I've been contemplating to try a focal length that's a bit wider than 35mm.  With 50mm being my favorite focal length, I'm used to picking out a single subject and separating it from the background.  If you remember my previous post about shooting pictures with more depth, perhaps a wider field of view will encourage me to work more with the entire scene.

Here is a gem of a lens... if Internet rumors can be trusted, even Zeiss admits that this is the sharpest lens they've ever made.  Although I'm not a person that's big on sharpness, even I had to do a double-take when I viewed some of its images at 100% and marvel at its incredible details.  Also, as much as I love a fast aperture, I felt it's a bit unnecessary on a wide angle lens since I'm most likely not going to try to isolate my subjects.  I think it will take me a while to get use to this wide view, but I accept the challenge to incorporate more of the scene in my images.

I've been a bit distracted lately with all the new cameras that came out.  I'm so glad that I've made the decision to sell the Olympus OM-D, so now I can come back and concentrate on the M9.  With the newly available funds, I'm planning to purchase some more lenses, both on the wide and telephoto ends.  And, of course, I will share my thoughts on them later.

Today, around 5pm, armed with the M9 and 50'Lux, went out to the backyard and did some photo hunting.  During post processing, I decided to push the files a bit out of my normal comfort range.  I tried a heavy crop on the dandelion shot below so it looks almost like a 100mm focal length.  I also tried to take some high ISO shots at 800 and 1600 to reaffirm the maximum ISO I am comfortable to shoot with at night.  In both cases, I think the M9 files performed well.  With both the heavy crop and high ISO, I think there is enough room in the M9 files to at least make the image still presentable on the web, but probably not good enough for print.

Following my decision to sell the Olympus OM-D EM-5, I've picked up this little gem of a camera as my M9 companion.  It was only a month ago, how I praised the OM-D complimented the M9... it's still true, but I didn't realize that it also overlapped the M9 in many areas, which caused me to rethink (see last post).  I'm still looking for the same features: fast auto-focus, zoom lens, macro, video.  All of them are now satisfied by the Sony RX100, in addition, it's also very pocketable!  What I have done, is to remove the overlapping areas with the M9: no additional lenses to acquire, no fight for spaces in my bag, image quality no where near the M9.  The last one may sound funny, but here's my logic...  Since the small point-and-shoot (P&S) is in a completely different league from the M9, I'd never have to debate with myself which one to bring (bring both!) or which one to use.  This should help me concentrate my photography on the M9 and I will only use the RX100 sparingly or when situation requires.

I've been shooting with both cameras for the past month or so...  and I had convinced myself that the OMD was a good compliment to the M9 because of auto-focus, zoom lenses, macro, and video. However, in practice, I find that it's competing with the M9 in many ways.

First, I have a smallish camera bag, the Domke F-5XB.  It has enough room to pack both cameras, but leaves no room for additional lenses.  I find it extremely bothersome because I don't want to carry a bigger bag, and I don't want to feel like I'm sacrificing something by not having the right lens with me.  Since the OMD with PL25+hood actually take up more room than the M9 with 50'Lux, I feel like I'm not feeling the "compactness" I'm suppose to get from the m4/3 system.

I realized that I have my camera straps setup a bit unconventional, so I thought I share it since it's working out great for me.  Normally, people connect the neck straps to either side of the camera, so when not in use, the camera hangs around the middle in front.  I find it a bit inconvenient since I have a 3 year old that I need to keep an eye on, and I don't want the camera to bash his head too often :)

So, I often like a sling-style strap so the camera hangs off to the side, out of the way, and easier to conceal inside a jacket.  Of course, you can do that with the conventional way by just putting one arm inside the strap loop.  However, I also love to use the wrist strap with the M9, so I need to be able to disconnect the camera from the neck/sling strap.  In fact, most of the time when I'm walking about, I have the wrist strap on and the camera on my right hand so I'm ready to catch the decisive moment.

The wrist strap use up one side, and leave the other side for my sling-style strap.  I found the OP/TECH USA quick disconnect camera strap connectors to be very versatile.  Since it's just a thin nylon string and the M9 is quite heavy, I double it up and it doesn't make it that much more difficult to attach or disconnect.  Here's a more close-up image:

Not much exciting things happened lately, so I had to make something out of the ordinary.  We visited my mom at her senior apartment on Sunday, which, I must say, is always beautifully landscaped by the city.  So I brought the M9 along to see if I can capture some of its beauty.

Again, I'm a true believer of: if you keep the camera at the ready, you can always capture great moments.  I think the first image of the set epitomizes the relationship between my son and my mom.  From the way she looks at him, I think she probably loves him more than I do.  For him, however, he completely takes her for granted.  Can't blame him, really, because that is the innocence which he will regretfully lose.

I read a great article in TOP (The Online Photogapher) website the other day: "In Defense of Depth".  The author, John Kennerdell, challenges the readers to take pictures with deeper focus that demands greater composition and timing.  He ends the article with: "Just don't be surprised if some day you look back on all that shallow-focus work and find yourself wishing you'd paid more attention to the third dimension. And don't ask me whose old photos I was looking at when I first began to realize that for myself."

Nowadays, especially with beginners like me, we love the shallow depth of field (DOF) and wild bokehs because it's "new" to us.  We can't see bokehs with our eyes, and the shallow DOF is something we simply couldn't achieve with our point-and-shoot camera.  So, we flock to it, admire it, inspired by it, and shoot a bunch of photographs with hardly anything in focus.