The British Museum with my E-PL5

FunGun wrote:

Really nice photos. I enjoy reading your blog, too. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers!

excellent all, but especially like the wider architectural shots in the first two. i would love to go to the british museum one day (i'm about 10,000 miles away in australia) it looks and sounds amazing. looks like the epl5 copes well with significan DR scenes too.

robonrome wrote:

excellent all, but especially like the wider architectural shots in the first two. i would love to go to the british museum one day (i'm about 10,000 miles away in australia) it looks and sounds amazing. looks like the epl5 copes well with significan DR scenes too.

Thanks, both of the shots you particularly like are with the 9-18mm, a very underated lens in my book (and I own the 7-14 too).

The DR and high ISO which equal (or if you believe DXO, exceed) the E-M5 are good reasons to give the E-PL5 a look. I'm keeping my E-M5 too but the convenience of the PEN for urban/touristy type subjects cannot be underestimated. I also like it because it makes me use my primes (the 75 is about the biggest lens I would want to put on it).

You have some really nice images there, and it's obvious you're getting comfortable with this camera. I have been using an E-PL3 since it first came out and would love to upgrade to the new version (I'm not particularly a fan of the E-M5), but my wife would kill me. Especially because I recently sprung for the Oly 75 myself. I love this lens but agree that it's the biggest I would ever throw on this size camera.

-Richard

CelticOdyssey wrote:

You have some really nice images there, and it's obvious you're getting comfortable with this camera. I have been using an E-PL3 since it first came out and would love to upgrade to the new version (I'm not particularly a fan of the E-M5), but my wife would kill me. Especially because I recently sprung for the Oly 75 myself. I love this lens but agree that it's the biggest I would ever throw on this size camera.

-Richard

How about getting an E-PL5 in the same colour and taking the grip off?

I would just like to point out I don't condone this course of action and definitely wouldn't do it myself (just in case anyone is reading this)...

Sergey Borachev wrote:

Thanks for the photos.

Is it true that there many many stolen treasures there?

Like a lot of museums with a "cultural" theme, there are certainly lots of exhibits that are contraversial where demands have been made for the return of such exhibits to their country of origin.

The Elgin Marbles, Benin Bronzes and the Rosetta Stone are among the most disputed objects in its collections, and demands have been made for the return of these artefacts to their native countries of Greece, Nigeria and Egypt respectively.

A quick shot of one of the Elgin Marbles:

Are all these in camera filter effects?

Hello,

Nice pics.  Enjoyed them all.

But is it really true the British mostly stole the artworks?  Have any of the countries ask for their stlen art returned back to them?

Back to a few questions about the camera:

Does the EPL5 image stabilazation hum like in the EPM5?

And  is the shutter sound as quiet or more quiet than EPM5?

Do you use the clip on EVF?

I prefer the rangefinder style over the mini DSLR MFT  so thinking of getting a black EPL5 + EVF  as a travel camera.

Thanks for posting.

GuardianFlash wrote:

Are all these in camera filter effects?

No - these are all processed in Lightroom and the B&W effects are created through NIK Silver EFEX. Most of the time this involves one or other film filter, some vignetting and one of many colour filters.  I usually selectively darken and brighten and/or adjust contrast and/or structure of areas in Silver EFEX too.

Alexis D wrote:

Thanks for the explanation.

I find it strange that anything taken from another country and especially something invaluable to those countries and their people can be just kept indefinitely and even openly displayed as if it's right.

I suppose might is right after all, in spite of the Magna Carter and all the talk of the system of law or the high moral and ethical grounds that some countries purport to have.

I certainly think it's true that the way many of (though certainly not all) the artifacts in question were acquired in ways which might give us cause for concern now and that don't stand up to the high moral and ethical standards of today.

But where do you draw the line? The inevitable consequence is that the museums of the world are emptied. In any event, I'm not the museum, nor do I think DPreview is the right place to debate all of this. By all means make your views plain, but I suspect my blog (see the link in the original post) or other non photography focused fora are a better place to do that as opposed to here.

ryan2007 wrote:

Most of your photographs seem to show the permanent homo-sapian exhibit. It must change all the time.

What I took is certainly from the permanent exhibits (I was practically running round to get all the shots I wanted in 45 minutes at lunchtime!). I don't know how often the objects in the exhibits are rotated, but I seem to recall that many are relatively permanent whereas others are frequently rotated.

SergeyGreen wrote:

It's a good place for photographers. Have you tried the circular roof with wide lens yet, in BW it turns out quite nicely.

Do you mean from within the reading room building (which I didn't go into) or from the floor of the great court? I did get some shots from the floor of the great court. Here is one with my 9-18mm:

Len_Gee wrote:

Hello,

Nice pics. Enjoyed them all.

But is it really true the British mostly stole the artworks? Have any of the countries ask for their stlen art returned back to them?

Back to a few questions about the camera:

Does the EPL5 image stabilazation hum like in the EPM5?

And is the shutter sound as quiet or more quiet than EPM5?

Do you use the clip on EVF?

I prefer the rangefinder style over the mini DSLR MFT so thinking of getting a black EPL5 + EVF as a travel camera.

Thanks for posting.

Hi there

Thank you!

As to the provenance of the exhibits, many were acquired in ways that may seem morally or ethically dubious now (I reference this in my blog post). Certainly I'm aware of demands having been made for the return of certain exhibits by Nigeria, Egypt and Greece (most people are probably aware of the debate around the Elgin marbles).

I'm not sure how many were "stolen" in the traditional sense of the word. There are certainly exhibits that were acquired through the expansion of the British Empire (which fall closest to that definition), but the most contentious ones seem to be those where there is a debate around whether people were given good value for what was acquired (as an example, think about Peter Minuit's purchase of Manhattan Island for 60 guilders, the equivalent of about $1000) or where (as in the case of the Elgin marbles) the relevant authorities (from where the exhibits were acquired) at the time don't represent the current nation states concerned (by way of example, in the case of Greece, the Ottoman administration in Athens pre independence of Greece from the Ottoman empire).

As I said to another poster, I suspect the above is sufficiently off topic that a debate would be better hosted on my blog post or elsewhere...