Last Hour of the Day

[Greg Chappell]

Took advantage of the extended daylight hours this evening..

E-P3 and various lenses, beginning with the 25/1.4..



Colors kicking in, with the 45/1.8..



A lot of fun clouds started changing the look every few seconds..



As the sun slipped down into clouds that looked to be spinning around, it looked like a huge galaxy hovering the horizon to me..



Last brilliant light..



Used a nearby tree to frame the waning colors..



Venus and Jupiter are nearing conjunction, so I had to find some interesting way to shoot them with the 25/1.4. This is what I chose..

[boBBrennan]

.......and you chose well! I really like what the 25mm does.

I'm so happy DST is here, always have enjoyed the late time daylight, now I have to get out and make use of it.

[James Emory]

The second from last is my fave.

[Tullio]

Nice series. I like the 25mm. It's a very versatile and capable lens. The only thing I dislike is the fact that the camera tends to choose f1.4 in P mode unless the speed is not enough to handle the amount of light coming in. I don't always wish for a very shallow DoF.

[Greg Chappell]

One in-camera parameter that is not (I think) intended to affect ambient light (non-flash) exposures, but seems to, is the flash custom settings where you can select maximum and minimum shutter speeds for the camera to use when utilizing flash. The camera seems programmed to slant all flash exposures towards mixing ambient light with flash as much as possible, because the default camera settings for my E-P3 always had the shutter speed set at the minimum set speed of 1/30 second when I was first trying flash photography with my E-P3 and FL50. If I'm using flash indoors, I will always make sure I have set as a minimum speed something like 1/60 or even 1/125 second so I'm not indoors shooting with flash at 1/30 second, unless I am specifically wanting to combine ambient light levels with flash.

In low light when shooting without flash, if I keep that minimum speed in the custom flash setting (supposedly for flash only) as high as 1/125 second, once ambient light levels send shutter speeds below 1/125 second the camera does start going up the ISO range faster than it does if I reset that minimum speed down to a level where I am comfortable with handholding for static subjects, which is usually around 1/30 second. With a 1/30 second or even slower minimum shutter speed set, the camera remains at ISO 200 much longer than it does with that minimum speed set to 1/60 or 1/125.

In most cases, I would rather the camera go down down in shutter speed before opening the aperture all the up all the way to f1.4, but it may well indeed still choose to always set the aperture down to f1.4 no matter and I will just have to use the exposure shift option to get to the aperture I want. I have not used the 25 and E-P3 yet in program mode to see. This past weekend I was in aperture priority and shooting quite a bit at f8-11.

[Tullio]

I'm curious as to whether the EP3 behaves similarly to the G3 or not as far as the aperture in P mode goes with the 25mm.

[Greg Chappell]

Been playing around with the 25 on my E-P3 this evening. What I am noticing is, when shooting a subject with a bright light in the background, like a lamp or such, the lens tends to be in the f1.6 to f2 range. If I am shooting an object against a dark background, it goes to f1.4 and stays there unless I override it using exposure shift.

[Tullio]

Pretty bad behavior if you ask me. The camera should have an algorithm to select the optimal aperture/shutter speed/ISO depending on lighting conditions. Why would it keep the lens at f1.4 and bump up the shutter to say 1/4000 if it could perfectly set the aperture to f4 and shutter speed of 1/650 (I did not do any math here, just picking arbitrary numbers)? We all know that no matter which lens it is, it will always perform better when stopped down a bit.