The guy in the middle fell asleep while the two men were concentrating on their game. Shot with Leica M9 and Zeiss Planar 50mm ZM f/2 lens.

This is the fourth installment of my Olympus PEN E-P3 review, the latest Micro Four Thirds camera from Olympus. If you miss the first three, check them out here, here and here. I shot the images here using the two kit lenses 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 and 40-150mm f/4-5.6. All photos here are the JPEG straight out of the camera with no post-processing. I just re-sized them for web viewing.

I mentioned in my first review, that I am not a fan of zoom lenses with variable apertures like the two kit lenses here. I like to control the aperture when I am shooting. I don’t want the lens to change the aperture by itself as I zoom in, as in the case of these two kit lenses. This does not mean that these two kit lenses are bad. It’s just my personal preference to use zoom lenses that have constant largest aperture throughout the focal length. The lenses can still give you great images. And unfortunately Olympus does not have option to sell you body only, so you have to get one of the kit lenses. 

I also mentioned about the option of built-in Art Filters in my first review. There are tonnes of them, but I like this Grainy Film Filter the most. It will automatically shoot in black and white for you, add some grains and the optional sloppy border. Cool huh. The black and white conversion may not be perfect, but it has good shadow and highlight. I like the contrast of its black and white conversion. You will see lots of them in this post, i.e. all those black and white photos. The grains are a bit too much in some of them, because the ISO was already high due to lighting and aperture (I couldn’t go to f/2 like when I used the 12mm f/2 lens) and the Grainy Film Filter added some more grains. Some of the black and white images are also over-exposed, but that’s because of user error, i.e. my mistake. I couldn’t see the LCD clearly when I brought the camera down to my waist level when shooting some of the images. I am interested to see how I can correct the RAW files when Adobe Lightroom has updated its RAW engine later.

So, if you are looking for a camera that can give you higher image quality than those compact cameras, this is one option for you. It’s really a consumer’s market now. We are all pampered by the many options of interchangeable lens cameras in the market now. If you don’t want the big bulky DSLR, but still want an interchangeable lens camera, you are living in the right time. Be grateful. 

Enjoy the images.

I love shooting the people playing Chinese chess at Kreta Ayer market in Chinatown. These two were shot last weekend when I made a quick trip there. Shot with Leica M9 and Zeiss Planar 50mm ZM f/2 lens. 

On a separate topic, I just received the new Olympus E-P3 from Olympus Singapore. This is the latest Micro Four Thirds camera from Olympus that was just announced late last month. The camera is on loan from Olympus for me to use for couple of weeks. As you all know, I am a big fan of Micro Four Thirds camera. Will be interesting to compare the new Olympus E-P3 with my Panasonic GF1. I will post the photos taken with the camera soon.

What to shoot in Singapore? How about the people playing chess in Chinatown, near the Kreta Ayer market? It’s fun to watch and it’s easy to shoot. Respect them though since they usually concentrate on their game very much, so don’t just keep shooting. Pause, watch them and shoot. You can be very close to them, so using wide angle lens is fine. Get high, get to their eye level, get close and get wide. Vary your shots. All photos shot with Leica M9 and 35mm Summarit f/2.5 lens. I only spent about 20 minutes as I needed to go pick up my prints at the photo lab near there.

For those visiting Singapore, here is the map. The nearest MRT station is Chinatown.

I am slowly re-posting my old photos from the old blog that I have unfortunately deleted after changing the design of my website few times. Here are photos from the posts I made back in 2006. They were taken in Chinatown, Singapore. The above photo was shown on the UK Black and White Magazine in August 2006.