Olympus TG1 a great waterproof camera

Last Christmas I took the Olympus TG1 on holidays to Broadbeach for the convenience of taking some in and underwater shots. I usually take the Canon S95 down to the beach and try as best a possible to avoid sand and water, but you also miss many shots being so careful. Not with the TG1, it just goes where you go and is one tough camera. The quality of the images is fair, and probably on par with the Canon S95. If anything they are a little flatter than the Canon, but yell, I can take this in the ocean and the pool! Enjoy.

Cooper & Oliver make sandcastles

Cooper aqua

Oliver aqua

How passionate are you about photography?

I met a great guitarist today in Hyde Park named Gavin. I'd walked past him a few times a week on my way to the city, and he is always playing and creating as life strolls by. Well today I decided to talk with him about his playing and technique as I too play the guitar, just not that well. It turns out he used to work in Holland as an engineer, but felt so strongly about his guitar playing that he gave everything up to play and busk on the streets. Now that's passion and commitment. Even though he is an amazing player, all he kept saying is, "I have so much more to learn". And he claims to have only taken up the instrument in the last 6 years. I recorded a short clip with his permission for you all to enjoy below, and to think about what passion is about. Are we all taking our photography to a level like this? I'm not. Funnily enough whilst I was shooting this on my iPhone 4 there was a photographer with a Nikon d800e taking shots, good to see. Enjoy.

x100s turning day into night with flash

Yes the x100s syncs to 1/4000th of a second. Why? Well unless you are shooting extremely fast kids on a regular basis with a flash gun, you can use this feature to turn day into night to get some very interesting affects. This is a simple demonstration using a small child's bike, but the shots you can get from portraits is stunning. Maybe I'll do a post on this soon. So what gear am I using beside the x100s? to trigger the flash I'm using a Wein Sync-Link Flash Trigger that is easily mountable on the hot shoe  and takes 2 AA batteries with a simple on/off switch. This sends a IR pulse to the slave flash of your choice - not sure if its TTL. The flash I chose is the Yongnuo YN 460-II as its acts as a slave and its very inexpensive. I'm very happy with this flash and actually find it better than my Canon equivalent because its easily switched in slave mode - I use S1 mode. Switch the x100s flash into C mode and the Wein will fire the flash - and sync up to 1/4000th of a second. Importantly turn on your ND filter - it acts to darken the scene and trick the camera to get the night affect. Yeah! Enjoy.

x100s with Wein Sync Link and Yongnuo flash

Wein Sync Link - uses IR pulse to fire external flash in salve mode

Yongnuo YN 460-II flash in S1 slave mode

Reference shot in full sun Program mode

Shutter priority f2 iso 320 nd filter 1/4000th

Manual f2 iso 500 nd filter 1/4000th

manual f2 iso 800 nd filter 1/4000th

Manual f4 iso 800 nd filter 1/4000th

Manual f4 iso 1000 nd filter 1/4000th