I recently purchased an Olympus Stylus Epic off ebay for $80 or so. For those of you unfamiliar with this, it’s a now out-of-service compact film camera that houses a fixed 35mm f/2.8 lens. It’s one of the few compact cameras that has a fast wide-normal lens attached. It’s amazing how many people recognise this camera when I show it to them. It seems everyone knows a parent, uncle, friend, etc who owned one. Here’s a shot with it from last Friday. I’ll be reviewing this little camera and performing an …

I recently wrote about an adapter I bought for my 5D which allowed me to mount my old Olympus OM Zuiko lenses on it. In that post, I provided a couple of samples with a normal range 55mm f/1.2. Here’s a quick update with a longer lens – the Olympus OM Zuiko 135mm f/2.8, with a particular emphasis with how it performs with a Canon 5D Mark II.
I’m a big fan of the old Olympus Zuiko lenses which have a few interesting characteristics:

They are very compact
They can be cheap …

It’s rare that in the day of DSLR dominance, a company releases a new film – but in 2008 Kodak did just that and announced Ektar 100.
Ektar 100 is a ultra vivid / high saturation colour film that Kodak claims this is the lowest grain colour negative that money can buy. It was designed to offer the same kind of characteristics as a Fuji Velvia, but is a C41 based negative film meaning it can be developed at any old 1hr photolab. I’d only seen a handful of shots with …

As I’ve started to shoot more and more film recently, a question I often get asked is what the resolution of 35mm film is like and how it stacks up against the latest DSLR technology.
Here’s a quick answer – very well.
This isn’t an in depth comparison – as I don’t have a side by side right now to show, but here’s a recent scan of a 35mm negative. Quick specs of the gear used to produce this shot are:
Camera: Olympus OM-4
Lens: Olympus OM Zuiko 55mm f/1.2 shot at approx f/5.6
Film: …

“The Holga is an inexpensive, medium format 120 film toy camera, made in China, appreciated for its low-fidelity aesthetic.”

Originally shot with a Olympus OM-4 + Olympus OM Zuiko 21mm f/2.0 lens on Fujicolor Pro 160s. Modified with a Photoshop Holga action
Holga’s really are remarkable cameras. Take everything that is valued in the digital photography world (edge to edge sharpness, contrast, accurate exposure, lack of vignetting, etc), look for the inverse of it, and you have a Holga. But despite the flaws, these are surprisingly popular cameras. What they have going …

There’s been a slowly growing trend in the past year or so for camera manufacturers to announce “rugged” compact cameras. Olympus pioneered much of this area with their Stylus Tough series and today Casio announced a new compact called the EX-G1, borrowing from Casio’s “G” shock brand that became so popular amongst adventure enthusiasts.

The big deal about rugged cameras is they usually sport three main features:

Shock resistant (in the case of the EX-G1, drop tested at 7 feet)
Waterproof (up to a depth of 10 feet)
Freezeproof (down to 14 …

I’ve been building a collection of Olympus OM Zuiko lenses recently for the OM-1 and OM-4 film bodies I recently purchased. As I was trawling ebay for new glass, I thought it’d be fun to pick up an OM->EOS adapter…

A few days ago, the lens I’ve been waiting for finally arrived. The lens is the Switar 26mm f/1.1. From what I’ve read, one of the finest pieces of glass ever made, it focuses from macro to infiniti, is super…

I just completed my 12 part review diary so am creating a single post to make navigating the series a little easier. This should also be the main article to link to. The review is divided into 12 parts. *…

I’ve decided to wrap up this review diary with a final post. I’ll continue to write on the topic of micro four thirds, lens mounts, etc – but this will be the last entry specifically dedicated to the camera in…