Hey Y'all! Hope you're having a great day and week! This week I want to extend my blog from last week and ask the question What about Micro four thirds? As you know I have lots of time to research and I have been doing just that looking into the Micro four thirds or M43 sensor sized cameras. Now I don't have any hands on experience with them but would like to and will after the new year comes. I still am in the middle of my new year's resolution of not buying new gear for this year. But when this blog comes out I'm only 6 months from maybe purchasing a M43 camera. Lets go over some of the pro's and cons of these small sensor cameras.

Pro's. Small sensor means greater depth of field. The larger the sensor the smaller the depth of field and since these sensors are half the size of a full frame sensor that means you have more depth of field. That works good for landscape, travel ,macro and general photography. Smaller sensor means smaller lenses. This is a big one for me. With smaller lenses the complete kit is smaller and easier to travel with and carry. Way up on my list. With smaller sensor is lower megapixels . At 24 megapixels or less that means more room on my disc drives and less computing power I will need to do stuff in post production. Smaller sensor also means that it's easier to perform in camera computational photography. M43 cameras are known for being able to use computational photography to expand what the camera shooter can do with the photo's in camera. Things like built in ND grad and Graduated ND filters. M43 cameras use a universal mount so you can use either Panasonic or Olympus or OM Systems lenses on either cameras model. There are lots of tricks these little cameras can do that their big brother sensors can't do because of the size of the sensor.

Cons. Resolution people would say is a con. At 20 megapixels some say that this isn't enough for cropping in post and printing larger photographs. Some say that the small sensor isn't good for portraits because of the large depth of field that these sensors have and creating bokeh isn't as easy as larger sensors. Some folks treat these camera's as toys not serious cameras because of the sensor size. Some say that M43 cameras are a dying breed of camera's because only 2 companies make camera's that use the sensor size.

I'll tell you my opinion that I think that they are alive and well and the people that use M43 cameras are very loyal to the brands they use and the camera manufacture's that they use. I am very interested in purchasing a camera and a couple of lenses to test this format out. I am very interested in the OM System OM-3 and a prime and a standard zoom to play with this format. I want to explore the computational photography things that these cameras will do. We all go through phases in our photography from beginner camera guys, to the bigger is better phase now that I have gone through all of the phases I am looking refine my photography for what I like to take photo's of and am trying to match the equipment to chore. Or the right tool for the job. I personally think that M43 is a very good choice for photography and I plan on checking it out. Until Next week Get out and Shoot!

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 posts there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link

Hey Ya'll! Hope you're having a great week. Me? I've been doing Okay ,Well that's not true I've been in a photographic slump! I have been in it for a while and needed something to snap me out of it. I don't want to buy anything camera related to get me going because I have made the "new years" resolution not to buy any more camera gear this year and I haven't.  But it seems that buying new gear is what I usually do to get me out of the slump so what do I do now? I haven't really touched my big camera since my South Dakota trip I have been using a point and shoot or my iPhone mostly. I met my wingman Robert at McDonals for a cup of coffee. (You know that's what us old guys do) LOL and he come up with a challenge. To go to Hobby Lobby with only a 10 dollar bill and find something to shoot and go home and make some photo's. That's the challenge. The whole goal of this challenge was just get out camera's out and shoot. It doesn't have to be a work of art just something to remind ourselves why we love photography. So we went to Hobby Lobby across the street and started browsing around. It's the beginning of August and they already have Fall pumpkin stuff and Christmas stuff out! Drives me nuts! But anyway we started looking and they have lots of stuff to see and remember the 10 bucks is the limit. Robert found something right away a western themed object. And I was looking for something Bicycle related because I've really been into cycling lately. But I came across some licenses plate letters and my mind started working. I could spell out my name " Max" but that was too short. I could spell out "GAPC ROCKS" (Goldsboro Area Photography Club) but it was too many letters and would put me over the 10 dollar limit. So I settled with just GAPC . So I picked out the letters making sure I had the right ones. I'm not the best speller. LOL I also picked up a gray piece of paper for a background. (I should have gotten another color) After a while we headed to the cash register to pay for our Loot. My total came to 8.59 and Roberts came to 8.87  and I was the winner with the cheapest loot. While I danced a jig Robert hobbled out limping. (He has a bad back and is awaiting surgery) So he limps and twiches every now and then as the pain from his back stabs at him. Can't wait till he gets his surgery and is back to recovery. I feel bad making fun of someone with a disability. (Ha Not really) LOL Well I brought my stuff home and started the Photoshoot portion of the challenge. I thought mine would look good with a Beachy background but didn't really have anything and while I was looking out the Kitchen window I saw where I have a little coffee station where the letters would look good. I had a shadow off of a decorative bottle that sits there and I placed a few Items there and set up the letters . I wanted to have a strong light to make a shadow off of the bottle there and the letters were suppose to be just part of the scene not front and center. I got a LED light and set up a Light stand to put it on and cranked it up where I had a good shadow on the wall of the bottle. I took a few compositions and liked what I came up with. The next shot was to put the letters on the piece of paper that I bought so when I got them to photoshop I could overlay a texture over the letters and make it look cool. For lighting of this shot I used a little flash on TTL(Through the lens metering) and pointed it at the ceiling . I took a few shots like this until I got the exposure that I wanted. The third shot I got was with the letters on some boards that I have to give it a rustic look. I used the same lighting technique as I did with the gray background with a small flash pointed at the ceiling . I pulled all of the photo's into Adobe Lightroom and started editing. For the first shot that I took in the Kitchen I edited it normal and desaturated it just a little bit. For the second one on the sheet of gray paper I took a textured photo and merged it with the photo I took in Photoshop. For the last photo I edited it normal. 

Now are these photo's works of Art ? Mine certainly aren't . But we did achieve our goal of getting our camera's out and taking some photo's. Which neither of us have done lately. It was a fun challenge and one you can do and it only cost 10 bucks. Try it and let me know the results. Until next week get out and shoot! 

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 posts there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link

Hey Ya'll ! How is everyone doing today? I know I put out a blog every week but I haven't written one in quite a while. I wrote a lot earlier in the year. Now the question of the day is "Are you a Serious Photographer or a Casual Photographer?" With this blog I'll try to explain what each one is and you can decide whether you're a Serious or Casual Photographer. Now I'll let you know I have been both of these and have settled into one now at an older age. Well let's start with the casual photographer.

The Casual Photographer.  We all start out as a casual photographer. Maybe "now a days" its even more than when I started photography. In today's world everyone has a camera much different than when I started in photography. But now everyone is a photographer. Casual shooting is what 99% of the population does. From taking photo's of their food to family photos to selfies. I just googled how many photo's the average person takes per day and the answer was 20. That would be like me back in the day shooting almost a roll of film every day. Thats a lot of photo's. As casual shooters we aren't worried about composition, or using Lightroom or Photoshop . We just point and shoot. We may edit a little but most of the time we let the camera do all of the work. RAW or JPEG we really don't care. Most of the casual shooters never print. We post to social media send to Facebook , Instagram send photos via text to our family of the family dog. We are casual. Click, Click, Click.  Nothing is planned we just shoot.

The Serious Photographer. The serious photographers have big expensive cameras. Always have the most up to date cameras, lenses and software.  They research places to shoot, time of day and every other detail before taking a shot. They only shoot in RAW and really get into post processing. They take their winners and Print beautiful prints and enter in photo contest and submit to publications to try to get their photo's published. They are the top tier of photographers and they keep the photo industry going. Some are professional but many are not. They are Wildlife, Landscape, Portrait photographers mostly. 

I have been a serious photographer and a casual photographer. I mean I do have a blog about photography. LOL I have evolved over the years and I used to be very serious having to have the best equipment I could to now I'm looking for bargain cameras and lenses on eBay and MPB. I'm not as concerned for the latest and greatest anymore. But I still love photography. To me just getting out and having fun with friends taking photo's gives me the greatest pleasure not really the results I get. So I guess I'm somewhere in-between .

Now if you are a casual photographer or a serious photographer it doesn't really matter. The important point is that you are a photographer! In my camera club we have all levels of photographers from serious ones to casual ones and everyone enjoys what they get out of photography. Thats what is great about photography you can get as serious as you want or not there is room for everyone at all skill and equipment levels. You can take photo's enter contest or have them published in magazines or you can share on Facebook the photo of your children at a birthday party. All the photo's are important and we have fun with all of them. So until next week. Get out and Shoot!