Some hundred pictures are shot now with the new ‘M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 40‑150mm 1:2.8 PRO lens’ and here are the two most important lessons I’ve learned so far:

1. The depth of field becomes quite shallow quickly at aperture 2.8
2. It’s important to keep an eye on your ISO settings to get top quality out of this lens

So let’s start at point one: The Cheetah’s picture at the top has been taken at distance of about 2.5 meters at  [ 260mm | f 2.8 | 1/250s | ISO 400 ] and as you can see, just the space between the right eye and the nose got perfect focus. The left eye is OK but is already out of focus. This is because you get a depth of field of about 30mm if you do the math. Of course everything is clear in photography if you think about it but it’s important to take care of it ;) I didn’t because till now I’ve used the Olympus 75-300mm / f4.8-6.7 at zoo which gave me double depth of field at the same settings because the minimum aperture is more than twice of my new lens. And so I got a nice depth of field automatically.

So for the future I’ve to get used to taking more care about depth of field. On the other hand it’s quite cool to be able now to isolate the subject and get a creamy bokeh much easier.

The second lesson I’ve learned is to take care about my ISO-settings! Im used to set my camera to AUTO-ISO, so in ‘Aperture Priority-Mode’ the camera takes care for sufficient exposure times by choosing the right ISO-speed. But the quality of this new lens is so high that sensor-noise starts bugging me at ISO 400. Correcting this noise by lightroom will wash out parts of the details one could get from this incredible lens.

So if you take into account that your OM-D E-M5/M1 owns a body-built-in picture-stabilizer which should give you up to 2 f-stops, it shouldn’t be a problem to decrease your ISO-settings for 1 or 2 stops. For todays picture this means an ISO of 200 would have been sufficient to get maximum details without any other disadvantage.

So my resume for future use: “For maximum quality keep an eye on ‘depth of field’ and stay away from AUTO-ISO setting.”

See you again soon,
Andrew >:o)

Snapped this cute little meerkat at Vienna’s Zoo. They had an animal popularity survey last year and while looking at this picture it’s easy to get why meerkats got on first place ;)

By the way – I’m waiting for my new Olympus 40-150 1:2.8 PRO lens now for months. First Olympus confirmed delivery in november, which became mid of december and now we’ve january 2015.

The good news is that it seems as if they are now able to roll out the new lens to europe during the next days. I hope today was the last time I had to use the Olympus 75-300 1:4.8-6.7 II lens at the zoo!

If I can get my hands on the new lens you’ll get a detailed review on ‘lensblues.com’ as soon as possible. I’m so eager for this glass to proof my theory which says that one only needs two lenses in a lifetime, which are the ‘Olympus 12-40 mm 1:2.8 PRO’ and the ‘Olympus 40-150 mm 1:2.8 PRO’. Lets see if I’m right ;)

Ciao! Andrew >:)

Now it’s the perfect time to get great snapshots of this little pixies for just one or two peanuts as appropriate fee ;)

Enjoy! Andrew >:o)

Autumn is ‘ante portas’ – colors go wild – for me the best time of the year!

Enjoy, Andrew >:o)

I’m sure you know the famous saying “There’s no free lunch!” which seems to be not always the case. I snapped this smart little dude getting an extra bite at the open bird feeding place. It’s special in the way that this is a ‘great spotted woodpecker’ which I’ve never seen before using such an offer. As you see, also birdies get a more and more economic mindset ;)

Regards, Andrew >:)

In just one week leafs turned from green to all shades of red and yellow – autumn got us! And before you could turn around winter will be here. I can’t tell why but this was a rather short year to me.

Regards, Andrew >:o)

As you may know Meerkats are pretty vigilant – there is always one guy scouting the scene from high position while the rest of the gang has fun. So you’re watching a really conscientious Meerkat at work here ;)

Enjoy, Andrew >:o)

I’ve been down during the last days by a cold combined with some kind of gastric flu – an unforgettable experience … take my word for it ;)

But I’m good again now so we took a walk to our zoo today and got big rewarded this time by getting a picture of an Urson. Over the last two years I couldn’t manage to catch sight of this cute animals – not just once. So enjoy Mr. Urson!

Regards and have a nice week,
Andrew >:)

This time the last shots of our latest zoo-session called ‘Turtle Mania’. Or have you ever seen so many water-turtles sitting on just one snag ? :)

Enjoy, Andrew >:o)

Today a guest-posting from my wife taken at the zoo also. For the curios reader –  this is a hippos back. No really nice but interesting ;)

Ciao, Andrew >:o)