Recent content by Bytesmiths

What? No love here for the superb — and cheap! — Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm ƒ/1.8? That lens gets a lot of high marks from reviewers, and can be had for US$20 or so. Another candidate: the Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm ƒ/3.5 Macro. By at least one test, this is regarded as the 4th sharpest OM Zuiko ever...

Not much love for Olympus here? I'd go with the OM-3Ti, or perhaps the OM-4Ti, depending on whether I could get batteries or not. But I guess in the doomsday scenario, there wouldn't be processing available, either, so in such a case, I'd go with Linhof Super Technika, which, if I had to, I...

Fulford Harbour ferry terminal/jetty, from the departing Skeena Queen:

Yes. If you have some modest machinist skills (grinding, drilling small holes, and tapping threads), it isn't too difficult. Here's more about the conversion. For that conversion, I got a reversing ring (58mm —> µ4/3rds) and ground the threads off. Then I took the Nikon mount off the bellows...

Ah, but it's at its best on the incredible Olympus Telescoping Extension Tube! Although, I like to use it on a Nikon PB-4 tilt-shift bellows.

Here's a radical idea. Birds and wildlife are two separate things. For wildlife, a zoom would be good. But for birds? Go for reach. Birds are really, really small! You also wanted small and lightweight. If you can tolerate manual focus, you might consider the Olympus OM Zuiko 500mm ƒ/8...

41 years ago on Tri-X Pan.

Adobe. They want to be Microsoft when they grow up. I prefer the lean, hungry outliers, nipping at the heels of the market leader.

A quality focal reducer can make a huge difference, although not bringing back all of the "lost" focal length. I've played with the good, the bad, and the ugly. Stay away from anything with a retail price under $100. The Metabones is clearly the king, but Viltrox and Zhongyi come darned close...

I have a friend with an EM5.3 (which I've used), and I have a Pen F, which seems to be a non-weather-sealed EM5.3 in a different body. And I also have an E-M1.2. Unless you really want the smallest possible body, I think the E-M1.2 has a few things going for it. Larger HD mode. Slightly better...

Now for an oldie… 1980 Winter Olympics, Lake Placid, New York, 90 metre ski jump. I was panning with the subject for this exposure, which was about 1/2 second. Olympus OM-2n, OM Zuiko 75-150mm ƒ/4 zoom, Kodachrome 64.

Alpha Monocerotids meteor shower. Caught just one. OM-D E-M1 Mark II with Olympus OM 21mm ƒ/2 on Metabones Speedbooster Ultra, for an effective 14.8mm ƒ/1.4. Live Composite for about an hour. The bright stars in lower middle are Orion's Belt.

Think about it… a µ4/3rds camera has a sensor half the size of the film that the OM bellows and slide duplicator was designed to work with. That means you'll image just half the whole slide. The problem is not enough length, in either the main bellows, or in the shorter bellows that connects...