Another week, another photography blog! I know what you're thinking.... "he was prattling on about the Sony NEX3n last time wasn't he.." and yes I did review my new mirrorless camera last time round, I've enjoyed shooting with it so much that I wanted to share some more images with the NEX3n and the Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm 1.8 lens, all of these images were taken a couple of days ago out on a stroll with my little lad Harrison as we made the most of the last rays of summer sunshine.
I love the almost dreamlike quality of the Bokeh (background blur) in this image and also the double rainbow artefacts caused by the suns rays which really adds to the image IMHO of course!
The Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm 1.8 lens is the standard basic kit lens that was often shipped with Olympus OM film cameras back in the day, I got mine attached to an OM20 film camera but the lenses can be picked up on their own for around £10-£20 - don't be put off by the 'basic kit lens' label though becuase this is one very very capable lens with a lovely contrast and tone to the images and excellent sharpness.
I have to say that the ability to easily be able to use my classic film camera lenses on a digital camera is a revelation to me! in the image below you can see the Sony NEX3n and the adaptor required to mount the Zuiko 50mm1.8 - whilst it basicaly doubles the length of the lens in practice it's no bother at all
One really useful feature of the lens is the front mounted aperture ring which makes it really easy to adjust and worked perfectly coupled to the NEX3n which i shoot in aperture priority mode most of the time. the lens is the multicoated version so it's pretty good shooting directly into the sun although this does cause some flaring as you would expect and actually creates some really cool visual artefacts (the kind that people pay money to fake using photo editing software)!
I am mightily impressed with the Olympux OM Zuiko 50mm 1.8 lens - I knew it was going to be good but I'm actually blown away by how good it is, it's helped a long by the small size of the cameras sensor so in effect we're dealing with the centre portion of the lens in the frame but without going down the technobabble route it's enough to say that if you're in the market for a portrait lens on your mirroless camera then combining a £10 lens with an adaptor which cost me £13 and you have an awesome piece of kit on your hands... in practice I doubt very much you'd see much improvement unless you were spending about £500 (decent glass for Sony mirrorless cameras is expensive)!
One feature of the NEX3n is the flip screen which allows you to take selfies more easily - it's a great feature and allows some interesting creative choices - with the Zuiko 50mm mounted the small sensor on the camera actually means your shooting about 80mm so it's a good portrait focal length, unfortunately my arms are not long enough to hold the camera far enough a way for a proper headshot so these will have to do!
This is my best 'concentrating trying to get focus' face... augmented by my 'haven't had a solid nights sleep since my son was born' bags under my eyes.... the NEX3n and Zuiko 50mm do a grand job of accurately rendering my knackerdness! :)
And here he is, fast asleep! Little Baby Harrison, light of my life, stealer of sleep and cosy companion on my meanderings :)
I am mindful not to spend the whole blog prattling on about gear and specifications etc - photography's much more about seeing and feeling than anything else - the gear is just a means to an end after all so let me set the scene and you can tell me if the images transport you there or not......A beautifully bright Autumnal day, the early morning sun bathing everything in it's golden glow, we walked through the once solid mass of green now studded with yellows, reds, browns and pools of dappled light...
Anybody else see a Guillermo Del Torro esque Tree monster in the above image?! no? just me then.... kind of creeps me out but then it looks like it's doing a dance and I can't decide if that creeps me out more or not...
One thing i wasn't expecting this camera and lens combo to be any good at was wildlife photography, and to a certain extent that's true - but i was pleased to be able to catch a couple of butterflies doing their thing which just shows the ease of the manual focus assist feature of the camera, if anything i found the screen on the camera to be a bit limiting as it's not particulalry Hi-Res so when reviewing these images in camera I thought I'd missed focus but when I loaded them on to the computer they were much better than I thought, I know that higher spec models in this range have better screens but I guess Sony don't want to give all of their whizzbang technologies away in the base model camera now do they - gotta give the punters a reason to upgrade at some point i guess....
So congratulations for making it this far (if anybody actually does) I thought I'd finish off with a general 'Hurrah' for the Sony NEX3n and the Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm 1.8 - bloomin brilliant travel camera set up, it's always the sign of a good combo when you come back from a relatively short photo walk with loads and load of images that you really like to choose from - this weeks mammoth sized blog is testament to the awesomeness of this combination! I've got quite a few other old lenses which are compatible with the NEX3n through adaptors and I'm really looking forward to trying them out but for now I'm more than happy shooting my old Olympus lenses - see you next time!