Olympus/Zuiko

May 24, 2008

Woodland Photography Pt 1: Tamron AF 70-300mm

Posted by ajoy muralidhar under 35mm SLR, 3rd Party Lens, Autofocus, Cheap Awesome Lens, Color, Composition, Digital, Driveby, Hand Held, Hikes, Lens Compatibility, Lenses, Long Focus, Macro Lens, Macrophotography, Minolta lens on Sony, OM mount on Sony A700, Photo Opportunism, Photography, Seasons, SLR, Sony A700, Sony Alpha 700, Sony Alpha DSLR, Spring, Super Telephoto, Tamron, Trees, Woodland, Zoom | Tags: Spring Flowers, Woodland photos |
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Early Spring is a great time to be out in the woods, especially on a sunny day – the trees may still be bare, but the forest floor is bursting with life… the under-story plants, shrubs and smaller trees rush through their flowering and leafing cycles quickly, to take advantage of the unrestricted sunlight – in a few weeks, once the trees leaf out, the canopy blocks off most of the light, and the small bushes go into the “quiet survival mode” until Fall when they get their chance in the sun again!

I’ve been out with the Sony Alpha 700 and the Tamron 70-300mm f/4-5.6. The choice of lens for woodland photography may seem surprising, but I find that the Tamron is very useful – the extended zoom range (the 70-300mm is equivalent to 105-450mm) on the Sony Alpha provides an useful stand-off distance so one can zoom in on an intresting flower or bud from a distance of at least 5 feet away without having to brave the underbrush and wicked looking brambles – the woods around here are chock full of wild raspberries and dog rose brambles. This also has the advantage of not blocking the light.

Besides, the Tamron 70-300mm is also a 1:3.9 macro, and since can focus down to 5 feet at the extended end of the zoom range, it does a great job. Moreover, I marvel at the fact that the Sony’s built in anti-shake allows me to handhold the 450mm equivalent lens. I would never have been able to do that with my manual Olympus bodies or even the auto focus Minolta 800si.

By the way, I purchased my Tamron lens about 8 years ago, back in June 2000 – I know they still make this lens, but I am not sure how the build quality has changed, or if it is still made made in Japan. I’ve always been very pleased with the Tamron, and even more so now…. with it’s super-zoom length of 450mm f/5.6 and equivalent when mounted on the Sony Alpha 700, it’s a formidable piece of optical engineering, and very cheap at the price. This is a true “cheap awesome lens”.

Tamron AF 70-300mm	Tamron AF 70-300mm
Tamron AF 70-300mm	Tamron AF 70-300mm
Tamron AF 70-300mm	Tamron AF 70-300mm
Tamron AF 70-300mm	Tamron AF 70-300mm
Tamron AF 70-300mm	Tamron AF 70-300mm

Tamron AF 70-300mm

Photographed with a Sony Alpha 700 and Tamron AF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 lens. I used a Polarizer.

olympus/zuiko by Ajoy Muralidhar is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
text and images © 2008 ajoy muralidhar. all names, websites, brands and technical data referenced are the copyright or trademark of their respective owners. thank you for visiting olympus/zuiko.

April 28, 2008

Wisteria in Bloom – backroads of Montgomery County, MD

Posted by ajoy muralidhar under 35mm SLR, Autofocus, Color, Composition, Digital, Driveby, Flowers, Hand Held, Landscape, Lenses, Lighting, Nature, Photo Opportunism, Photo Technique, Photography, Places, Seasons, SLR, Sony A700, Sony Alpha 700, Sony Alpha DSLR, Sony Lens, Sony SAL18200, Spring, Super Telephoto, Zoom | Tags: Gaithersburg, Maryland, Montgomery County, SAL18200, Seasons, Sony Alpha 700, Spring Flowers, Wisteria |
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The sheer prodigality and variety of blooms in this part of the country amazes me – Spring in Maryland and Virginia is a cornucopia of beautiful blooms in succession and just when the dogwoods were peaking and the redbuds leafing out, I suddenly started seeing cascades of lavender-purple flowers tumbling over fences, drooping over country roadways – most of these are hard to photograph, since it’s hard to pull over in the heavy traffic conditions.

Even when one is able to find a good spot close enough to park and walk over, the lighting may be just plain bad. The subtle colors of the wisteria require just a bit of warming sun to bring out the purple, otherwise the flowers come out looking overly blue. The best time is morning or late afternoon light, when there is a tinge of red present…

The best way to ensure that the lighting is okay is to mark your spots, preferably where one can park safely for a few minutes and return at a later time when the sun is just right. However, one can get lucky, as I did a couple of days ago on my way back from work. I spotted these magnificent specimens on Glenview Road and on Travilah road in Gaithersburg, MD. I had the Sony Alpha with the Sony 18-200 and a polarizer, and the zoom range of the Sony lens allowed me take these without leaving the car.

Wisteria in April	Wisteria in April
Wisteria in April	Wisteria in April

Wisteria in April

Photographed with a Sony Alpha 700; Sony 18-200mm f/2.5-f/6.3 lens; Polarizer.

April 23, 2008

Flowering Dogwoods and Wild Mustard – Carroll County

Posted by ajoy muralidhar under 3rd Party Lens, 50mm, Autofocus, Color, Driveby, Filters, Flowers, Hand Held, Landscape, Lenses, Lighting, Macro, Macro Lens, Macrophotography, Nature, Photo Opportunism, Photography, Places, Seasons, Sigma, SLR, Sony A700, Sony Alpha 700, Sony Alpha DSLR, Sony Lens, Sony SAL18200, Spring, Trees, Zoom | Tags: Barn, Carroll County, Dogwoods, Farmland, Flowering Dogwood, Gaithersburg, Maryland, Mustard Blossoms, Mustard Fields, Redbud, Sony Alpha, Sony SAL18200, Spring in Maryland, Spring scenes, Westminster |
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Mid-April is the time for flowering dogwoods and vast expanses of wild mustard growing in the fields all over Carroll County… later in the year, these fields will be planted with Soya beans or Corn, but for now, they are just a golden mass of flowers, gently swaying in the slightest breeze. The dogwoods are something to look forward to, as they appear just as the Cherry Blossoms and Magnolias are fading, and they are much more durable blossoms. April is also the time of heavy rainfall here in Maryland, and delicate blossoms like the cherry don’t hold up well. Here are some of the pictures I took in Gaithersburg, and along Rte 27 north of Mount Airy, on the road to Westminster, MD. Mostly flowering dogwoods and fields of mustard blossoms – and a few redbuds.

Dogwood and Mustard	Dogwood and Mustard
Dogwood and Mustard	Dogwood and Mustard
Dogwood and Mustard	Dogwood and Mustard
Redbud	Redbud
Redbud	Dogwood and Mustard
Dogwood and Mustard	Dogwood and Mustard
Pin Oak flower	Birch flower

Dogwood and Mustard

Redbud

Dogwood and Mustard

Thistle

Dogwood and Mustard

Photographed with a Sony Alpha 700 and Sony 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 Zoom lens. I used a Polarizer. Close-up of Pink dogwood photographed with a Sigma 50mm f/2.8 Macro 1:1 lens with Tiffen 812 warming filter

April 21, 2008

Virginia Beaches: Historic Colonial Beach, VA

Posted by ajoy muralidhar under Autofocus, Color, Composition, Digital, Filters, Hand Held, Lenses, Lighting, Nature, Photo Opportunism, Photography, Rivers & Streams, Seascape, Sony A700, Sony Alpha 700, Sony Alpha DSLR, Sony Lens, Sony SAL18200, Spring, Waterscape, Zoom | Tags: Beaches, Colonial Beach, Historic Places, Potomac, Virginia |
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Colonial Beach is a little town on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, about 60 miles south of DC… it’s the second longest beach in Virginia (Virginia Beach is the longest). The town was founded in 1892, and served as get away for the residents of DC in the early years of the 20th century, especially in the years before the Great Depression. It was a favorite holiday spot, and it grew and thrived until the coming of automobiles and other transportation – vistors preferred to come on day trips, rather than leisurely vacations as before, and this led to the waterfront hotels closing down.

The town limped along, losing population and businesses until the 2000’s. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, Hurricane Isabel pretty much destroyed the little waterfront town in 2003. The residents are a resilient bunch – they picked up the pieces and rebuilt again. The housing boom brought some prosperity, with developers taking interest in the town. However with the current bust in housing, the city may see some hard times again, but I hope it will recover easily.

The beach is a great place for a family visit.. it’s clean, and with good amenities – parking, restrooms, restaurants, beach shops etc are all located very conveniently, and there is even a Days Inn located right on the beach for overnight and weekend stays. Nancy’s Ice Cream is closeby, and I recommend the Chocolate Ice Cream soft cones.

This past Saturday 4/19 was beautiful, bright and warm in the 80’s so we drove down to Fredericksburg on I-95 and then east on Rte 3 until we got to Rte 205. We followed Rte 205 all the way to Colonial Beach, it’s easy to follow the signs. My daughter Sunayana had been asking to go to the beach since it started turning warmer, and we could not have asked for a better day to be at the waterfront.

I took the Sony Alpha 700, and after some deliberation, I took the Sony 18-200mm lens as it’s the perfect all-occasion lens, and fitted with a Tiffen Polarizer, perfect for beach and water photography. I took along some other AF and manual lenses, and never got around to using them. We got there in the late afternoon, and found parking under a large Willow oak just a hundred feet from the water.

The Sony 18-200mm SAL18200 is a pretty versatile lens, especially when you want to travel light and are reasonably sure of good light levels. It’s equivalent to 27-300mm in the 35mm format, and the huge zoom ration it affords pretty much covers any situation. The lens is a bit slow at the fully extended part of its zoom range (It ranges from f/3.5 at the wide end and f6.3 at the 200mm focal length), but on a bright day, it doesnt matter at all, since we’re generally shooting at much smaller apertures (f11 to f13) with polarizer.

Colonial Beach, VA	Colonial Beach, VA
Colonial Beach, VA	Colonial Beach, VA
Colonial Beach, VA	Colonial Beach, VA
Colonial Beach, VA	Colonial Beach, VA
Colonial Beach, VA	Colonial Beach, VA
Colonial Beach, VA	Colonial Beach, VA
Colonial Beach, VA	Colonial Beach, VA

Colonial Beach, VA

Photographed with a Sony Alpha 700 DSLR and a Sony 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 lens and Circular Polarizer. I used the landscape setting and Auto ISO, with Sunny White Balance.

April 20, 2008

Olympus mount Kitstar 200mm f/3.3 on Sony Alpha 700

Posted by ajoy muralidhar under 35mm SLR, 3rd Party Lens, Bokeh, Cheap Awesome Lens, Color, Digital, Driveby, Flowers, Hand Held, Lens Compatibility, Lenses, Long Focus, Manual Lenses, OM mount on Sony A700, Photo Opportunism, Photography, Prime Lens, Seasons, SLR, Sony A700, Sony Alpha 700, Sony Alpha DSLR, Spring, Super Telephoto, Telephoto, Vintage Lens | Tags: Kits Camera, Kitstar lens, Ritz camera, telephoto lens, Woodland |
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The Kitstar 200mm is a lens that I acquired very cheaply on Ebay last year – it was an impulse purchase, really, since I knew very little about the lens other than it had a OM mount, and I was intrigued by its unusual maximum aperture. My intention was to compare it with my much smaller and lighter Olympus OM 200 f/4 prime lens, which I absolutely love. I had used this lens on a OM body last spring, and then put it away, meaning to get back to it sometime.

The Kitstar 200mm is a distinctive lens, easy to recognize. It’s all metal and the rubber covering of the focusing rings is reticulated, instead of being checkered as is usual. Kitstar was the in-house brand of Kit’s Camera and they had their lenses made on contract by various manufacturers, so its hard to tell who the original maker is. The lens is solidly built and comes with a built in hood.

I don’t know of any lens makers such as Sigma, Tokina or Tamron who made a f/3.3 200mm prime lens, so who knows? Maybe its a f/3.5 rebadged as f/3.3. Kits Cameras was bought by Ritz Camera, and is part of their family of stores. Since Ritz has it’s own in-house camera brand (Quantaray), the Kitstar lenses are no more.

On the Sony Alpha 700, the 200mm f/3.3 lens becomes equivalent to a 300mm f/3.3 lens – that is really fast for a 300mm, and considering the price I paid for it, about $25 or so, it is a bargain. The weight of the lens makes it tricky to handhold, compared with the Sony 18-200mm (also equivalent to 27-300mm, but much slower, since it only goes to f/6.3 at the 200mm focal length).

Anyway, I could easily mount the lens on the Sony Alpha 700 with the Bower-made Minolta AF to OM adapter and took the lens for a spin. Here are the results. The Alpha 700’s anti-shake capabilites makes hand-holding easier, but it was still a challenge to avoid blurring. The Kitstar 200mm (apparent 300mm lens) has nice bokeh.

Kitstar 200mm	Kitstar 200mm
Kitstar 200mm	Kitstar 200mm
Kitstar 200mm	Kitstar 200mm
Kitstar 200mm	Kitstar 200mm
Kitstar 200mm	Kitstar 200mm

Kitstar 200mm

Photographed with a Sony Alpha 700 camera body and Kitstar 200mm f/3.3 OM Mount lens- I used a Bower Minolta AF-OM adapter and 72mm Polarizer (67-72mm step-up ring)

April 20, 2008

Ft. Armistead Park, Baltimore MD – Sony A700 with Sony 18-200mm

Posted by ajoy muralidhar under Digital, Driveby, Filters, Hand Held, Landscape, Lenses, Photo Opportunism, Photo Technique, Photography, Places, Seascape, Sony A700, Sony Alpha 700, Sony Alpha DSLR, Sony Lens, Sony SAL18200, Waterscape, Wide Angle, Zoom | Tags: Baltimore, Curtis Bay, Fort Armistead, Francis Scott Key Bridge |
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Ft. Armistead Park is a little out of the way location on the Chesapeake, quite close to the Francis Scott key Bridge. It has a great little boat ramp, and a brand new pier, and it’s hardly every frequented.

Getting to it is a breeze – From 95 to 695 south and then Exit 1 to Rte 173. Once off the ramp, a quick right and a left (watch for the jug handle) and a left again near Cookies Cityline Diner will put you right on the road to the park – no where else to go, really. By the way, if the mid-morning hungries hit, the Diner serves a great tuna half-sandwich and soup of the day with if you’re feeling like a light lunch, just enough to keep up the flagging energy levels.

This is a great location to photograph the FSK bridge… I spent a little over an hour there in the morning, between 9.30 and 11 am, and the lighting was great. I had the Sony Alpha 700 and the Sony 18-200mm lens with a polarizer to cut the glare.

There’s no beach, really, just a strip of sand by the pier, where flotsam and jetsam from the Bay has accumulated over time. I even found an old Computer Monitor washed up on the rocks. The driftwood was interesting, though. The ubiquitous broken glass was everywhere, too, but work smooth by the action of the waves and sand, making them beautiful too. The views of the bridge are spectacular, and there’s plenty of waterfowl – ducks, gulls etc.

The pier has been rebuilt anew, since the old one was lost during Hurricane Isabel a few years ago.

Ft. Armistead Park	Ft. Armistead Park
Ft. Armistead Park	Ft. Armistead Park
Ft. Armistead Park	Ft. Armistead Park
Ft. Armistead Park	Ft. Armistead Park
Ft. Armistead Park	Ft. Armistead Park
Ft. Armistead Park	Ft. Armistead Park