Driving In Orlando

On the way home from a doctor's appointment on Orange Avenue, I happened to pass this interesting wreck on Conroy at Conroy and Turkey Lake. There lay the red Isuzu up on its passenger side, pointing in the opposite direction of travel on the edge of the west-bound lane. How it would up that way is anybodies guess, but I have a theory that the Isuzu was turning onto Conroy from Turkey Lake, and for some reason the driver swerved and then lost control, causing the vehicle to spin and then flip on its side. I have no idea what the state of the driver of the Isuzu is, although I certainly hope the driver wasn't hurt. I have no idea how long the wreck was here, but the lack of highway patrol or ambulance leads me to believe the driver is in reasonably good shape.

The image was taken with the E-P2 and the new M.Zuiko 40-150mm 'R' zoom lens. I'd been stopping to take test images on the way back, and this is just another. The sun was close to setting, I wanted to shoot at 150mm maximum, and I also wanted to stop the lens down around a third of a stop, f/6.3. I wanted to see if I could finesse the lens and control chromatic aberrations, which I've noticed with the lens wide open. So I cranked the ISO up to 400 and let the E-P2 pick the shutter, which it did at 1/800 sec. This gave me a reasonably steady platform, which I needed using a lens with a 35mm equivalent focal length of 300mm.

As I mentioned in the last article, this lens is a bargain, and frankly a good bargain. It won't match the Zuiko Digital 50-200mm I own, but then it shouldn't; the ZD 50-200mm is nearly two stops faster at the long end, has a heck of a lot more glass, and is a pretty stellar performer in its own right. And it's about five times more expensive than the 40-150mm. You do get what you pay for. But for general utility usage, such as photojournalism on a budget, you can't beat this lens, and other lenses like it.

It does sorta motivate me to think about the M.Zuiko 75-300mm 1:4.8-6.7 zoom lens. I've been seeing more and more positive work done with this lens, especially wide open, and I've also noted the price has dropped a bit. There's something to be said about having a 300mm (600mm 35mm equivalent) in the arsenal. The only problem is that, again, from what I've read, you need to shoot in bright light and somewhere around 1/1000s if you want to minimize motion blur on your part. That means bumping up the ISO to 400 or 800. I have no problem using either ISO, as the E-P2 produces excellent images from ISO 800 on down. And in this age when getting close to get the photo can get you clobbered, pepper sprayed, and/or arrested just for being too close, then lenses like the 75-300mm become excellent candidates for citizen journalists. I just wish the blasted thing weren't so expensive, or if it's going to stay this expensive, I wish it were environment resistant like the newly announced M.Zuiko 12-50mm. In fact if the 75-300mm had electric zoom and weather seals like the 12-50mm, all for $750 (the price it's currently dropped to), then I wouldn't hesitate to purchase one at that price.

I guess in the mean time I'll use the 40-150mm and crop. I can drop the ISO to 200, and I've got a little bean bag I can use to rest the E-P2 and 40-150mm on to minimize movement.

Edit

Yes, this is 2011 entry 400. I've written twice as many entries as the next highest count year, 2007. I suppose I could have written something momentous to match the occasion, but then it wouldn't have fit in with all the other entries. This is after all a personal weblog (what 'blog' was corrupted from), so it should read like one. If you want magnificent, inspirational writing, you should probably go elsewhere. Really. Just like I'm an amateur photographer, I'm an amateur writer, with all that that implies.