Street shooting with OM-D+Nikon 50mm 1.4 D

nickzou · Jun 18, 2013

So I finally decided on my second mirrorless camera. It ended up being the OM-D because a guy was selling (what seemed to be a brand new OM-D, strap wasn't even put on it) for 650 CAD, which was 50 bucks cheaper than the lowest priced new X-E1 I could find on eBay. And boy was it worth it, the EVF is beautiful, it handles amazingly. And while the playback button and the function buttons are rather awkard, overall it feels great in the hand. And for the first time, I prefered my Nikon 50mm over my Jupiter-8. There's something weird about the Nikon 50mm on my old Panasonic GF-2, sans viewfinder, it just protrudes a little too much and balancing the front heavy contraption always left me favouring the much shorter flange distanced Jupiter-8. Not so when you can bring the camera up directly to your eye.

Here are some pics:

BONUS: I actually stopped off at a local used camera store to have a chat with the guys. They were kind enough to let me try their Minolta 58mm 1.2. Great fantastic lens and I think they were trying to soft sell me on it. But, unfortunately, I don't have another 650 to spend on it:

1. This was shot at f1.4 but to get the whole bike rack in the frame, I had to be quite a fair distance back and thus the depth of field isn't quite as shallow as I was going for but such is the plight of x2 crop.

2. Since this is an adapted lens and auto-focus adapters don't exist yet (and I don't know if they ever will), I mainly focused on shooting stationery people.

3. Not always though, and I was pretty impressed with myself when it came to this shot. They were walking towards me and I had it in focus and I snapped it, turned out perfect. That's a great feeling and being a photographer from the AF generation, I can say I think more of my ilk need to experience this feeling.

4. Indoors, inside a Starbucks.

5. This lens tends to experience a lot of fringing wide open, but this is stopped down to f2.8, so I dunno.

6. Something simple, something nice.

7. I just thought she was hot. Sorry, sometimes I feel like taking pictures of pretty ladies.

8. I tried to see how shallow I could get. The DOF and the bokeh rendered beautifully. It's nice to know that these types of shots are still possible on the OM-D (with this focal length).

9. One of the great things about the OM-D when it comes to streets I find is that the screen tilts. So if you are looking to be discreet, having your head looking down and not at them goes a long way in not drawing attention to yourself. Even when you can clearly see my fingers nimbly trying to capture the focus using the LCD.

10. Another bike