Mark P Knowles :: Don't Panic !

Having recently (1o months ago) quit smoking, I decided I needed a prize for doing so and my chosen prize to myself was a brand new Olympus PEN  E-P2. It has been a while since I owned a decent camera, unless you count the Sony DCR-SR220 video camera, which I was using for work.

But - I could never see anything on the damn view screen so nothing ever turned out the way I was hoping. One of the disadvantages of living in a sunny area I guess.  So, I was determined to buy myself something with a decent viewfinder and my short list included the Olympus PEN range of cameras, the Leica D 4 Lux,  the Panasonic DCMLX3, and the Panasonic GF1.

The Leica was too expensive considering it is made by Panasonic also, but the Olympus won out the moment I picked one up. It is like going through a time warp to when they made proper cameras and definitely hits the spot as far as feel and aesthetics goes. I wanted one immediately. The micro four thirds system just resonated with me immediately.

Mine I bought on line from Amazon - seeing as it saved me over E100 to do so. I bought the kit with the EV2 viewfinder and 17mm pancake lens and I am waiting for the 14-150 lens to supplement it with. I love this thing and these are the first test shots using a variety of the built in settings:

Standard, !AUTO, with no adjustment:

Built in Art filter - Grainy Black and White

Same filter, using the 6x6 setting:

PoP Art filter:

Portrait:

Pretentious self portrait mode:

All in all - I am very happy so far. Make no mistake - this is no cheap olympus camera - the cheap one is the EP 1L which has a plastic body and a built in flash.  I paid E920 buying it through Amazon, which is considerably less than the E1,100 retail cost in France. The only issue I have is the Olympus instruction manual that came with it is in German. My German is very, very rusty...............

Go - buy one now.   They are superb. Can hardly wait to get another lens and maybe a flash, although it will shoot at up to 6400 iso, so perhaps not going to bother with a flash.

Olympus PEN E-P2 12.3 MP Micro Four Thirds Interchangeable Lens Digital Camera with 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 Zuiko Digital Zoom Lens and Electronic View Finder $1,099.99 OLYMPUS 262830 12.3 Megapixel E-P2 Pen Camera Kit (Includes M. Zuiko 14–42mm zoom)...

Olympus Pen E-P2 Micro 4/3 Digital Camera Body (Black) $209.95 The stylish retro black metal body of the PEN E-P2 may be reminiscent of a traditional rangefinder, but there's nothing traditional about this powerful camera from Olympus. The E-P2 is a 12.3-megapixel interchangeable lens camera, and it blends the high-quality still images of a DSLR with High Definition (HD) video, stereo Linear PCM audio recording and in-camera creativity – all inside an ultr...

What a screwed up world ! Banks, long seen as the pillars of the establishment have managed in a few short years to bring that establishment to it's knees, and us along with it. Of course the question of "who pays?" is pretty much moot. The governments around the world have made the decision for us. We pay. Or, if the amount of money needed is as vast as I think it is - our great-great-grand children will be paying.

Yet another bank had to be bailed out yesterday - HSH Nordbank needed 13 billion Euros of German taxpayer's money to keep it afloat. I can barely bring myself to think about the latest garbage from Gordon "no more boom and bust" Brown, as he pours another £14 billion into Northern Rock, as Northern Rock says "Fuck you, we want our bonuses for 2008.," despite posting enormous losses and being bailed out - twice. Protests are mounting around the world at bankers excesses, although  to read a typical newspaper, you would think everything is hunky-dory. I am amazed at the duplicity, cunning and downright lies pouring out of the Government INC around the world. Every lying sack of shit politician has promised no more bonuses, and every bank has been carefully instructed how to go about avoiding that. These are a selection of photographs from protests that Fox news, the BBC et al seem blissfully unaware of. These are on Wall Street, outside The Bank of England, Iceland and Paris. All recently.

Bank is definitely the new four letter word, although I think we now need a new three letter word - Car. The Germans are pondering whether or not to bail out Opel, goodness knows how much money is going to be poured into GM and Chrysler, (although Ford demonstrated their commitment to frugality by unveiling an automatic parking gadget recently).

Spending all my time living on the internet, I discover a surprising amount of rubbish out there. In fact, I am firmly convinced that 99% of the internet is rubbish. But I also discover the 1% that is actually worth looking at, although I am reminded of the joke that if they took all the porn off the internet, there would only be one site left and it would be called bringbacktheporn.com.

Anyway, the reason for this post is to dispose of the photos I have that I consider to be "sexy," rather than keep them on my hard drive. And I mean that I find the photo sexy rather than the models particularly. I need all the space I can find to I can manipulate videos I shoot with my new Sony DCR-SR220 There is no porn here, and the pictures are mostly of women as, on the whole, I don't find men sexy

The one at the top is of course, design perfection herself, Audrey Hepburn. See if you can guess who this next one is?

Yup, you guessed it, Angelina Jolie. Not a woman I find particularly attractive, but this is an extremely sexy photo. The next few are taken by I know not who, featuring I know not who. If anyone can lay claim to these and either wants credit or removal, please drop me a line and I will be happy to comply.

This next batch I have labeled, "Sexy Eyes," for obvious reasons.

This next batch are vintage. Not necessarily taken a long time ago, but in the style of. A few famous faces scattered through this section also, including Vivien Leigh, Audrey Hepburn , Marilyn Monroe.....

More to follow as I continue to empty my hard drive. And a little property news - Jenna Jameson has just listed her home for sale in Hollywood Hills.

Those of you who read my professional blog at Luxury Property will know I like to have a little fun pointing out what I consider to be horrible real estate videos posted to YouTube.

Well, some one has called me on that. Shaun Stanley, of Video Pros pretty much said, "It's all very well taking the piss (I am paraphrasing) out of these crappy videos - What can you do that is better?"

Send me a camera and I'll show you, says Mark.

Two days later, a spanking brand new Sony DCR-SR220 turns up on my doorstep with a note from Mr. Stanley explaining which is the sharp end.

Oops. I am hoping ten years as a pro photographer back in the days when a Nikon F-3 was hot stuff will stand me in good stead.

So, after unpacking the camera, and spending a few minutes marveling at the beauteousness of my new toy, I plug it in to charge the battery and read the destructions. I no longer adhere to the adage, "If all else fails, read the instruction book."

As I am reading about how to connect this Sony handycam to a mac computer, a word wanders across my mind - VAGUE.

I read a little further and visit the website that Sony have to help you connect a SONY DCS-SR220 Handycam to a Macintosh 'puter. A MacBook Pro, in this case. And I slowly come to the conclusion that they are not being vague, they are being deliberately fuckin' obtuse.

After inspecting the instructions on their webpage, which is here, it slowly dawns on me that they are not actually being deliberately fuckin' obtuse, they are

trying to sell me a new Sony Viao computer by making sure I cannot use this Sony camcorder with a Macintosh computer !

Ha! Not going to happen. I take a few minutes of video and plug my now-charged camera into the computer to see what happens. What happened to the famous Mac, plug 'n'play rule? I have never once plugged anything into a mac that wasn't immediately found, installed and ready to go within minutes.

Not a Sony Handycam apparently. Nothing - it is as though I never plugged the damn thing in.

A quick phone call to my newly elected video guru, Shaun, and I am appraised of the fact that Sony are trying to sell you their proprietary software along with a new PC -but there is a workaround. Whew!

Thank you Shaun. This is the workaround:

First job. Go to Squared5 and download their MPEG STREAMCLIP

Next job. Install said software, which is free. And I don't mean free if you spend $500 on something else. Free as in no charge.

3rd and last job. Go to Apple and spend $20 on buying their MPEG-2 Playback component. Or - and I am not recommending this, but I did hear you could pick it up for free on a bit torrent site. Not that I am recommending that.
Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Works like a dream now. I have shot, edited and posted my first video to Google video. But - google has slaughtered the quality to the point I am ashamed to show it here.

Once again, thank you Shaun. And if you are interested in all things professional videography check out video pros.

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