World Photography Day with Olympus at Kew Gardens 19th August 2016

Olympus Uk, who seem to be the most pro-active in organising user days, kindly gave 20 of us an opportunity to try lots of gear, with Olympus experts on hand, plus Olympus Ambassador Marcus Clarkson taking us through some of his techniques. A lovely lunch and copious tea and coffee kept us going in the afternoon.

Really enjoyed the day, grey sky gave us even lighting for the specimen flowers, but Architecture out of the question, as blue skies are necessary for external shots. I also realized that like all areas of photography trial and error is needed to get the shots you envisage.

Tried the Olympus Focus Stacking in camera, but without a tripod proved not too succesful, with my sadly shaking hands, but will try again at home..

I used a trial version of Zerene Stacker to put the shots together, and this works quickly, but if the foreground shot is not razor sharp a lot of stack benefit is lost.

A few shots I like are here, and I will definitely go again, with more ideas on what works, flower beds are not too interesting alone, and specimen shots need careful planning as to backgound colour...

The Olympus 12-40, my cracking staple lens, is a good macro choice, if budgets does not permit a 60mm purchase.

I have found the OM1-D is now favourite camera, as people know I have used a whole range of them over the years, but this feels a part of me, and has many advantages over other brands.

Hope to get more in tune with blogging again, as I have ignored it for so long.