Night lights

this is my favorite shot from Olympus Pen D - night series.

Made hand held using B - time and following a moving car (panning). Kodak Elite Chrome film as always.

Notice how some lights turned to dots and other not. The dotted lights are powered by mains and are blinking at 50 Hz. Car lights aren't blinking.

Pimp my ride - more on bw conversion

Here's a simple snapshot of a car parked by my house. Did it with Minolta XD7 and 35-70 lens.

The reason why it's converted to bw is, that the car on the right (background) was actually YELLOW - and was distracting the viewer from the main photo subject. There isn't much color in winter landscapes at all - that's why black & white winter pics looks so good.

Winter by night

Again - Olympus Pen D - half frame camera.
Hand held at about 1/8s
Converted to bw

Night lights

This picture is all about color, lights and lines. Does it have to be sharp? Don't think so.

Made with Olympus Pen D

Kodak Elite Chrome

hand held

Symptoms of the Gear Acquisition Syndrome

You should be concerned, if at least 2 of listed habits meets Your behavior:
- You spend Your time in Internet reading gear reviews and not watching actual photographs
- You spend more time playing with Your gear than making photos
- You are more active in gear-related forums than in photo-forums
- You are deeply concerned about technical abilities of Your camera
- You aren't using most cameras from Your collection at all
- You have many gear related books and no photo albums
- You have no idea who Edward Weston was, instead You know all the upcoming camera models

Winter IS colourful! Minolta 35-70 f3.5 lens thoughts.

Sometimes... eh... mostly not...

Minolta XD7 + 35-70 f3.5
Kodak Elite Chrome

The 35-70 is a great universal lens. My version is the one with macro mode (used on this pic). There is a rumor, that this lens was made in cooperation with Leica (vide leicas 35-70 f3.5) - not that I really care. Its just simple, versatile - my favorite beater-take-everywhere-with lens.
Focusing is silk smooth and precise, starts from 80cm or about 20 in macro mode. I had been shooting with expensive 24-50 f4 lens for a while and didn't noticed much difference in sharpness.

WU vienna by night...

Minolta XD + Minolta 24-50 f4
Kodak elite chrome

This photo turned to be very boring in color - i simply added a bit contrast, turned to bw, and lightened a bit the wall on the right side using lr. Et voila!

Half frame pic

That's how it looks. These are two pictures made one after another.
Olympus Pen D
Hand held
Kodak Elite Chrome 100

Another phone pic...

Made at the WU Vienna - these are two chairs. Again with huge restrictions of mobile phone build-in camera, I have to concentrate on very simple forms with basic colors to get interesting photo.

Half frame, enyone? - Olympus Pen D impressions

Half frames are perfect replacement for modern digital p&s cameras. They do 72 pics on normal 36 film, which IS quite a lot!

This monday I picked from my lab film made with Olympus Pen D - I'm truly impressed with this little camera, and it became my favorite take-enywhere snapshot equipment. It is equipped with fantastic fast and sharp Zuiko 32mm f1.9 lens (a bit longer than 50mm on full frame) and have build-in selenium light meter (on my example still works pretty accurate!).

It has a central shutter and it is the quietest shutter I've ever heard! Actually when I made first photo with it, I thought it was broken - just a silent "click". It's even quieter than very silent Yashica GTN.


The camera is fully mechanical - works without ANY batteries. The only quirk I can think of here is lacking of ANY sharpening help - no through-the-lens view nor rangefinder here! You have to "evaluate" the distance on your own (It's actually easier than it sounds).

Build quality is superb - it feels rugged and heavy - despite its small dimensions. Everything works precise and smooth. Under "half frame" tag You'll find some photo examples from this camera.
I can only say: Highly Recommended!