Techniques – Photo rumblings and whispers

Notes on OM System OM-1 digital camera (DRAFT)

Pedro J. Aphalo 2022-12-30 2023-01-08Equipment, Photography, Techniques 0

Quite a lot has been already written in the internet about the OM System’s OM-1 camera, but I write down here some notes comparing it to the E-M1 Mk II and highlighting some use cases. I share this notes in case someone else finds them useful, although they are mostly intended for myself. Among the things frequently mentioned is a lack of improvement in image quality between old and new image sensors (e.g., OM system OM-1 vs OM-5 – The 10 Main Differences). This is one example of where my own experience differs drastically from the quick and dirty tests…

NIR-pass filters

Pedro J. Aphalo 2021-02-01 2021-02-01Equipment, Photography, Techniques 0

All the near-infrared (NIR) long-pass filters described in this post are absorptive glass filters and sold for special photography effects. All modern photography digital cameras have internal UVIR-cut filters. Use of these filters requires special film, special digital cameras or modified DSLR or DML cameras. Some filters can be used with unmodified digital cameras with very long exposure times. Few normal camera objectives are designed to work well in NIR. Two problems are common: 1) focus shift which needs special attention when focusing is done in visible light (e.g. not using an EVF or live-view from the camera sensor, 2)…

Hemispherical time-lapse under a tree

Pedro J. Aphalo 2020-09-29 2020-09-29Landscape, Plants, Techniques 0

In two earlier posts titled “Lens adapter with filter drawer” and “Lens adapters: flange-to-flange distance” I discussed how crucial it is to achieve the exact effective flange-to-flange distance when dealing with adapted objectives with a very short focal distance. I also described how I shimmed an adapter to achieve this. Recently I had an opportunity to use the Sigma 4.5mm 1:2.8 circular fisheye objective in Nikon AF mount adapted to my Olympus E-M1 Mk II camera to create a time-lapse video. I captured 500 images, with a pause of 1 s between them. Total time was a bit over 10…

Lens adapter with filter drawer

Pedro J. Aphalo 2020-06-17 2020-07-11Equipment, Photography, Techniques 0

I here describe my experience with the DEO-TECH OWL EF/MFT lens adapter. The adapter is available mainly through astronomy web stores and seems to be currently distributed by Optolong. It is also available on special order at B&H photo video and possibly other large shops. Development of the adapter was initially funded through Kickstart crowd funding.

UV-cut filters

Pedro J. Aphalo 2020-06-12 2020-06-17Equipment, Photography, Techniques 0

As described in the post UVIR-cut filters both absorptive filters and interference filters are sold as UV-blocking filters. All modern photography digital cameras have internal UVIR-cut filters and most modern objectives transmit little UV-radiation. There are some exceptions, most if not all Olympus cameras are sensitive to long-wave UV-A radiation and a few modern objectives also transmit long UV-A radiation. Many filters sold as UV-filters do not differ from those sold as clear protection filters enough to matter. However, a few UV-filters do absorb in the whole UV-band and even into the visible violet band. Their effect might make a…

UVIR-cut filters

Pedro J. Aphalo 2020-06-11 2020-06-17Equipment, Photography, Techniques 0

Filters can block radiation either by reflection or absorption. Absorptive filters are usually made of glass containing various metal ions while cheaper plastic filters tend to be coloured with organic dyes. There is a third type of absorptive filter, which are rare nowadays that consist of a coloured gelatine layer in-between two glass sheets. Most high-quality absorptive filters sold for photographic use are made of solid glass and absorptive. In the case of square filters plastic is more common than for smaller circular filters. The current perfected version of the gelatine-between glass filters is Tiffen’s “core technology”. With absorptive filters…

A time lapse video assembled in ImageJ

Pedro J. Aphalo 2019-08-21 2019-08-21Landscape, Photography, Techniques 0

Steps used to create video Use time-lapse setting in camera to take a series of 300 photographs, one every 10 seconds. Set auto-exposure lock. Set camera on a tripod. Import the 300 images into Capture One (version 12.1). Edit the first image including correction for perspective and cropping. Select the 300 images, copy the edits from the first photograph to the remaining 299. Export the 300 photographs JPEG, setting long edge maximum length at 1600 pix. Read the 300 images into ImageJ (version 1.52p) using “File > Import > Image sequence”. Export the video from ImageJ using “File > Save…

Godox AD200 flash for UV, VIS and IR photography

Pedro J. Aphalo 2019-07-14 2019-07-18Equipment, Mehods, Photography, Techniques 0

[Updated 2019-07-18] Godox sells a medium-power flash called AD200 with interchangeable heads and several accessories like light modifiers and remote wireless triggers with TTL exposure metering and high speed synchronization capabilities. This gives a lot of flexibility in its use. After a few separate purchases I now own the AD200 and the H200, H200J and H200R heads, an Xpro-O TTL Wireless Flash Trigger, and several light modifiers, all of them branded Godox. (The same flash and accessories are also available under other brand names.)