Monument Valley July 2014

Next we visited Monument Valley. We booked a 4x4 jeep tour at 4 pm. At 3.30 pm we had a huge thunderstorm, but we were so lucky that 5 minutes before the tour started the thunderstorm was over.

Monument Valley is magnificent. You all know the pictures, but so see it in real life is really exciting. It may not be a National Park, but it is certainly one of the most beautiful spots in the USA.

Grand Canyon July 2014

After we visited New York we took a flight to Las Vegas and rented a car to visit some National Parks. The first park we visited was The Grand Canyon. 

New York by night (2014)

As you know New York nevers sleeps and is alive 24 hours a day. So here are some photos of New York by night, shot on Times Square and Eight Avenue.

New York July 2014 (2)

In this second post of New York some other photos of New York.

These photos are shot on 42nd Street and Times Square.

Next the New York skyline and The Statue of Liberty taken from the Staten Island Ferry:

The 9/11 Memorial:

And The High Line:

New York July 2014 (1)

In this post some photos of The Empire State Building. Is was built in 1929 and has a height of 381 meters. Before my trip to New York I searched the internet and used Google Streetview to find te best fotospot to take a picture. Actually there are two good spots.

The first is the intersection of Broadway and 34th Street, just outside Macys. This is a good spot to see The Empire State Building along 34th Street. But you need a wide-angle lens to take a good picture and it is difficult to get a good shot.

The second spot is at 5th Avenue between 23rd and 26th Street, just opposite of Madison Square Park. The first photo is shot at 23rd and the second at 26th Street.

A big advantange of this spot is, that you are also in front of The Flatiron Building, another New York landmark.

The next photos are taken from the observation deck of The Empire State building.

And last but not least there is an other great photospot for The Empire State Building: The Top of the Rock observation deck on Rockefeller center.

The Olympus era

As explained in my previous post I was highly interested in an mirrorless interchangeable lens camera. So the next question was: which one to choose? Well I started searching the internet and reading magazines and the first camera that came across was (at that time in October 2012) the brand new Sony NEX-6. It received very positive reviews and I actually went to a store to ask if I could try one with the intention to buy it. They guy in the shop told me that they only had one of them and that it was for sale and not there was no possibility to try it (even not in the store!). So, sorry, no Sony at that time.

A few days later while I was still searching te internet I came across a blog written by a guy named Shawn Blanc. In his blog he explained his search for a compact mirrorless interchangeable lens camera and after a comparison of several cameras such as the Panasonic GX1, Sony NEX-6, and Olympus OM-D EM-5 he choose the Olympus E-PL5. For him it was the perfect combination of photo quality, possibilities and a compact camera. His story seemed logical to me, so I became interested in the E-PL5 and searched for tests and reviews, which were all very positive. Besides the camera itself, the micro four thirds system had a large range of lenses. So I became convinced that this would be my next camera. I went to a store (not the one mentioned before), tried it myself and bought the E-PL5. This was in November 2012. I bought it as a kit with a 14-42mm and a 40-150mm lens and a separate flash.

From the moment I used this camera I loved taking photos. Picture quality was very good and sharp and the system itself was compact and light as I wanted. Off course it was not as compact as a point and shoot camera, but compared to a digital SLR it was almost half the size and weight. I shot amazing pictures with this camera.

After using it for a year I decided that I wanted to learn more about my camera and become a better photographer. So I listed up for a photo course at André Nijenhuis, a Dutch photographer who runs a photo school. It was a 4 day course in November 2013 and he explained everything about exposure and the interaction between aperture, shutter speed and iso and also about the possibilities of my camera and the modes to choose, i.e. the Program mode, Shutter release mode, Aperture mode and Manual mode. In fact I never used the Manual mode before, but soon I learned that it was very easy to use to get the best results. A that time all the pieces of the puzzle came together. I also realized that using the M modus on my Olympus was in fact the modern way of using my first Praktica SLR camera (see previous post).

I started using the M mode more often, but this lead me to a difficult decision te be made. Using the M mode was possible with my E-PL5, but the way it worked was little complicated by using several menu steps to change aperture and shutter speed. So in November 2013 I made a decision to exchange my Olympus E-PL5 (with pain in my heart) for an Olympus OM-D EM-5. The big advantage of the EM-5 is that is has to separate dials for controlling aperture and shutter speed to work with in de M mode. I own my EM-5 for about a year now and I love taking photos with it.

My previous digital cameras

In this post I will describe my previous digital cameras.

I bought my first digital camera in 2003. It was a 4 MP Canon Powershot S40 compact camera. 

Canon S40

It was the start of the digital camera era and digital amateur SLR or interchangeable lens cameras as we know them now a days didn’t exist. Digital photography was new and many people held on to analog cameras, which they considered to have a better image quality. Imagine that this is only about 10 years ago!

A few years later the first digital SLR cameras for amateur were introduced. So I bought a 8 MP Canon 350d digital SLR. I shot quite a few photos with my 350d, but in one way or another I never liked this camera very much.

Canon 350d

I wanted to have a more compact camera, which I could carry in my pocket always, so in 2008 I bought a 10 MP Casio Exlim EZ Z-1080, one of the smallest point and shoot compact cameras at that time. I could take it with me all te time and as long as the light wasn’t too bad, the pictures were of a reasonable quality. 

Casio EZ Z-1080

I must admit that judging quality in those days was compared to a previous camera and with development of cameras going very fast at that time any new camera was better than your previous model a few years old.

In 2010 I went on a vacation to South Africa and I wanted something more than just a simple point and shoot camera. So I bought a 12 MP Panasonic FZ38 camera. 

Panasonic FZ38

This was what they call a bridge camera which had a lot of more possibilities. You couldn’t change lenses, but it had an 18 times optical zoom and you could choose an fully automatic program, but also aperture or shutter speed control. So a lot of features in a compact system and to be honest I made great pictures with it.

My next step in 2011 was a 18 MP Panasonic TZ40. This was a compact camera, with almost the same features as the FZ38 and some even better, but only half the size. 

Panasonic TZ40

You know what they say: size matters, but for me on a camera this means as small as possible. I used it for about a year and shot a lot of pictures, but after a while it had dust on the sensor. So brought it back to the shop to repair, but after two or three repairs it always had different problems.

It was in October 2012 when I was in a camera store for returning my TZ40 problem camera that I saw a book about mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras. I figured out that this was the solution to my needs, a relative compact system with good photo quality and the possibility to change lenses. I bought the book and began reading and became more and more enthusiast about this concept.

Read more in my next post about how I came to my current camera.