Tag Archives: olympus pen e-p3

3 A.M. At Masjid India

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The Ramadan festive bazaar at Jalan Masjid India winds down at around 3 in the morning. Traders prepare for a brief nap in their makeshift bedrooms, road sweepers emerge from nowhere while others converge at nearby tea stalls. I ventured there with the new Olympus Pen E-P3 paired with my favourite street lens, the new m.Zuiko 12mm (24 eq) f2.0 prime…

Olympus Pen E-P3, ISO 800, f2, 1/60 sec

Olympus Pen E-P3, ISO 800, f2, 1/60 sec

Wayang Kanvas. Around 3:00 am, the tarps are drawn down and the silhouettes  presented a fascinating shadow play.

Olympus Pen E-P3, ISO 1600, f2, 1/50 sec

Olympus Pen E-P3, ISO 1600, f2, 1/50 sec

Uncle Bob (right) kept reminding me his chicken is skinless, grease-free and therefore healthy. Quite tasty actually.

Olympus Pen E-P3, ISO 200, f2, 1/80 sec

Olympus Pen E-P3, ISO 200, f2, 1/80 sec

Long Time No Tea. I was touched that the famous tea makers came out to hug me. I was a regular there during the ’11 LA’ heydays. The party godown was across the river.

Olympus Pen E-P3, ISO 500, f2, 1/60 sec

Olympus Pen E-P3, ISO 500, f2, 1/60 sec

The Manny. The f 2.0 lens is great for subject isolation. Not overly shallow but still sufficiently bright for handheld night photography.

Olympus Pen E-P3, ISO 500, f2, 1/60 sec

Olympus Pen E-P3, ISO 500, f2, 1/60 sec

Ali’s Sticks. To prevent himself from keeling over, the steam-stick seller rely on a can of Tongkat Ali-spiked energy tea.

Olympus Pen E-P3, ISO 1600, f2, 1/50 sec

Olympus Pen E-P3, ISO 1600, f2, 1/50 sec

Back Street Boy. Some pulled down the tarps to sleep, others dance around the rubbish pile. I like this guy’s enthusiasm, even at 3 am.

Olympus Pen E-P3, ISO 1600, f2, 1/40 sec

Olympus Pen E-P3, ISO 1600, f2, 1/40 sec

Smooth As Lace. A pillar ad on the front of a lace shop befits the tranquillity of the hour.

All pictures photographed with the Olympus Pen E-P3 by & © TV Smith

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A Cantonese Bonfire & A Hokkien Opera

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A Hokkien Opera: Olympus Pen E-P3, ISO 200, f4.5, 1/60 sec

A Hokkien Opera: Olympus Pen E-P3, ISO 200, f4.5, 1/60 sec

I stumbled upon two interesting roadside events last night. Although both were held on the same street, they turned out to be distinctly different rituals. The first one is a Cantonese prayer session dedicated to the deity and dwellers from the netherworld, culminating with a bonfire.

The second one is part of a Hokkien religious festival celebrating the birthday of another Chinese deity. A brave opera troupe performed to a near empty house. Sadly, the Chinese opera is a dying tradition and art-form in Malaysia, making it all the more important to document.

But since this video is more of a real world test of the new Olympus Pen E-P3, the duration is kept brief. The E-P3 was paired with the new and fast 12mm (24mm in old money) f2.0 lens. The bonfire scene was actually quite dark but the camera still locked focus very quickly.

Down the street, the opera presented a different challenge. The stage lights induced visible flickering on the video. I had to roll the shutter speeds via the thumb-wheel until the ‘pulsing’ effect became minimised. Back stage, lighting was very dim but the E-P3/12mm f2 combo handled it with ease.

Sound was recorded with the on-board microphone and camera was handheld. Video footage captured in Full HD 1980 x 1080i resolution at 30 fps AVCHD.

Nocturnal Warriors: Olympus E-P3 & M.ZD 12mm f2.0 & VF-2 Finder on night duty

Nocturnal Warriors: Olympus E-P3 & M.ZD 12mm f2.0 & VF-2 Finder on night duty

Full HD AVCHD is normally not easy to edit in real time, even with the very tolerant Edius Neo. However, with my new editing gig comprising an i7 CPU with 16g hyper ram and dual Corsair Force 3 SSDs, the AVCHD bully is finally beaten into a pulp.

All I need to do now is to drop all the AVCHD files from the camera directly onto the Edius timeline and it is good to go. No more conversions and messy intermediate files. The NLE will not blink, even with multiple tracks, complex 3D effects and transitions running together in real time 🙂

In this clip, only audio/video dissolves and titles were added. Output was rendered into 1920 x 1080 WMV format. Variable bit rate encoding was used for a manageable 140mb upload file size. For online screening, it is still about finding the right balance (or compromise) between size and quality…

Look out for more real-world tests, images and videos from the new Olympus Pen E-P3 and the recently introduced Digital Zuiko lenses here!