I'm not very enthusiastic about photography at the moment. Or more accurately, I'm not very enthusiastic about my photography, or taking photographs. Partly due to a recent flame exchange which I found depressing in the extreme (but I do keep reminding myself that the vast majority of Americans are not, in fact, pompous name-dropping self-important tossers).

Anyway. I really forced myself to try to do something with this camera thing on Sunday and I've finally got around to posting a result.

Late afternoon view over Lake Lugano from Bosco Luganese

Couldn't be bothered with a tripod and everything. Maybe things will improve... The real reason, I think, is first of all, there's only so long you can stay interested in anything in a complete vacuum, and, secondly, I simply don't have the time to immerse myself to take my photography to a level I would like to reach. Or possibly I'm just a pompous, name-droppng self-important - and talentless - tosser.

Who knows.

This is another accident... Had I not been at ISO 800 I could not have captured this combination of frozen motion and shallow depth of field. Normally I would have been at 100 or 200, and as my brain is still more or less set in the film world, I would not have considered the new variable - changing ISO. Having made the mistake I'm now repeating it as often as possible! It is hardly an original observation, but adding sensitivity to the traditional exposure / aperture adjustments really opens up a new world of creative possibilities. This DSLR stuff is just SO MUCH FUN!!!

I managed to do it again. This time I shot 18 pictures at ISO 400 when I could, and should have been at 100 or 200. Oh well. Hopefully I'll learn one day. Here's one of them, an alternative to the one I posted at myfourthirds.com today. This one has the boat in it. I'm not sure which I prefer. Neither is exactly great, anyway. Lake Lugano, 9:30am today.

There's been a lot of talk about how Olympus should add instant histogram review in a future E-1 firmware upgrade. Actually, whilst I would not mind seeing this, I don't find the two-click approach need now terribly inconvenient. What I do think is a problem is the lack of a permanent ISO speed display. Really it should be in the viewfinder. It is as important as aperture and exposure. Twice now I've shot a whole series of photos at the "wrong" ISO. although clearly I should realise that there is something amiss when I'm assuming I'm at ISO 100 and in fact am at 800! Instead I started thinking to myself that I should get an ND filter, and at least I'm not using a Nikon that only goes down to 200! But... had I not made this error, I would have missed out on some quite nice photos, like the one below, where working at high ISO made me work at higher shutter speeds than I normally use for "water" shots - and the results are quite good.

Well I haven't posted here for a long time. Partly because I was away in Cannes, attending the 3GSM Conference - basically the most important 4 days of the year, work-wise. But also because I've been concentrating on web site updates. I've now completed revising my online photo galleries, and the E-1 now starts to make an appearance. Since I provide a "by camera" index, you can quickly see which E-1 photos I feel are suitable for display.

Let me know what you think!