GAS Dear Giary!

Time to hit the Autumnal streets and parks of Helsinki today!

I think I'll be choosing one cam, one lens for a change.

I'll take the long-neglected CV 50 f/1.5 Nokton, on my silver M.

I've largely had the f/3.5 Heliar on my M for the whole summer. It's just an awesome lens, a real killer for M system. But I am getting too accustomed to its kinda-(clinically)-perfect image. Messy fall foliage will expose well through a more vintage look.
 
Had a pleasant Fall stroll with Df + 105 Sonnar. All very pleasant and the single FL didn't restrict me too much, but both of my Nikon batteries are shot to garbage. Can't hold 2 hours of intensive shooting anymore. Something to put on my shopping list...

The 105mm f/2.5 is superb indeed. My copy is a bit flimsy and its joints "live" a bit whenever the mirror slaps. The results are however good.

Now that the Olympus is in the house, I see one obvious opponent that I will be trying out probably many a time. Mount the Peter Karbe Leica Summilux-M 50mm Asph on the Olympus and see how its 100mm/2.8 eq fares. On paper, it's a tight race. How about the shoot and feel and will the outrageous aquity and sharpness of the 50 'lux translate well against the Olympus' pixel-packed sensor?

Today I didn't carry them both but it was obvious that I enjoyed tremendously from the OVF experience so I have every reason to believe I wasn't missing out.

Good times ahead.
 
Whew. The trip to Oslo in July resulted in apprx 2600 photos and it took me a span of 2 months and 7 days to go through the raw files and edit and PP. This whole ordeal afterwards is bordering on gruelling.



I feel I am doing a lot of things wrong but what, I do not know. :)
 
The fall color is starting to wear out.

Need to be carrying a long telephoto to help compress the little that's left into the frame, tightly.

Pretty fall foliage easily leaves me divided on the subject. On the one hand, it's captivating to look at, sweetest eye candy you can capture, outside of a woman (inside one, it's too dark to make an exposure).

But it's just easy to shoot too much and have the constant nagging feeling that you just spent 2 hours shooting nothing of substance. Eye candy is important part of photography but does this really do anything to anyone.

Similar thing as pretty sunsets, but at least then you can greatly vary your scene and maybe combine several great elements into one.
 
We're entering the dark season these following days. The sun's going to be setting at around 4:30pm when the get from DST to our normal time zone of +2 UTC.

Olympus is a mirrorless camera that promises a lot for the upcoming dark season. I have high hopes for it.

~

But the one true master of darkness must be the Panasonic S1. I've had it listed for sale for a long time but curiously few have been interested in the behemoth. Foolishly I sold the Urth adapters first.

I'm thinking I have two options:
  • Sell it to a dealer, taking a bigger loss than I'd like.
  • Reacquire some adapters and maybe get the 20-60mm lens for it.
Getting lenses is not exactly going to make it ergonomic for my small hand but maybe I can give it a spin regardless. MPB stocks plenty of those lenses for me. The same dealer is culpable for making me take a resale hit since they now sell those bodies for 1300 €. Can't compete against 6 months of warranty and return policy unless I drop my ask considerably. :(

Anyhow, the 20-60 is a weather sealed lens, creating some ideas.

~

Just as the drab, depressing, cold, dark begins, just like clockwork new GAS ideas begin to emerge. It's as if the new piece of toy is going to solve the weather and inspiration for me. Getting lenses for S1 is such a bad idea.

Luckily I continue to experience a feeling of cash shortage (for lack of a better phrase) so it has been very hard to justify extraneous expenses. I need to be stocking up for Stockholm.
 
I think I'll get the set of adapters next week (when the CC billing cycle... cycles).

Adapters aren't really gear, right? Doesn't count as GAS. If anything, they're anti-GAS because their very purpose is to allow you to use your existing crap!

I was surprised the cheapest I could get is urth.co with 30-37 € apiece. (Shipping and VAT inside EU included.) The cheaper-made, possibly much lower-quality options run higher or same. Urth adapters are high quality from my short experiences.

I'll probably get M, G and Pentax K adapters for my L mount camera.

Will I get the lens too? Everybody favors it. I am thinking, for the low price as it has, why not. But it simply has to wait until March or later. I have very favorable memories of shooting Panasonic glass against the bright white of February snowscapes but I hardly think I'll be hauling the S1 to Stockholm.
 
Hey Mike @mike3996 will you use your Pan S1 as hi iso monster camera during the bad and dark season?
I have several cameras that can do high ISO to good success. The Panasonic S1 may be marginally better at high ISO than my other candidate cameras but I don't think the difference is anywhere near night-and-day.

I had a positive first impressions about Olympus E-M1.2 in very, very dark conditions. I am actually expecting it to succeed with a slow f/4 lens through some very dark wintery scenes. And I have some very bright options to mount in front of the camera. We'll see!
 
Back in the normal +2 UTC now. A very gray day to celebrate the event.

Last Wednesday featured a wonderful little sunset walk with the Nikon and the slow 35~200 f/3.5-4.5 zoom. It was mighty difficult to focus the manual lens in very dark conditions but the "mechanical" experience of it all rewarded itself in the end.

Had to use the highest ISO sensitivity available (ISO 200k). Nikon produces banding going this far, which is not ideal. I actually considered if Olympus and Panasonic M4/3 cameras perform even better at these extreme sensitivities. Seems incredible to be thinking about it, but at this stage we're talking very low SNR anyway, and the camera with the most uniform noise takes the cake.

Another walk on Friday, this time it was an obvious choice to pack the EM1.2 to compare and contrast. With autofocus lenses the accuracy and performance drops in dark, which is unfortunate. The viewfinder remains fluider than with Panasonics but there's still this delay compared to an OVF. And the viewfinder image is soft, to some UX detriment. I will probably have to also walk my Panasonics, see how they performed. I have forgotten some details probably, be pleasantly surprised?

I'm also getting excited about the prospect of walking the airfield again but with a tripod on my shoulder. Same shots as before, but with lower ISOs this time. All my cameras perform nicely on tripod, but perhaps the Panasonics and the Olympus can show me their particular tricks they know.

~

I'm postponing the Urth adapters for S1 a little more before I execute. With my luck, I'd probably get an offer on the camera the very day I order adapters worth of 100 €.

I can wait another 1-2 weeks.
 
I saw that my local dealer has begun to sell used Nikon D5 bodies at 2400 € price point. It's a lot of money but you do get a lot of camera at that price. It wasn't a long time ago when D5 was an absolute monster, a god machine that was the best of the best, cream of the crop. And it still is a top dog.

Lucky for me, it's just too much camera (size and weight wise, but it's also 5x overkill in any other ways also for my photography) to be seriously considering it.

Just frustrated at Df's shortcomings, is all, I guess.

~

Taking it one day at a time. Today I am heading out to Helsinki for a overnight visit. Oscillating between taking Olympus and just Leica and 50mm, now I settled for taking my dream duo with me, Leica + 50mm and Nikon + 135mm.

Combining a 50 and 135 works staggeringly well for me. I would like to experience the same duo in all my formats but I think I can settle for full frame for now.

For instance, Fuji 35/1.4 and 90/2?

Sadly M4/3 is missing a solid ~67.5 mm AF lens. Cosina makes a manual focus lens that is big and expensive. How about Panasonic could manufacture one at f/1.7 or so? Olympus 75 doesn't count for me, the view is simply too narrow even though we're not talking about a big difference. I've been using the Nikkor 85/1.8 speed boosted to around 60mm so that's the closest I have, I think. Fast lens at f/1.2 boosted, not too big, not too heavy either.
 
Today's weather and forecast: heavy overcast, drizzle and rain showers in the morning at around 5 degrees Celsius, fog during the rest of the day with a warmish 10 degrees, until more rain towards midnight. So there's fog, there's pitch black backgrounds, there's shiny glistening streets, and there's artificial lights.

Sounds like a grand photographic opportunity to me.

I'll be doing the Nikon Df + 35~200 an encore, but this time I will be hauling a tripod with me. I ordered an Arca-Swiss compatible grip for Df some years ago, maybe it is today that I will use it for the first time for real.
 
Today's weather and forecast: heavy overcast, drizzle and rain showers in the morning at around 5 degrees Celsius, fog during the rest of the day with a warmish 10 degrees, until more rain towards midnight. So there's fog, there's pitch black backgrounds, there's shiny glistening streets, and there's artificial lights.

Sounds like a grand photographic opportunity to me.
Amen to that, brother. There's no bad weather, just lame attitude. Well, save for the occasional clear blue skies, maybe, but those are luckily quite rare here currently.

I think I'll also keep the little RX100 in my pocket while taking herr Steckel for walkies tonight. November nights have their own special atmosphere.
 
Amen to that, brother. There's no bad weather, just lame attitude. Well, save for the occasional clear blue skies, maybe, but those are luckily quite rare here currently.

I think I'll also keep the little RX100 in my pocket while taking herr Steckel for walkies tonight. November nights have their own special atmosphere.
Indeed, not many people out there on my 3.5-hour stroll, but the conditions for photography were excellent. And it didn't rain a single drop.
 
Today it stands to repeat last Wednesday's success.

Last time I walked with Nikon Df; now it would be a good idea to see how much easier (if not necessarily better) Olympus does in the same situation.

Inspecting the gorgeous results that I got from Nikon make it really difficult to consider my other cameras! :p I have actually half of the results still to edit and PP.

2022-11-09 (Wed) 17-32-08.jpeg
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The Nikkor 35~200 is a really wonderful lens even though it has its share of optical imperfections and that "zoom look". The bokeh and its transition is however very much what the doctor ordered. Very nostalgic film like results.

When the adapters come, I'll be testing the lens on the Panasonic. In the meantime, I can naturally adapt the lens on the M4/3 cameras but I don't think I'll do it today. (I could have a 70-400 or a 50-300 depending on the adapter used...)
 
The fog remained very nice and thick into the evening hours! Really nice.

I took E-M1.2 and the Panasonic kit zooms and set about.

Sadly the walk (2.3 hours still, not too bad) wasn't as fun as with Nikon, despite Olympus having some strong points going for it.

  • Live bulb, Live time are nice enough.
  • FAS is alright when working with tripods (yet I didn't need to articulate it once)
  • Touch controls very good: touch AF, touch to magnify
  • one can adjust shutter speeds up to 60"
  • camera shows a timer on screen about exposure length if on BULB/TIME
  • lightweight kit

Yet Nikon Df was magnitudes more fun when I made the previous stroll last Wednesday. Of course when I list these things it should be obvious that some of the wins and losses can be overcome with accessories and lenses. I'm just listing some things what happened today and with existing gear.
  • Nikkor 35~200 is a superzoom and good enough when stopped for tripod. For Olympus I had to be switching lenses. Could have been disastrous if the fog was served with a drizzle.
  • Nikon has a dedicated ISO dial, and dedicated Exp Comp dial, not to mention dedicated dials for all the rest of the things. I was about to use Auto ISO on my Olympus today but then I realized I don't have a dial for exposure comp in M mode, and I don't want to spend time customizing a button for it. Nikon would have been ready for it, no fuzz.
  • Nikon Df has an L bracket which greatly faciliatated my preference for portrait oriented photography.
  • Nikon Df accepts a threaded remote shutter cord and thus I could start and stop an exposure without stupid 1-second timers.
  • Nikkors have manual focus rings unlike the Panasonic 12-32. A big problem for tripod work.
  • Optical viewfinder / less reliance on live view makes for a fun anticipation about what's to come on "film".
  • Olympus' WYSIWYG exposure preview capabilities suffer a bit due to my settings that enforce fluent feed. Sometimes I was in the dark as much with the mirrorless buddy than with the Nikon.
  • Olympus long exposure introduces quite a bit of noise and banding noise when I disabled the LENR for convenience reasons. Disabling LENR on Nikon Df has no visible effect.
If there's a more wet foggy day coming up some day, I think I'll have to give Pentax a spin.

Leica M is one of the easiest cameras to focus in these situations, but limiting myself to 50mm is too much, for now. I have an L bracket for M also.

Edit: Added item about Olympus long exposure noise reduction.
 
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Today it stands to repeat last Wednesday's success.

Last time I walked with Nikon Df; now it would be a good idea to see how much easier (if not necessarily better) Olympus does in the same situation.

Inspecting the gorgeous results that I got from Nikon make it really difficult to consider my other cameras! :p I have actually half of the results still to edit and PP.

View attachment 347710

The Nikkor 35~200 is a really wonderful lens even though it has its share of optical imperfections and that "zoom look". The bokeh and its transition is however very much what the doctor ordered. Very nostalgic film like results.

When the adapters come, I'll be testing the lens on the Panasonic. In the meantime, I can naturally adapt the lens on the M4/3 cameras but I don't think I'll do it today. (I could have a 70-400 or a 50-300 depending on the adapter used...)

This is a truly lovely - and complex - and rich - image.
Part of it is (obviously!) due to the eye of the photographer.
But from my admittedly eclectic and unscientific perspective, I have often found photographs made by the Df to have a certain extra something, a je ne sais quoi, which is hard to describe let alone articulate. But I think that in the right hands, the camera can make special images. Which this definitely is.
Short version of the above: really nice, Mike!
 
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