What did I do?

Well, I started a chain of events in motion...

A few days ago I ordered a secondhand Olympus E-PM1. That arrived pretty swiftly and of course that's when all the fun started. It arrived with no lens cap, no filter, no neck strap and no lens hood. Not even a filter to protect the front element.

It's a nifty little thing with a high ISO of 12,800 - way higher than I was expecting. I have been able to download images onto a Windows computer but as there is no raw processing software, I'm a little limited right now.

The good - it works really well. I have yet to take a night sky image that I really like but that's just a matter of perseverance. It's light and small. So small in fact that it's not going to look obvious.

The bad - it really eats up the battery. I suspect I might have to get a couple of extra batteries. Olympus Viewer 3 is not compatible with my Mac as my Mac is 9 years old. I had been thinking of getting a new battery for my Mac since it has been misbehaving and I believe that misbehaviour is due to the 9 year old battery being several thousand cycles past its prime.

My tablet is not going to be sent for warranty repair. I just don't feel it's worth sending my tablet off. Sure - for $10 I could get a replacement tablet but to be honest, it's not up to photography or anything remotely worthwhile. I suspect I'll probably end up using my RCA tablet for target practice in rather the manner of the now famous Death of a Virgin video I did some years ago with a less than satisfactory cellphone.
The question is now whether I should get a way better tablet or a battery for my Macbook. I'm definitely at a point where almost all the technology I have is 10 years old and beginning to show signs of age. Don't get me wrong - my Macbook works perfectly well when it's plugged in now that it has got past the silly stage with the screen going black every time I took a breath.

My aim with the new camera is to take pictures like the following sky picture but sharper in the corners. This lack of sharpness was caused by a less than stellar lens - the Tamron 17-35 f2.8. The corners were described by one critic as "softer than last night's mashed potatoes".

I had a little go with my Olympus and got a reasonable night sky photo. I need to work more on this. I'm finding when I overexpose, I get purple blotches but that's not particularly important. That's just a response of the sensor to chronic overexposure. The photo is nice and sharp though.

Interestingly, the tree leaves aren't that sharp. That could have been due to a breeze though. What I'm more interested by is the sky though. The stars are really showing well. I need to do more practice with this camera. I certainly need to be able to work with the RAW files.

This is a straight out of camera JPEG with the 14-42 lens set at 14mm. It's not too bad. I'll have to do more testing and work out how to get the best out of it. So far I have discovered at least one camera software bug. When I get the connecting cable - it uses a small USB connector that I do not possess so I had to order one from China - I'll be able to use the one Olympus app that did download - the one that allows me to update the camera and lens firmware automatically.

Things are definitely progressing. I might well have to upgrade my computer though. I certainly do not want to go over to Windows. I really detest the glitchy nature of the Windows operating system. Each version seems to be a giant step backward from the previous. I looked into a Chromebook but there's so little difference between Chromebooks and tablets there seems singularly little purpose in having one.

Regarding tablets, I found that just about every existing tablet has a micro USB charging port. That's what failed on my latest RCA tablet. I did have an RCA tablet before but that just didn't have enough memory to be remotely useful. My Nexus 7 was pretty good but the USB socket worked loose and though I could cope with it, the software onboard corrupted itself rendering the tablet non-functional. My Nexus 4 phone (purchased in April of 2013) developed a loose USB charging port too. I had to switch over to using a cordless charger. It charges as long as I hold the USB cord in place so I went cordless instead. My Nexus 7 didn't have that luxury.

I'm slowly trying to dig myself out of a technological black hole. I was dead right that a Mac would last far longer than a Windows laptop. I'd have been through between 3 and 5 Windows laptops in the time I have owned my Macbook and it still works. The alternative (which looks attractive) is a Windows laptop running Linux.

More interestingly, my night sky photo taken with the Tamron lens was taken at 1600ISO and f2.8 for 30 seconds on a Canon XT. My (overexposed) photo with my Olympus at 128000ISO and f5.6 and 40 seconds. That's -2 stops on aperture, +3 stops on ISO and +0.25 stops on exposure. So, it's just over a stop overexposed. I'll play with it a bit more.

Reading around, it seems that some photographers have used F4 with 800ISO to get great night sky images. I've read others that swear by 3200ISO and F2.8 with 30 seconds as being the only way to get a great photo. Given such a wide variance I have to assume other factors are at play than exposure. It might be that there's a wider variation of ISO sensitivity between cameras than there really should be. It could be the ISO standard isn't being adhered to all that strongly. It could be a problem with location - maybe my area of night sky isn't clear enough. I know a few miles away, the best I could achieve was this.

As I've said, there's plenty room for experimentation and practice. Since the daily portion of my current job ends for the summer in a few weeks, perhaps I can head off for a few days to a dark sky area to do some real experimentation.

Working the skies

This is the kind of photo that I want to take. This is actually a photo that I took some while ago. I used to have a Tamron 17-35 f2.8 but when I was dumping some kit a while ago, I took it along to see how much it was worth and found it had something called the Schneider effect which was slowly destroying the glue that held the front element on. I thus sold the lens and resolved to replace it with something better. This lens had a problem with soft corners too.Thus, I have been looking at several options. The first is a wide lens such as the Rokinon 14mm f2.8 which goes new for $275-$299. I don't often see that lens going secondhand, sadly. As far as I've seen, it's OK wide open but has a slight barrel distortion effect in the center.

I've looked at various oprions. Since it seems f2.8 and 1600 ISO is the minimum needed to get night sky images such as the one above, the options are either a new lens at $275-$299 or a new camera with a higher ISO that'll use my current F4 lens. To do that, the ISO would have to be 3200 or higher. Another alternative would be to get a different camera system. Looking into that, the Olympus system seems to be quite good with a decent f3.5 lens at 14mm. That's approximately the same coverage as the 14mm on my Canon system. Now that comes in (new) at $299.

The interesting thing is that just about every option seems to come it at around $275 - $300. Looking at secondhand cameras, the cameras seem to be $150 and the lenses are seprate at $100 . So, to get great sky photos it looks like a $300 expenditure. Meanwhile, my existing Canon cameras really haven't had that much use. I checked and the shutter count is around 8,700 on one and 5,000 on the other. I'd be really uncomfortable selling cameras that were so costly for the low sums they would go for. Literally, they have depreciated about 95% but still take phenomenal images.

So, the question is whether I spend $300 and gain extra gear or sell everything I own for next to nothing to part-subsidise a kit that is nowhere near as comprehensive. I notice that my existing stuff has 0.5 stops more dynamic range than the best micro four thirds for example. It's all really rather frustrating and confusing. I see the phenomenal photos that others take using their kit of night skies using ultra-high ISOs and fast apertures. It just annoys me that my kit won't allow me to do that.

There really isn't much solution that I can see that doesn't involve money. I waver from one solution to another. I certainly like the idea of a smaller camera such as those offered by Nikon and Olympus. The problem is I am unsure just how much I'd use them. As an example, I haven't gone out with my camera since March of last year when I went to the zoo. That's not the kind of thing that really merits spending money. On the other hand, the reason I have not is because my cameras are just bulky - so bulky they put me off wanting to use them. A smaller, more pocketable system is much more desirable. Hence, I take many more photos with my smartphone. 

To date, all the photos of my bus have been done with my smartphone. There's a reason for that - instant upload and instant editing. I can take the photo with my smartphone then head to my tablet and the image is ready online to insert into my blog. All I need to do is to write the entry.

With my older model cameras, uploading is a royal nusiance. I have to connect the camera to the tablet then I can upload solely JPEG images. I cannot process RAW images. Thus, I'd have to use a computer which is where there's a problem. My Macbook is almost 10 years old and the battery desperately needs to be replaced. The screen keeps going black because of it. In addition to that, it needs a new hard drive as the one in it must surely be about to fail. As it's an older connector, the cost is high. I'd be looking at a minimum of about $400 to replace the battery and the hard drive and would at the end of all that still have a 10 year old macbook.

I definitely do not recommend living in South Carolina where it's almost impossible to find real work. I've been stuck in ass-end jobs that don't pay a worthwhile living for the last decade. With the income I have, all these desires will probably be unfilled 10 years from now. If enough people clicked one advert on this site, I might get a dollar or two but nobody will do that.

In terms of income, I notice this site makes between 0 and 2 cents a day from the adsense advertising carried. It's getting to the point where I'd consider going ad-free. The advertising just doesn't seem to produce any worthwhile income at all these days - pretty much like work.

On that depressing note, I'll run off to bed and wish probably my only reader, good night.