Now with former Deep Purple Jon Lord performing “Child In Time”, which is a classic. Love this song. Nice to see that Jon is always a stunning performer. And to my suprise Steve White is on the drum kit, so after all the years with Paul Weller i still think he is one of the best drummers outside. The concert took place on May 2 2009 as part of the Virada Cultural Festival in São Paulo, Brazil and was filmed by local TV.

Oh Wintertime. Outside it’s cold (-7°C] and snow is falling. It’s the perfect weather sitting in the warm living room & having a look over older photos i’ve taken.

Back in August this year i’ve driven with my scooter to the youngest district of freiburg because i wanted to do some photos outside and inside a church which is by architectural terms a very interesting building. I don’t know the architect of this church. The “Maria Magdalena Church” in Freiburg Rieselfeld reminds of Tadao Ando. It’s, like a lot of his buildings also made of concrete. But it’s the language of shappes what makes this church a special one. I’ve also taken some photos around the district. Enjoy.

Maria Magdalena Church with passerby

identified

face

construction I

ready

construction II

art

construction III

missed

end.

I am very interested in long time exposures with the Olympus E-P1. As is stated in part one of cargo night i tried it again with the M.Zuiko 17mm pencake. Low Light Focus on a LCD with Manual Focus Lenses as seen in part one is very difficult. But Low Light Focus with the E-P1 is also not an easy thing; also i got 6 sharp pictures from 10, it is not all bad. Sometimes i had to try 3 or 4 times until the focus locked. Exposure time was bewteen 20 seconds  and 30 seconds. But as always the E-P1Sensor did a fine job.

I love doing long photowalks. I don’t plan them. I choose a wider location, seldom a specific one. I love the “inspired while walking”-mood. This photographs are from such a day. Enjoy.

faith

heimat loves you

philosophy

All pictures were taken with the Olympus Digital Pen E-P1 and the M.Zuiko 17mm. Nice combination. Fits perfect in my winter coat.

Olympus did some  cool commercials with actor Kevin Spacey (American Beauty).  He talks about the essence of photography. Enjoy.

…so i hope to come to post some new photos.

Edit: Here you can see all five Kevin Spacey Spots.

I am not only in photography and listening to music is something which belongs also very long and deeply too me. As Sundays are the days for relaxing, coming to new power and a bit thinking about life meaning i will also post some music which i like.

Today i start with the Beck Record Club. Beck Hansen has a loose series with different and changing contribution by different musicians. In each series they re-interpret the music of some other musician or band. As they say “Record Club is an informal meeting of various musicians to record an album in a day. The album chosen to be reinterpreted is used as a framework. Nothing is rehearsed or arranged ahead of time. A track is put up here once a week. The songs are rough renditions, often first takes that document what happened over the course of a day as opposed to a polished rendering. There is no intention to ‘add to’ the original work or attempt to recreate the power of the original recording. Only to play music and document what happens.” I am following this series since it’s beginning and really enjoy much of the songs. Today i link to Diana, a song by Skip Spence, formerly drummer of Jefferson Airplane. I don’t know Skip’s original but the mood of Beck’s re-interpretation i really like.

Again at Freiburg’s old yard now at night time for doing some long exposure with the E-P1. I can tell you framing with the LCD is very difficult in the dark, and also manual focus!  Next time i will try it with the M.Zuiko 17mm and the optical viewfinder. This time i choosed an old Minolta Rokkor 2.8/28mm. The only possibility to focus was by looking at the depth-of-field scale. f11/25sec. @ISO100.

doing the snooze | Olympus E-P1 with Minolta MD W.Rokkor 1:2.8/24mm

Last Days i was linked over at 43rumours and get nearly 250 hits per Day. I wondered a bit to become no comments but emails and i think with my now-old theme it was difficult and not intuitive for you readers to leave a comment. In order to make it easier to comment on photoblossoms,  i choosed a theme where “leave a comment” is on the end of each article. So after reading an article you didn’t have to scroll back to the beginning.

Many thanks to the readers who wrote emails for your kind words regarding my photography. Nice to know you inspired.

Nicely XebastYan.

One of the best primes i know, mounted on the E-P1: Minolta MC W.Rokkor – HH 1:1.8/35mm

A few weeks ago i have ordered the Novoflex Minolta MD to Micro Four Thirds adapter for my E-P1. Now it arrived. Coming from an analogue Minolta System (XE-1, SRT) with a lot of superb glass, doing this is one of the major reasons owning an E-P1. Maybe some of you readers know that Minolta build some excellent lenses and some of them were also labeled for Leica. I was always a bit unhappy that Minolta changed their mount going from manual to autofocus and that there always was no good solution to adapt my old primes onto a digital  slr body. Now, with Micro Four Thirds this changed. But you have to live with the crop of two. Ok, there is no autofocus for the old glass but with the 7x or 10x magnification it’s very easy and accurate to focus on the E-P1’s screen. If you like it the faster way, you can also use the depth of field scale engraved on old lenses (Manufacturers: why not on modern AF Lenses?) Remember the Minox or Rollei 35 Series, working with them was very similar in terms of focusing, you also had to use the dof-scale. I think a fusion of old glass and a small Micro Four Thirds Body will also be perfect for the street shooter. Now for playing around and come to grips i located my first shooting here on Freiburg’s old yard which is always interesting to photograph. I go there for years in sometimes longer amplitudes. Mostly it looks that time is standing still there, but i am always impressed how many lil things changed and how busy it still is.

installation I | Olympus E-P1 with Minolta MC W.Rokkor – HH 1:1.8/35mm

installation II | Olympus E-P1 with Minolta MC W.Rokkor – HH 1:1.8/35mm

timeless changes I | Olympus E-P1 with Minolta MC W.Rokkor – HH 1:1.8/35mm

Image Quality is excellent, there is nothing other to say. I really see no color fringes which is sadly often an issue with those plastic like digital lenses.

timeless changes II | Olympus E-P1 with Exakta MC Macro 1:2.8/24mm

A lens that i loved since i began photography is the Minolta MC Rokkor – PG 1:1.4/50mm. I know it’s a bit to soft wide open but stopping down a bit it’s a brilliant and sharp performer. See yourself, contrast, colours and sharpness are stunning …

cargo art I | Olympus E-P1 with Minolta MC Rokkor – PG 1:1.4/50mm

cargo art II | Olympus E-P1 with Minolta MC Rokkor – PG 1:1.4/50mm

… and the out of focus blur is nothing but nice | Olympus E-P1 with Minolta MC Rokkor – PG 1:1.4/50mm @ 1.4

It’s a joy to use. Naturally we love cameras like the  E-P1 or the Lumix  GF1 because of their small size. I think you’ve seen in the first picture that the old Minolta Lenses and the Novoflex MFT/MD Adapter are a bit big, but when carrying around it doesn’t bother me. It feels hefty in your hands and when focusing manually, hefty things are better. They give you feedback! I also found a perfect bag (seen in the first picture of this post) for the Olympus Digital Pen which fits for Body with Lens, a second lens, the  keys, the wallet and my mobile: Jack Wolfskin Overture. I have bought this small shoulderbag from jack wolfskin and took an unused padded divider from another photo bag to have a division for a second lens, fixed it inside with Tesa sew & stick on tapes. This is my all day going-out-the-house and i really can recommend it! It fits also with the big Minolta lenses … ; and again another brilliant performer is the Minolta MC W.Rokkor – SG 1:3.5/28mm.

something elegant I | Olympus E-P1 with Minolta MC W.Rokkor – SG 1:3.5/28mm

something elegant II | Olympus E-P1 with Minolta MC W.Rokkor – SG 1:3.5/28mm

something elegant III | Olympus E-P1 with Minolta MC W.Rokkor – SG 1:3.5/28mm

something elegant IV | Olympus E-P1 with Minolta MC W.Rokkor – SG 1:3.5/28mm

Only against the light the old lenses have their flaws but who cares when they are still razor sharp and their mechanics working like new. My conclusion after one week with the Novoflex MFT/MIN-MD Adapter: When you have old Minolta Primes in the depths of your cupboards – Highly Recommended!

Today I’ve made a comparison regarding High ISO Noise. The Micro Four Thirds Cameras were fitted with the LUMIX G 20mm/1:1.7, the APS-C Pentax Models were fitted with the PENTAX DA 21 Lim. Other Settings were on all Cameras AUTO WHITE BALANCE, Noise reduction settings turned OFF, Vignetting Corrections and Intelligent Contrast Settings turned OFF, Picture Styles NATURAL, Sharpening, Contrast, Saturation all to Zero, File Format JPG. So, it is a very fair test. See yourself, the Olympus E-P1 stands out! ISO is 3200 on all Cameras. Click the pictures for Original Size.

PANASONIC LUMIX GF1 [Firmware 1.0] | LUMIX G 20mm | ISO 3200

OLYMPUS E-P1 [Firmware 1.0] | LUMIX G 20mm | ISO 3200

PENTAX K7 [Firmware 1.0]| PENTAX DA 21 Lim. | ISO 3200

PENTAX K-X [Firmware 1.0]| PENTAX DA 21 Lim. | ISO 3200

Wow, I am overwhelmed of the Auto White Balance under this light source [neon tubes] and the very good noise performance [detail, grain, and chroma noise] from the E-P1. Quite cool performance. I thought the GF1 would also do a good job, but ISO 3200 is not a ISO i would use, also not on the Pentax K7. The new Pentax K-x also stands out against the K7. I think APS-C has not an advantage anymore compared to [Micro]Four Thirds. Feel free to comment.

Edit: I am no pixelpeeper, i am happy when a camera did ISO 1600 well and when i can make a good 20cm x 30cm print of it.