The 12-60mm lens offers a field of view equivalent to a 24-120mm lens on a 35mm camera, with a relatively bright maximum aperture of f/2.8-4. This lens promises to provide the world's fastest autofocus speeds, thanks to the silent SWD focusing motor. (Highly recommended - Ephotozine.com)

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This is a truly brilliant lens and the chief reason I bought an Olympus Four Thirds system. I'm a graphic designer who also does commercial photography and this is the closest to a 'do everything' lens that there is. Bright and wide for interiors, very good telefocal (120mm eqiv) and nice bokeh for portraits, incredibly fast and accurate autofocus, all with weather sealing and tank-like construction. Even the macro capabilities are stunning. A lot of this is due to Olympus designing the Four-thirds digital cameras and lens system from the ground up (not adapting from a film standard).

So if I love it so much why sell it? Well, I have two of them - this one was for an assistant but no longer required and has mostly indoor use - food photography and interiors. The listing photos of this lens were taken with my other Zuiko 12-60 ED.

This works best with the Olympus E-3 or E-5, and will work well with any Olympus E series (which is the Four thirds standard) and you can get an adapter for it to work on Micro Four-thirds cameras from Olympus and Panasonic.

Excellent condition, works like it did new. Some very minor cosmetic wear to rubber and to the plastic hood. Glass is perfect and completely free of moisture or mold. Original box, hood, info cards and caps are included. It has had a UV filter protecting the front element for most of its life. This lens has a proper manual focus ring (not focus by wire).

Check out the reviews for this lens. If you have an Olympus or Panasonic Four thirds camera this is an essential lens to have in your kit.

Review links:
https://www.cameralabs.com/olympus_zuiko_digital_12-60mm_sw
d/2/
https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympus-12-60-2p8-4-o20/4


Listed on Trademe for $450 but offered here for $400 without Trademes selling fees.
Contact Scotty 027 662 6666 or [email protected]

Phil and his team at Back9Design have kept me very busy of late with a flurry of new web sites and more are in development.  We make up a framework and the Back9 team fill it up with the all important content.  We check it over and make sure everything works and test it across a multitude of platforms (mobiles, notebooks, different browsers etc.).  Then the sites are optimised for search engine visibility and linked to social media.

Here are a few we've put up recently:

• MervsMechanical.co.nz 
• EmmaStanleyLaw.co.nz
• SafetyFirstServiceLocators.co.nz
• Tuffjets.co.nz
• ThayerToddValuations.co.nz

Keeping your emails stored in order is good practice but whats the best way to do this across multiple devices? The Label system in Gmail and the Mail app within Google Apps for Business functions somewhat different to folders in conventional email clients like Outlook, MacMail and others. Some people love this, others are more sceptic but when it's explained properly most come around - labels work, folders are yesterdays jam....

'Need' is a pretty strong word but thats how I feel about Dropbox having used it for a few years now. Who out there has good habits with backing up their important documents, photos and files? If you have Dropbox already you probably answered an emphatic YES, but if you don't well this should really be of interest to you.

Dropbox is a Cloud Storage service. Essentially, it creates a folder on your computer which is copied to a server, any changes or additions you make to files  within that folder are uploaded when you're connected to the internet. You can access your files from any connected computer using your username and password, and you can share folders with other Dropbox users with great ease - fantastic for sending lots of  files to your Graphic Designer....

One of the first things we sort out for clients with new businesses is a domain name. This isn't just for for your website - it's your companies' online identity. I'll explain this further below, but first lets look at email.
There are plenty of good free mail services out there, Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, AppleMail and more. Your ISP (Internet service provider) will no doubt offer you free email accounts also - this is a cunning way to keep you as a customer as changing ISPs will mean closing these email accounts. Once you've invested in advertising this email address you won't want to change it, so changing ISP for a better price, speed or service is no longer an option. Also, having an email address like [email protected] might be appropriate if you're renting out bouncy castles, but other cases these free domains can hinder your professional appearance. What you need to know is having email accounts on your domain is easy....

So, it's about 2 years since I modified my studio desk from a seated arrangement to a fixed standing one. While I haven't recorded any real data on productivity, I can offer some anecdotal findings. At first my feet and ankles would become fatigued so I bought a bar stool and modified this to be a little higher as the standing desk is a bit higher than a bar (to suit my height). Normally I use this seat for the first 5 minutes of a working session, then almost unconsciously I remove the seat as it simply feels far more comfortable to stand. My posture at the desk is far better and mental fatigue takes a lot longer to become noticeable.  This mirrors Radio NZs' Simon Morton's  findings in the podcast below which also explains a lot of the scientific findings around standing desks.
I'm yet to upgrade to a 'walking desk' but I do find myself shifting my stance a lot so this is something I'll try out soon.

Here's another video from Derek Sivers, pretty well sums up my intentions for Aeon Design. I bought Dereks book a while back which isn't so much a self-help business book, it's just him explaining how it worked for him. There's an important message here that reaffirms what I set out to do. Be useful. We put a lot of energy if developing real world solutions for real people and businesses. Aeon Design isn't Big-Big-Big but we're equipped with the know-how and resources which makes us extremely useful - and because of this we're growing.

Here's a little video I've posted before on facebook but it has a message I like to remind myself of and share with anyone who creates anything themselves.

So my wife doesn't quite understand my current enthusiam. I've spent a few (several) late nights researching, selecting and sourcing all the best (within my budget) parts for my new studio system. Now it's all here and after surprisingly little fustration, its assembled and alive!

I've had my heart set on a Fractal Design case. They come pre installed with something I'm yet to see on other computer cases: Sound baffeling. And most impressive is how solid this case is - its a tank! I've gone for the smaller R3 mini to save a little space and it suits the microATX board from Asus I'd chosen earlier. I had narrowed the case down to 2 - this and the Silverstone F3 Micro Tower.

It was always going to be easier fitting the liquid cooling systel in the Fractal Design case and the Antech 920 works a treat - must say it was the second one sent out, first one had a bubbling noise. The replacement is almost silent and the Antec software only ramps up the fans when you need it.

Lightroom is really the only program I use that causes the i7 quadcore to go beyond 50 degrees C - I'd put that down to the loading of hundreds ofraw high res photos. Photoshop, Indesign, Flash, Illustrator, all running at once, this thing barely breaks at sweat 40 degrees C, and idle it's sub 30 C.

The touch screen fan controller monitors heat in 5 different zones through sensor I've installed and the case fans increase speed when and where required.

How could this possibly be considered 'geeky'