The little Red Camera

 

This dandy camera arrived December 14th 2019 and it was love at first unpacking. First off, it is heavy duty and weather proof. It's name says Tough and it is. I've dropped it from my mules, dropped it in the snow, fumbled it in and out of my coveralls and jackets, and walked with it in downpours and snowfalls.

I've worn the paint off one of the edges and basically I've been surprised by it.
It is not a DSLR camera but I've even put it up against my those cameras in some still life tests. The zoom is not something I use often but I do use the macro features A LOT.

The Olympus Menu has always been a confusing thing on cameras and this one is no different. The macro feature menu allows me to do macro, in camera stacked photos [I think this feature is the coolest. I normally can do it without a mini tripod!] With a tripod, you can also take frames to stack later in a program like Helicon Focus. 

There is a microscopic feature that is the bomb. They call it Microscope instead of Macro.

This is the mode for the following shot I took yesterday while hiking in the rain of raindrops on a dandelion.

In camera focus stacking. Wow.
Super cool Olympus feature, but this one comes in a little pocket camera.

The Olympus OMD EM 5 Mark III has it too but it only works with certain lenses.

And it works pretty well.

This feature called Focus Bracket takes several photos and lets the photographer stack them in post process. This is fine and you would want to use a mini tripod. 

I rarely do this only because I think the hand held Focus stack works well for me.

 

Super duper close. I like this for things like snow flakes and dew drops.

Check it out. I ended up getting a ring light that attaches to the front of the camera. It works pretty neat also.

Super Duper Close!

Snow flake

Caddisfly larvae encased in grains of sand.

I stuck the camera in Landscape mode and took this shot of the little gargoyle in my Forest Garden.

Easy peasy. No thinking, just point and shoot.

Other handy menu items are sunset and indoors. For great sunsets, I am not impressed with this camera. It lacks a bit of pizzaz in picking up the colors, but if that is all a person has, it does great.

However it does take pretty cool video in slo...motion! It does eat up the battery if you do a lot of video. There is a self portrait mode too which actually works pretty nice.

Does it produce the best photos compared to other cameras? I honestly don't know. I don't Pixel Peep and I don't care. I need a camera that will take abuse from me and is handy to attach to my belt.

It also has a cool feature which I used. It has a timer you can set and then ask the camera to delay the first photo and take a series of shots. That is how I got most of my 'snowy' adventure photos this year. 

Last note. On the dial menu there is C1 and C2. I've never used them. But if there is a particular 'way' you like your camera set up, you can preset your desires and set them to C1 or C2.  

Macro Photography

I love macro stuff. I love the little things. Especially outdoors. Maybe it is because our forest is so overwhelming when all the leaves come in and the brush is filled out. The forest looks like a green wall by mid summer. All of its secrets hide close to the ground or under prickly brush.

I discovered tiny things a long time ago. This is one of my all time favorites. The day was so hot and humid and I was frustrated. I only had a long lens with me and an old second hand camera. I crawled under some brambles and crouched. To my ultimate surprise, I got this.

And I was hooked on the little things to be found in the woods.
If it was little, I'd try and take a shot. Anything was game. I even searched for pocket cameras to carry that had a 'macro' feature.

[I am a killer on pocket cameras. I carry them in foul weather and have dropped them while riding mules. I am a pocket camera slayer. So far though, my Oly Tough TG6 has lasted over a year with me.]

My interest peaked the first time my husband took me Morel Hunting. I had a film camera that I carried with a fixed lens and getting things up close was a challenge.

Some day I'll share how I mortally wounded that camera. This is from 1999 shot with a vintage manual Canon with a fixed lens.

 

This whole Morel experience got me more interested in the Forest Floor than large landscapes. What can I say? Morels have a spell on me! 

And then I decided to try using a real macro lens. I got down in the dirt next to a log the other day and....

My intended shot was this:

What I got was this.

The hazards of having Charlie with me!

He did sit quietly while I rummaged around in the brush to find another shot of Spring Beauties.

I quit after that. It was hot, Charlie was hot. And a hen Turkey was clucking away somewhere close by.

Charlie was sure it was Godzilla.

Spring is coming on strong, so I'll be doing a lot of crawling around and searching for things like fiddleheads and other tiny things.

It is raining lightly so I challenged my hiking pal to hike in the rain with me.

Charlie says he is willing and ready.

I wonder what little things we will find?

The Death of my Old Faithful Camera

 

I started to get these every once

in a while...see below...

so I knew it's time was 

coming to 

an end.

The Oak Tree was the last shot ever for my Old Olympus. I have no idea how many shots or 'clicks' were on it. 
Apparently there is something called a Shutter Count. Being a mirrorless camera, the count may last longer? The mirror doesn't have to flip up and down each time you use it.

Truthfully, I just read about that on some site regarding shutter life expectancy. 

The camera was having issues for quite a long time. However, being raised by a mom who believed that you had to get the 'goody' out of anything ever owned, I kept using it. It only worked in Program Mode or in Manual Mode for the past two years. 
That was fine. I don't think all the 'modes' are really necessary any way. Program Mode allows the camera to act a bit like Auto and pick a general setting that should work for the scene. Manual allows so much more control.

Anyway, I digress. 

Since I got the Old Oly, I have almost used it daily. I took it with me all of the time. It bashed around in my backpack. I'd purchased a nice sling pack for it which had a zipper failure so when I slung the pack over my shoulder the camera tumbled out. That was after I'd owned it for only two months. 

After two more zipper failures, I tossed the sling pack and opted for modifying a regular backpack for carrying the camera. 

Even the Little Soldiers couldn't fix it. The pronounced it a goner.

Of course the electronics just shut down. The cost of repair would be nearly two to three hundred dollars. 

I think I will wait to send in the camera I will replace it with, ---- my other older Olympus until after the election. I think the post office will be overwhelmed for a bit right now handling ballots.

I leave you with a couple of my recent favorites from this camera just before it gave up the ghost.

There is not a lot of opportunities for Infrared during the winter. However I think black and white IR light would still be stunning in a black and white type of landscape.

So why is it that I am having such a hard time parting with my old camera?

My Momma said ....

Don't play in the rain!

I don't think I listened to my Mother.
I went out between huge downpours to give the mules some dry hay and check on the creek.

The creek was up a bit but not flooding. That would occur overnight with another 2 inches of hard rain. The Kickapoo is out of its banks today but our stream wasn't.

I wanted to take the little waterproof camera out in the mists and explore. Plus I wanted to see how the Mark iii performed in low light.

It did nicely. And it was rather nice not to have to carry a tripod or put on an ND filter.

As I made my way back up out of the valley and headed towards home, the next front started to rumble in.

We had a lot of thunder and lightning with very heavy downpours.

After the Pres Debate, I let Charlie outside and stood on the porch. 

Not only was the rain coming down hard, but there was an eerie fog oozing through the pasture.

I wasn't going out to play in the fog. I'd wait to do that another day.

Mom never said anything about fog...

I did it...

I broke down finally after saving up and purchased the Olympus OMD E-M1 Mark III. It is NOT considered a pro camera. But wow, the features it has!

It will take me a while to get used to it. I've been a fan of the Olympus camera since owning my very first Olympus Stylus in 2006. I literally wore that pocket camera out. Being one of the first pocket digital cameras, it wasn't cheap. But it taught me so much!

I learned that a pocket camera is essential because it is so easy to carry around. I've 'killed' so many pocket cameras in the past 13 years. I even used a pink ugly camera for a long time. I purchased Pink Fugly camera so I wouldn't feel bad about dropping it in snow or demolishing it by accident. It was cheap, it was ugly, but it took great photos. I even lost it once in the creek. I dried it out and it kept functioning.

It lived another few years before the lens wouldn't open anymore. 

Last year I sent my old Olympus OMD EM 5 to be converted to a full spectrum Infrared camera. 

I replaced it with an Olympus OMD EM10 Mark iii. It was Olympus's version of a cell phone camera. Easy to operate by swiping the menu on the LCD. I could choose landscape, sunset, sports, indoors, and other options easily.

Imagine my disappointment then to read about Olympus selling out? 

Seeing as that my Oly OMD EM 5 was still creeping along after 7 yrs of hard labor [the only menus that work are... Program Mode and Manual mode at this time and the LCD turns a sickly green most of the time]...I decided to go for the gold and get the new higher end version when it went on sale.

The cameras are built to be exposed weather. I have the lenses I need and if I care as well for the newer model as I cared for the old one, they will last me a very long time.

So with all that goobldy gook aside...I decided to dive into this last upgrade. Note, better gear doesn't make me a better photographer at all. Nope, not at all. I've done very well in the past years of always purchasing a DSLR camera that was being discontinued or buying a used one. I favor Olympus because they are small and lightweight. Carrying my Nikon D5200 was like carrying a load of bricks compared to the light weights.

I like hiking and I like photography, but I don't need to carry extra pounds while hiking. This new one has two new features which I really like.

It has an in camera ND filter. What? It works like a neutral density filter contained within the camera settings. Wicked cool. The image stabilization allows me to take a longer exposure shot up to a full second Hand Held.

I used to lug around a tripod almost all of the time when going near any source of water.

Anxious to try this feature out, I headed to the creek before the winds started Saturday morning.

The shot on the left is just a normal shot of the little pond between my land and the neighbor's land [f 5.6 at 1/15th of a second]. On the right is a shot hand held with a in camera ND shot at f 5.6 at 1.3 seconds. 

Another sample of a first try. On the left a normal shot, on the right .25 of a second. Not a big deal right? But I really like the smoother water. Olympus says that the filter actually merges several exposures together at once. 

Rich wouldn't let me wander around off our property, he said there were too many odd balls bow hunting on the neighbor's 500 acres of land. So I took Charlie and we headed to Tainter Hollow. Alas, we couldn't walk the trails next to Tainter Creek either!

The USDA and DNR had put out traps for the beavers who have been causing a lot of damage to the trout stream. 

Charlie and I parked and walked the gravel road down to the bridge where I thought I could try for some more hand held shots. So these are shots for fun and not for any wowzer factor. I call them learning shots.

Internal ND 8 Filter. 64 ISO, one second exposure. Better! Things look pretty good.

Looking down on the other side of the bridge. Same exposure.

I took one more short walk on Sunday and had to try this again.

I will have to actually use a tripod for any longer exposures than 1 second. But now I don't have to add a filter or even carry one when using this camera. I think that is a bonus. 

There is one more feature I am anxious to try out. It is called Starry Sky AF. But with clouds and rain for the next week, I doubt I'll get a chance to try that. 

I will use the in camera focus stacking and use the focus bracketing.

In short.
I am pleased with this camera. And it will take a while for me to take it through its paces. I think it is built tougher than my old one and definitely can be taken out in poor weather. 

One last parting photo. This was taken in 2016 at Parfrey's Glen near Wisconsin Dells. I climbed rocks and carried my gear over precarious ground to get to this place at the end of the rock gorge. A 1 second shot on a tripod with an ND filter.

Still one of my favorite photos.

The end goal is to be able to not have to carry all the gear to get a shot like this in the future. I guess we will see!