Holi–Festival of Colours

I had written a blog on Holi last year (2011). If you would like to know more about the festival then you can read it here

This is going to be just a photo blog.

Last year I had used my weather-proof E-5 with 12-60 lens. So I had no qualms about going into the crowd and shooting close. E-5’s (and 12-60 as well) fantastic weather seal took every storm in its stride. This time it was different. This time I had to go to office, so I was wearing formals. As a result I couldn’t go into the crowd, I had to shoot from a distance.

Initially I had thought about taking my E-5 + 50-200mm SWD (excellent combo!). But I decided against it because I needed a lighter setup (my E-5 is always on with battery-grip, so its heavier as it is and with 50-200, its like a bazooka!). So I took along my E-P2 and Panasonic m4/3 45-200mm. The performance can be described in single word – WOW!!

Here are some of the details and observations

• I used ISO-400 because the crowd was celebrating Holi in shades and I needed fast shutter speed to capture the action. The sun was bright so even the shades were well lit.
• The Panasonic 45-200 is an extremely light lens, with E-P2 the combination is feather light.
• I used VF-2 external EVF all through. I think it just gives you a better idea about the exposure than the LCD. Its fantastic!
• I used burst mode for about 50% of the shoot. I took a total of about 125 pics.
• All pics were RAW and processed in Lightroom 3.6 (minor adjustment for brightness, contrast, and vibrancy)
• Panasonic 45-200 is extremely fast to focus. Not a single moment I felt I missed a shot because the lens was slow to focus. If I missed a shot then I was not ready.
• The lens rotates clockwise to zoom in, opposite of all the Olympus lenses. Unfortunately this took me some time to adjust which contributed to some missed shots :-(.
• I found the lens to be amazingly sharp at all focal lengths.
• For image Stabilization, I turned on the 45-200’s MEGA OIS. I kept the E-P2’s in-body IS off. I feel the MEGA OIS is more reliable at long focal lengths than the in-body IS.

Here are the pics for you to enjoy

Hope you enjoyed!

Ciao!!