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OLYMPUS MASTER VIDEO SERIES SHOOT YOUR STORY Twilight is a great time to shoot pictures. There’s colour in the sky, building lights are on and shadows start to get dark andmysterious. But the thing is, time is of the essence because night falls rapidly; so you need a fast performing camera like the Olympus OM-DE-M5Mark III , which is what Will Cheung used for his shoot
T wilight, when the sun is below the horizon but still lighting up the sky, is a magical time for pictures. What’s more, every twilight, like every sunset or sunrise, is unique with colours, duration and intensity and you can get fabulously photogenic twilights even on dull, wet days. Which is just as well, as the evening I chose to shoot the London skyline just happened to be cloudy and wet. My aim for this shoot, as a long time stills photographer, was to explore the creative opportunities of mixing still images with video for an eye-catching multi-media presentiation. I was shooting with the Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III so I was not concerned with the camera’s welfare because it is splash resistant, as are the M.Zuiko PRO lenses I was using, but there remains the issue of raindrops
landing on the lens front. A microfibre lens cloth proved invaluable. I had planned to start my shoot a little before the actual sunset time, even though the sun wasn’t in sight, on Tower Bridge before moving off to the area around City Hall. The 12- 40mm f/2.8 PRO lens was perfect for general views of the London skyline on both banks of the Thames, and I swapped to the 40-150mm f/2.8 PRO for tightly framed shots of the office blocks. I did use a travel tripod for some shots because it was so windy, but also shot handheld. The place was busy with visitors and handholding let me achieve camera viewpoints and people-free shots that I couldn’t manage with a small tripod. One big selling point of the OM-D E-M5 Mark III is its very effective five-axis, sensor shift in-body image stabilisation (IBIS) system with up to
6.5EV benefit with Sync IS-compatible lenses and 5.5EV benefit with other lenses. In practice this means successful handheld still shooting even when the light levels are very low, while for video you get smooth, judder free footage even when walking around. I hoped that the sky would hold some colour for 30 minutes and that was about right because night quickly fell and the sky went brown-black from light pollution. What it did mean was that there was no time to dilly dally so having the camera set up and ready to go was doubly important. See how I set the OM-D E-M5 Mark III for stills and video shooting on the opposite page. I’m pleased with my efforts. Getting quality stills and video in a short time is a challenge for a video novice, but having the right kit set up and ready to go certainly helps. The OM-D E-M5 Mark III didn’t let me down.
TOP IMAGE Shot with an Olympus OM-D EM-5 Mark III fitted with a 40-150mm f/2.8 lens set to 130mm and the pair mounted on a travel tripod that was sitting on the bridge’s parapet. The exposure was 0.8sec at f/7.1 and ISO 200 and the shutter was released using the self-timer. ABOVE The Olympus OM-D EM-5 Mark III features a very effective in-body image stabiliser which came in very useful for this shot where a tripod was not a practical proposition. Here the exposure was 1/5sec at f/10 and ISO 200.
20 Photography News | Issue 73
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