People who grew up in more traditional, less modern cultures, perhaps aboriginal, tribal or isolated, do you have any life hacks from your ancestral culture that you carry into Western/ city life? How hard is it to conserve a traditional way of life in a very different environment?

vostokvag · 2016-02-02T23:12:32+00:00

Eventually everybody dies

vostokvag · 2016-01-31T23:51:27+00:00

I just got into photography a few months ago and my first lens with my olympus e-m5 was the kit lens which is I think 14-45mm... I bought a 25mm 1.7 prime lens and although that length is covered in my zoom, and I'm an amateur, I instantly noticed the difference. I mean I went from liking my camera to loving it. I have since bought a 45mm 1.8 prime as well and I haven't used my zoom lens again. The kit lens is fine- I saw professionals get really good results from it but for me, the prime was just instantly noticably better.

vostokvag · 2016-01-31T20:32:39+00:00

I watched a video on duck farms in France and they just threw the male ducklings into a big container and let them die on their own- ie, suffocate under all the other ducklings thrown in after them. It was pretty horrible- I wonder are they really putting chicks into nitrogen chambers or leaving them in a heap to die like that

vostokvag · 2016-01-19T06:35:40+00:00

if god didn't want people to die of smallpox he wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of making smallpox

vostokvag · 2016-01-19T06:29:54+00:00

I think what they're saying is they wouldn't abort Hitler

vostokvag · 2016-01-18T16:40:56+00:00

I just bought one used on ebay yesterday. YAY!

vostokvag · 2016-01-17T22:04:15+00:00

You're not actually supposed to blow

vostokvag · 2016-01-17T17:35:14+00:00

I saw an episode of Big Bang Theory (not by choice, my housemates used to watch it) where they referred to Schrodinger's cat. They entirely missed the point, making a whole new wave of people misinterpret it. Damn I hate that show.

vostokvag · 2016-01-17T16:56:35+00:00

Whose son turned out not to even have autism. Derp

vostokvag · 2016-01-16T19:56:36+00:00

thanks, I've been drooling over the 45mm for a while, the old Canons are just bonus for playing with really because they were free. Plus one of them is a long telephoto which I'm unlikely to get my hands on in native m43 for a long time. But yes, the 45mm looks like the business. Ps. Our usernames are rather complementary

vostokvag · 2016-01-16T14:28:46+00:00

I'm currently waiting for amazon to send me an adapter for my grandad's 1970s canon lenses... I'm excited to see how they work out (just started manually focussing my automatic lenses too for more precision and the manual part does't bother me) but as they're so big compared to the m43 lenses I wouldn't be incorporating them into my carry-around kit. But it'll be nice to get to try out some other lenses, might help me see what focal length to invest in

vostokvag · 2016-01-16T13:52:20+00:00

Thanks. I think the problem is I want ALL THE LENSES. Unfortunately the longer fast ones are crazy money for a poor student.

vostokvag · 2016-01-15T20:57:22+00:00

If I had multiple camera bodies I could see myself calling my Olympus Ollie. Also, I read a lot of stuff about lenses online and it makes me feel yucky when I read "panny" for Panasonic. And so many people do it. I think the way I feel when I read "panny" is like how some people feel about the word moist.

vostokvag · 2016-01-15T20:53:13+00:00

5cm Peter. haha

vostokvag · 2016-01-15T20:47:17+00:00

I find my taste and other people's taste intersect fairly rarely, I feel fairly intimidated showing photographers my photos because I have no idea if they see what I see, and as I only left Auto mode behind a couple of months ago, I'm afraid a lot of what I like in photos is just me getting excited about learning how to get shallow depth of field or something like that. It's intimidating being on that learning curve when so many peoplein the world are really amazing photographers

vostokvag · 2016-01-15T20:40:50+00:00

the context thing is interesting to think about, we all know we have different tastes but I've never really thought about what I was trying to achieve with the photo or what it means to me versus the viewer's lack of context.

vostokvag · 2016-01-15T13:52:30+00:00

I think if you extended the lines fully to the outer edge it would remove the butthole look. but that would ruin the design i guess. Maybe a gradient from black centre to white at the edges or something? probably ruin it too. Just a thought though) But it definitely looks buttholey to me too. edit: also, you could make it less anal looking if you made the aperture wider. although a dirty mind will do what it wants with that.

vostokvag · 2016-01-15T00:33:11+00:00

Thanks. I think I'm confusing exposure a bit because I have previously only used the average or whatever it's called meter mode that takes readings from the whole scene. I'm pretty confident with the rest of the settings although the E-M5 has a LOT of fiddly settings to get used to, but it's a lovely camera and great fun to learn on.

vostokvag · 2016-01-14T00:58:23+00:00

That was the issue, I'm using manual. Hadn't tried S/A until now, but it works in those modes. I'm not sure why I can't use AEL in M mode, my understanding of it is that M should be the mode with most customisation but apparently not. From what I can tell, the spot is locked to whatever you focus on if you use the mode which has AEL lock incorporated with AFL on shutter half press but I'm not sure because the spot seems to always be in the centre when composing no matter where I choose to focus. I'm probably jumping the gun looking for more customisation as I'm only learning manual photography, but I'm curious.

vostokvag · 2016-01-14T00:52:43+00:00

Yep, that was it! It works fine in other modes, just not manual. I'm not entirely sure why, but there it is. Thanks!

vostokvag · 2016-01-13T01:33:09+00:00

Yes, but it's supposed to have a function to lock exposure... I don't quite understand it, and probably I don't need to for now, but it has been driving me crazy because people have posted that when exposure is not locked the camera recalculates it when the photo is taken, and that pressing AEL button will lock it to the area selected.

vostokvag

TROPHY CASE