Tag: olympus

From the oldest to the newest

I was told many times by my friends that … “I would take better pictures, if I had a better camera.”, or “I would take better pictures, if I had a more expensive lens”. And of course, many of them said “All I need is a newer camera.”.

In the good old days, you know, a new camera took years to design and make, and then a few years to master, and another few years to make it break. But now camera manufacturers can roll out new cameras one after another every 6 to 9 months. One reason is one can design new cameras easily with all the tools, but another reason is because the consumers also want new cameras every few months.

So even though my favorite camera company, Olympus, spent just two years to rework their E-Px series … people think the company was too slow. Frankly, I don’t get it, I don’t see why you need the latest and greatest camera, to take good photos. Anyway, just yesterday, Olympus announces 3 new cameras (E-P3, E-PL3 and E-PM1), 4 new lens and dozens of accessories.

I am sure these are great cameras and can make magnificent photos. However, I am also sure my two years old E-P1 (the oldest camera in the M43 line) can still take good photos … like a few photos below from Las Vegas I took in May.

Will I buy the new E-P3 ?

Errrrh … yes, of course. I need a newer camera to take better photos … 😎

Second annual report of a tiny, little blog

Even though this tiny, little blog has been maintained for many years, I started the annual report only from year 2009. I found it’s a very good exercise  for me to review what I have done in the past 12 months, and then focus on how I can make this blog better. So here is it, the second annual report of the www.michaelyung.com.

One big achievement last year was the traffic, it reached the all time high in December, 2010 and the number of pageview was almost 10 times more than just two years ago. Really happy about it.

I think there is a couple of reasons of the traffic surge, one obviously is the ever growing popularity of the Amazon Kindle eReader. Many blog posts in this website were written about this fantastic device – Kindle news, tricks, and review reports. Another possible reason is I wrote some other blog posts about iPhone, iPad, Olympus M4/3 and blog engine setup. One last reason is I added the Facebook Like button to each blog post and it helped a lot to the traffic as the sharing of a blog post to my Facebook fans will get back many incoming traffic.

OK, back to the sales … year 2010 was a great year. I sold over 120 Kindles (4 times better than 2009), over 120 physical books and eBooks (6 times more compare to year 2009). And surprisingly I sold a few camera lens from Olympus and Panasonic as well. However, the most stunning sale was someone bought 20 Zune HD music players with one order !!

Lastly, same as year 2009, there were many bizarre sales such as Hair regrowth treatment, coconut oil, bed raiser, soap dispenser, Yamaha guitar, and even X’mas LED bulbs. Amazing.

So that’s about it, what’s going to happen next year ?! I will let you know same time next year.

Olympus E-5 test shots

It’s hard to write a camera test report without a lab like dpreview.com or writing skills like passionate photographer Robin Wong. But what I can do is to give you some first hand information from the point of view of an E-1, E-300, E-510 (I sold it already) and E-P1 user. First the new E-5 is very solid, as good as E-1 if not better. It’s heavier, larger, but also easy to handle.

All the controls are easy to access, and the control menu is no stranger to users from E-510 and E-P1. The 10 art filters are very useful, especially I don’t like to post-process the photos to get the same effect (but as we all Olympus camera owners know, we don’t need to post-process the photos because the JPEG engine is so good).

However, the major breakthrough is the sharpness of the photos, it’s unreal from a camera with “only” 12 Megapixels. I now truly believe 12 Megapixels is all I need but not 20 Megapixels, really. Here are some test pictures I took yesterday, all with the Zuiko 50mm F/2.0 lens.

Loneliness

According to Wikipedia, “Loneliness” is an unpleasant feeling in which people experience a strong sense of emptiness and solitude.

And I think it’s now in that state – the busier the work, the stronger that loneliness feeling … Airport, office, hotel, office, hotel, office, airport … never-ending. To many, they will treat it by visiting their family doctor; to some, they buy something expensive; to Olympus camera fans, they will certainly get the new flagship camera E-5.

An afternoon with M.Zuiko 9-18 and M.Zuiko 40-150

My Micro Four-Thirds camera’s travel kit is now completed – first, the 17 mm kit lens, then the 14-42 mm standard zoom, and then the extremely sharp and fast Lumix 20 mm. This basic set is recently complemented with the ultra lightweight and fast focusing zoom lens – M.Zuiko 9-18 (some pictures here) and M.Zuiko 40-150. So now my travel kit is the trusty E-P1, 20mm, and the two new zoom lens. With only three lens, it covers the range of 18mm to 300 mm. Absolutely lightweight, fun to use and with very good quality as well.

Some photos made in the last weekend along the beautiful Victoria Harbour of Hong Kong.