This post is actually just to say hello again after a longish break and I plan to start posting againso there will be more to follow. Quite a few of these will be about some new hardware that has been added to my shelves during my 3 year absence. I hope will join me on my journey again.

I lost my way somewhat as well as my mojo but thankfully my interest has been rekindled ...

I'm sure you've all heard the term GAS before. It's very common in photographers who think that the next piece of new kit is going to improve their photography. Of course it doesn't but there's no point preaching to them, because they just want new toys to play with. I'm not sure if Gear Acquisition Syndrome is only symptomatic to photographers, but I'm assuming it isn't.

I know all photographers go through this at some ...

The day didn't look too promising and a lot of rain was forecast. We have been very lucky with the weather, not rained once really, only a few showers and we were able to go out each day. So out came my small camera bag holding the E-M5 II with the Panasonic 7-14 f4 mounted. I also threw in the Panasonic TZ101 because it takes up hardly any room. I had a feeling we were ...

Chateau Villandry is worth the visit for the gardens alone (as seen in the images below). Most of the Loire Valley chateaus are in quite good condition. Of course some restoration work has had to be done over time, but still, it's easy to see where original stone still exists today. The cost of keeping these buildings in tip-top condition costs a fortune, hence the high entry fee we all have to pay.

During a trip like this, where you've come to do a certain tour, you need a little break once in awhile. This is exactly what we did today and did something completely different. This is our last day in Blois before moving on.

From the map above you can see how large the zoo is.

Not too far away from Blois situated in the middle of nowhere is one ...

Today, for our first visit, we did a village north of the Loire River. All, or most, of the popular chateaus seem to be on the south side of the Loire. I wonder why? Anyway, the first village we visited was Talcy. Of course it also has a chateau. I think every little village in this part of France has a chateau. We didn't visit these villages for the sole purpose of their chateaus, we ...

To make up for the disappointment yesterday we headed for two different locations. My shutter therapy is falling short right now!

Our first stop was Cheverny. Built between 1620 and 1634. All the finishing on the towers weren't completed until 1648 however. It's the first chateau to be built as a chateau without any defensive or military purposes in mind. And what a beautiful building it is. I could see me living there too, ...

Today we took a break from looking at chateaus, even one chateau per day can be too much at times so we headed out for the town of Orleans. With some 120,000 inhabitants, it's one of the bigger towns in the region and offers some great sights to see. It was the capital of medieaval France until the mid-18th Century. During the French Revolution it bacame stauchly Republican. The cathedral dominates the town (Cathedrale-Ste-Croix) and ...

We headed south west in the direction of Chenonceaux which is the village that gives it’s name to Chateau Chenonceau. Aptly named as  the “Palace of Women” because over the ages only women have owned and lived in the chateau. Originally built in 1512 by Catherine Briconnet it was Diane de Poitiers who would build the bridge that spans the Cher river. Catherine de Medici then added the galleries over the bridge.

Chenonceau ...

The heat is oppressive today. We feel like taking a shower every 15 minutes. Despite this we battled our way to the largest chateau in France, Chambord.

As you can see from the map above, Chambord isn't far at all from Blois where we were staying for some 10 days. The map shows where a couple of hundred chateaus are situated in the Loire Valley. That's why we chose Blois as ...

An earlier post I did was about "Lens GAS" and all the excellent lenses I would dearly love to own but can't justify. Well, lets see what excellent lenses I do own and can highly recommend.

Since I own quite a few excellent lenses, I'll mention only those I think are outstanding and can recommend all photographers take a look at them (if you own that system of course). If you don't own the system, maybe ...

There's a saying "Less is more". And I perceive that as being true in all walks of life but especially where photography is concerned.

One of my problems when going on a trip is deciding which system to take, Fuji, Sony or m43. I'm lucky being able to afford three system simultaneously but on the other hand it does cause some difficulty when going on trips. The question about which system with which lenses to ...

Not having the willpower to say no to such things, I went ahead and purchased the Olympus 12-100 f4 lens. After looking closely at my use of lenses I came to the conclusion most of my images were taken between 12mm and 200mm and not really being a lover lens changes, the 12-100 f4 would be my ideal “travel” lens.

My last holiday was done with 2 Panasonic GM5 cameras paired with the Panasonic 12-32 ...

Nice and compact, very light and allows you to put this, attached to an Olympus E-M10 or E-M10 II, in your jacket pocket. All the lens has on the outside is the zoom ring, and that is it.

Olympus 14-42 f3.5-5.6 EZ (28 - 84mm in 35mm terms)
Weight: 91g
Size: 23mm x 61mm
Aperture: f3.5 - f22
MFD: 25cm
Filter: 37mm
Price: €280

This post has taken a really long time appear here; I never seemed to get around to it, or something else took priority. Anyway, better late than never. Before I begin I would just like to mention that throughout 2016 my Panasonic GM5 cameras have seen a tremendous amount of use. I was quite surprised when I realised that all major holidays/breaks/visits this year were done with the Panasonic GM5 cameras. I think this shows ...

I’m sure we all do it from time to time; just browsing the Internet to see what’s new, what’s on offer, and if there’s any acquisitions to made, on the cheap that is. Well, I was guilty of this a few weeks back and I came across something I was hoping I was not going to see. An Olympus Pen-F with the 17 f1.8. And it was at a price I just couldn’t say no ...

My last post was regarding adapters for using Canon EF lenses on Sony E-mount and M43 systems. Having tested a few lenses I felt I could post again with some more information with a few images to show the results of using those lenses on the Sony E-mount.

Firstly, the Commlite adapter. I've only tested the Canon 40 f2.8 STM lens on a Sony E-mount camera as of this post so I'll probably test ...

                                   Zeiss T* 85 F4 Tessar ZM

Sometimes, just sometimes you purchase a new piece of equipment and you just fall in love with it. This is the experience I had after purchasing the Zeiss Tessar 85 f4 lens. It's just a wonderful piece of engineering. It's actually quite compact at 95mm with a diameter of 54mm but I class it as being quite hefty weighing in at 310g. As a matter of fact I wanted ...

Over the years I have accumulated a number of manual focus lenses from Olympus, Nikon, Minolta, Zeiss, Canon among others. All of these lenses have been tested (read used) on APS-C and M4/3 cameras with good results for most of them. Those lenses that didn't pass the test on those cameras have no chance of passing on a full frame camera for the simple reason that the sensor uses the sweet spot of ...