Seeing Colorless Squares

It has been a long, traumatizing week at work place and the only consolation I had to cap off the otherwise fruitless week was something I looked forward to very much, my shutter therapy session, and this time, I have a guest from Sydney, Australia, Tom Truong! Together with usual suspects, Nick Wade and Kelvin Ng we attacked Petaling Street in the morning. I used my newly acquired Sony A57 and one lens only, the 50mm F1.8 lens. I shot everything in RAW, but as I was processing the files, my hands got a little itchy and I started cropping everything in squares, and yes, suddenly the black and white bug bit me again. In many cases on the street photos, I actually preferred the square format presentation. I do not know quite how to explain it, composition seemed to work better generally. 

All images were taken with Sony Alpha A57 and 50mm F1.8 lens

Your Neck is Mine

Panasonic GH3, Sigma 35mm F1.4 and Tom Truong from Sydney!

Tom Truong, a professional photographer from Sydney, Australia is in town again, and I managed to catch up with him over dinner earlier tonight! Do check out his amazing photography work on his portfolio website here (click). It was great hearing stories from a real, working, professional wedding photographer from another land, and surely there is much to share and learn from each other. He has got his hands on some of the latest and most interesting gear as well, such as the Panasonic GH3, which he intended to use mainly for video shoots. His main gear for his professional work is the Nikon system, and the latest addition to his Nikon was the new and highly raved Sigma 35mm F1.4 lens! Tom exclaimed how amazed he was using the Sigma lens on his Nikon D800!

Initially Tom suggested me to review the Panasonic GH3 (he brought along two lenses with it, the 12-35mm F2.8 as well as the 35-100mm F2.8). I do not have time to spare for reviewing the Panasonic GH3, I really want to, believe me, but I am tied down with my current day engineering job which pretty much sucked out all my free time dry. Then I suggested to Tom, why not he does the review himself, so I can feature him and his GH3 review on my blog here? It would be some sort of like a guest-blogging thing. Tom seemed to like the idea, and surely, he would need time to shoot and compose his review, and lets hope that really will happen!

That GH3, it actually felt like I was holding a real DSLR in hand. Rather large and heavy. It is interesting to see Panasonic taking such different approach on Micro 4/3 system. 

Shooting a Wedding with Sony

I think it is still a popular opinion that if you do shoot anything serious you would use either Nikon or Canon. You know, how people would regard any other camera brands as less than what a professional gear should be. I could go on and on about how Olympus and Sony can be just equally as capable, but this kind of discussion has become old and pointless, somehow. I have been shooting wedding as a freelance photographer for quite a while now, and I have very little complain with what the Olympus can do for me. It has never failed me, and my clients have all been happy so far. Nonetheless, I did acquire a new Sony Alpha A57 to add into my shooting gear, and for past weekend's wedding shoot, I decided to just bring the Sony, and leave the Olympus behind, for a change. Was the decision a sudden and unplanned one? Far from it, I have been shooting with the Sony A57 enough to know that I can confidently use it for a paid assignment. 

The following is my setup:

Main Body: Sony Alpha A57

Lenses: 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 kit lens, 35mm F1.8 and 50mm F1.8 (all Sony lenses)

Flash: Olympus FL-50R mounted via an ISO hot-shoe adapter, controlled fully manual

Back-up: Sony A350, 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 and Sunpak external flash

Quite a mediocre setup for a full on wedding job, don't you think? A Sony A57, an entry level DSLT (oh my, not even a DSLR) for a professional level job, and all budget-designed lenses, cheapest available from the Sony lenses. And using a KIT LENS for a shoot? I think some of the audience must have rolled their eyes looking at my rather toned down setup for the wedding shoot. I think most people would expect a wedding photographer to use multiple latest and most advanced full frame bodies, with those gigantic oversized lenses, with camera bags rivaling airport luggage in size and weight. 

The following are preliminary quick edits for preview purposes. But they are sufficient to illustrate what the above Sony gear setup can produce.

Olympus PEN E-P5 Touch and Try Session

Important Update: 
For those of you in Malaysia, you can pre-book Olympus PEN E-P5 from Olympus Malaysia (click here) now!

You may also pre-order from B&H Online Store to help keep this blog running!

Olympus PEN E-P5 body BLACK, WHITE and SILVER

Olympus Electronic Viewfinder VF-4 

Please support me by "liking" my Facebook Page (click).

For those of you beautiful people in the wonderful Penang, Malaysia, if you have not done so, go and register with Olympus Malaysia (click here) for this event coming up on 26th May 2013!! 

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Before I go on covering this Olympus PEN E-P5 Touch and Try event organized by Olympus Malaysia over this weekend, allow me to summarize my rather hectic and overwhelmingly exhausting weekend. I had a wedding assignment in Malacca on Saturday, so I travelled down to the historical state from Kuala Lumpur by bus on Friday night, immediately after work. I spent the whole Saturday shooting the wedding (which was beautiful, congratulations to Zachary and Jovyn!!!) till late night. I could not make it to the first two sessions of the Olympus E-P5 event which was on Saturday, thus I was doing my best to attend the final session on Sunday. Earlier this morning, I arrived at the Malacca Sentral (bus station) and got myself an 8am bus back to KL. In all the rush, thank goodness I managed to make it to the last session of the E-P5 Touch and Try session, and in the midst of the fatigue and exhaustion from the previous day's full day wedding shoot, I managed to pull out some shots with my camera !!

The Olympus PEN E-P5 Touch and Try session was organized to allow loyal Olympus users (the event was open to all, but of course existing Olympus users were prioritized) to have the first look and try on the just launched E-P5. The event was very well coordinated, allowing participants to have an enjoyable session, throughout the afternoon. To me, it felt like I was having a good movie experience, plus the additional bonus of getting to participate actively, in terms of shooting and trying the latest PEN E-P5 and assortment of lenses and accessories. Upon arrival, the guests were required to register, and they were given: two coupons to redeem freshly brewed coffee, one token to redeem the door gift, a lucky draw form. What was the first thing that I did? Obviously, I went for my COFFEE, and that has successfully kept me awake and going for the rest of the afternoon. That amazing fresh brew of coffee was a life saver.

All images in this entry were taken with Olympus DSLR E-5 and Zuiko Digital lenses 25mm F2.8 pancake, 50mm F2 macro and 11-22mm F2.8-3.5 with external flash FL-50R.

The venue of the event before it started. The "attraction of the day" was veiled, and displays of the legendary PEN cameras.