So a great deal of time has passed since I started my website, and photography in general (2013). Not much has changed really, I’m still enjoying getting out and taking photos and I am still trying to learn my craft and develop my own style. As I work full time I don’t get as much time as I would like to spend on my photography, but I do take the opportunity where I can. One aspect that I would like to do much more of is portraiture, however to date the opportunities for this have been few and far between.

Recently I have gone around the houses with photography equipment as illness has forced me to downsize, and carrying big heavy full frame lenses became a big problem. I am now settled on the Olympus M4/3 system (OMD EM1 Mark II) for subjects requiring the ‘larger lenses’ such as wildlife, the Panasonic Leica 100-400mm being considerably lighter than the Tamron 150-600mm I was using before. I have also stared to use the Olympus system for most sports using the Olympus 40-150mm f2.8 which is also considerably lighter than the Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 VRII I was using previously. For travel/holidays the Olympus 12-40mm f2.8 and EM1 Mark II is pretty much the perfect combination providing top image quality in a lightweight yet rugged setup. I have been really impressed by the Olympus system and in most situations I really struggle to tell a difference between shots taken with this system and my full frame gear, unless pixel peeping of course. I can even get usable images at ISO 6400, although obviously they are not as clean as full frame.

There are times however that I prefer full frame such as portraits with the shallow depth of field/subject isolation, and also in high dynamic scenes. As a result I decided to keep a small amount of full frame gear and recently swapped the Nikon D850 for the Z7 in order to reduce weight. The Z7 is a very capable camera, exceeding my expectations. The only area where I find it lacking to the D850 is in terms of frame rate and black out time, however as I am only going to take minimal sports photos with this camera I don’t perceive it being an issue.

I recently won the Olympus Magazine competition and got to spend a weekend shooting the British Touring Car Championship with professional photographer and Olympus Ambassador Mike Inkley. This was a truly fantastic experience gaining me pit lane and grid access, as well as trackside shooting for the races themselves. Mike could not have been nicer. Photos from this event can be found in the ‘Events and Sports’ gallery.

I hope to update my blog on a more regular basis in the future, even if it is just more waffle ;)