As one or two of the readers of this blog may already know, or maybe both of you, I went and did the deed regarding the Olympus TG-5 and a sexy black example landed on Wednesday last week. I did see red ones advertised at a full twenty quid less than the black ones, but then when I went to buy, discovered they only had black in stock - I've seen that before lots of times - run out of stock on something in a particular spec, size or colour, so list it cheaper than is the norm to drive people off the search results to your site, then hope they'll spring for the full amount anyway. But not me, I wasn't taken in by this cunning marketing ploy as I already knew saucy black examples could be had cheaper elsewhere than what that particular outfit were asking.
In the end, I went to Wex as they did a 'bundle' of the camera and LED Light Guide cheaper than could be had on Amazon and other assorted vendors.
So without further ado, y'er t'is.
As I said, I also opted for the LED Light Guide, which isn't shown in the photo, but is a plasticky thing that attaches to the front of the camera, looks like a ring flash but actually picks up the built in LED light and distributes it evenly in a circle around the perimeter of the lens, to eliminate those pesky shadows when shooting Macro.
There is also a flash version, picking up the camera flash but otherwise built exactly the same by the look of it, but reviews suggest that is a lot harder to work with as the flash nukes everything close up with light, whereas the Light Guide is a much softer light. The Light Guide is a whole tenner cheaper too.
I've also bought some of those re-usable but ultimately disposable (nooo... think of the environment man...) plastic bags designed for keeping the rain out the tender bits of DSLRs. I tried fabricobbling something out of freezer bags and the like, but what a nightmare all that home made type of thing is when out in the world when it's raining - messing about with elastic bands, bits of bag getting in the way of the lens and all sorts. It was just too much faff, so I went for buying something purpose made instead.
All of which means I'm better equipped now for going out in the rain and being able to get some snaps, something that wasn't easy before as with the exception of the GoPro, none of my gear was waterproof.
I'd like to get photos of inclement weather rather than just bikey shots while out in it, and that will be a challenge for me as I'm not the most creative or imaginative photographerist around, but it's something I'd like to have a stab at, and hopefully as I get into it, will get better at too.
So that's the news, any rides been ridden? Well yes, I did have a couple of mooches out on the Voodoo recently but they were so unremarkable I shan't bother to mention them, and that also explains the lack of a blog update recently too.
But with the new camera to get to grips with, I did set off despite a tricky back giving me some aggro, to take some snaps.
After switching the camera on once the battery was fully charged, I took the usual
As mentioned, my back wasn't too clever, and I wouldn't normally go out for a ride, but I wanted to try some shots and also blag some Blackberries as it's that time of year again when I go hunter gathering.
Once again, this was in macro mode (although given how far the berries are from the camera I expect it would've focused in a normal mode too) and with the Light Guide doing its thang.
It's not in a lightbox or studio as it looks, you can see the fingers of my grubby left paw and below the drinks bottle was black tarmac, it's just the white bottle and illumination have done a good job of making it look that way. As mentioned, this is straight off the memory card.
Whilst the camera can get right in close to something, I do like to show whatever it is in its setting, so will be snapping from a bit further back usually. This is still a load closer than I could get with the Canon, so with that camera I'd get as close as I could, then crop the image in editing afterwards. A good solution but not perfect.
One very clever trick up the TG-5's sleeve is in camera focus stacking. In the macro mode (or Microscope mode as Olympus prefer) you can select focus stacking and the camera will shoot several shots at different focus points and then combine them into one photo with a greater depth of field. The really clever bit is that the camera will also align those shots,so if the camera moves slightly during the shooting sequence it may not be the end of the world. This means you can get away with hand holding the camera rather than fishing out the tripod.
Normal shot in Macro mode.
And Focus Stacked in camera with no editing done in post.
This stacking feature is a real bonus, as when working close up the depth of field is very shallow and not always desirable both for getting sharp focus if there's even a breath of wind, and for the general look of the image.
The drawback is you don't get a RAW file to play with, only a Jpeg, but as can be seen above, that's no bad thing as the final image quality is pretty good.
These broader shots do have the 'look' of a small sensored camera - no surprise as that's exactly what the Olympus has of course, and image quality is going to suffer as a result compared to the far bigger (six times bigger I think) sensor in my G1X. But they are still perfectly acceptable for my needs, and a lot of the issues can be addressed in RAW processing of course, something I hadn't done with the shot above.
The flipping new builds are going up in this field not far from Bimble Towers. The wotsname tanks have been buried in the front left of the photo with just their green lids showing. This is where this field always flooded every winter, a veritable pop up lake that you could navigate in a small boat, or a canoe perhaps, which made the prospect of building fancy new houses down in this corner seem a tad ill advised. Obviously that is not the intention and the flooding is to be mitigated by these tanks that I assume will feed into the main drainage system.
As ever, the advertising blurb for these new houses is a bit of a laugh:
"Trispen Meadows (yeah, water meadows given the water has to collect at the bottom of the hill from somewhere, the whole of the left side of the field in the photo above is very wet even after just a heavy dew...) is an idyllic (Idyllic? erm... not really...) small (yep, well it flipping was until you lot came along...) and rural (yep, it smells of cattle crap) village community, with a good primary school (dunno, din't go to skool hear...), local shop (for local people) and post office, vibrant village pub (Hmmmm... strokes chin in 'uncertain of that manner' as it was far from vibrant whenever I've been in there, and a customer died of food poisoning a couple of years back, although that was under different ownership) and community hall." At least they've dropped the "Coastal Living" tag or whatever it was they first put up on the web site for this development. The web page does show lots of sea views, surfers and so on, but the sea is ten miles away as anyone who comes to view will soon discover.
The houses all look very grand and attractive in the blurb, but looking at the buildings going up, they're going to be the usual collection of boxes crammed into a small space.
I was going to quote more of the flowery guff, but nearly saw my lunch once again when reading it - how do these people get away with such tripe is what I want to know. Artistic licence has a lot to answer for!
Anyway, enough of all that, going Blackberrying wasn't ideal for my crap back, so after the grand total of 1.7 miles, I limped home to machine gun Paracetamol down my gullet whilst resting it on my bed, and what a boring way of passing the time that is!
Sure enough, after a couple of intensive rest days, I was fit for manoeuvres again so leaving my beloved G1x at home, I headed out yesterday (Sunday) for a gentle bimble about on Fatso.
Now these photos have been given a thorough tickling in the RAW furtler software, but I may well not bother in future, as I think my clumsy fiddles make the images worse in some cases!
Oh no... the crisis in the retail industry continues... Clearly it's not just shops in the high street that are closing, nor the big chains in the out of town retail parks... will Mike Ashley and his Sports Direct empire step in to save this particular business or has he blown all his cash on the House of Fraser? But wait... what's this just around the corner?
Panic over, they've just moved to new premises for an enhanced customer retail experience.
Sarcasm/joking aside, I love these roadside honesty box set ups. Now, if they only did home delivery...
Getting a tad arty farty with a Hydrangea. This was also run through Nik software for a bit of Vignetting action.
A pity the flower on the right had its Stamen open as the three in a row all matching would've looked better. No idea what this flower is though, as it's some garden overspill thing and I have enough trouble identifying wild flowers let alone all the domesticated breeds that exist. Give me a nice Rose and I know what I'm looking at. Beyond that, I'm out.
These are also escapees from the nearby garden, and again, I've not a clue as I can't remember what they are rather shamefully, as I have been told in the past over on Flickr.
Since getting all the weather proof camera guff, it hasn't rained properly, it was just a bit grizzly and drizzly on this ride to start with.
Fatso lurking beneath the mainline at Truck near Probus. See that gap twixt bridge stonework and knackered old barn? That's a Bridleway that is...
You'd think in these days of easy credit and cheap bank loans these folk would buy a newer car wouldn't you...
No idea what this old clattermonger is, but t'is a fine looking beast and at a guess, possibly American.
Couple of shots of that crusty old barn/shed. Now to get up that Bridleway.
Invisible structural repairs not a priority for the owners of this building then...
This was shot using the intervalmom the intervelol the interval timer thingy. This is a very handy feature allowing the time before the first photo is taken once the shutter button has been pressed, the number of shots and the time between them to be set. Probably standard stuff for a camera with an intervolo with an interval timer thing in its armoury, but all new to me. On my Canons I started doing ride by shots with the self timer which only allowed ten seconds before the shutter fired, before discovering the cheapo Yongnuo remote shutter/flash triggers worked so well. I'd feared more ten second dashes with the Olympus but found the... timer options while doing research before buying, and that helped seal the deal. I do like my ride by shots after all.
Looking back down the Bridleway. Back at the bottom someone was burning wood on a bonfire, the smells wafting up this hill were superb!
Not quite so superb were the smells emanating from Fatso's tyres. This is Sheep poo, and Fatso being a house bike and full time resident of my living room, and with no puddles available to wash the tyres off, my house now smells like a farmer's left welly.
Back in civilisation (well Ladock, which is close) is this sundial dedicated to the father of a long time friend of mine.
11.22am... must crack on...
Getting these shots in the stream at Boswiddle Ford I realised what Wun Wet Shoo, the one legged Chinese window cleaner in the village feels like. My right boot leaks like a sieve. Beware Mountain Warehouse walking boots that are sold as being waterproof - they lie, the dirty rapscallions!
Must get some more boots from Decathlon as I know they are excellent at keeping one's feet dry.
Fatso at Boswiddle Ford. As can be seen, the road is dry as the stream runs beneath it at this time of year, so no washing of tyres here.
So that's it for this upload, all shots were taken with the Olympus (except from the first one of course... doh...) and I'm very pleased with it indeed. It's not perfect - moving the flipping focus point in the Macro mode is a right faff for a start, but it's going to allow a lot more opportunities to get photos and that can only be good. I'm still finding my way around it too, and no doubt as I get more used to what it can do and how, I'll enjoy using it even more.
Right, got to get on as it's nearly time for Coronation Street my foreign language international affairs programme... ahem.
Happy Bimbling!
Edit - what the hell is with the highlighting on the text? Blowed if I know what's going on... flipping computers, I've knackered the formatting presumably quoting that darned housing developer... I'll try and sort it later.
Edit - what the hell is with the highlighting on the text? Blowed if I know what's going on... flipping computers, I've knackered the formatting presumably quoting that darned housing developer... I'll try and sort it later.
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