The Zuiko OM 40mm F2 Pancake lens is a very curious lens indeed! It has worked its way from my desk, and onto my Olympus OM-1 as a mainstay. That’s correct, it is my current favourite OM lens!

Now, I have found that there is not a lot of real life reviews of the lens, especially on youtube. You will find currently I have four videos show casing what this lens can do on my youtube page (If you have found your way here without finding one, I suggest checking them out).

So what have I found out about this lens after so much use? Firstly, let me leave the disclaimer that I use this as my main walk around lens, and the character of this lens makes it one of my favourite lenses of all time. This flavour may not be for everyone.

Let me state the first quirk: This lens if fantastic for close-up photography! Yes, that’s right, this lens can focus around 23-25cm. This, used with the fast aperture of F2 can produce lovely results, and is really handy for more experimental photography. This works well on film, and really well on digital - again evidence for this is within my videos.

This lens is better for black and white, but can work for colour photography. This lens is based on the 6 elements in four groups lens found on the Olympus 35RD/ 35DC. Legend has it that this was Yoshihisa Maitani’s favourite lens that he wanted to be created for general use. I have found that these lenses just -look- right on black & white film, and black and white digital photographs. Once again, when using a faster aperture and utilising the lenses close distance, it looks great on colour film.

This lens is not completely sharp at all apertures across the frame. This will bug some people, especially those into landscapes etc. There is distortion at certain apertures as well, but all this feeds into the character this lens has. I have found that this lens is fantastic for street photography and travel photography, where subjects in the main tend to be in the foreground and midground, and using this lens from F2-F8 tends to get results I find most pleasing.

BOKEH - I love the bokeh from this lens, and I love using it at F2. Once again, leaning on the close-up feature of this lens, when adapting to a digital camera the centre of the frame is pin sharp, and the bokeh is creamy goodness! I have one video where I used this feature quite a bit.

In conclusion who is this lens for? Everything on the table, this lens is best for street photography and general or travel photography. It’s quirks only help add character to photographs, but this will not be for everyone. Being a pancake lens, this, along with the fast F2, is probably why people would purchase this lens. The zuiko OM 40mm F2 has become quite an expensive lens, due to its rarity. This has led to prices shooting up, and I have noticed since posting videos on it the price has increased more.

If you have any questions about this lens, please feel free to ask! - Sly

Now that the first video in the 'Battle of the Zuiko 40mm' is up on youtube, after 20 odd hours of editing and rendering, I have decided to make a blog about editing videos.

Now making videos has become an important part of what I do, and it is something I enjoy doing. I am lucky enough to have a good friend filming me most weeks on the London streets. Editing is something I have had to learn on the fly in regard to photo walks. Most of my older videos were just guitar gear reviews/demos, and did not need much editing. Photowalk vids are hour(s) worth of footage, ontop of scaning/ uploading/ editing photos.

Trying to gauge and feel my way through what is right in terms of editing has been a steep learning curve. Even having an idea in my head of what I want, can be difficult to translate to the screen. However, I have gotten comfortable with the whole documentary style shakey video and fast editing.

It is the hardest part of making videos. The content flows more easily, as it is spontaneous on the streets, and things always present themselves. Once in the editing suite, everything slows down, there's footage to cut, music and audio to sync, and subtitles to write (dear lord the bloody subtitles!).

If I have any tips, it would be to be cut throat with the footage. I have found that about 6-8 mins is best for me, with 10-12 mins when I have someone else in the video. As nice as it is getting footage walking along, adding more than 5-10 seconds of walking footage in between photos/ actual content is a no-no. It is something I have had to really cut back on, especially in places I love like Camden and Brick Lane.

Out-takes have become important to my video workflow. It is something I never force, but I always like adding in bits at the end where I am cocking up, or a silly part of the day that was actually captured. I think it adds a human element to the process.

Swearing is fine in videos. Everyone has a different take on this, however I think it is an important expressive part of human expression. I am not talking add expletives for the sake of it, but the odd 'bollock's or 'shit' I have no issues with. It all comes down to taste...

Anywho, just a couple of thoughts on editing vids. See you on the flip flop - Sly.