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[OM] Au revoir for now

Subject: [OM] Au revoir for now
From: Joel Wilcox <jowilcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 19:15:04 -0600
Dear Oly Shooters:

Time to take my leave for a while. This is a long post.

The past year has been quite an immersion in Olympus photography for me,
which I hope will continue through my year's culminating photographic
event: my family's biennial (that means once every two years, right?) trip
to Hawaii to spend the holidays with the kids' grandma and grandpa on the
challenging island of Molokai. Two years ago, I made the decision to leave
my Nikon gear at home and go light, taking the ancient OM-1 I'd bought used
for my wife prior to her P&S days and my two Zuiko zooms, the
35-70/f3.5-4.5 and 75-150/f4, and a half dozen rolls of Elite II, a film
I'd never even used before.

It is hard for me to realize that such a short while ago I owned only those
two Zuikos.  In the past two years, I've acquired two more OM-1's, a OM-2S
and OM-2N, several winders, three 50mm Zuikos (two that came on bodies,
natch), four other Zuiko primes (28, 85, 135, and 200), a Viv 100/2.8
macro, and the Tokina 60-300 and Sigma 21-35 zooms I've crowed about
recently.  No more of this "traveling light" nonsense.  Still, I won't take
everything, and so I have spent many pleasurable moments thinking about
what to take, and a few uncomfortable ones thinking about what must be left
behind.

If one's shoulders and back are not the issue (and they aren't so much for
me), the camera bag determines the limitations. I've got a relatively new
LowePro Compact AW, which will hold all the primes, tubes, some filters,
some gadgets and at least two bodies. Flash and B&W filters can travel in
the suitcase.  LowePro Off-Trail bag will work for hikes. 

The plague of the mix of lenses I've got is the mismatch of sizes. The
Zuikos are so lovely and svelte. My Tokina zoom is a marvel to me, but it's
a big old cylinder (67mm). The Sigma 21-35 is worse, being almost as wide
as it is long with its 77mm filters -- like putting a grapefruit in your
camera bag.

I'd felt compelled to take the Tokina until several weeks ago when I
purchased a Vivitar 2X macro teleconverter. This thing is quite good. Stick
a 50/1.8 on it and you've got a pretty fast 100mm macro lens.  On test
slides, the only difference between the shots taken with the 50/1.8-macro
TC combo and my Vivitar 100/2.8 macro is that the true macro Vivitar lens
is slightly warmer, a characteristic of that lens. Both are otherwise very
sharp and contrasty.

I am less apt to use the macro feature of the TC with longer lenses. With a
200/4 the results are softer.  Obviously, the TC can't improve the lens
itself as a starting-point, and I don't find my 200 to be as sharp as, say,
the 50/1.8 or the 85/2.  I'll take extension tubes for close focusing with
the 200/4.  Maybe try some straight 135 + TC or even 200 + TC sunsets from
perhaps my favorite sundown spot, Kamehameha's coconut grove on the road
into Kaunakakai town.

That being the case, I will probably leave the Viv 100/2.8 macro at home
this trip and go with the following: 

28/2.8
50/1.4
85/2
135/3.5
200/4
Sigma 21-35
Viv 2X macro

For hikes and light days I can take the Off-Trail bag with 28, 50, 135, and
TC and have a light but very versatile kit.

I plan to take four bodies:  OM-2S for slides and three OM-1's for various
types of print film.  

My tripod situation is now settled but somewhat less satisfactorily. I have
a Bogen 3030 head on a Slik U212 'pod. I've had the Slik many years.  The
Bogen head I find easy to use and well-made.  I'd pretty much decided that
the Bogen 3021 tripod was the one to get but balked after working with it
in the store. The advantages over the Slik were that it gets much lower, in
part because the center post can be shortened.  The 3021 also has longer
legs, an advantage for me as I'm over 6 feet.  But the Bogen just didn't
seem that much better than the Slik, and it lacks some features that I like
about the Slik such as the ability to use spikes or rubber feet, the fact
that it is lighter, and the crank on the center post. As for the latter,
however, I've decided not to raise the center post higher than about 2
inches and to hang my camera bag from a hook on the bottom of the center
post for stability.  This is something I'd always intended to do but never
done before. It was extremely easy to attach a coupling nut and hook to the
1/4 inch stud on the bottom of the center post. No excuses now.

Instead of putting money into a new set of legs I purchased the Bogen long
lens support (3420).  With weight on the tripod legs, I believe this
support will give me the best opportunity to get sharp photos with the
Zuiko 200/f4 and TC or tubes.  Very nice accessory.

I'll be taking along a couple of new toys as well.  I've finally purchased
a Wallace Expo Disk in 49mm for my Oly stuff.  I've had one for years in
52mm.  The expo disk allows you to use your camera's meter as an incident
light meter, among other things.  I don't really use it much for metering,
but I have used it successfully in the past to flash individual frames when
using slide film.  The way you do this is to determine your basic exposure
setting, then put the expo disk on the lens and stop down 3 or 4 stops.
You shoot the frame stopped down with the expo disk in place.  Then you
must re-cock the shutter without winding (a la double exposure), open up
the lens to the original setting and shoot.  If your original exposure
setting was determined for the highlights, flashing the film in correlation
to the exposure setting will sensitize it enough to bring up the shadows
slightly without affecting the highlights.  The process takes some
deliberation and the results can be somewhat unpredictable.

My other toy is a Stofen Omni-Bounce adapter for my flash system.  This is
a nice diffuser that has been mentioned often on the list.  With non-TTL
cameras you are supposed to set your flash at a 45 degree angle, and
although with TTL cameras you can blast away with the flash and diffuser at
the "normal" 90 degree setting, I have found that just using the 45 degree
angle for either TTL or non-TTL flash is preferable.  In my test shots on
slide film, setting exposure compensation about 1/2 stop under produced the
best exposure where people were the main subjects or the main subject was
fairly close to the camera (say, within three feet).  Pays to test and
YMMV.  Results with the diffuser are also a lot warmer than typical
electronic flash.

As for film, I'll be shooting some odds and ends of slide films I've had in
the fridge:  some Velvia, Provia, Agfa RSX-50.  For prints I'm shooting
exclusively Fuji:  Superia 100 and 400 and some Reala.  B&W: I bought a
bunch of Neopan 100 from B&H for cheap. (I haven't had a real darkroom for
10 years and I do digital darkroom now, but I like B&W and can't stand
working with the labs.  So I bought a changing bag not long ago.  Wrapping
a roll of film onto a reel -- I still got the feeling.)

So I'll be off-list for a while. I'll miss all you brethren and sustren
lunatics. You've all been a rich part of my enjoyment of Olympus cameras
and photography during this past year. Don't have any really good fights
without me.

There's nothing like shooting in a place that you love.  May you all have
such a holiday, or if you can't be in the place you love the most, may you
have love in your place.   I wish you all joy in the light.

Peace,

Joel




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