Category: Photography

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Ireland

I went to Ireland and was able to go to a concert of Glen Hansard in a really cool setting. It was in a field owned by Shamash under a circus tent and put on by the Footsbarn Traveling Theatre. Everyone was extremely nice and I couldn’t ask for a cooler venue. The event started with Ye Vagabonds playing traditional Irish folk music. Ye Vagabonds is made up of 2 very talented brothers. They were funny and sound incredible. I really enjoyed their music. Hearing Glen play the music live that I’ve been listening to for a long time was amazing. His bass play from his band The Frames, Joe Doyle, backed him up along with a great violinist and cellist. I wish I wrote down their names. About halfway through the show and many stories later, Glen saw Marketa Irglova in the tent entrance and called her up. She had just arrived from Iceland for the show they were playing for the Swell Season on Oct 3rd, 2018. I didn’t expect she would be there for this show and was blown away when they played Falling Slowly. Towards the end of the show Glen brought up several talented musicians from the audience to play.

I stayed at a great B&B called Coill & Rois in Dingle. http://www.dinglebb.com Jimmy Bruin was a fantastic host and wonderful cook. I highly recommend staying here. It is off the beaten path a very relaxing.

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Canon EOS M5

I have been anxiously awaiting the new Canon EOS M5 which will become generally available in the US on Dec 8th. After a major mishap with the mirror on my 70D last summer I have decided to move to the mirrorless world.

I have looked at everything from Fujifilms XT-1, XT-2, and Sony’s Alpha 6300 and 7RII.

I was without a camera body for 6 months other than renting the Canon 5D Mark IV for a couple of occasions. It was amazing and I was able to take some incredible photos, however, it was not what I wanted.

For me,  my final decision boiled down to the lenses I currently own and if an adapter existed for the Fujifilm and Sony bodies that would allow me to take advantage of their capabilities. In all of the research that I did, I could never find a 100% positive functioning adapter other than that produced by Canon for their M series. So I made my decision to stick with Canon. Now what were the options. I knew I would need to purchase the canon EF-EOS M adapter https://shop.usa.canon.com/shop/en/catalog/mount-adapter-ef-eos-m which were ranging in price from $150 to $200.  Also, the best mirrorless body Canon has produced up to this point is the M3. It had a lot of mixed reviews and lacked a built-in viewfinder. Finally, I found some reviews that talked about the sensor, it’s focusing capabilities and that with some setting tweaked, it was a great little camera. The M3 also went on sale with a package deal of the M3 body, the EF-EOS M adapter, and an 18-55mm macro lens for $599. With the expense of having to rent a camera body and knowing that I would need to purchase an adapter I decided to purchase the M3 package.

It has taken me a little time to get use to some of the feature and tweaking settings so it performs the way I like, but all-in-all, I have been able to capture some incredible pictures and video with it. This makes me all the more excited to get the M5 later this week when it is finally available.