Lava from Kilauea Volcano entering the sea at the Big Island of Hawai'i

Natasha is a great photographer ;-)

EP1, Voigtlander Ultron 28/f2, in-camera JPG adjusted in LR.

EP1 with a 28mm prime lens, one of the first shots with it. This shot was 1 stop overexposed, and pulled back in LR, so not the best example of what the camera can do. I still like it.

A rare occasion- three high school classmates meeting in Palo Alto.

Olympus EP-1 tips, tricks and wishlist post:

Customization:

1. Use SAF/MF mode, and move AF to the AEL/AF button, (same as the famous CF4 in Canon SLRs). Presto, you have AF-on demand.

2. Remap the AF selection button (left dial press) to the metering mode selection. If you do the previous customization, the AF mode selection on-the-fly is useless, so metering mode selection makes a lot of sense.

3. This is a tricky point. As far as I know, there is no quick way to switch between WideAF and center AF selection, so here is the workaround. Remap the Fn. button to Face-Detection AF, then set the AF area to the center point. Face detection is by default WIdeArea, so now when you switch between the FaceDetection On and OFF, you are effectively switching between Center Point and WideArea.

Another way to set the Fn button is for DOF preview.

4. Set the two dial functions to the Canon-style controls: vertical dial controlling ProgramShift/Aperture/ShutterSpeed in P/A/S modes and the round dial controlling the exposure compensation.


Wishlist for Olympus for a firmware update:

1. Make the 10x zoom on focusing apply only to the center 60% o the image, it is a very useful to see the periphery of the image as you focus in the center. It is trivial to implement.

2. Give the ability to remap the /- button to the DOF preview. With the exposure compensation remapped to the dial, this button is useless, so, give us the ability to use it.

3. Make half-shutter press return the LCD image to normal magnification in all modes. MF lens users will appreciate it.

4. If the user activates MF, the lens should open up the the max aperture to help with precise focusing. Even manual cameras can do that with the "jumping" aperture mechanisms.

I have a long-standing relationship with Olympus compact cameras. (Incidentally, both of these camera have an equivalent of 35/f2.8 lens).

Saturday afternoon; consider it a form of photo-Twitter (Grainy B&W ART filter, MF, self timer)

One of the first pictures from a micro4/3 camera (BW conversion in Lightroom)

Probably the best few dollars that I have ever spent... A harness improvised from a carabiner and 14-ft piece of rope made all the difference during the descent of the Hald Dome cables. This is not nearly as good as or as safe as the real thing, which has two carabiners, but nevertheless it made a huge difference 99% on the way up and down.

Half Dome cables on June 13, 2009 at 12:20 am. This picture was taken before a hailstorm and rain hit. Note the large number of people going up on the cables. Check out the crazy guy who is walking outside the cable line with one only hand holding the cable; this part is still quite steep (it is best to look at the larger size version, just click on the photo). We went up about 10 minutes after this photo was taken.