I have been fortunate to get out on a couple of short road trips recently. One was to the wheatlands area in north western Victoria. I visited my favourite wheat silos at Lah.
This image even made it into Explore on Flickr.
Moving About
Category: Olympus
The Box
A shipping container in a field, near Koroit, Victoria, Australia. The monochrome conversion was done using the Ilford HP5 400 film emulation in Nik Silver Efex
What I did on My Holidays #1
Just back from a road trip around south west England, including Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, as well as Wales and Ireland. Caught up with some relatives in Liverpool and Norwich and met up with some old friends in Bristol and Chester.
Photography took a back seat for a while but there are some interesting shots to come.
This photo was taken while visiting Clovelly on the Cornish coast.
I was travelling light, using the new (to me) Olympus E-M1 Mk 2. A lovely camera, but I still have a lot to learn about it.
A wall in Wangaratta
On a recent trip to the town of Wangaratta in the north of Victoria, Australia, I walked down Victoria Parade, a narrow street near the centre of town.
It was late morning on a bright, sunny day and the shadows really stood out on the blue wall. As usual I had my walking around camera, the Olympus E-M5 with the 12-40mm lens.
A visit to Dubrovnik
It’s been a little while since I said anything here. During September I was traveling in Europe after attending a wedding in Poland, a great experience.
The trip included a week in the Croatian city of Dubrovnik. The old town and port have been restored and rebuilt after a umber of tribulations, most recently the 1991 siege following the breakup of Yugoslavia.
The old town is surrounded by a high wall which, for a price, can be walked. I can recommend that this is done early in the morning during the season, before it gets too hot and too crowded.
Staying in the old town is an experience, though getting to my accommodation in this car-less city included a climb of 83 steps up the hill to the apartment between the St Ignatius church and the music school.
The evenings were warm, just perfect for sitting in an open air cafe in a small square. I can highly recommend a visit.
This trip I traveled light, only taking the Olympus E-M5, the 12-40 f2.8 lens and the kit 40 – 150 zoom. It performed flawlessly the whole trip.
Bright yellow
While returning home from a road trip I drove through Benalla, Victoria for a food break. As I was approaching the main shopping area, I saw an eye-searingly yellow building in full midday sun.
Now, I know that traditionally when the sun is high you aren’t supposed to be able to take ‘interesting’ photographs, but light, colour and shadow sometimes work exceptionally well in full sun.
I spent a few minutes walking around with my trusty Olympus E-M5 and 12 – 40 mm lens and got the results below.
From the painted out sign, the building appears to have been a discount chemist of some sort, but if you look it up on Google street view, it was also briefly a Toys R Us, with swing sets.
Empty space
One thing I like about working in the city of Melbourne in early January is how quiet and empty it can seem. Thanks to the holidays, there is less traffic and I get to the car park earlier and there are far less cars already there. This has given me the opportunity to try out the new f2.8 lens on the Olympus (which is now firmly entrenched as my carry around camera) and also explore an empty car park.
This is what the Melbourne Museum car park looks like before 7.30am in early January.
Wandering around in manual mode
After toting a full frame camera plus lenses around a number of European cities while on holiday last year, I decided that something lighter and easier to carry might be the future of my travel photography.
After much reading and thinking and sorting out of ‘must haves’, I decided to test the quality and usability of micro 4/3. Not wishing to spend a large sum of money and then find out that the micro 4/3 system couldn’t deliver the image quality I needed to do large prints, I decided to go for the Olympus E-M5 and the kit lens.
Getting used to the electronic view finder and a complicated menu system has been a bit of a challenge, but so far, the Olympus has performed way above it’s price range. Considering the price difference between the E-M5 and my full-frame Canon plus L series glass, the Olympus is amazing. I have no trouble producing high quality A2 prints from the 16mp small sensor.
Setting the camera up to work the way I want it to has been a bit of a challenge but the other day I went for a wander around Williamstown (a suburb of Melbourne) with the E-M5 in full manual mode to see how easy it was to use. Surprisingly easy after I set up a couple of custom functions as it turned out.
The Olympus E-M5 is a lot of camera for the money.