So, a couple of weeks ago I got back from Svalbard.  First of all, I want to take the opportunity to thank the 11 people I shared a small, yacht-shaped space with for 14 days for making it such an unforgettable experience. If you ever want to see Svalbard properly, your first port of call needs to be Mark Van Den Weg’s Jonathan Adventure Sailing. Don’t leave home without it.

Although photography was a big part of this trip, for me it wasn’t absolutely vital. Nevertheless, it was a considerable blow when, due to brain fade on my part, my XPan stopped working after 3 days. Even though I also had the Olympus and a full set of lenses, I’m finding more and more that “real” photography for happens on film through a wide screen viewfinder. Although I brought back over 6000 digital images, I’m finding it quite hard to get enthusiastic about them.

I have a total of 120 frames from the XPan, a few of which are interesting, but unfortunately the first few days were not really interesting from a photographic perspective. Here’s one of them:

This example is one of the few taken on Provia 400X. I haven’t really used this before, but it does seem quite similar to Provia 400F, in that it is a little washed out and the shadows seem to lack some density. It is also quite coarse grained compared to to, say Velvia 100F, and there’s quite a lot (relatively speaking) of chroma noise in the scans. However, for handheld use (as this was), when the light is fading, it’s pretty useful. Otherwise I used Ektachrome E100G, on Tim Parkin’s recommendation, and although I haven’t done any high resolution scans of it yet, I’m quite impressed, especially by its dynamic range and neutrality. I’ve got more than enough left over to carry on experimenting ...

Of course, the XPan isn’t much use for wildlife close-ups, or at least not when said wildlife is large, aggressive, and / or timid.  For those shots the Olympus E-3 together with the 50-200mm lens and 2x teleconverter worked fairly well. My traveling companions had various equipment from the usual suspects (no Sony though), and although the heavy artillery on Canon 1Ds and Nikon D700s looks impressive and can give sensational results, it really looks cumbersome and clumsy. The only camera that really made me slightly envious was the Pentax K7, but as far as lenses are concerned, my feeling is Olympus still has nothing to fear from the competition.

Actually there was very little camera talk. Hardly any at all, and when there was, it was invariably somebody asking for help with an uncooperative widget or advice on a setting or two. Absolutely zero “my camera beats your camera” talk, which was very, very refreshing.

But I’m getting increasingly fed up with carrying heavy gear on planes and everywhere else, and I’m seriously looking into something like an Olympus E-P2. I’m not sure how this would work out for long zoom wildlife shots - for that kind of thing I think the balance of a DSLR body helps a lot, but otherwise, well the sheer weight advantage is a strong argument.

My LowePro Photo Trekker Pro bag finally gave up on this trip as well, with a terminal main compartment zip failure. It’s been going that way for several years. One of my companion’s LowePro bags suffered a similar, but even more terminal fate (at least I managed to patch mine up enough to get it home), and my general opinion of LowePro is therefore not good. Their bags are too heavy, often poorly designed, and way over-rated. I won’t be buying another one.

But Svalbard wasn’t about gear, or even photography. It was about experiencing close up one the most remote-yet-accessible and pristine locations in the Northern Hemisphere. And Polar Bears. And Polar Beers.

More photos will follow at some point.

Well, I’m off to Svalbard for a few weeks.  I spent ages agonising over what film to take… a totally archaic process, but after being prompted by Tim Parkin, I eventually decided to make a radical (for me) switch and go for Kodak Ektachrome 100G.  Along with a few rolls of Provia 100X for backup. 

All I need now is to find something to point the camera at!

In April of this year I spent 3 weeks traveling around Costa Rica. Although it was not specifically for photography, quite a lot of photography got done - both by myself, and my long-suffering better half.

Costa Rica came on my radar thanks to one of Michael Reichmann’s video journals, and it has been high on my wish list for quite a while.  I’d never really photographed in sub-tropical conditions before, apart from a trip 10 years ago to Venezuela, but that doesn’t really count. Costa Rica is challenging in a number of ways. First, there’s the heat and humidity - although sometimes it’s not so hot, and sometimes the humidity gives way to torrential rain. Then there’s the sheer range of subject matter, with fast and slow moving wildlife of all sizes, landscapes, people, and all of these in often tricky lighting situations, especially in rainforests. And of course there’s only so much you can fly with and cart around.

Hummingbird: Olympus E-3, Zuiko 50-200, f/3.5, 1/250sec, ISO 400, tripod

After a lot of indecision, my final inventory was as follows: Olympus E-3 body, Zuiko Digital 50mm, 12-60 SWD and 50-200 lenses, 1.4 Teleconverter, FL-36 flash with Better Beamer, an assortment of filters, including little used UV for protection and coping with condensation, a Gitzo Traveller lightweight tripod, and Ricoh GRD II compact. Remarkably this all fitted comfortably into the lower section of my new Kata backpack. In turned out that the vast majority of the time I used the E-3 / 50-200 / teleconverter combination. The tripod was rarely used.

Lizard on palm: Olympus E-3, Zuiko 50-200, f/4.5, 1/1250sec, ISO 800

Clearly a big issue here was going to be the (lack of) high ISO performance of the E-3, but this has to be considered against the versatility of the lens combos, the very good in body stabilisation, very effective dust shaker and highly dependable weather proofing. And actually, the high ISO performance isn’t so bad as web forum armchair experts would have you believe.

Rainforest photography is tricky, as light levels are wildly variable, but generally low on the forest floor. This meant that handheld I was at very best at 800 ISO, more often at 1250 or 1600 with an absolute maximum aperture of f/8 with the 50-200 / 1.4TC combination. This is one of those times when the claimed “lack of depth of field” - by which critics claim the 4/3rds system cameras have too much DoF - turns into a major advantage, because when you’re trying to capture wildlife using a focal length of 280mm you need all the DoF you can get.

Forest detail: Olympus E-3, Zuiko 50-200, f2.8, 1/100sec, ISO 800

At 1600 ISO, noise clears up nicely using Nik DFine 2.0, at fairly subdued settings. Below that, if the exposure is ok, noise really doesn’t tend to be much of an issue, especially in prints.

In most cases, missed shots are my own fault, but I did lose a few, including one which would have been a 5-star, due to the 50-200 refusing to autofocus. Sometimes it just gives up, and only kicking it back into life with a twist of the focus ring, or in extreme cases, power on-off, gets it going again. It can be really frustrating. It isn’t the camera, as it does the same thing on the E-1, and I don’t think it is a fault specifically with this copy. I’m considering trading it in for the SWD version, hopefully that will be better. One thing that I would like to see on the 50-200 is a focus range lock, but I guess at the price that’s a bit too much to expect.

Young capuchin monkey: Olympus E-3, Zuiko 50-200, f3.5, 1/60sec, ISO 1600

I’m not a fanboy for any brand in any field, and I’d be the first to switch to a different make if there was a good reason, and I could afford it. But I have no reason to. So called “full frame” systems - Sony especially, for me - are kind of attractive, but honestly, if I’m going to get into that, I’d rather hold out for something like a Pentax 645D. Even while people are expressing doubts about the future of Four Thirds, it seems that with the maturing of sensor technologies it really is coming into its own. Actually it really occupies its own niche, way above small sensor cameras, way below full frame, and distinct from the sort of in-between, neither one nor the other APS-C systems. With Olympus Four Thirds you get beautifully built camera bodies packed with - in general - features that are actually useful for photography, and you get access to world-class lenses, and very high quality optics even at the entry level. And you get remarkable versatility.  If you really get hung up on these things, yeah, you get more noise than larger sensor cameras, but honestly, if you are going to fret about that stuff, you’re probably not principally concerned about making photos.  It is notable that there are considerably more “pro” or “serious” photographers using Olympus than is generally believed. The thing is they tend to just get on with photography and stay away from the fanboy-dominated gear forums (for example, Neil Gaudet, who’s blog I’ve just discovered).

Juvenile green iguana: Olympus E-3, Zuiko 50-200, f4.9, 1/320sec, ISO 800

I hope Olympus do release an upgrade to the E-3 - there certainly is scope for it, although beyond that I do wonder if we’ve reached a bit of a peak. The camera industry in general, at least at the DSLR level, seems to be coming out of the rapid obsolescence cycle it has been in in the last 6 or 7 years.

I’m sure I could have taken equally good (or rather “average”) photos with a different camera system, but I really doubt if it would have been quite so trouble-free and flexible.

Basilisk: Olympus E-3, Zuiko 50-200, f4.9, 1/320sec, ISO 800

Just got back from 3 weeks in Costa Rica, a place which has been on my wish list for quite some time. And it certainly lived up to expectations.  A great place to visit, with huge variety, wonderful people, and a generally fantastic atmosphere. Pity about the pure misery of traveling by air these days. Schipol, Amsterdam and Panama City are two airports now added to my “never again” list (San Jose airport in Costa Rica, however, was a pleasant and stress-free experience)

Rainforest detail, Braulio Carillo National Park

More Costa Rica stuff to follow soon!

Just a quick note: if anybody is interested in a two week cruise by yacht off the west coast of Spitsbergen (Svalbard) in August, please let me know. A group of us is planning the trip and there are still a couple of places vacant (maximum size of group is 10). This will be very much photographer-friendly, and unlike large ship tours, the itinerary will be very flexible and designed to make the most of all opportunities.

The yacht (Jonathan IV) is run by this company.

Let me know by

if you’re interested.