A couple of weeks ago, Rhonda and I visited Aaron at Rutgers for homecoming/parents weekend. We had a great time walking around campus and dining out. I took my camera bag so I could shoot with both the OM Systems E-M10 Mark IV and my older Olympus E-PL5. I kept the Lumix 20mm f/1.7 on the E-M10, and the whacky TT Artisans 18mm f/6.3 lens on the E-PL5. Knowing the TT Artisans took interesting pictures when there’s plenty of light, I thought it might be fun to try to grab some indoor shots where there was a stark contrast between dark and light zones.

Here are two pics I took from inside Zimmerli, looking up from the ground floor to the skylight:

You can certainly see some differences, but I was impressed by how much detail the TT Artisans picked up, and how similar the images are.

The next two pics show renderings of stained glass, which compelled me to shoot them, as they were in a dark hallway only illuminated by ceiling lights, but because they were strongly backlit, I thought they would make a nice study in contrast between the two lenses.

Here’s the TT Artisans:

And the Panasonic:

The Lumix lens grabbed way more detail for sure, but the ultra-cheap TT Artisans did a great job rendering the image because of the light.

I was inspired partly by this shot I took the day before at Working Dog Winery, where I snuck this pic of a bottle of their unoaked chardonnay while we were sitting on the patio.

There’s nothing terribly compelling about this image, and Friday’s waning sun under the roof of the porch didn’t leave as much room for pics as I’d hoped with the TT Artisans. But I was gassed when I saw the contrast between the lighted side of the bottle and the shaded size that opposed it. It captures neatly the amount of light that the f/6.3 needs… but also some creative potential for future shoots.