Only Took M4/3 Gear On A Road Trip; Test #2, Street Photography

This is the second gentleman that entered the shop in the time I waited. (click to enlarge)
I managed to get a decent image depicting movement in-between cars zooming by.
All images made with the Olympus E-M1 Mark II and Olympus 12-100mm f/4 PRO lens
50mm; 1/640th sec. @ f/5.6; ISO 200

NEW! As of January 1st, I've started an Instagram feed. I'll be posting photos daily so please follow at dennisamook. Thank you. 

This is the third of a series of posts about my wife's and my recent southern U.S. road trip taken earlier this month (March 2018).   These posts are equally about how well M4/3 format can fully meet my present and future photographic needs.  For each post, I've written about a different type of photography and how well the Olympus served that purpose.  In this post, I'll write about the E-M1 Mark II and basic street-type photography.

Our road trip continued and we headed southwest through central Florida. Our destination for the day was the city of Winter Garden, Florida, where a life-long friend of mine lives.  I haven't seen him in a year and a half and, since we were so close, I contacted him to ask if he would home for a visit and he graciously invited us to spend a couple of days with him at his home.

On the way to Winter Garden, we made a stop in the small town of Eustis, Florida.  There is a particular shop located there in which my wife likes to buy her crafting materials.  While she shopped, I took the opportunity to walk the streets and make some images.  Besides walking the streets I found a park and a lake, which had some interesting subjects as well.

There is a particular barbershop on one of the main streets in town that I had to photograph.  There aren't many "traditional" barbershops for men left in the U.S., at least not nearly as there were when I was growing up.  Most are now in strip malls and are part of a "hairdresser/styling" business that serve both men and women.  This barbershop has a real red, white and blue rotating barber pole attached to a wall.  You don't see many of those anymore either.  The windows had plenty of neon signs lit and It advertises "A Real Barbershop With Real Barbers For Real Men."  There were two factors with which I had to deal in capturing a successful image of this very visually interesting shop.

This gentleman was the first man to enter the shop.  (click to enlarge)
He parked his car just where I cropped the frame on the left and a moving car entered the image just outside the right edge.
61mm; 1/250th sec. @ f/8; ISO 200

First, I needed someone going into the barbershop and I didn't know how long I would have to wait until someone did.  The shop alone without human presence wouldn't have been anything more than a record image.  The image needed some dynamic element and that needed to be a guy entering the shop.  There weren't many pedestrians around that I could see.  The ones I did see were tourists, like myself, walking in groups.  None with hair that needed cut!  I needed to wait for a man to enter the barbershop.

Second, the street on which the barbershop is located is two lanes of one-way traffic plus parking on both sides, with plenty of cars zooming by.  It was part of the main highway through town.  If I did get a shot, I would need to quickly time it to eliminate the cars that almost always would be blocking the building.  I waited.

I estimate I stood across the street for about 20 minutes before a gentleman parked his car and walked into the building.  The optimum exposure and pose I wanted was partially obscured by the sign and a passing automobile.  What is displayed here is the best of the ones I was able to capture of him entering the building.  I wanted to show movement and intent.

Several minutes later, another man pulled up and parked his souped-up 1970s era black Chevy Camaro down the street.  He then walked up to the barbershop and I captured him as he entered the building.  That image is at the top of the post.

Being that I was able to get two potentially decent images, I walked around town to see what else may be of visual interest and found a nearby park that bordered on Lake Eustis.  There I saw this gentleman asleep on a bench (below).  How could I miss him with the red shirt?  Where is my Kodachrome?*  Lol.  He was not homeless, only taking a nap.  Also, I spotted a fisherman about 50 yards into the lake fishing from his small bass boat adjacent to a sea of large lily pads.  I made a few images of him as well (below).  I was waiting for him to cast his line, but he never did.  Oh well.

After an hour or so, I met my wife for lunch, than we proceeded on to Winter Garden.  Did I mention it was a warm beautiful day, unlike the overcast cold we have been having in Virginia?  Gorgeous day!

The next day, in Winter Garden, we were walking from my friend's home to the main street in town and I spotted this very ineffective "Neighborhood Watch" sign.  This sign is a REAL DETERRENT to potential criminals!  Ya, right!  I just had to make an image of it for its condition reflects the inattention of the residents to look out for each other in this neighborhood.  Being in law enforcement for over 35 years, people need to understand that real safety and security come from within the neighborhood, the culture of people looking out for each other as neighbors and friends, rather than when police patrol through a neighborhood (just a short public service announcement from an old timer!).

That red shirt immediately caught my attention!  He's taking a nap, not homeless. (click to enlarge)
35mm; 1/500th sec. @ f/5.6; ISO 200

He looks like he is really relaxing and enjoying his day. I wanted him to cast but he never did and never looked toward me. (click to enlarge)
100mm; 1/400th sec. @ f/10; ISO 200

 The neighborhood is fairly nice but I wonder about their concern for each other? (click to enlarge)
12mm; 1/250th sec. @ f/7.1; ISO 200

The street photography in which I engaged was certainly not the most demanding.  But the Olympus gear performed well.  When I was timing my shots and quickly pressed the shutter the focus was fast and accurate.  I felt no discernable lag.  The image files easily held the highlight and shadow details on very sunny Florida days.  The colors are pleasing but I don't like them as well as the colors my Fujifilm X-T2 produces, but that is a very personal and subjective comment.  In most editing programs, one can adeptly make the colors of any camera system look like another.  I did find one small thing that bigged me about one particular image.  I'll write about that at the end of this series.  

I think the Olympus M4/3 gear, as it did in my last test, passed this one as well.
Come back for the next test.  That one is trying to capture a bird in flight as well as others feeding in a nearby body of water.

(Also, I wanted to mention that this road trip and the series of photographs displayed was made without the latest firmware update Olympus released on February 28, 2018.  In the update, Olympus claims improvement in the camera's ability to focus faster in the C-AF mode.  Additionally Olympus now provides an option to make the focus points in the EVF and LCD to be about 1/2 the size of what they were, added more capability to the Pro Capture feature and added more lenses to the ones that allow focus stacking in-camera.  Also, image stability was improved in a couple of the latest Olympus PRO lenses.  I did upgrade when I returned home.)

*When Kodak's Kodachrome was first widely available and in use, there old assumption was that you needed something "red" in the scene as that film was particularly known for its bright, vibrant reproduction of reds.  Look at some very old National Geographic Magazine issues and you almost always see something with red in the photograph, as an example.

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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