Travel Camera

I have seldom go on photography trips overseas... clock it up for being too busy with work and stuff like that. Or just plain laziness. However I did went on official business trips to China via Hongkong.

On these trips... I will not bring any of my DSLR and large lenses... too heavy and too crumblesome. Plus I don't want my vendors to think that I am there to take pictures of their factories... Seriously I am not. So I normally use my E-PL1 with a m.Zuiko 40-150mm lens.

The picture quality of this camera is extremely good... having a m4/3 sensor that is very much bigger than a normal point and shoot camera. The only issue I have with this camera is it is not really as good as my 7D in handling high ISO pictures. Noise level is alright, but the picture look very artificial.

ISO: 1600
Shutter Speed: 1/8
Aperture: f/5.6

The camera is nice... it had inbody stabilization and I can shoot at pretty low speed and still get quite a good and relatively sharp pictures.

ISO: 1600
Shutter Speed: 1/80
Aperture: f/5.6

Although this camera had all the manual control... but it is not as simple to use as my DSLR and focus can be pretty inaccurate... not to mention controlling of the exposure is really difficult and tricky especially when you are trying to shoot something quickly.

ISO: 1600
Shutter Speed: 1/40
Aperture: f/5.6

And sometime it take some luck... some of the shot is pretty well exposed, others is just out.

However in the hotel, I am able to get pretty good shots when I am not rushing things and had the time to properly expose my shots.

ISO: 1600
Shutter Speed: 1/13
Aperture: f/4

ISO: 1600
Shutter Speed: 1/13
Aperture: f/4

ISO: 1600
Shutter Speed: 1/15
Aperture: f/4

ISO: 1600
Shutter Speed: 1/5
Aperture: f/4

For the above shots, I like my shots to have some level of grains on it... so I am okay for the relatively high ISO speed.

Of course when I am there, I will not pass up the chance to shoot some sunrise photos.

ISO: 200
Shutter Speed: 1/320
Aperture: f/4

ISO: 500
Shutter Speed: 1/200
Aperture: f/8

Well... by just taking the photo of a sun and the sun alone is boring, so I included somethings into the frame to achieve a more interesting picture. And I never put my sun right in the middle of the photo, so as to give it an impression of a sun rising upward.

Just outside my hotel there are some really old and broken houses... and these make a good picture in my point of view, and so I took two shot of it... make it black and white (to give it an impression of being old).

Zooming in to the damage give a more emphasis feel to the damage.

ISO: 100
Shutter Speed: 1/4
F/5.6

Zooming out to give a more complete feel

ISO: 100
Shutter Speed: 1/4
Aperture: f/4.0

For the two photos, I have quite a low shutter speed and the first photo was taken at a focal length of 150mm, thus it is really difficult to hold still even with the very good build in image stabilizing system. Therefore I am using the wall and the window ledge as a support for me to shoot. The resulting picture is very sharp and up to my expectation. I would have added some grains to the photo to give them an old look, but I find that would be a bit overkill and make the entire photo quite fake.

In the end the trip is pretty good. I accomplish what my company had sent me out for, and I managed to take some good photos with the E-PL1... even if most of the photos taken are in the hotel room only... however if you know how to look and what to look for, you will get some really nice photos.