Street Snapshots with Olympus Pen F

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — “Welcome to My Tea Stall” ISO200 25mm F1.2 1/160

Recently I tested the Olympus Pen-F with the 25mm F1.2 Olympus Pro series lens. I had the opportunity to do a round of street photography with the Pen-F at Georgetown Penang.

Flickr Pen-F Album

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The size of Pen-F is compact and it is quite similar with my Fuji X-100T. However, when I fitted the body with the Olympus 25mm F1.2 Pro series lens, the size of the combo becomes bulky. All in all, I found that the overall size of the combo still allow me to shoot with inconspicuous.

Here are my overall impressions :

Fast and accurate autofocus.
Touch control AF at the monitor, it allows me to shoot by positioning the camera at the chest level and swiftly triggered the shutter by touching on the monitor. I achieve high success rate of good quality street photos. In contrast to the normal way of shooting through the viewfinder, the subjects tend to feel intimidated when they see me compose and focus at eyes level. I miss out the spontaneous gestures of the subjects.
Superb optic quality of the 25mm F1.2 Pro Lens.
Good “out of camera” jpeg files.
Light and compact size of the camera. It allows me to shoot with discreet while on the street.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Flickr Pen-F

Thanks for reading.

Some Peculiar Scenes At The Street

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“Acrobatic Chairs” Captured with Fuji X100T

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“Apple Centre” Captured with Fuji X100T

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“Nikon Sign Board” Captured with X100T

Snapshot at Taiwan Xi Men Ding

Xi Men Ding is also called as the “Harajuku” of Taipei. It is a pedestrian shopping haven, the place is packed with shoppers or tourists. It is a good location to do street photography.

During my short stop over at Taipei recently, I decided to shoot some street photos at Xi Men Ding. For this trip, I shot with my Fuji X100T. The X100T is small and compact camera, it allows me to shoot with discreet. Here are a few selections from the trip :

Xi Men Ding is truly a street photography heaven. There is plenty of subjects and motives. I hope you enjoy the photos presented.

Shot with Canon 5 Dsr 24-70 L (Hand held and shot without a tripod) ISO 1600 F5.6 1/25 24mm

A sudden overcast of dark cloud started approaching the area, I shot the photo just before raining. The warm and colourful neon light together with the blue and grey overcast sky created an interesting scene.

Shopping for a Gold Fish

Shot at Bukit Mertajam Wet Market
Hasselblad 503cx 40mm Distagon CF Tmax 400

Bread Seller

Captured with Hasselblad 503cx 80mm CF , Kodak Portra 400

Hungry Ghost Festival

A HD video footage featured the Hungry Ghost Festival. The video was captured with the Sony A7s and edited using Final Cut Pro.

Reasons I like the Sony A7s

Oh no ! I spent money on another camera again. It is a Sony A7s. I have already had a Leica digital M system, Canon DSLR system and the Olympus Micro Four Third system. Do I really need this camera ? After testing the camera for a week, I found good “excuses” and “justifications” for my impulse purchased. Here are why :

1. Variety of Lens This camera allows me to shoot with many variety of lens with a proper adapter. I am using a Novoflex adapter for my Leica M mount lens (21mm elmarit-M, 35mm Summicron M, 50mm Summicron M, Canon 50mm 1.4 LTM and 90mm elmarit-M). The focus peaking and focus point magnifying feature of the A7s are easy-to-use and practical when shooting with a non FE mount lens. The technique of shooting with focus peaking or focus point magnifying are quite easy to master. After a few trying, I was able to get good focusing on my subjects and it is no different as compared to the rangefinder focus patch system.

Photographed with an vintage Canon 50mm 1.4 LTM lens

2. Size The Sony A7s is a mirror-less camera. It is built without a bulky prism, thus it is much more compact as compared to a DSLR. The compactness of the A7s makes it unobtrusive when doing street photography.

The subject did not aware that I photographed him from a close distance.

3. Superior High ISO Capability

This camera is capable of capturing photos at very high ISO with superb image quality. The photos retain good details with minimum noise. Here are some photos captured at ISO 4000 to ISO 6400. Click on the link to view the photos at maximum resolution.

ISO 4000

ISO 5000

ISO 6400

A7s Gallery (High resolution files)

Thanks for reading.