In less than three weeks it's off to Brussels, Botrange, Brugge, Normandy, and
Paris. I decided that I needed some practice and some exercise with the
planned OM kit, so it was off to Downtown Fort Worth for the evening. What?
You say Fort Worth ain't much of a model for Paris? Read on...
Lessons relearned:
1. Keep an all purpose lens on the camera when you are walking along the
sidewalk. That way you won't miss the shot of the willowy 6-foot-2 blonde in
the clingy black silk dress accompanied by Cheech Marin, also entirely in black
silk... Well, he looked just like Cheech: bald, 4-11 ....
2. The cute gal in the orange microdress and matching go-go boots will be
happy for you to take her picture. You just have to take her email address and
promise to send her a jpeg. So remember to take along a notepad.
3. Someone leaning against a parking meter talking on a cell phone will take
no notice of you while you leisurely set up a tripod, attach a 2X-A to a Zuiko
200 F5, mount to the OM-2N, screw it on the tripod, focus and shoot them from
50 feet away.
4. Sunset light is great, but so is twilight, as the streets begin to light
up and the sky turns a special blue...
5. A shift lens is nice, but you can do very credible architectural shots
with just the widest lens you have. Vertical framing, level it carefully, back
up until you have the top of the building in the frame, and when the print
comes back cut off the bottom third and throw it away. Your knowledgeable
friends will not only think that you have a shift lens, but since the result is
a square format, they will think that you have it mounted on a Hasselblad. A
gridded screen is sweet for this but you can get along without it if you watch
that the verticals are parallel to the viewfinder edges.
OM content and thoughts on the Europe kit: The 200/5 with the OM 2X-a isn't as
bad as I remembered. Maybe the 2-13 screen helps; at any rate I had no trouble
focusing, even in waning light. Four hundred millimeters, nice for
architectural details like the stone angels with brass horns on the Bass Hall
facade. We'll see how the shots come out tomorrow. So, those of you who
suggested it, for now the 2X-A comes along. I need the 85/2 for available
light shooting, such as the rock band with the decorative singer performing in
the shadowed cafe seating area. I want the 75-150/4 too. No, what I really
want is my Sigma 70-210/2.8, but I won't let myself carry that around Europe.
Never used the 50/1.4, the 21 was used as described for architecture, the 24
got a little use. Surely I'll want the 50/1.4 indoors somewhere. The CF
tripod is nice when you are lugging it!!!!!!! Probably take a little Fuji 800
SuperG Press along for low light street shooting. The OM-2N self-timer lever
sure is a lot easier to live with than the OM-4T arrangement (yeah, I know
about aperture prefire, but I don't care for this kind of shooting.)
Great fun. I'll have to do this some more.
Regards,
Gary
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