Another film Friday, and a photo of the sign of my favourite coffee shop in Lincoln. Taken on a Leica M4.
Film Friday – Favourite Coffee Shops
Are High End Compacts Back
Ricoh brought us the GR, Fuji the X100, Sony had the RX1. In fact most manufacturers have released at least one high end large censored compact.
Today Panasonic announce a MicroFourThirds sensor in a decent body paired with a quality Leica zoom lens. This has for me the all important viewfinder and looks a lot like the old classic L100.
I keep hearing rumours of Nikon high end compacts, there last bunch were pulled from release at the last moment, but the may be the start of something again.
Leica have proved with the Leica Q people will pay for a high end compact, and each Fuji X100 gets harder and harder to buy as they sell out despite higher and higher prices.
If you get the product right people will purchase.
Nikon Z5 Mark II – New firmware
It looks to be just a bug fix but if your a Nikon Z5 II owner download v1.11.
Olympus OM3 Rumours
Leica have been very successful with their black and white sensors in the Leica Q and M series cameras. Pentax have released one, and Phase have released a black and white digital back. In general if you want to try a back and white sensor camera its an expensive option.
With the recent Ricoh Gr back and white camera its now getting cheaper to get into this dedicated BW photography niche.
Now we are starting to see rumours about a possible back and white only Olympus OM3. This would be great if true. Its a risk but MicroFourThirds needs a bit of excitement introducing into the range, and maybe under the new leadership OM may take those risks.
New Nikkor telephoto zoom announcement
It’s been a couple of years since we have seen any new telephotos from Nikon. Nikon has produced some stunning new lens recently and it’s going to be interesting to see what new technology is going to be included. Nice to see a built in 1.4 teleconverter as well so this is going to be an extremely useful lens for people. At f/2.8 its going to be expensive but this looks to be very sweet and capable lens.
May Day
Mayday, May Poles, Morris Dancers; we have a lot of history here in the UK and some of our traditions are still maintained by volunteers.
If your in the UK today, I hope you enjoyed your bank holiday and took advantage of the events in a city, town or village near you.
Coffee Shops
Whenever I am in a city or town, I look out for independent coffee shops. Away from the uniform chain shops that occupy the high street I find interesting record shops, coffee shops, secondhand shops and sometimes even camera shops, yes they still exist.
Often the buildings have more character and there are often photo opportunities.
Photo of the Month – April
Nikon Zf
Nikkor Z 35mm f/1.8 S
35mm, 1/500 Sec at f/8, Â ISO400
Post Processed in Adobe Lightroom Classic V15.3
Dramatic Portraits and Headshots
Nikon Zf and Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 G F mount lens.
Portraits do not have to be boring, but trying to get a new interesting look is difficult and its doubtful you will come up with anything that has not been done before.
But experiment, try models with different looks, try a different lighting style. You may fail but you also will learn.
Shoten Adapters
One of the advantages that has driven users to the Olympus MicroFourThird is the flexibility it offers, with mount adapters available for most lens. Many Olympus users have been collecting and using classic lens from other manufacturers.
I have the Voiglander adapter for the Nikon Z mount to enable me to use my collection of Leica M mount lens, and the Nikon Z to F adapter for F mount lens, but we now have a whole range of Shoten adapters allowing nine major lens mounts.