When people have a moan about my blog, top of the moan list is my photos. I am the first to say that my photographic skills are basic – when I look around some of the incredible photography on blogs it’s even more obvious that I’m showing inferior pictures and it’s bothered me for a long time. But, time is what I don’t have – to do a course or study on line or any of the things that might just pick the photos up a little.
So you can imagine that I practically bit off Olympus’s hand when they offered me the chance to host a photography workshop for my blog friends at their studio in Bishopsgate using the Olympus PEN Digital E-PL7 Camera. We had the best of tutors with Cleveland Aaron showing us around the camera (find him on Twitter at @cleve_A to see his profile picture taken by his four year old son! clearly photography skills run in the family!) and needing all of his patience!
So, I’m at the very beginning of my journey with the Olympus PEN Digital Camera E-PL7 but have managed to connect it to WIFI at home so that I can download pictures from the camera to my iPhone (I know..! It’s like discovering the microwave all over again – “it does what?”). As someone who has just existed with iPhone pics for the past two years, it’s really hard for me to tell you all the facilities because I don’t know them yet.. but one of the most useful aspects for bloggers is the flip down LCD screen that means you can selfie away very easily indeed.
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Here’s one of the pictures I took last night while we were playing with how to use light. Bearing in mind I had only picked up the camera about five minutes previously, I’m rather pleased with it.
Olympus PENSo, these are some of my ‘practice’ pictures – realistically, it is going to take some time for me to get used to it and find all the functions… but.. *thrilled face*!
I think we were very lucky to have Cleveland – he explained how to use the camera so well for us non-techies and in such a way that I came home with enough basic function knowledge to use it immediately – so don’t laugh at my new efforts – they WILL get better!
As a blogger camera, the Olympus PEN Digital Camera E-PL7 is probably the ultimate in ease of use (I mean, if I can, anyone can!) and versatility with functions that mean you can be creative rather than obvious (the ‘spot’ colour option where everything can be black and white except the one thing you want to be in colour), the tap screen to take a picture, the WIFI, the focus with everything blurry behind (I’m sure there’s a technical term for this!) – oh, so many things. I know it’s going to take a little while to learn it, but I genuinely feel I will have better photography on the blog from the PEN – in fact, I know I will. I am never, ever going to be David Bailey but pictures play such a big part of blogging, and my pictures are something I’ve felt self-conscious about (thanks, trolls) for a really long time. The best word to describe what I feel about this camera is relief. At last, I have the tools to do the job properly – although, caveat.. give me time to work my way around it!
Although we were given our cameras by Olympus, I now know I need to invest in the macro lense (£69) a ton of white paper, a tripod and a basic little lamp (I will take Mr BBB’s from the bedside..shh) as well as a cheap n cheerful LED lamp (Morrisons have them for £5, according to Mikhila @msbudgetbeauty). Sponsored as this is, I am genuinely SO happy to have this camera and I’d hand on heart recommend it a million times.
There’s a whole lot more to read up on about the camera HERE.
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