Snaps: Macro Photography with the Olympus OM-D E-M10

Macro shooting was something that I stumbled upon on and somehow, my interest was piqued. But as interested as I was, I never did made it a priority for me to shoot macro. Instead macro photography was something I'd do whenever convenient. By convenient, I'd mean whenever one of the guys from Shutter Therapists suggested to do some macro photography. This is more often than not, Robin's suggestion.

 I don't remember when my last macro shoot was. Chances are that it was at least 3 months or more since I last I took macro shots. But the funny thing is I do actually have the macro lens and it's actually the lens which I use the least. This I felt was such a waste sometimes, especially given how amazing the Olympus M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 60mm f/2.8 Macro Lens is. But there comes occasion like this when I get a chance to shoot macro with that precious lens of mine.

There are many other forms of photography that I dabble with, like street, food and sometimes landscape but for me, macro photography is one of the more technically demanding type of photography. In terms of macro shooting, you'll need an external flash with a diffuser. I would usually trigger the flash remotely, allowing me to direct the light to where I want it to be. So if you can imagine it, I'll be holding the flash with my left hand and my right would have the camera.

To top things off, my camera is set to manual focus which mean that I usually have to set the minimum focusing distance to my subject before shooting. Once that is done, it would meant that I have to move back and forth adjusting the focus physically. Which is actually physically demanding as well, since I would need to stabilise myself and the camera while juggling the flash on the other hand as well.

Thankfully this time around I was shooting with the Olympus OM-D E-M10 which came with in-built electronic viewfinder and has a 3-Axis stabilization which compensate 3 types of movements (yaw/pitch/roll movements). These two features were extremely crucial in helping me capture sharp crisp pictures. The axis stabilization is important for me as I was only shooting single handed since my other hand was occupied with handling the external flash. On the other hand, the viewfinder helped to effectively reduce the distraction around me since my field of vision is limited to the area that I'm shooting.

All in all, macro photography is both technically demanding as it tests your your knowledge of photography to capture the image you would like. It also is physically demanding having to handle the camera and the external flash as well. However having said that all, I would do it again and again because there is nothing that feels as good as the satisfaction you get from nailing that shot!

 

As you can see I didn’t get that many shots, but I’m happy with the photos that I have taken this time around under the time constraints. Shooting macro also requires fair bit of patience and some luck. On good days, you’ll find tonnes of interesting subjects to shoot. On not-so-good days, you’ll probably end up spending more time looking for the subjects instead of actually shooting. To be honest, I think I came a long way since I first started shooting macro photography. Here are some of the links to my other photographs (I just realised that I blog about macro photography on an annual basis) ;

• http://www.carmenhong.com/2013/09/walk-in-park-butterfly-park-kuala-lumpur.html – Shot way back in the year 2013
• http://www.carmenhong.com/2014/03/snaps-macro-shooting-at-butterfly-park.html – Shot in the prior year, year 2014

Till next time,

xoxo

Snaps: Macro Shooting at Butterfly Park, Kuala Lumpur

Before I go on about the macro shoot at the Butterfly Park, I have to share with you something awful that happened to me a week ago. As someone who photographs a lot, I have a horrible back up system. Actually, I don’t even have a back up system in place. I have all my photos and my LR catalogues stored in one, just one HDD with the last backup in November 2013. After every shoot I transfer all my pictures into that one HDD, and wipe my memory cards clean. Then, one day, my HDD crashed. I can access my files but they wouldn’t load and I can’t extract them from the HDD. I could send it to a data recovery centre but it’ll cost, maybe about RM200-RM300 (or more) to recover 1TB of data.

I’m thorn, honestly. This incident left me rather heartbroken, that I didn’t touch my camera for a week or so. I was pretty much upset during this entire time, and I only have myself to blame. I’m probably going to try to send the HDD to the centre but if it cost me too much, I am all ready to forgo everything in that HDD. So, basically I have start afresh. From all of my catalogues, to taking new pictures… Sighs.

I worked on the pictures from this macro shoot at Butterfly Park before the HDD crashed, so I have the post-processed pictures (and resized) but not the originals or the edits done in Lightroom. So, here it is.

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All pictures were all shot with Olympus EPL-5 handheld with the Olympus M.Zuiko 60mm F2.8 macro lens; ISO 200 and an aperture between f/4 to f/10. Flash was fired remotely in some of the pictures.

Walk in The Park: August, twenty thirteen

I briefly mention in the Butterfly Park post that I’m looking to bring the Walk in The Park series back to life, so instead of flooding my blog with individual pictures from these walks, I have decided to do the monthly edition instead. This is a backlog for the month of August. Kudos to my brother with his sharp eyes for pointing out subjects for me to shoot.

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All pictures were all shot with Olympus EPL-5 handheld with the Olympus M.Zuiko 60mm F2.8 macro lens.

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(For previous pictures from the Walk in the Park series, click here.)

Snap: Butterfly Park, Kuala Lumpur

A few weekends ago, I was out for photo walk in the Butterfly Park with a couple of friends (all of whom uses the Micro Four Thirds system camera). It all started with me asking Robin Wong, to teach me some tips on shooting macro with my Olympus M.Zuiko 60mm F2.8 macro lens which I have gotten along with my Olympus EPL-5. The reason why I got myself that lens was because I have always have an inclination to shoot macro insects even with my Canon S90  back then. So, anyway I haven’t been able to do much macro shooting lately so I thought it’ll be a good idea to have a macro photo walk.

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One of my favourite pictures is the last picture above of a hairy spider, which was really puny actually. He was probably the size of my finger nails. I only started getting better macro shots (which was only the last two spiders when I joined Robin back for the last part of the walk, where he gave me tips on how to work a macro shot). Before that, I was walking with Alex who was assisting me with the flash unit.

Can I be honest and say that I was tad disappointed with my pictures when I got back to review them? There were a couple more shots but because I was careless in reviewing my pictures on the spot, in terms of the focus of the pictures I had to forgo many of these “potential” pictures, which was a waste really. Well, lesson to be learned here is to be more careful when I’m shooting macro. But I’m definitely going back to the Butterfly Park to shoot macro again, and if you’re interested too, do join me! Just let me know, :)

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Thank you to Robin Wong, Jackie (+ girlfriend), Alex and Robin’s friends for making it for the photo walk, I hope you guys had fun. Robin has posted the pictures from the walk on his blog (his pictures was really gorgeous and it made me rather hesitant on posting my pictures) Insect Macro Shooting and Jackie has also posted his pictures Macro: Butterfly Park on his blog.

All pictures were all shot with Olympus EPL-5 handheld with the Olympus M.Zuiko 60mm F2.8 macro lens; ISO 200 and an aperture between f/5.6 to f/7.1. Flash was fired remotely in some of the pictures.

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This post is categorized under Walk in The Park in an attempt to bring the series back to live. A little background information on the series; it started out with walks I take to the park armed with my trusty Canon S90 way back in 2010 (when I first got that camera then). I take these walks pretty often and they were like my shutter therapy session. These walks had also sparked my interest in macro shooting. But nowadays I rarely make these walks, starting this series again, I hope to take more walks and get more pictures to post. I won’t be limiting the series to just the park in my place but basically any other parks I visit to. So, keep an out for this series. :)

Meet the Olympus’s flagship OMD EM-1!

The much awaited day for Olympus fans have arrived, with today being the worldwide launch of the Olympus’s Flagship OMD EM-1! This is the first time, I’m actually this excited with a launch of a camera product, what more an Olympus one. Even when the EP-5 was launched, I wasn’t that excited, neither did I anticipate for the official launch. But it’s different with the EM-1, mainly because this is Olympus’s Flagship product, a first of its kind. And also, because I have friends who are Olympur M43 users which got me excited as well.

Pictures of the OMD EM-1 have been leaked online on the 43rumors, and yes, that’s exactly how it looks like. No surprises there. I have been lucky enough to see, touch and shoot with the OMD EM-1 before the official launch because I was assisting TVSmith, (a popular Malaysian photographer who shoots everyday things but turns them into interesting subjects) with his review on the EM-1. It was easy to fall in love with the EM-1 because of so many things; it’s lighter, it feels solid … I could go on and on but then again, these are just my thoughts.

 

For a complete and proper reviews with sample pictures taken by the Olympus OMD EM-1, you can visit TVSmith’s blog. He have done an in-depth review and a pretty intense test on what the OMD EM-1 claims to be able to do to, so you can view the pictures over on his blog. Besides him, my other favourite photographer and extreme humble friend, Robin Wong will also be reviewing the camera. Robin is no stranger to the Olympus fans, because of his reviews on the Olympus lenses and cameras, as well as the Micro Four Thirds camera system. Ming Thein, another fantastic photographer will also be reviewing the camera, so again you can check it out on his blog.

If you’re in Malaysia and would like to see the camera up-close, Olympus Malaysia will have a touch and try event for the OMD EM-1 on September 21st and 22nd. You can register for that here; http://home.olympusimage.com.my/eventlist.php. Hurry up because seats are limited! I have attended the EP-5 touch and try event before and it was really fun, so you can expect the same for the OMD EM-1.

I know I said I wasn’t going to post on any sort of reviews/pictures of the OMD EM-1 but being TVSmith’s camera assistant, I got to fire a lucky shot in between of shoots and this was what I managed to capture with the OMD EM-1. Seeing this picture, I’m just amazed with what the OMD EM-1 can do. Like mind blown. No edits were done for that picture, just used the Dramatic Art Filter in the camera.

And, I’ll end this post with a picture of myself modelling the OMD EM-1 as shot by TVSmith.

 

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Pictures of the miniature OMD EM-1 was shot with the Olympus EPL5 with the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 60mm f/2.8 Macro Lens, shot in a light tent.