Mu-43.com - Micro Four Thirds User Group
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A quick trip to the Salton Sea
The Salton sea is a saline lake located about an hour south of Palm Springs in California. It was "created" by mistake because of engineering mistakes in 1905, had a boom during the 50s, heavy rains caused a lot of problems in the 70s and started the decline of the communities around it.
It is now a ticking ecological time-bomb waiting to happen because of the recent drought - all the toxins that are covered by water are exposed as the lake dries and are likely to be carried far and wide as harmful dust. (The recent rains last year probably delayed it a bit).
We had a swim meet to attend in Palm Springs for my younger one - and took the day to roam around the eastern side of the Salton Sea (we visited a couple of places on the western side last year).
It is a very interesting place to visit - and because there are several "functional" ghost towns around it - quite a bit of photography targets. Most of the photos from this year are from Bombay Beach - one of the largest towns around the lake - and one that still has about 300 residents.23May 29, 2017 -
Jamaica Carnival 2017
I've been preparing to cover the local Carnival for months. It's a fantastic oppurtunity to practice street shooting , with amazing colorful and eager subjects
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I met up with some other photographers at one of the designated start locations and we got ourselves primed:
I was very appreciative of my MFT kit when I saw what this guy was carrying. I walked with my Peak Design Everyday backpack and threaded the neck strap through the shoulder straps on the bag so that the bag took all the weight of the camera and the the waist strap took the weight off my shoulders. Heaven
Vuvuzella Vendor
Police escort for the Road march
Every year , this particular road march is headed by a local innercity youth drum troop.14May 26, 2017 -
Stepping up my Light Painting Game : Bridges, Abandoned Farms, and more
I've been really focusing on experimenting with light painting with color at night. I built a basic set of ROYGBV gels for my light painting panels, and have been trying all kinds of different applications. Here are some of the most recent results, all taken in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, in NE Ohio.
This bridge crosses the Cuyahoga River, leading to the Towpath Trail, which runs the length of the park. During the day, this is a high traffic area, with hikers, joggers, bikers, boaters, fisherman, and more.18May 24, 2017 -
Laowa 7.5mm f/2 MFT 'Compact Dreamer' Lens Review
The Laowa 7.5mm f/2 MFT Lens is a new, fast, ultra-wide rectilinear prime lens for the Micro Four Thirds system. It is currently the fastest 7.5mm lens for our system.
172May 29, 2017 -
Hawk hunts for Lunch
I live on a small pond which gives me plenty of photo opportunities. One of those was a week ago. I had just finished lunch and was doing some yard cleaning when I spotted the hawk in an unusual spot for him. He is a red shouldered hawk and has been around the pond for years. He was on a fallen tree that stretches out into the pond. It’s been there for several years and other birds, and turtles, love it but I’ve never seen him on it. He usually likes to be up high in a tree. I ran to the house and grabbed my camera, Olympus EM10-II and I keep the Oly 75-300 mm lens on it.
I walk slowly back into the yard and leaned against a tree about 100 feet from the hawk. I knew he could view me just before I would get to the tree and kept my fingers crossed he wouldn’t fly away. Luckily he didn’t, he just stayed there and watched me for a minute, then went back to looking around for lunch. I zoomed out the lens and turned the auto-focus off (the auto focus seems to use some invisible light beam that really bothers birds and I can’t find any menu to turn it off). He looked back up and I snapped several photos from the location but I knew it was pushing the max distance for a great photo for this lens. I decided to get closer.11May 22, 2017 -
A weekend in Slovenia
Here's a tourist's documentation from a long weekend in Slovenia. The base was Ljubljana and from there rental car daytrips. Brought the E-M1 II plus Samyang 7.5 fisheye, Oly 12, 17, 25 and 45mm (need to get a PRO zoom for next time, my wife hates all the lens changes). Hesitated to bring the 17mm but it turned out I used that the most.
Slovenia was really photogenic (as I had hoped) and overall a lovely place, highly recommended! Ljubljana is one of the smallest capitals in Europe (~300'000 habitants) with lovely strolling paths, nice cafés and restaurants, Lake Bled has stunning views, the Postojna caves more than 20 km (15 miles) deep and the Mediterranean coast with small towns like Piran ensure a great vacation trip with some hot photo spots.
Some (too many..?) samples below. I noted the lens used for each image.
Lake Bled (Samyang 7.5mm Fisheye)15May 19, 2017
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