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Lympa Log - Leica R lenses on Olympus E-330 DSLR

Photos and Text © Gary Todoroff  2006 All Rights Reserved

Mar 24

Time for a change of pace. With beautiful skies and warm weather this afternoon, I loaded the car with E-330 and lenses, then set out to the Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge, about twenty minutes from home. I could get quite the telephoto reach for the thousands of water fowl along the bay marshes and sloughs with the Zuiko 90-250mm with 1.4 extender -- about 750mm in 35mm camera equivalent. But the birds must have been enjoying the nice weather somewhere else - hardly a goose or duck anywhere to be impressed by my Olympus artillary.

However, the light just before sundown lit the hills for some landscape shots, just off of Hookton Road by the observation area. At the opposite end of the lens spectrum, the 7-14mm lens took in the reflections well, and I appreciated photographing a subject that stood still for a change. I'll have to sneak up on the birds another time.

Hookton Slough at Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge

 

E-330, Zuiko 7-14mm f4.0 zoom at 10mm, 1/100th,  f4.5, ISO 200, steadied on my knee using Live Mode A. One of the main reasons for getting the 7-14mm was for this kind of wide-angle landscape shot, where detailed foreground gives a feeling of being able to step into the photograph.

The eye can rest on receding parts of a photograph when there are "planes of focus" in the scene. Starting with the foreground rocks, then reeds, shoreline, reflectons, the narrowing channel, treeline, hills and finally sky - you can comfortably move your gaze into the distance. A wide angle lens along with the "planes of focus" idea can give the feeling of depth in a landscape photograph. The zoom capability (14-28mm equivalent) of this very sharp and ultrawide lens make it unlike any other lens I've used before.

If the light had not been fading so fast I would have had time to mount the camera on a tripod for even greater depth of field. However, the flip screen helped me hold a steady 1/100th second exposure with the camera on my knee while looking down at the LCD. At 10mm, f4.5 and autofocus on the reeds, the apparent focus is acceptable across the depth of the whole scene.

 

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