This Old Blog

OM-D E-M5 dressed out in all its finery The last month or so has been thick with camera announcements. First there were the bodies, such as the Olympus E-P5, the Leica X Vario, a trio of Pentaxs, the Android-based Samsung NX, Sony's refresh to their RX1 (RX1R) and RX100 (RX100M2), the Fujifilm X-M1, and today, the Canon 70D. And then there were the lens and firmware update announcments. But the real eye-catchers for me have been the E-P5 kit (body + 1.8/17mm + VF-4 EVF) at the start and the Canon 70D. In particular the 70D for its video capabilities. Why the 70D? Engadget is one of the few sites that has two videos using the 70D, one that was used to shoot the short "Handmade", and the second to shoot the making of the short. The second is very interesting as it shows how the film maker used the touch screen to pick the focus points int the movie, and when a point was chosen, the 70D smoothly changed focus without the the in-and-out focus flicker dance that takes p...

Sony α65 with 18-55mm SAM kit zoom I'm writing this post for two reasons: (1) because 47 minutes into the first presidential debate I got so sick of Romney's smug smile and babbling answers (as well as his flip-flops on a number of key issues) that I turned off the tube panel, and (2) earlier in the evening I'd stopped by the Best Buy at the Mall at Millenia to handle a Nikon D600, and came away totally turned off to the camera. The Nikon D600 is not worth $2,100. It is the most poorly made camera in that price bracket that I believe I have ever held. The plastic coating is thin and chintzy looking. The pop-up flash should never have been added to the body, as it's thin and flimsy. While I was standing there gently toying with the battery cover it popped off the body into my hand. When I looked at the overall battery compartment I was appalled at the cheesy all-plastic design and construction. I know what some marketing droid at Nikon probably thought: they'r...

Nikon D600 I've been taking a break from writing through the month of September, an extended vacation to make up for all the posting I was doing while on the Big Road Trip the first two weeks in September. I even stopped thinking about camera gear (or as much as someone like me can ever stop thinking about it), trying to get some time between the events of Photokina and now to build up a bit of perspective. There's nothing worse for me than to be hit with exciting equipment introduction (as, for example, the Olympus OM-D E-M5 earlier this year), to get me all excited and in the process making a fool out of myself by professing how, right then and there , I'm going to get a copy of my very own. So I gave it all a rest and just let it percolate in the back of my mind. Today, as I was working through my infinite to-do list, I began to put together a series of price lists of basic camera gear, consisting of a body and one lens from Olympus (what I had before it was stole...

After Monday's personal Twitpocalypse scornfest I unleashed against the official arrival of the Canon EOS-M, I decided to give it a rest and let the dust settle around the rest of the blogosphere (how's that for long-winded term dropping?) I stumbled around the Internets to see just how far off base I might have been with regards to my opinion regarding Canon's mirrorless entry. It looks like not far, but I was a bit over-the-top, perhaps, with my uninformed opinion. Just a bit. Of all the opinions I've read so far, I believe Thom Hogan's post " Welcome, Canon. Seriously " pretty much hit on all the right points. Or right on the few he covered, which were the important ones. His post got me to really thinking about not just Canon's entry, but why it entered the market with the EOS-M. Why Now? Two reasons. First, Because Canon had no other choice. Canon is the largest camera manufacturer in the world, both in terms of gross sales and DSLRs. In 2010...

Under normal circumstances it's down right impossible to ignore a new, unannounced camera, especially if it's from one of the majors, in this instance Canon. Especially if the images are sitting in someone's Flickr stream . But after looking at the images on line and reading the minimal amount of specification information, my reaction to the new camera is "so what?" It looks to be based on an APS-C class sensor, although some rumors have said it would re-use the Canon G1-X's sensor, Canon's 18mm by 14mm 4:3 aspect ration sensor (µ4/3rds is 17mm by 13mm). I believe it is APS-C because 22mm x 1.5 gives us 33mm, which is in the classic 35mm domain (Olympus' M.Zuiko 1:2.8/17mm is equivalent to 17mm x 2 or 34mm). The zoom to be announced with the the body is identical, focal-length wise, to Sony's. Scrutinizing the lens in larger format, the filter size is 52mm, larger than Sony's zoom's 49mm filter size. That means this so-called compact zoo...

I'm going to pretend like I'm Thom Hogan and speculate about the rumored Nikon D600 that will allegedly be released sometime this summer. I don't currently own any digital Nikon kit, only Olympus. The only Nikon camera I've ever owned was the film-era N90. It was an OK camera, a camera I purchased in a fit of passion that slowly faded over the 15 years I had it in my possession. I don't know if it was the N90's fault, mine, or some combination of the two, but my passion for it and photography in general had nearly withered away before the little Canon PowerShot A300 arrived and began to re-kindle a passion for photography. With the purchase of the Olympus E-300 my passion for photography came roaring back. Somewhere in that sad tale is a lesson, I'm sure. Yet, in spite of my mistakes of history, I refuse to learn from them. So here I am getting all excited like I was a real Nikon fanboy about a rumored Nikon digital camera, as if I were going to rush rig...

What you're looking at is my first digital camera. It was my wife's idea for me to get it. I had a Nikon N90 with a Nikkor kit zoom and Nikon flash at the time (which I gave to my #2 daughter for her college film photography classes). But it had been nearly a year since I'd bothered to pick the Nikon up and use it; it was sitting on the shelf in my closet gathering dust. Then, for Valentine's day 2004, Target had a sale where they dropped the price of this particular camera to under $200, and at the same time they cut the price on a small Canon printer that printed 4x5 prints for roughly the same price as the A300. They threw in a pack of extra paper for free. My wife read about the deal in the Sunday paper and told me to go get it. I was ambivalent about buying such a simple point-and-shoot. I told my beloved it wasn't nearly as good as the awesome Nikon, but she responded that the little Canon would be better because at least it would be used, at least for a li...

This time I linked to a photograph I fell in love with. I wonder if that means the MPAA funded jack-booted government goon squad will shut down my blog? Original origin:  http://5kphoto.blogspot.com/2012/04/31153117.html

It's 2am in the morning, and I can't sleep. My mind keeps moving 'round all over. Nine hours before I went to a local Best Buy to purchase a micro-USB car charger for my cell phone. While I was there I played with all the cameras they had on hand. Of the DSLRs, the Sony's and the Nikons looked and felt the best. The Canons did not fair as well (5D MkII, 7D, 60D, T2i). The Canon 60D looked the worse for wear; the rubber coating on the grip was coming off, and the articulated screen looked poorer than the Olympus' E-620's. The Sony α55's articulated was a bit odd in comparison, but seemed of better build quality. They had a Nikon D300s and a D700 side-by-side. I loved the heft and feel of the D700, far better than the Canon 5D MkII. The Nikon D300s was a sweet little body as well. Then I went over and played with the mirrorless cameras. They had the Nikon 1 J1, the Panasonic GF3, and the Olympus E-PM1. They were pretty evenly matched. The J1 had the 10...

Well, Canon finally went and did it. They unified their 1D series with the 1D X, an interesting evolution of both prior 1D bodies that is meant to satisfy all users. It remains to be seen if they've truly succeeded. Out of all the specifications that are now littering the internets, the one that immediately caught my eye was the price: $6,800, body only. They've now reached the lofty price range of the Leica M9 and Nikon D3x, to name but two. A price that triggers one of my simple rules of life: Never touch what you can't afford. Because the body is just the beginning. You'll wind up spending as much, if not more, on lenses to justify what you invested in the body. You're not just buying a $6,800 body, but a full system that can run from $15,000 to $20,000. For me, at those levels, you're talking Real Money, like a down payment on a home, or a completely new car. Oh. One other little specification that caught my eye. Maximum ISO on this beast is 204,500,...

It's cruel to compare at times. Consider, for example, everybody's favorite kicking boy, the FourThirds system, and it's evolutionary follow-on, µFourThirds. Today we're continuing to cover the E-P3's high-ISO performance. The Phoblographer ran a high-ISO comparison test between the E-P3, the Canon 7D, and the Canon 5DMkII. Let's take a moment and compare some of the salient features of all three cameras used in the test. E-P3 Camera Comparisons Model E-P3 60D 7D 5D MKII Sensor 4/3rds APS-C APS-C 135 Resolution 12.1MP 18MP 18MP 24MP Date Released June 2011 August 2010 August 2009 September 2008 Price (body only) $800 $1,000 $1,700 $2,500 Phoblographer is comparing the E-P3 against two cameras with progressively larger sensors introduced between two (7D) to three years (5D Mk II) prior to the E-P3. The conclusion comparing these three cameras (using the JPEG output from the E-P3) is: Based on the image samples, the Canon 5D Mk II is still way ahead ...