Thursday Night Photography: San Diego Creek Trail Storm Drain

#Photography #Irvine If anyone has ever tried to park at Mark Daily Park in Irvine (on a Saturday), you know it's almost impossible to do so. My son plays for the Irvine Pateadores and they had a game there this past weekend. While looking for parking, I noticed a fancy structure next to the park. The storm drain looks like it hasn't seen water in a long time and I thought about getting closer but chose not to lose my shoes in Swamp Thing's home. Here are some photos taken with my #GetOlympus OM-D E-M1 and a Zuiko 12-50mm lens.

Thursday Night Photography: Black and White III

#blackandwhite #LongBeach #photography It's Thursday Night and since I posted some new photos during the weekend (http://tinyurl.com/PatAtDanaPoint), I decided to check my library for something I haven't used yet. I wish I kept the original RAW files for editing in black and white, but the JPEGs didn't come out too bad. Here are some photos I took during a company lunch last year at Gladstone's in Long Beach, California while working at Money Mailer. All of the photos were converted to black and white, except for 3 which I liked in color. These were taken with my Olympus Pen E-P3 and my 12-50mm lens. I wish I knew more about the manual settings at the time these were taken but I shouldn't have an excuse anymore for future photos!

Dana Point Harbor Beach Photography

#DanaPoint #Beachphotography #California Today's weather was around 100 degrees F, which made it a good day to visit the #beach. We were originally looking for the Baby Beach at Dana Point, but Yelp didn't have an accurate address. Either way, we still had a good time. Here are some of the photos taken with my #Olympus OM-D E-M1. Most of my pictures were taken with a 75-300mm lens and I also used my 12-50mm and 7.5mm fisheye lens.

Thursday Night Photography: Airports Airplanes and Airshows

#Photography #LAX #Miramar I had another busy week and wasn't able to go out and shoot new photos. While browsing through my iPhoto library, I came across some photos that I took while waiting at airports (LAX and Narita). I wanted to get a new thread started so I also added photos from the Miramar Air Show in San Diego. Hopefully, I can travel more and get a collection of airports and airplanes. The posted photos were taken with my Casio EX-S5 and HTC-Evo.

The Hardware II: Photography Equipment

#GetOlympus #Sigma #Rokinon My very first blog post in May 2014 was about the #photography equipment that I was using. I became a huge fan of Olympus when they released the Micro-Four Thirds Pen EP-3 and now most of my gear is from them. My main camera is now the OM-D E-M1. I took two pictures in May and since then, I've gotten some newer items and learned a lot more. At the time, I didn't know much about aperture, prime vs zoom lenses, focal distance, shutter speed settings, and f-stops. Auto settings produced some great pictures, but once I learned how to use the manual settings a lot of things changed. Interestingly, one of the things that pushed me to learn more about my camera was the fact I missed getting photos of the "Blood moon" in April 2014. Attempting to take pictures of the Blood Moon with a 40mm lens produced some great (being sarcastic) blurs. When I also tried to take pictures of a full moon on auto focus, that was a spectacle on its own.

In any case, here is a list and some photos of what I'm currently using.

Cameras
Casio Exilim EX-S5
Olympus Pen E-P3 x 2 + Olympus VF-3
Olympus OM-D E-M1

Lenses
Rokinon 7.5mm f/3.5 Fisheye
Olympus 9mm f/8 Fisheye Body Cap Lens
Olympus M. Zuiko 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3 EZ
Olympus M. Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 II R x 2
Sigma 30mm f/2.8 DN
Olympus M. Zuiko 45mm f/1.8
Olympus M. Zuiko ED 75-300mm f/4.8-6.7 II

Filters
Pro Optic 46mm ND2
Pro Optic 46mm CPL
Pro Optic 46mm UV
Hoya 52mm NDx8

Bag
Manfrotto Agile II Sling Bag

Tripod
Targus TG-5060TR

Thursday Night Photography: Leaving on a Jet Plane (Irvine to Palo Alto)

#Photography #southwestairlines #JWAConnects I wasn't able to take some pics this week since my family returned from Japan and have been dealing with jet lag. Also today is the start of the NFL season. Here are some pictures I took during a business trip on May 2, 2014. I flew from John Wayne Airport (#SNA) to San Jose International Airport (#SJC) on Southwest Airlines to visit one of my company's offices in #PaloAlto. I used my #Olympus Pen E-P3 with a 12-50mm and 75-300mm lens. I wish I would've noticed the smudge on the lens or sensor. It created an odd dark spot in some of the pictures. Since most of the pictures were taken from the cabin, I used a filter called Perfectly Clear to touch up a lot of the pics.