Fun With Adapted Lenses

For those interested in camera porn, here's a shot of my E-PL2 with a Minolta Rokkor 50mm 1.7 adapted lens.

Any hobby you take on is expensive, especially photography. Being the frugal person that I am, I decided to try out legacy lenses because they're good and cheap on eBay. These legacy lenses are selling like hotcakes on eBay because of people like me! Also because I'm new to the world of photography, using a manual lens is a great learning experience. I'm loving my E-PL2 with these legacy lenses because I can keep it in auto mode for now until I gain more understanding of exposure, shutter speed, etc.

Here are a few shots that I took with a Minolta Rokkor 135mm 2.8 lens.

 

  

These shots were taken handheld. I'm impressed on how these turned out. These images are straight out of the camera. The image stabilization on my camera is awesome. I did find it hard to use the manual focus without a viewfinder, so I splurged and ordered an Olympus VF-3 today.

My First "Real" Camera

My first "real" camera is an Olympus PEN E-PL2.

 

I have Ashton Kutcher to thank for influencing me to purchase a new camera. I saw the ad for the Nikon 1, starring Mr. Kutcher, and that was the camera I wanted. My husband owns a Nikon D7000 and it's great, but it's too heavy to lug around while we're on vacation. So something small like the Nikon 1 would be more ideal. Then I discovered the world of micro four-thirds cameras and I got sucked into it. 

The main driving force was the price of the camera. I'm all about getting the most out of my money. The Nikon 1 J1 was around $500 at Walmart, but there are lots more options and different price points in the micro four-thirds lineup. For some reason, Olympus was frequently releasing cameras in the PEN line, which drove the price down for the earlier generation PEN digital cameras. So I think I got a smoking deal on this camera that I purchased refurbished from Cameta Camera on eBay.
 

I'm still getting used to this camera, and so far I love it. Here are a few snap shots that are straight out of the camera. I used the 17mm F2.8 lens for these photos.

 

And here's my bridge again!

Crossing Over

I'm crossing over into the world of camera geeks. I have become fascinated by all  that talk about f-stops, ISO, resolution, etc. Most of all, I love how the world looks through a camera lens. So I'm starting this blog to share what my lens finds. I welcome any constructive criticism because I believe that there will always be room for improvement.


The bridge picture above is my best composition attempt to date. I took this photo using my iPhone 4S. (OK, go ahead and laugh at me now. I haven't gotten my hands on a decent camera yet, but I will soon!) It was actually a crappy shot that needed some (or lots of) post processing. Considering my lack of equipment at the moment, I'm happy with the end result. I put the bridge in the top third of the photo to bring out the bold color of the grass. I think the rocks and the bridge make some interesting lines in this photo.

My new camera is expected to arrive today, so my next post will be about my equipment. I will then have officially crossed the bridge into the realm of camera geeks. Stay tuned!