Pic of the day: Pacific Park at Sta. Monica Pier (Theta S)

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I took this shot with the Ricoh Theta S (reviewed here) at Pacific Park in Santa Monica.

UAE Trip - Part 4

Welcome to the fourth and final part of the “Trip to UAE” series. We started with my arrival at Abu Dhabi at night, then spending the next morning visiting various famous locations in Dubai (Palm Island, Dubai Mall, Burj Khalifa and its dancing fountain). That same night we managed to rent a Corvette C7 Stingray for 24 hours from Dubai and left our car there and drove back to Abu Dhabi to get a night’s sleep. Next day we drove to the top of Jebel Hafeet mountain in the Corvette, went to JBR in Dubai for lunch, then finally returned the Corvette and drove back to Abu Dhabi in our car.

All of this happened in the matter of 48 hours and I only had one other day to spare in UAE. In this post I will tell you all about what we did there. Hit the jump.

UAE Trip - Part Three

In the last part of our story, we stopped at the end of my first day in UAE; where we rented a C7 Stingray Corvette from Dubai, and took it home to Abu Dhabi at around 3am to spend the night and start the second day early in the morning.

UAE Trip - Part 2

In part one, we were still reviewing day one of the trip, and we had just found a good place to rent a C7 Corvette in Dubai, which was 30 minutes away from closing. Today we continue that story.

We canceled our JBR outing and chose to head to the dealer immediately before they closed. The trip to there should approximately take 30 minutes. For the first time in my life, I was about to drive a real Corvette, and a Stingray no less, so I wasn't going to miss this opportunity.

UAE Trip - Part 1

The entrance to Palm Island (if you don't know what that is, this is an island that looks like a palm tree from the sky, google it)

First of all, I have to apologize for disappearing suddenly. Besides the usual daily burdens, I am working on a long video series that is sucking any free time for blogging. I initially planned to make this post on two parts, but it seems that it will become three or more. We'll see.

I travelled to UAE for the first time in my life on the first week of April 2015. I didn't know what to expect regarding photography. And to be honest, I didn't want to concentrate on chasing photographic opportunities, and lose valuable time where I could be enjoying myself and having fun, so I packed accordingly. If you check my packing post, I chose to go with the E-M1 + 12-40 f/2.8 combo for the majority of the photos. I also added the Panaleica 25 f/1.4 as my night/low light shooter, added the Rokinon 7.5mm fish-eye for extreme-wide perspective, packed the 40-150 just in case, and finally I packed the brilliant Panasonic LX100 as a take-everywhere camera when I wasn't in the mood of carrying a larger bag.

Sony E 16 2.8 Review Part 2: fisheye and ultrawide converters

This is a continuation of our review of the Sony 16 f/2.8 for the E-mount (Part 1 here).  In this part, we will discuss the two converters for the 16 2.8: a fisheye converter (VCL-ECF1) and an ultrawide converter (VCL-ECU1). 

First, I will describe the two converters.  I will then discuss the rationale and performance of each converter, starting with the fisheye, then the ultrawide.

Before we go on to the review, I want to mention a couple of footnotes:

1. If you've tried cheap wide angle converters before, you may think that these converters are just gimmicks.  But these are entirely different and are very good quality converters.

2. When Sony announced their new lenses on March 4, 2015, they also announced "new" versions of the converters, the VCL-ECF2 fisheye and VCL-ECU2 ultrawide.  As far as I can tell, they are identical to the old converters, with the same specs and same optical formulae.  The only difference between the new converters and the old ones seems to be that the new versions are black (matching the finish of the 20 2.8) while the previous versions are silver (matching the finish of the 16 2.8).  The VCL-ECF2 and ECU2 are advertised as being compatible with the 20 2.8, but so are the ECF1 and ECU1.

Fisheye Fun

This will be a short post, remember the fisheye lens I bought a while ago?

I have been having some fun with it, and I want to share one picture with you here. We had a team outing at work a couple of weeks ago, and I was one of the event organizers (that's why -as you'll see- I was wearing a high visibility vest), I was also taking pictures for the day. I took the OM-D and three lenses, the 12-50 for group shots, the 75mm for candid portraits, and the fisheye for some fun.

The photo you see above was taken by mounting the camera on a monopod, raising it high above the net, and using my Yongnuo RF-603 trigger to release the shutter. I was shooting at f/8 and 7 fps (the camera can reach 9 fps, but then the image stabilization would be off). I wish the camera's LCD would tilt 90 degrees downwards (it only reaches ~ 45 degrees) so that I can see it from below. I composed the image as best as I can, then I watched the game and use the trigger when I thought there was good action. Some friend took a picture of me while I was shooting a different game, but it's the same concept.

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A Fish-eye, A Dell Monitor & Wireless Printing

The sexy looking OM-D EM-5, and the Bower 7.5mm Fish-eye

Today I want to tell you about three new gadgets that I've recently acquired. Hit the jump for the full post.

Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels

Last year, I had a chance to visit the cathedral of Los Angeles, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels, which has amazing post-modern architecture.  Here are some photos I took (click on any photo for a higher-res version).

How to Bend SpaceTime (Tokina 10-17 Fisheye Review and Usage Guide)

The lighthouse bends as the distant building looms overhead, like a scene from Inception

In this post, we discuss fisheyes in general and we review the Tokina 10-17 fisheye lens. First, I'll show comparisons between rectilinear ultrawide images and fisheye images. Second, we'll talk about fisheyes.  Third, I'll provide some samples of how fisheyes can be used (aside from 'funny' shots).  Finally, I'll discuss the Tokina 10-17.

Lightroom 4.1 Defringe Tool

Have you downloaded Lightroom 4.1 yet?  If not, you're really missing out.  Check out this shot:

This was shot with a Tokina 10-17 fisheye.  I am working on a review of that lens but for now note that the Tokina fisheye is very susceptible to purple fringing and chromatic aberration:

Lightroom 4 includes a command to Remove Chromatic Aberration but Lightroom 4.1 takes this further and adds an additional tool for removing aberration: the Defringe tool.  It has an eyedropper and all you do is click on any purple or green fringe color.  Check this out:

Boom! Gone in just one click!

If you look closely there is a little bit of green fringing.  Just click the eyedropper a second time, this time on green fringing.

Now both purple and green fringing are gone.  Tokina should include a copy of LR 4.1 with every lens they sell! :)