Category: Personal

It’s About to be Minicon

I’ll be heading over to the hotel this afternoon.

Pictures will eventually (sometimes sooner, sometimes later) appear here. The Wednesday night work party is already up.

I’m on a 4pm panel on “The Art of the Snapshot” today (Edina room, 4pm). My part of it is definitely not about expensive equipment and software. Hope it’s of use to people!

I’m also on “Keeping It Alive” 2:30PM Sunday – Veranda 3 /4. Don’t come if you’re tired of hearing me talk about Doc Smith (among others).

And I commend to people’s attention the panel on basic book repair (which I have no connection with). That’s Saturday, 2pm,  in the Edina room.

I probably should have planned to be over at the hotel yesterday; sounds like quite a lot was going on. I had planned things so I needed last night to finish my outline and prepare my examples for the snapshot panel, so I couldn’t make last-minute changes of plan.  But I think I’ll try to remember for next year.

 

 

A New System

Camera system, that is.

Olympus EPL-2 with Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 pancake lens

This is going to replace my Panasonic DMC-LX3.  The LX3 has a 24-60mm-equiv. lens, which is good (the 20mm is 40mm-equiv. on the new camera). But the LX3 is fixed lens, whereas the EPL-2 is a Micro Four-Thirds camera, which takes interchangeable lenses made by at least 4 companies (plus almost anything else via adapters for manual operation).

And the EPL-2 has a much bigger sensor, and is much better in low light, where I take so many of my snapshots.  In good light the LX3 is great, I even made a 20×30 print of one of my LX3 photos for the decor project at work. But working with the files from Minn-StF meetings or sitting around at home in the evening was no fun at all. I could get snapshots, but little more, usually.

Plus the EPL-2 has extreme toy potential. Micro Four-Thirds has about the shortest flange distance of any lens mount for still cameras; so it’s easy to make mechanical adapters that put the lens the right distance from the sensor.

So…

With 75mm f/1.4 video lens adapted

That’s an effective angle of view matching a 150mm lens on 35mm, a moderate telephoto (Micro Four-Thirds has a 2x crop factor).  At f/1.4.  At least in preliminary testing, this one covers the whole format, too, there’s no major vignetting in the corners or anything. This is a “C-mount” lens, a common mount for old Bolex 16mm cameras and video cameras.   (This is the Pentax/Cosmicar 75mm f/1.4).

And the EPL-2 has in-body image stabilization, so I can hand-hold at rather slow shutter speeds.

I’ve also used it with my old Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AIS lens.  I’ll try the 70-200/2.8 some day when I’m feeling really evil.  Or maybe the 500/8.

This isn’t aimed at replacing the Nikon DSLR; that’s far superior in low light, and faster at focusing, and more accurate at focus tracking.  Quite possibly better dynamic range, haven’t checked.

With the pancake lens, it’s maybe 1/8″ thicker than the LX3, and it’s much nicer in a lot of ways. If you’re looking for a used LX3, keep your eye on Ebay, I’ve got a few things I need to find all the parts of, photograph, and get listed, including the LX3.

Yeah, failed my saving throw against the Shiny!