Daily Challenge The April 2020 Challenge - outtakes and alternatives

Wow, Miguel, thanks for this awesome record of the times. It's a powerful one for me because I have shopped at that Trader Joe's many times - being from Bandon we are three hours plus from a TJ's whether we pick Eugene or Medford, but we love the store and it has been a part of my life since childhood down in SoCal. We went to Eugene in March, before the executive order and when stores were literally just starting to get cleaned out, and did several month's worth of staple shopping at Trader's. The shelves were starting to go bare literally as we shopped. I could hear the mix of humor and growing uncertainty in the way the crew talked to one another. It really brings the style of documentation that you shot these in home to see it from a store that I'm personally so familiar with.

Hey, Andrew, thanks for the comment - and I didn't really realize that we are almost neighbors...! I live in Talent, just a hop, skip and a jump north of Ashland - and make occasional trips to the coast, either to see friends or just to feel the sea breeze for a change. If we all collectively survive the ups and downs of the pandemic and there comes a time when we can all travel safely, we should get together for coffee or beer or food or simply to compare f-stops 🙃 so you are a Bandon person? Damn, it's truly a small world, ain't it?

I'm glad the photos resonated for you. It was, and is, truly strange, going to a place where one has been many times before - and realizing that it has substantially changed, in profound ways. Incidentally, the shopping center where Trader Joe's is located in Medford - which as I'm sure you know is also home to REI, Petco, and a large number of other stores & restaurants - and which in bygone days was almost always crowded all the time, with the parking lot mostly full ---- well, it (the shopping center/mall) was totally deserted. You had the feeling you either were in a ghost town - or visiting a former center of civilization after some apocalyptic civilization-ending event....which, in a manner of speaking, we seem to be in the middle of right now. But, yeah....weird is definitely the word.

Take care, and stay well.
Cheers!
Miguel
 
Truly wonderful series.

Now I'm looking at a PL15 for my Pen F. I have the O17 f/1.8 and P12-32, I've been looking for a P14 for the focal length and size. But now..... I've owned the PL15 (twice actually :rolleyes: ), but it's hard not to appreciate images like these.

Thank you for the comment, David.

The PL15 really is a special lens, it somehow seems to render images differently than some of the other fine micro four-thirds lenses. I had the tiny Lumix P14 for years and got some great images with it but, truth be told, the PL15 is even nicer. But the 12-32 is a surprisingly underrated lens (I think) - and the f/1.7 O17 is a great lens as well. Incidentally I bought my version, the DJI-branded lens (DJI has a global technology sharing agreement with Leitz, which is why Leica allowed them to rebrand the PL15, mainly for use with their high-end drones) for less than the normal Pana-Leica branded identical lens was selling for at the time.

Before buying my Pen F, my PL15 was semi-permanently attached to my other mu43 camera, the GX8. The only quirk with using a PL lens on an Olympus body is that on a Lumix, you can use the aperture ring to change f/stops (an old habit from my analog days) - whereas on the Pen F, you use the rear dial (at least, when shooting in A or Aperture-priority mode, which I tend to do most of the time).

Before getting the PL15, my two favorite (and most-used) focal lengths were 28mm and 35mm (or, rather, their mu43 equivalents: the PL14, and a copy of the much maligned O17 pancake, which I actually had a good copy of). The PL15's equivalent focal length translates to 30mm - which interestingly is almost halfway between those two focal lengths (though closer to the 28mm obviously); I sometimes wonder if one of the reasons I like it so much has to do with its field-of-view --- wider than the tradition 35mm, but not so wide as to distort.

But as you said, you\ve already owned it twice....so you already know all this stuff. Well, you know what they say?.....Third time's the charm! 😁
 
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Day 8 alternate, showing the alignment of the neck to body as it is sanded to fit. Almost microscopic amounts of wood are removed with each pass, and it can take hours to get the fit right.

Day 8B.JPG
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And now of course the gentleman I've been waiting to hear back from with a P14 gets back to me..........:sleep::doh:

Well for once I'll have a P14 / PL15 / P12-32 / O17 all at the same time. Maybe I'll try a shootout and figure out which one/ones I actually like better instead of cycling through them as I have*. Give me something else to do while we're all suppose to be staying indoors.

* One of the benefits and curses of m4/3 is much of the gear is relatively cheap, especially compared to the Nikon FX I use to shoot. So I've own many things several times. I'm pretty sure I've owned all these 3-4 times with the exception of the 12-32. That one came with the GM1 / GM5 x2 / GX95 / and I've bought it alone (like the one I have now). So I might be on my 6th copy of that one. :coco:
 
And now of course the gentleman I've been waiting to hear back from with a P14 gets back to me..........:sleep::doh:

Well for once I'll have a P14 / PL15 / P12-32 / O17 all at the same time. Maybe I'll try a shootout and figure out which one/ones I actually like better instead of cycling through them as I have*. Give me something else to do while we're all suppose to be staying indoors.

* One of the benefits and curses of m4/3 is much of the gear is relatively cheap, especially compared to the Nikon FX I use to shoot. So I've own many things several times. I'm pretty sure I've owned all these 3-4 times with the exception of the 12-32. That one came with the GM1 / GM5 x2 / GX95 / and I've bought it alone (like the one I have now). So I might be on my 6th copy of that one. :coco:
Do like that PL14
 
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