Lawrence Ripsher's Photo Journal

My website has moved

If you found this page, it's because of an outdated link. I have moved my website to www.lawrenceripsher.com - you will be automatically redirected to the updated site in 5 seconds. Thanks, Lawrence

www.lawrenceripsher.com is changing!

I've not been giving this blog sufficient attention for the past few months. That's partly due to being too busy, partly due to my content being spread over too many sites, and partly due to the limitations of typepad (the site I currently host this blog with). I have a huge number of ideas of articles I plan to write, but the above combination of factors has provided sufficient inertia to stop me from getting stated properly.

This week that'll all change. Firstly, I'm going to get off Typepad. Every idea I've had about improving the layout / content / features / etc has been met with frustration due to limited capabilities, restrictive features, etc. So much of what I want to do is not possible on Typepad, yet is so simple with Wordpress. So over the next few days, I'm going through the infamous-ly painful migration process of moving from Typepad to Wordpress. I plan to do this without breaking any of my permalinks (particularly my reviews which are ranked highly on Google, Bing, etc). Moving to Wordpress will give me 

Following this move, I'm going to start investing more heavily in producing content again. I'll be posting images regularly, mirroring what I post onto my daily blog site www.lostinfocus.org, posting more instructional articles and writing lots more reviews. It's going to be a big change, and will be for the better. 

So please bear with me over the next couple of days - this should be painless and transparent for you. It'll be worth the wait.

Any thoughts / ideas you'd like to see on the new site - let 'em rip in the comments section or email me. Otherwise, see you in a couple of days!

Untitled

A shot from my first roll of Velvia.



Olympus OM-1 + Olympus OM Zuiko 55mm f/1.2, Fuji Velvia 100

Untitled

Latest shot for my Horizon’s project.



Olympus OM-1 + Olympus OM Zuiko 55mm f/1.2, Fuji Velvia 100

Happy Halloween

A few days late but nonetheless…



Olympus OM-1 + Olympus OM Zuiko 55mm f/1.2, Fuji Velvia 100

Autumn Colours

Autumn came and pretty much went really fast here… a few pics from the last couple of weeks. Combination of Fuji Velvia 100 & Fujicolor Pro 160s shot with a Olympus OM-1 / OM-4 combo and a couple of Zuiko lenses.

 
 
 
 

My Thirty Favourite Shots

I opened a flickr account recently to keep in touch with some photographer friends who are very active there For some reason (UI or otherwise), I've never really gotten on well with Flickr. It also suffers a little from the "comment for me, i comment for you" mentality which inevitably persists amongst all community sites. Still, there is zero doubt that there is some amazing talent on there.

For me, I'm using it in a very limited fashion only. I did think it might be a fun / useful exercise trying to pick my best / favourite 30 shots from my past 5 years and posting there. It turned out to be a much harder exercise than I imagined. In any case, thought I'd share on here also. For better or for worst, here is my current selection of my best shots. Click on the link or screen grab to see the list.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ripsher/sets/72157622606224462/

EOS Canon 5D Mark II and Olympus OM Zuiko adapter

I've been building a collection of Olympus OM Zuiko lenses recently for the OM-1 and OM-4 film bodies I recently purchased. As I was trawling ebay for new glass, I thought it'd be fun to pick up an OM->EOS adapter to allow me to mount the Zuiko glass on my Canon 5D Mark II. It's a pretty interesting experience... Why do it? Well for one, fast Zuiko glass has a distinctive look that is different from more modern lenses - particularly the OOF (out of focus) characteristics (i.e. bokeh). Another reason is cost - you can pick up a great condition used Olympus Zuiko 50mm (or 55mm) f/1.2 for around $400 whereas a new autofocus Canon 50mm f/1.2 will run upwards of $1.5k. Finally, despite the fast apertures, Zuiko lenses are renowned for being extremely compact. For example, the Olympus Zuiko 50mm f/1.2 measures just 43mm in length vs 65mm for the Canon 50mm f/1.2. Of course, all this is not to suggest a direct comparison is warranted given the newer optics in the Canon, the AF, etc - but you get the point.

I'll consider putting up some reviews of the Zuiko's at a later date but for now, here's three quick of images from the a Canon 5D Mark II with a Olympus OM Zuiko 55mm f/1.2.

This is Rio... when you have time to focus, you get ultra sharp results with a dramatic falloff in depth of field due to the f/1.2

Shooting directly into a sunset gave no issues with flare, etc



More dramatic falloff in DOF and that funky Zuiko bokeh.

Sunrise in Seattle

Well, not exactly in Seattle but about a couple of hours North. I got up at 5am for this shoot, hit the road (picking up another photographer friend on the way) and we soon found ourselves driving through a beautiful mix of fog and morning sun. 

All shots taken with my Canon 5D Mark II and my 24-70 f/2.8 (a great lens but I hardly ever use it so this was a nice change).


This was a nice scene. The initial image didn't do it justice. It took a fair amount of photoshop to get the image back to how I remembered it

  
Only the first pic was taken on this trip (5D + 24-70 f/2.8). The second shot was about 2 weeks earlier taken with an Olympus E-P1 and Switar 26mm f/1.1. An interesting contrast. 



Probably the best technical shot from the morning 


The first and last shots will make it into my Horizon's gallery.

New pics

Things have been super busy in recent weeks with our new arrival (Sora - see below), lots of photography and even more work. Anyway, it's times like this I often tend  to fall behind updating this blog with images so I'm going to commit to making sure that doesn't happen. I've taken a bucket load of images recently so will post a couple of times today and then regularly moving forwards... My photography is undergoing a mini revolution as of late in so far as the equipment I'm using so look out for the unusual combinations of gear when I post.

The first series comes from two nights ago. While driving home from work on Friday night, it was clear it was going to be a stunning sunset. So I picked up Akuri and we took off to Magnolia where you can get uninterrupted views of the Puget Sound. Stunningly beautiful sky. All shot with the Olympus E-P1 and Switar 26mm f/1.1