Why a real camera is still needed ?

With so much advertisements from the cell phone manufactures you might be tempted to ask why anyone would need a camera? Cellphone cameras work when the lighting is perfect, but elsewhere real cameras are necessary.

 

Need for Print , Choosing a Paper Type from Epson

Why to Print

Why would anyone print when you have such a great displays to the images. So many ways to see the images like retina displays of phones, super retina in iPad Pro, 4k screens, wall size TV’s and projector screens. With extra wide color gamut screens and resolution beyond any human eye can resolve, there is absolutely no reason to spend any addition money in print, that’s what I thought…

Total Solar Eclipse with E-M1 ii and Panasonic 100-400mm

My first solar eclipse, no clue what to expect or how to photograph. My question was should I even try to photograph?, as the podcasts I listened  recommend just enjoying the first eclipse. Decided just to enjoy than picturing it. Didn’t bother getting the solar filter.

EM-1 ii with Panasonic 100-400 zoom(200 to 800 eq).

Liked to try out the Panasonic zoom for an Chicago Air and Water Show and eclipse was also around the same time, rented panasonic zoom lens for both. Here is my experience with the lens, and some short comparison with the D800E Sigma 150mm-600mm.

City skyline with E-M1 ii during twilight

This is one of the main reason I upgraded the camera, to view and shoot the city skyline in twilight hour. Usually this is the main drawback with the m4/3 cameras, and wanted to switch FF mainly for the low light sensitivity .

Even if I ignore price of the moment, this is what I need (not really, unless I get paid to do the shoot, it’s of course a want!).  I need two zooms,  a wide angle zoom 24-70 , a tele zoom 70-200 zoom and  a fast prime 35mm

EM-1 ii experience with Indoor School Play..

Events like this is where I need a real camera, and compounding fact of tough lighting and not the right location is the fact, that we usually don’t go early enough to sit in ideal location (Not the front row, but 4-5 rows from the front). As usual we ended up seated further back. This is when I felt most of my other cameras fell short, and iPhone camera’s are unusable.  But I am very impressed with the results I got from E-m5 ii camera-lens combo.

E-M1 Mark ii – Game changer for micro four thirds

I have used quite a lot of camera’s in the digital era. I checked my library and this is the list I came up with. Most of them are consumers cameras.

ISO Variation E-M1 ii: Nighttime

I used to pay so much attention to ISO noise, if I go to any review site I view the image only at 100% like to see every little details. I started viewing images in sites like 500px and Instagram initially little bogged down by the fact that they don’t show full detail. But later started appreciating the art form rather then the technical detail of the sensor. I know lot of us buy sensor based just on ISO capability, which is considered the weakest link in m4/3 format, and is considered at it worst in night time. To my surprise E-M1 ii produced excellent results. I took series of photographs of Chicago skyline at night time and checked at various ISO on different screens.

Learning: It’s All About Composition

I was paying so much attention to technical side, forgot all about why I liked photography. It’s about Composition. I liked a lot of photographs, never really paid attention on why some photographs are more interesting. Having few courses let me understand few things  about photography and what makes an interesting image.  Though I  can find much better images in the web to show these concepts, I don’t want to user others pictures, so here are few samples on what I took and what I learned from them. (Need to find out if it is copyright violation if I use others picture as example and credit them for their work).

ISO Variation with E-M1 ii: Part 1 – Good Light

One thing I noticed after shooting different ISO in various camera, the number doesn’t tell the full story. Even in full frame D810 some images with ISO 12,800 looks great where as ISO 3,200 in the same camera, makes me wonder is it really FF.With E-M1 ii same story, some times ISO 6400 looks great where as some other time even 1600 is so harsh.