium format, reminding me of my first Pentax 67. It feels solid to hold and is pleasingly devoid of endless fiddly buttons and dials. The controls are simplicity itself, thankfully, and buck the trend of most over-complex digital cameras of the moment. There is a traditional shutter dial on the top, next to an easy to read OLED. This highlights each function in a different colour. title=On the back is the LED screen surrounded by four long buttons similar to the original phase one backs that I often use on shoots. These control the cameras menu functions and feel logical to use. This probably has something to do with my familiarity with the Phase One system.

Shooting with the Leica

The camera is tethered (by a USB cable) to a computer. It has a four pin connection which seems solid and reliable, unlike the usbs of most medium format backs which always seem to work loose without a little gaffer tape. It does also have two card slots, this means you can shoot raw to one and jpgs to another. My photo model, the camera demonstrator, waits for me to take the shot. I focus, release the shutter, the file uploads, and the result appears on the 32” apple monitor. The download time is a little slow, but then this is a medium format, in tethered shooting mode. The auto focus is as good as it gets with a medium format but is noisier than I would expect from such a quality camera. title=The results though are spectacular. The resolution is 37.9 megapixels and the 3:2 sensor (the same format as a 35mm) is 56% larger than any full frame 35mm camera. I didn’t have time to do any in depth analysis of any of the specifications and lenses but from what I could see this camera shoots quality. This is no doubt down the Kodak sensor and the Leica lens.

Leica Lenses

At the moment Leica only make four lenses for the S2. These are a 35mm, 70mm, and 120mm, all 2.5 and a 180mm 3.5. They make two versions, one that works with the camera’s focal shutter and another pricier version with a leaf shutter. This is also reminiscent of the old Pentax. The leaf shutter version means you can sync with flash up to 1/500. This is something I use all the time with my photography so I’d have to stump up the extra cash! They do have plans to increase the range but when this will happen I am not sure.
The lenses as you would expect feel solid. They match the simplicity of the camera body and as a package the whole product oozes class.

Would I buy this camera?

I would want to spend some time with this camera before I decided to buy it. I only took a couple of shots in the studio and haven’t yet done any extensive or detailed analysis of it. Having said that I love the styling and simplicity of this kit. I also love the fact that this is a medium format in a 35mm body. I guess the only disadvantage of this is that if you need a back up camera you need a second body and not just another back like the phase one system. Having said that it does feel solid, reliable and has great image quality.

Did I mention the price?

Oh yes! The price! The camera body will set you back about $20,000 and each lens is around $5,000. Well what did you expect? This is a Leica and it is medium format. The quality is definitely far superior to any 35mm camera but whether or not it is worth this price tag probably depends on the size of your pockets and for whom you are shooting, but having said that I could definitely see myself working with this piece of kit.

To visit the S2 @ the Leica website click this link

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Camera Advice smokes Royal Ascot

Royal Ascot Smoking Photos

The braying and guffawing was omnipresent on ‘Ladies Day’ at Royal Ascot (the horse race meet of the British calendar) and camera advice was there to continue it’s project of snapping outdoor smokers. Ok, so this lot hadn’t been forced to smoke outside but I thought it would be a great place to continue my smoking photography. So, bravely, off I went, regardless of the smoking health effects to myself! I was once again using my canon flash, canon eos 5d, and my canon 24-70mm 2.8 zoom.

Young Tory smoking photo

My first subject was a young slightly tipsy lady dressed in a flamboyant orange outfit. She reminded me of that image of Britannia, and was sipping a glass of white wine whilst tobacco smoking. She was happy to be photographed so I set up my lights and started taking some pictures. The bright sunlight meant I had to turn my canon flashes up full volume and get them in close, but the result was great.

Cigar smoking

Next, I came across a loud, confident chap braying in a strong South African accent. He was smoking a cigar and was very keen to be photographed. Once again I set up in the crowds of people and he started posing for me. It was a little hard to get a natural looking shot because of all his swaggering posing, but eventually I get the shot that I wanted.

Perfect place for smoking photography

I drove home having captured several great shots. Royal Ascot had been a great place to take pictures. All the dressing up, and the larger than life characters really added to the pictures. The beautifully sunny day had made it hard to make effective use of the flash but the colours were great.

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Camera Advice photography school: Angeline Yang has joined

Angeline is one of three people to whom camera advice will be giving photography tuition over the coming weeks. Check the comments feed below to see how she and my two other internet students progress. (If you want to see the thumbnails of their photography enlarged click on the images).

  • Name: Angeline Yang
  • Age: 22
  • Location: Singapore
  • Photography Experience: 7 – 8 mths
  • Equipment: Canon 500D, 18-55mm, 55-200mm, 50mm
  • Interested in photography: street, editorial, journalistic, architecture

Popularity: 14% [?]

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Camera Advice photography school: Vithal Joshi has joined

Vital is one of three people to whom camera advice will be giving free photography tuition over the coming weeks. Check the comments feed below to see how he and my two other internet students progress. (If you want to see the thumbnails of their photography enlarged click on the images).

  • Name: Vithal Joshi
  • Age: 25
  • Location: Washington D.C. USA
  • Photography Experience: Nil (Beginner)
  • Equipment: Nokia D3000,(Kit Lens – 18-55 mm lens and 55-200mm)
  • Interested in photography:  Low Light,Portraits, Action Photography

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