Konstantin Tovstiadi - DIStance

Print Sale

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:02:41 -0400

My photography is doing well. My profits from photography have exceeded my photographic expenses. I have all the bodies and lenses I need for any job. Whatever I don't have, I know where to rent it. I have all the software that I need to process images and 4Tb of disk space to back them up. The only important element that was missing in my workflow until now is a large lab quality printer.

Tomorrow I will have one. It is an Epson Stylus Pro 3800. It prints on almost any media in sizes up to a giant 17 x 22 inches. It uses pigment ink that has an estimated fade resistance of up to 200 years. It has far better tonal control and gradation (especially in Black and White) than the Canon Pixma Pro 9900 I had a while ago - and that printer already produced superb results (all the prints in my Light Years exhibit were produced with it).

To celebrate the new printer, I am going to have a print sale and sell my prints 50% off. Prices are as follows:

Epson Stylus Pro 3800 (large image, opens in a new window)

5 x 7 - old price: $15 - sale price: $8
8 x 10 - old price: $25 - sale price: $12
12 x 16 - old price: $45 - sale price: $22
13 x 19 - old price: $75 - sale price: $37
16 x 20 - old price: $100 - sale price: $50
17 x 22 - old price: $125 - sale price: $62

Prices quoted are for full bleed (=zero border) prints on Ilford Galerie Smooth Gloss paper. They are also available on Hahnemühle Museum Etching fine art paper (350gsm) or on Epson Exhibition Fine Art Fiber Glossy Inkjet Paper (325gsm) for a small additional fee.

Larger sizes (20 x 30, 30 x 40, 40 x 60) are also available. E-mail me for a quote if interested - they will be ordered from a pro lab in New York.

What images are available?

Anything on these pages - there are over 150 photos there; if you want to see more, e-mail me for a password to my private galleries.

How do you order a print?

E-maill me and let me know what image you want, at what size, and what kind of paper. I will print it within 2 or 3 business days and hand-deliver it for free anywhere in Norman or ship it via USPS Priority Mail (add the actual shipping cost in that case). I take cash, checks, or PayPal and can provide you with an invoice if necessary.

The end of mediocrity

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:50:20 -0400

The Internet was meant to be the great equalizer. Access to information for all, power for all. Access to markets for all, money for all.

The reality is not as clear cut. The Internet, as banal as it sounds, is a game changer; many industries have changed tremendously with the advent of globally shared environments. One industry that has changed is stock photography.

I have a portfolio of 150 images on iStockphoto.com - the industry leader, who in tandem with Getty Images, its owner, have a stronghold on both the old macro and the new micro stock markets.

Microstock sounds like an embodiment of the Internet equalizer dream. Anybody can become a contributor. Anybody can sell an image. Uncle Joe can buy a cheapo camera, get a lucky shot, and make thousands selling it to people 10,000 miles away - with a minimal cost to the buyer, but with accumulating profits for the seller.

But there is a catch. Not only does Uncle Joe has access to the global market; he now has to compete with global competitors. There are photographers on iStock whose work makes my pictures look like an amateur joke. There are shots where I can't even tell what technique was used to produce them. They are as inexplicable to me as Paco de Lucia's flamenco virtuosity or Dmitry Hvorostovsky emotional range. I can only marvel in awe.

There are thousands of photographers like me - we produce decent work, but it is not top notch. We can still sell it locally; but globally we are fucked. There is no room for mediocrity in the global market. No place for being number two. Number one or nothing. Change the world or go home.

The cartoon: © Hugh McLeod - gapingvoid.com

Olympus Zuiko Digital 150mm f2 SHG lens

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 22:56:13 -0400

The Olympus top professional lens line has won several awards in the last few years; but the 150mm f2 lens has also won awards all by itself - and with good reason. I rented it for a few days for an assignment and here are my impressions.

- All Olympus high grade and super high grade lenses are extremely well built; with the exception perhaps of the Zuiko Digital 12-60 f2.8-4.0 SWD, which is a bit flimsy (but only compared to its indestructible looking siblings). Among the pro lenses, the 8mm f3.5 Fisheye is the one that feels the most solid - since it has no moving or extending parts except for the focusing ring, there are no creaks or squeaks or wobbles of any kind. The 150mm f2 is like that, too - internal focusing, no extending or moving parts. You could say it is built like a hand grenade; but that applies best to the fisheye, this one is a more the size and weight of a small artillery shell. The hood is made of plastic, but it is thicker than the hood on the old 50-200 and also has a very firm and positive locking point when you put it on.

- Yes, it is big and heavy - but it is amazingly compact given its reach, brightness, and optical quality. It is just a bit shorter than the 50-200, but significantly wider - stout is the word that comes to mind. It is heavy thanks to its all metal case (that feels like you could crush coconuts with it) and to several very large glass elements in it - not just the front (a filter size of 82mm), but also to several lenses behind it. Despite being the same weight as the 35-100, it is easier to handle this lens; it is more compact and not as front heavy as the 35-100.

- Just like the 35-100, 90-250, and the 300 f2.8 this lens has focus lock buttons and a focus delimiter. It is great to have them; I just wish the focus delimiter was a smaller knob - same as on the 35-100, flush with the lens barrel. On this lens it is big protruding knob that gets in the way when you cradle the lens in your left palm.

- Focusing is fast and reliable - not as fast as the SWD focusing, but certainly faster than the mid range lenses like 50-200. Just like the 35-100, this lens swings fast to the approximate focus point and then microadjusts until it acquires perfect focus. Given the depth of field you get at this focal length at f2, perfect focusing is essential.

- I can describe its optical qualities very briefly - it is perfect. The 50mm f2 Macro is a sharp lens; 50-200 is a sharp lens; 35-100 is a super sharp lens; but this one is noticeably better than all of them. Maybe some day when there are 20 megapixels in a 4/3 sensor you could start seeing its flaws; but at 10 megapixels it clearly capable of greater detail than the sensor can capture. No visible distortion, no vignetting, no aberrations - perfect color, contrast, and smooth out of focus blur.

Prime time: Zuiko Digital 8mm f3.5 Fisheye, 50mm f2 Macro, and the 150mm f2 lenses

- The 35-100 is a perfect wedding / portrait lens given its brightness and versatility. The 150mm f2 is a more specialized lens; it can do fewer things, but it can do them exceptionally well. A few uses come to mind. First, it is an excellent portrait lens - perhaps too long for studio work (unless you have a very large studio), but perfect outdoors. Second, it would work very well for event photography, especially in a large hall - provided you have two bodies with a more versatile zoom on the other one. Third, it makes a great wildlife lens - not long enough a lot of times, but if you are patient to sneak upon birds and animals, it can still work very well - and it is a lot cheaper than the longer alternatives (90-250 and 300). Fourth and last, it is great for low light work - like chasing rabbits around campus with just street lamps light.

Overall, this is a superb lens; a truly professional tool that comes with a big price tag but that is definitely worth it for a photographer who sells his or her work. It is a very specialized tool, so it is not something you buy first - it is something you add last when you have everything else covered, a crowning glory of a pro grade multiple lens setup. Unless you are a wildlife photographer and need the reach of the 90-250 or the 300 f2.8, you can stop buying lenses once you have this one.

Olympus Zuiko Digital 35-100 f2 SHG lens

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 11:46:57 -0400

Last weekend I shot my first wedding. I sold my flash a while ago so I wanted to use available light only; a perfect excuse to rent the 35-100 f2 zoom. It came like clockwork from ProPhotoRental in an indestructible-looking case. I have seen this lens before in a store; I knew what I was getting myself into. Surely it is a large lens, and not a light one; but it is not too bad, especially given what it can do. Here are my impressions:

- this is a lens from Olympus' top tier - the Super High Grade, in the same rank as the 7-14, 14-35, 90-250, 150 and 300. It is built very well - all metal construction, a wide focusing ring with excellent dampening and lots of travel, a well placed zoom ring, a well balanced tripod leg. The hood has a little door on the bottom for rotating filters; it also has felt-like lining on the inside to capture stray light and reduce flair.

IMAGE REMOVED AT THE REQUEST OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNER An x-ray view of the Olympus E-3 with the 35-100 mounted

- without the hood, this lens is as long as the 50-200 extended to 200 mm. With the hood, it is about a third longer still. When you show up with this lens at an event, no one has any doubts who the official photographer is. I had it mounted on the E-3 with the vertical grip and the grip strap. Nothing says "get-the-hell-out-of-my-way-with-your-point-and-shoot" like this lens. It sure stops Uncle Joe from talking to you about how he is going to get better pictures with his Digital Rebel. This might sound stupid, but it is important - it lets you work in peace.

- the 35-100 / E-3 / grip / 2 batteries combo is heavy. 3kg heavy to be exact. At the end of the day, you feel it in your right wrist and left forearm. But well worth the weight once you see the pictures.

- focusing is a bit less noisy then on the 50-200 (non SWD); and it is much more accurate then with any of the High Grade (again, non SWD) lenses. Sometimes it felt like after the lens acquired approximate focusing the sound of the motor would change as it micro adjusted itself to perfect focus. For a long and bright lens, precision of focusing is super important, and this lens can do it. Out of the 1200 shots I took at the wedding, 900 were worth keeping; and only maybe 50 were tossed because of focusing errors.

- zooming is all internal, which is good because people can't tell if you are shooting a general scene or actually sneaking up to take a portrait shot. The reach is long enough for events where you can move around - it would be too short for a concert in a big hall, but for weddings this is a perfect reach - long enough to be 5-10 meters from the action (=out of the way) and still capture everything. The wide end is a lot easier to work with than the 50mm on the 50-200 - even indoors, unless you are trying to shoot a group picture in a tiny hallway, you can usually get by without changing to a wider lens.

- this is one of the only two lenses in the whole SLR world that is a continuous f2 zoom. Having a fixed aperture is great - on the 50-200 you might start shooting at 200mm and f3.5 and as you roll down to 50mm you have to force it to go back to f2.8 manually - if you forget to do it, that's a half stop of light lost, which sucks if you don't have much light to start with.

- I always thought the Super High Grade description was marketing BS. Now that I have used one - it is not. Going from Standard to High Grade you experience a big change in quality; but just as you thought it couldn't get any better, you try the Super High Grade, and the improvement is even more noticeable.

- optically, this lens is flawless. Its sharpness rivals or even exceeds the 50mm macro; and it is cuttingly sharp at all focal lengths, and at all f-stops, even at f2. There is no light falloff in the corners, no corner softness, no aberrations, no barrel or pincushion distortion - just perfect sharpness, wonderfully smooth background blur, and insanely rich color and contrast.

From left to right: 35-100, 50-200, 11-22, 8FE

- this is a dream lens for people and portraits. If I made a living from people's photography, this lens and an e-3 would be all I would ever need.

- this is the best lens in any class I have ever used. I have shot with both Nikkor 70-200 f2.8 VR (on a D300) and the Canon EF 70-200 f2.8 L IS (on a Canon 1D Mark II) and optically they are light years away from this lens. Their only advantage is silent, fast focus - which for many many applications is more critical than the ultimate image quality. In a slower paced, controlled settings, though, the 35-100 is an easy preference.

- the only problem for me with this lens is resisting the temptation to buy one for myself. This is a pro lens - you shouldn't have one unless you sell your photos, and unless the lens will pay for itself. At about $2000, this is not a cheap lens; but given what it can do, it is worth it, beyond any doubt.

Best quality pictures with the Olympus e-510

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:37:01 -0400

I have used Olympus SLRs since 2005 - first the e-500, then the e-510, and now the e-3. Once I got the e-510, I decided to share some of the stuff I learned about using the camera. So I started writing about my experiences, and over a few months produced 9 rather lengthy and detailed entries covering a variety of topics:

1. RAW vs. JPEG
- what file format to use for your images to get the best quality

2. Focusing
- focusing tips for single, continuous and manual focusing

3. ISO
- ideas about using high ISO and getting low noise images

4. Keeping safe
- backup and batteries

5. Keeping steady
- tripods and image stabilization

6. Working with the shortcomings.
- problems with the camera, real and imagined, and real workarounds

7. Tricks
- hidden features and functions

8. Upgrade paths - lenses
- a review of five lenses from the Pro / High Grade range

9. Online resources
- useful Internet links about the e-510 and Olympus SLRs in general.

These are not designed to be comprehensive - my aim was to share my experience rather than pretend that I have all the answers. A few things about myself to help you evaluate my thoughts:

- shot SLRs since the age of 5
- shooting DSLRs since 2005. Extensive experience (over a 1,000 frames with each) with Olympus e-500, e-410, e-510, e-3; Nikon D80; Fuji S5; Canon Digital Rebel XT and 1D Mark II.
- I sell stock photos on iStockphoto
- I do paid assignments for private clients
- I contribute to a newspaper, where I had over 10 photos published in the last two weeks.
- I will have my first photo exhibit, Light Years, in early April in the Stephenson Research Center here at the University of Oklahoma.
- main job is web design and graphics right now

Whatever you think about my level of experience, please take my ramblings here with a large pinch of salt. If you find any mistakes in my stuff, please comment on the entry and I will make the corrections. Hope you find my ideas useful!

Best quality pictures with the Olympus e-510: Part IX: Online resources

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 12:43:40 -0400

This is the ninth and last installment of my description of how I get the best out of my camera, the Olympus e-510. So far I have written about

1. RAW vs. JPEG ,
2. Focusing,
3. ISO,
4. Keeping safe
5. Keeping steady and
6. Working with the shortcomings.
7. Tricks
8. Upgrade paths - lenses

I wrote a lot of stuff about the e-510 as you can see; but I have to repeat that even when you combine all this stuff, you don't get a comprehensive review. My goal was to share my experience, rather than provide the ultimate source of information about the camera. Luckily, there are many places online where you can find more information about the e-510. Here are some of my favorite places.

Reviews

Dpreview.com - a very technical and detailed review. More of a lab test than a field test. Lots of samples. A delight to read for geeky techie nerdy people.

Wrotniak.net - Andrzej Wrotniak's review is perhaps even more detailed, and full of useful little details coming from months of careful use rather than a sterile lab test.

Forums

Olympus SLR Talk - a forum with lots of traffic on dpreview.com. Prone to armchair photographer type discussions (full frame vs. 4/3; high ISO noise levels and other troll bait material). Not very friendly to picture posts, but very active. You questions generally get answered, but be prepared for potential rudeness and trolly answers as well. My nickname is sobaka there (Russian for dog).

fourthirdsphoto.com - actually several forums - or one forum subdivided into topics. The technical discussion is the most active part (it is funny that on a photography forum the "Technical discussion" section should get 5 times more traffic than the "Photography techniques" section). Also has a very useful buy/sell forum. A finer selection of posters than on dpreview, trolls are scarce, and moderation is well done to keep things calm and respectful. My nickname is tovstiadi (=my last name)

Buying and selling

B&H and Adorama - the two mammoth photo retailers in the US. Great service, fast shipping, the best selection, good return policies - not necessarily at the lowest prices, but a clear choice for a serious photographer who'd rather have peace of mind and knowledgeable sales people than save a few dollars and have high risks. I bought most of my stuff at B&H.

JR.com - not a wide selection like B&H or Adorama, but they do an occasional sale on lenses, so worth checking. Very reputable. Bought my 50mm macro here.

Buydig - a division of Beach Camera. Seems like these people are about low prices; but unfortunately that might mean less liberal return policies, people trying to sell you accessories, etc. I am basing this on other people's opinions and bizrate reviews - haven't bought anything from them myself; but at the same time I have heard many very positive comments about them.

Cameta - the best place to buy a refurbished Olympus DSLR. Great prices and good service. If you go with a deal that promises an extra battery - be warned that you will get a clone, not a genuine Olympus BLM-1. Bought a new e-3 from them.

fourthirdsphoto.com - the best buy and sell forum. As of 2008, sellers have to be paying subscribers to list gear for sale. I have sold a camera and bought a lens there without a problem.

General Information

Olympus E-System - I like the Asian site best; I find the European version poorly designed, and the American site is never updated on time and has way too much Flash for my liking.

Matching simulation - This site allows you to take any Four Thirds body and see what it would look like with any Four Thirds lens.

Best quality pictures with the Olympus e-510: Part VIII: Upgrade Paths

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:40:44 -0500

This is the eighth installment of my description of how I get the best out of my camera, the Olympus e-510. So far I have written about

1. RAW vs. JPEG ,
2. Focusing,
3. ISO,
4. Keeping safe
5. Keeping steady and
6. Working with the shortcomings.
7. Tricks

There are two things left to talk about - one is upgrade paths and another one is available online resources about the camera. Let's deal with upgrade paths today.

I want to share my experiences beyond the e-510 dual lens kit. I am only going to talk about the options I have tried myself. There are many more options available.

Lenses

The kit lenses are light, sharp, well corrected for aberrations, flare, and barrel distortion. If e-510 is your first SLR and you don't have any other Four Thirds mount lenses, it is best to buy the e-510 as a dual lens kit - it is great value for money and takes the guesswork out of the equation - you can just trust the choices made for you by Olympus engineers.

Once you have used your kit lenses long enough you may start seeing their shortcomings, as well as your usage patterns. Some people would find that they prefer the wide angle capacities of the 14-42 lens; others may prefer the longer reach of the 40-150. Some may be disappointed with the f5.6 slow speed of both lenses at full zoom; others may find not having weather seals limiting. In either case, most will look for more lenses to increase the range of the choices available.

Whatever the choices made, there are two things that are for certain about the lenses beyond the kit lenses:
1. They are going to be more expensive
2. They are going to be heavier (with the exception of the 35mm f3.5 macro and the new 25mm f2.8 pancake)

Olympus currently divides their Zuiko Digital lens lineup into three distinct product ranges - Standard, Pro, and Top Pro (also described as Standard, High Grade and Super High Grade in some markets). The kit lenses belong to the Standard range. Like other lenses in the range, they are not very bright (f3.5 or dimmer - the 25mm pancake being the only exception) and lacking weather seals. On the other hand, they are relatively light and cheap.

I sold my kit lenses, for several reasons. I still think they are wonderful value for money for what they cost; it is just that I wanted a bit more and was willing to pay for it. So I gradually added four lenses from the Pro / High Grade range.

Zuiko Digital 50mm f2 macro
This is a killer lens. Here's what I like about it:

- small and relatively light for a weathersealed metal lens that is build to last.
- ridiculously sharp. There is a reason why the usually hair splitting folks at photomagazine.de reviews described this lens as "optically flawless". Even wide open, it is great.
- bright. Currently, there are no lenses in the Zuiko lineup brighter than f2. The 50mm Macro is the only f2 lens that doesn't come with a four digit price tag (there are three brighter lenses by other manufacturers in the Four Thirds standard: Sigma 28mm f1.8, Sigma 30mm f1.4 and Leica/Panasonic 25mm f1.4).
- great for portraits. The focal length gives a good working distance for waist length shots and close ups - coupled with super sharpness and the ability to blur backgrounds, provides a great combination for portraits, in a studio or outdoors.
- great macro ability. Even though it doesn't provide a long working distance at maximum magnification, this is an excellent macro lens. It is also superb for product shots and studio work in general.
- weathersealed. There is a rubber gasket on the lens mount; the lens itself is sealed - which means not only the ability to shoot in bad weather, but also that the dust doesn't enter the lens, extending its useful life.
- unobtrusive. Easy for street photography and candids.
- great for low light photography - night streets, dimly lit interiors, concerts with spotlights, etc.

And the shortcoming:
- slow focusing and hunting. Given that the lens has to travel through a huge focusing range, if it starts hunting, it takes a while to scan the entire range. This can be irritating, but it easily controllable with the right technique. Prefocusing manually and using a high contrast area to acquire AF usually eliminates hunting in 99% of the cases.
All in all, a great lens - especially for its size, weight, and price. Very versatile and capable of producing superb results.

Zuiko Digital 11-22mm f2.8-3.5
My second acquisition. Many of my shots with the kit lenses were at 14mm, and very often I wished for being able to go wider. Good points about this lens:

- very wide. Going from 14mm to 11mm you gain a huge deal - the viewing angle changes from 75 to 89 degrees; the real life difference is far more profound that these numbers may suggest. Having this super wide ability is great for architecture shots, especially in cities with narrow streets. Good for indoor shots, too.
- bright. f2.8-3.5 is a very decent range - especially for a lens in its price range.
- great optical quality. Wide open there is a bit of chromatic aberration - but that is very easy to correct in Adobe Camera Raw under "Lens correction" (I usually dial in -25 on the Cyan fringe correction). There is a tiny bit of barrel / pincushion (depending on the focal length); but it is negligible and never a problem in real life shots. It took me a year to notice any at all - and that was in a shot with strong straight lines that had far and near objects in it. Not as sharp as the 50mm macro - but sharp enough. Excellent sharpness not only in the center of the frame, but in the corners as well, even wide open, even at 11mm.
- weathersealed. Shoot in the rain, never worry about dust / water getting inside the lens.
- quick focus. Very quick and reliable (fairly easy to achieve at these focal lengths). Also, the focusing is internal - so the front element doesn't rotate and mess up your polarizing filter position.
- sturdy built. Even though the front barrel extends during zooming, there is no wobbling or shaking.
- nice wide zoom ring with a lots of travel between 11 and 22 mm - easy to set to exactly the focal length you need.

These are the advantages. A few words of caution.
- good value for money, but definitely not cheap. You'd better make sure children are fed and the bills are paid before you buy this lens, especially if this is your hobby and the lens won't pay for itself.
- using the lens takes some skill. For the first couple of weeks I couldn't get a decent composition with this lens in the 11-14mm range. You have to get used to this lens, and develop an ability for "wide angle vision". This is not a mystification. This is like the difference between running and skiing - running is naturally easy when you know how to walk; but alpine skiing you have to relearn your movements - the logic is different and can't be learned by walking.
- You also have to be far more careful about blown highlights - the lens gets in so much that you are likely to have a great dynamic range in the scene (which in my opinion limits the usefulness of polarizing filters - they will likely exaggerate this even further). Finally, you have to learn to include some close elements into your composition to anchor the wide vistas that are captured and give a sense of scale to the shots.

Zuiko Digital 50-200mm f2.8-3.5
I was impressed when I got my 50mm macro; impressed and intimidated with the 11-22mm. But when the 50-200 arrived, I was simply shocked. Let me explain why.

- First thing you notice, is the weight. Yes it is heavy; but given its huge range and brightness, it is actually light for what it gives you.
- Second thing you notice is size, or rather length. The lens is long by itself. Extending it and adding the hood roughly doubles the length. Again, hardly avoidable given the range; but it can be limiting when you are trying to be inconspicuous. This is a minor disadvantage of course; and it can turn to an advantage when you show up with this lens at an event and everyone immediately thinks you are a pro and gives you media level access.
- once you start using this lens, you notice the third and most important thing - its superb optical quality. It is very sharp - mine is at least as sharp as my 50mm macro (=as sharp as it gets). It renders color and contrast better than any Olympus lens I have used. It provides excellent background blur. Some people like to bitch about its blur, but they are mostly of the armchair photographer type. It has virtually no distortion or aberration.
- the range is wonderful for event photography - concerts, presentations, sports. This is also a very bright lens - perfect for low light situations. It stays at f2.8 in the 50-100mm range; the drop to f3.5 occurs slowly after that; most of it is in the 150-200mm range. This also means that shooting in aperture priority (which I do all the time), you have to make sure you zoom to the 50-100mm range and dial in f2.8 first; if you start at f3.5 at 200mm and then roll back to 50mm, the camera will keep the lens at f3.5; this can be a problem in low light when you are trying to do everything you can to bring the shutter speed to an acceptably fast level.
- like all the lenses in the Pro / High Grade range, weathersealed and built to last

Other than size, weight, and the lack of a permanent aperture, there are several things to put on the negative side:

- focusing - same as with the 50mm macro, we are dealing with a big focusing range and a relatively slow focusing motor; if the lens starts hunting, it takes it a while to travel through the full range and back. Again easily eliminated or greatly reduced by prefocusing or using high contrast areas to acquire focus.
- vignetting - there is slight light fall off in the corners of the frame wide open at all focal lengths. But is not bad; unnoticeable in many situations, and always easily correctable in post processing.
- not cheap - again, make sure the children have shoes before you buy it. Good value for money for a very versatile lens.
- when shooting sports, there are two shortcomings that you don't notice in other situations. First, there is no focus delimiter - it would be useful to have a switch to restrict the range to just 3m-infinity. Second, zooming in and out it takes some physical force to extend the barrel and retract it. If you have to do it for several hours on end, it can be quite tiring. No deal breaker - the Canon EF 70-200 f2.8 has a focus limit, and has very easy zooming action - but it costs twice as much.

I think most of the bitching you hear about this lens is rubbish; this is a superb lens - provided you understand its range of use and are able to work with the shortcomings. Final word - yes, the tripod collar looks geeky and cool (I dragged mine around for at least a month to show off), but it is better to leave it behind when not using the tripod.

Zuiko Digital 8mm f3.5 fisheye

I don't have this lens; I rented it for a week trying to decide if it is worth buying. Here are some thoughts about it.

- build like a hand grenade. I could say like a tank, but its more similar in size and weight to a grenade. It feels like one solid chunk of steel. The steel hood adds to the impression of quality; and the huge front lens element, taking the entire front of the lens, makes it look even more impressive. Since there is no moving lens barrel like you would have on zooms and all focusing is internal, there are no external moving parts, no wobbling or creaking. The only thing that moves is a wide manual focus ring - it has lots of travel, and is by a good margin the best focusing ring of all the five lenses described here. In general, this lens feels even more indestructible than its siblings in the same range.
- very sharp with good color and contrast. For a lens of its kind, it displays rather low chromatic aberrations; but in high contrast areas they can be quite pronounced, and difficult to correct entirely in ACR. The images from the 11-22 just need a simple slider correction; the fisheye shots may require more sophisticated processing (such as selecting the cyan and desaturating it in problem areas).
- I have heard people on forums say this is a specialty lens. Well, never believe people on forums. This is the ultimate wide angle lens. Someone said a fisheye is the closest lens to the human eye perspective - I tend to agree. When people say it is a specialty lens, that probably means that it takes some skill to use it and get good results. After a year with the 11-22, I almost had no learning curve with it; but I am sure that it would be almost impossible to start using it right away without previous wide angle experience and get good results. The most amazing experience with this lens is when you shoot a building in portrait orientation and try to include a lot of sky in the shot - and realize that the building BEHIND your back is in the frame, too.
- because of its short focal length the lens focuses very fast; for the same reason it is also a lot more forgiving to focusing mistakes. That also means that shallow depth of field is next to impossible with this lens - but this is hardly a disadvantage given the range of applications for which it was designed and in which it excels.

Zuiko Digital 14-54 f2.8-3.5

Some people on forums will tell you two things about this lens

- the new kit lens (14-42 ED) focuses just as fast, is as sharp or sharper, and given its weight and price is a better alternative than the 14-54.
- if you like wide angle photography and want to buy a better lens to replace the kit lens, better upgrade to the 11-22 and skip the 14-54 altogether.

They will try to tell you that the 14-54 is not much of an upgrade from the kit lenses. I used to believe it - because I had no experience with the lens myself. Now that I have tried it, I strongly disagree with this opinion. If I was allowed to keep only one lens from the ones I have, it would be the 14-54. If I had space only for one lens in my bag, this would be the one. And here's why.

- excellent range - from wide angle to medium telephoto. The only lens that is better than this is the new 12-60 - but at more than two times the price. I used to get by just fine with the 11-22 and 50-200 and a big gap in the middle. I would zoom with the feet and get what I needed. But there were many cases when this gap was limiting. Shooting a view of the Kremlin standing on a bridge, zooming with the feet meant falling into a river. Shooting friends doing yoga meant having to squeeze yourself into a corner of the room to get a decent shot with the 50-200 without being too close to the subjects. Shooting basketball it meant missing a lot of shots - or cropping them because you can't move around - you stay put in the media space assigned to you.
- the lens is plenty sharp - not as sharp as the 50mm macro or the 50-200, but excellent overall, and certainly not worse than the kit lenses.
- it focuses fast and it doesn't hunt much.
- it is bright - a different league than the kit lens, half a stop brighter at the wide end and 1.5 stops brighter at the long end.
- excellent built and weatherproofness. It is very compact and light for its range and aperture.
- as stupid as that sounds, it looks good. That is the last thing that matter about a lens; but this lens looks proportional and well put together. No Jonathan Ive stuff, but definitely not ugly.

Best quality pictures with the Olympus e-510: Part VII: Tricks

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:37:50 -0500

This is the seventh installment of my description of how I get the best out of my camera, the Olympus e-510. So far I have written about

1. RAW vs. JPEG ,
2. Focusing,
3. ISO,
4. Keeping safe
5. Keeping steady and
6. Working with the shortcomings.

Today I want to write about some undocumented capacities of the e-510 and some tricks to get more out of the camera. There are three different things; the best part is that they are all free.

1. Discovering the shutter counter
If you want to know how many shutter actuations your camera has (=how many pictures you have taken), there is a sequence of button presses that lets you see that:

- with the camera on, open the memory card compartment; the screen shows "Card door open" warning in red
- simultaneously press "OK" and "Menu" buttons; the screen now shows "E-510" in the top left corner
- press the arrow keys in the following sequence: Up, Down, Left, Right. Go slow, with distinct presses and pauses between presses.
- fully press the shutter release button (half press won't do)
- press the Up arrow key again. You are now presented with "Page 1". This is mostly service information; the interesting stuff is on page 2, hit the Right arrow key to get there.
- the top number is the number of shutter actuations. Other numbers are logs of how many times the flash fired, how many times the sensor cleaning system has been activated and so on. You can read the full explanation for all Olympus SLRs here.

Why would you care to know your shutter count? It gives you an idea of how many pictures you take, obviously; but it is also helpful when buying and selling equipment. It gives you an idea of how heavily the camera was used. A word of warning: rumor has it (=I have no firsthand experience with it) that when a camera is sent to Olympus for service, the counters are reset.

2. Recovering edges
The maximum resolution for the e-510 is 3648 by 2736 pixels, a total of 10 megapixels (9,980,928 to be precise). But the sensor, according to Olympus, has 10.9 million pixels. Where did those 900,000 pixels go? It seems that the extra pixels allow for two things:

- sensor shift during image stabilization
- a bit of extra space on the edges just in case

Even though only 10 megapixels are user accessible without any trickery, in RAW mode the camera records 10.4 megapixels. The invisible 400,000 or so pixels are the edges of the frame. With those pixels, the resolution is 3720 by 2800 pixels. That's a gain of 72 pixels in horizontal resolution (36 on the left and 36 on the right of the frame) and 64 pixels of vertical resolution (32 on the top and 32 on the bottom of the frame). Not a whole lot.

But there are cases when you need those pixels - let's say you accidentally cut off an important part of the frame - left out half a head, the tip of the cross on a cathedral's spire, and so on - and you can't go back and reshoot the scene. Sometimes you want to go wider than your widest lens would allow. In those cases you would benefit from recovering those edge pixels.

Thanks to Thomas Knoll, one of the masterminds behind Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw, there is a free utility called DNG Recover Edges. You can download a free Mac or Windows version here. To recover edge pixels with the utility, follow these steps:

- find the RAW files you want to convert. The recovery works only with RAW files - the edge pixels are lost when the camera records a JPEG.
- save the RAW files in Adobe's Digital Negative (DNG) format. This can be done in two ways: if you own Photoshop with Adobe Camera Raw plugin, the conversion can be done in Adobe Camera Raw by hitting the "Save image" button in the bottom left corner and using "Digital Negative" for the file format in the dialog box that appears. If you don't own Photoshop and can't use Adobe Camera Raw, you can download a free standalone utility called Adobe DNG Converter and use it to convert your RAW files to the DNG format.
- open the DNG files with DNG Recover Edges utility. You have now regained the 400000 edge pixels
- open the DNG files with recovered pixels in your RAW file editor of choice.

3. Film look in postprocessing
The shutter count sequence is camera specific - it is slightly different on other Olympus SLRs; it won't work on other manufacturer's cameras. The edge recovery will work on a RAW file from any camera (Adobe continuously adds support for new models); it just won't work with JPEGs. The last trick I want to describe today will work on images from any camera, JPEG or RAW.

At some point many people who turn to digital photography decide to try postprocessing their images in an image editor. A program like Adobe Photoshop is intimidating at first; it takes a long time to learn it so that you can produce decent results. Anyone can drag saturation and contrast sliders around; it is just hard to make a good looking picture that way.

One way to start using Photoshop and get interesting results without much knowledge is to use preset color schemes designed by someone who knows what they are doing. In Photoshop, you can do Curves adjustments - amplifying highlights or dimming half tones, or brightening up shadows. More importantly, you can do that separately in each color channel (Red, Green, and Blue in RGB color space), changing the look of the shot dramatically. Again, just pulling sliders around usually leads to disastrous results; the best is to load a curve preset designed by a professional.

I like the custom curves provided by Petteri Sulonen who attempted to emulate the look of classic 35mm films like Fuji Velvia. Petteri describes the process of creating the curves here; you can download them for free from Petteri's site.

A quick guide on the fastest way to use the curves:

- unzip the downloaded curves, note the location of the folder that contains them (you get 4 files with the .acv extension)
- open the image you wish to edit in Photoshop
- bring up the Curves dialogue box (through Adjustments > Curves in the menu system or with hot keys - command+M on Mac and ctrl+M on PC)
*ideally, this should be done in a new adjustment layer - but if you knew that much about Photoshop, you probably wouldn't be reading these blabberings in the first place
- hit the square icon that is between the drop down menu for presets and the OK button. The icon looks like a list with three items in it
- in the drop down menu that appears, choose "Load preset"
- navigate your way to one of the four .acv files
- click "Load"

You now have a simulation of a film look - experiment with all four. That is not something that you could do with every picture you take but that is a good start in post processing.

Best quality pictures with the Olympus e-510: Part VI - Working with the shortcomings

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 16:44:36 -0500

I have written five entries now about the Olympus e-510 camera - one about RAW , one about focusing, one about ISO, one about keeping safe and one about keeping steady. Here comes the sixth episode in my own version of the Passion for best series - and today's topic is working with the shortcomings.

Olympus e-510 is a great camera; but it has limits and shortcomings. Some are really limiting; other are more imaginary - the kind that techie-inclined pixelpeeper armchair photographers like to discuss on forums ad nauseam - still others are only limiting in professional use. Before I give you my $.02 on these three classes of e-510 flaws, I want to make three important points.

1. Olympus e-510 is great value for money - it has surprisingly few flaws for a camera in its class and price range. The benefits definitely outweigh the shortcomings.
2. All cameras have shortcomings. You pick the compromise that works best for you. With the right approach, there is no reason not to get good pictures from e-510. To paraphrase Ratatouille's chef Gusteau, Anyone can shoot.
3. I can imagine very few photographic situations where the camera, rather than the photographer, would be the limiting factor for getting a good shot.

Real shortcomings

1. Small viewfinder
Opinions vary on this one. I have a strong opinion on this - the viewfinder is small. I have tried a Nikon D80, Nikon D200, Canon Digital Rebel XT, Fujifilm S5 Pro, and Pentax K100D - they all have better viewfinder than the e-510. The difference between the e-510 and a Canon 5D (or any full frame film camera) is night and day. A good viewfinder fills your vision, there is no need to squint to the right to see your settings, and you can check focus with ease. With the e-510 manual focus is a pain. It is certainly doable, but can be painful. There are a few things you can do about it:
- buy a viewfinder magnifier. I haven't tried it myself, and reports about it vary from admiration to disdain
- in good light, trust the AF
- in a studio or in any tripod using situation, use Live View zoom to focus
- in all other cases, trust the AF or focus manually and hope for the best.
And remember that a small viewfinder gives you advantages, too - a lighter, smaller, less expensive camera.

2. Inaccurate color on the LCD
I had an e-500 before, and shot mostly JPEG with it. The LCD on the camera gave a really accurate representation of the shot taken - so accurate that you could adjust the white balance by checking for color casts on the LCD. I used to arrive to a location and spend a few minutes finetuning the custom white balance (Kelvin temperature) for a given situation. With the e-510 it is impossible. You can't trust the LCD for color accuracy. The only way around that is to shoot RAW and adjust WB on the computer. Purists will tell you shouldn't be concerned about the LCD - they will tell you it is not for checking color accuracy in the first place. Having seen an LCD that can give you accurate color (e-500), I find it hard to believe that Olympus couldn't give you the same on the e-510. Probably a money saving issue.

Minor shortcomings

3. Slow continuous shooting speed
e-510 can shoot 3 frames per second. It would be nice if it could go faster; but it doesn't seem to have a focusing system sophisticated enough to handle fast shooting in C-AF mode. So machine gun speed firing would only mean getting 10 blurry pictures per second instead of three. Again, for a camera in its class and price range, the speed is fine.

4. Slow focusing
e-510 doesn't have the most advanced AF system in the world. In low light, it can hunt for focus. Only the central focus point is cross-type (detecting contrast for focusing in both vertical and horizontal dimensions). In most situations, the focusing is adequate. It is unreliable with fast moving action (where you probably need a different camera anyway - this is a very specialized situation and not everyone's everyday shooting scenario). It is not very reliable in low light. To counter that, you can get a better lens (one with a wider aperture - that will help the AF system) or use the focus assist functions on the Olympus flashes (FL-36, FL-36R, FL-50, FL-50R). At the risk of repetition, for this price you shouldn't be complaining.

5. No weather seals
You shouldn't be shooting in the rain, snow, or in the desert with an e-510 and it kit lenses. A light drizzle certainly wouldn't kill them; but a big rain or a splash of water might damage them. Two things come to mind: one, if you have to have weather seals, all Olympus mid and top level lenses have them; so do e-1 and e-3 bodies. In this respect, this is a unique advantage of the Olympus system; so you always have an upgrade path. Two, most people overestimate their courage. I have yet to see a scenario when I wanted to venture out and shoot but was afraid to damage the camera. I usually chicken out way before the weather is bad enough for the camera.

6. Buttons too easy to press
This is a blessing for most people, but can be a curse when you accidentally press a button and inadvertently change settings. If you make it a habit to check your settings every now and then, this is not a problem.

7. Logo on the camera
I would rather not tell the world that the camera has "10.0 MEGAPIXELS" and has "I.S. Image Stabilization. If you absolutely hate those marketing messages, take a black Sharpie and get rid of those letters. At least now you don't have what you had on the e-500 - a line under the LCD that announced that it was a "Hypercrystal LCD". Olympus marketing folks love those superlative prefixes (Supersonic Wave Filter - Super Control Panel - Supersonic Wave Drive).

Imaginary shortcomings
Read on only if you care to waste your time on hair-splitting, pixel-peeping, armchair-photographer style arguments.

8. Low dynamic range
Go to a forum on dpreview and search for this one ("DR" and "e-510"). You will get more gobbledygook than you can handle. The gist of the argument - as per lab tests, e-510 has less DR than competitors from Canon / Nikon / Pentax etc - ergo it is a lousy camera. I have used the e-510 for six months now, shot 5000 shots with it; it is perfectly adequate for my needs in terms of DR. If someone wants to shoot a chart in a studio and get upset about this shortcoming - they can go ahead, it is just I have never come against it in real life shooting situations. There are certainly situations when the e-510 DR is not enough; but these are generally situations where no camera will give you enough DR. In those cases doing HDR or developing multiple copies from a single RAW file is the way to go.

9. The sensor is too small
It is not much smaller than other cropped sensor cameras (almost identical vertically, slightly shorter horizontally). Full frame cameras cost several times more and weigh more, and so does good quality glass for them. Sensor size decrease is a compromise, but one that gives you many advantages. Again, this has been discussed as nauseum on forums. If you can get a good picture from a camera, who cares what size of sensor it has inside?

10. Not enough lenses
How many lenses do you want to carry with you? How many can you afford? How many do you really need? How many do you have time for? For most people the Olympus lens lineup is quite adequate and covers a full range of mainstream needs. Again, if you want to lose sleep comparing sharpness tests, argue about telecentric designs, or lament the cost of the Zuiko Digital 90-250 f2.8 (which you will most likely never need or buy - and if you got it as a gift, you'd never take it with you because it is so big and heavy), go ahead.

Continue to Part VII - Tricks

Best quality pictures with the Olympus e-510: Part V - Keeping steady

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 14:24:59 -0500

Page numbers in brackets refer to the English edition of the official e-510 instruction manual

I have written four entries now about the Olympus e-510 camera - one about RAW , one about focusing, one about ISO, and one about keeping safe. Here comes the fifth episode in my own version of the Passion for best series - and today's topic is keeping steady.

So what do you do when you need a slow shutter speed and you need to keep the camera steady? Or, rather, what do I usually do? Again, your mileage may vary, but here are some things that have worked for me.

First of all, you could handhold the camera and hope for the best. A few things to keep in mind here: first, the usual rule of thumb is to use a shutter speed that is at least twice the focal length that you are using. For example, if you are shooting your tele kit lens at 150mm, you should aim for a 1/300 (150x2) or a faster (1/500, 1/800, 1/1000) shutter speed. At 1/250, 1/200, 1/180 and slower speeds your chances of getting a sharp picture decline progressively. A very important corollary of this rule is that the wider you shoot, the easier it is to handhold it. You could easily get sharp shots with a 1/30 shutter at 14mm (your wide kit lens at widest end) whereas getting the same shot sharp at 150mm is very very difficult. So one way to counter shake is to use a wider lens (if that is feasible in a given shooting scenario).

With skill, you could handhold even shutter speeds that are slower than the ones suggested by the "2x focal length" rule. Here there are a few common ways - one, rest the lens barrel on a pole, a tree, a fence (just don't use your friend's back - they shake just as much as you do). If you are doing that in any of the AF modes (p. 49), make sure that you are not touching the support with the focus ring - since Zuiko Digital lenses (with the exception of SWD lenses) use focus-by-wire, the camera may be unable to focus properly. Two, hold the camera with both hands (right hand on the grip, left cradling the lens), prop your elbow against your chest, inhale, hold your breath, and then release the shutter.

e-510 IS in action - 123mm, 1/60s (click image for large view + full EXIF)

Still another thing you could do (on top of using a fast shutter and holding the camera with a good technique) is fire several shots instead of one (sequential shooting, p.45). Statistically, you should get a spread - some real blurry ones, some in the middle, and some that are sharp. Unfortunately, there are cases when you only get one chance to get the shot, so this hit-and-miss approach rarely gives good results.

Olympus offers you a great alternative to these methods - built in Image Stabilization (p. 36). Gyroscopes in the camera detect vertical and horizontal movement of your camera caused by your movement, wind, the movement of the jeep / ship / horse that you are driving / sailing / riding. Then a special system shifts the sensor vertically and horizontally to counter the camera movement and get a sharp image. Other manufacturers (Panasonic being an example in the 4/3 standard; Canon, Nikon examples elsewhere) offer similar technology in the lenses; the problem is that IS lenses tend to be costly and bulky (although Canon and Nikon are both trying to put the IS technology into consumer grade lenses). The in-camera IS stabilizes all of your lenses.

Olympus claims that IS gives you up to a 4 stops advantage (i.e. with IS you could handhold speeds up to 16 times slower than what you could do without IS - if you are not sure about the math, a stop of light is doubling the amount of light, so 4 stops is 2 to the power of 4 = 2x2x2x2 = 16). Realistically, let's say that is gives you a reliable 2-3 stops advantage. In other words, with IS you could change the "2x focal length" rule and rewrite it as a "1/2 focal length" or "1/4 focal length" rule. With IS, you could shoot your tele kit lens fully extended (150mm), and reliably get sharp images with shutter speeds like 1/80 or even 1/40. With luck, you could even handhold something insane like 88mm at 1/5s.

On the e-510 you have 2 IS modes (p. 36) - Mode 1 provides vertical and horizontal shift and is for general purpose use. Mode 2 is for panning use only - and provides only horizontal shift. This is useful for tracking a running dog or a moving car (ideally if they are running or moving on a trajectory perpendicular to the straight line between you and them). Switching IS on and off is easy - hit the IS button, rotate the wheel, or use arrow keys to choose the mode you need. You should switch it off in several cases: one, when shooting where light is abundant - for example, up at 12,000ft on a sunny day surrounded by snow - where there is so much light that you can shoot f/11 at 1/640, ISO 100, -1EV

* without exposure compensation (p. 55) that would have been f/8 - 1/640 - ISO 100 - again, for the mathematically inclined among you that amounts to a staggering difference in light levels between that shot and my 88mm f2.8 1/5s ISO 800 shot mentioned above: ISO difference - 3stops, ISO 100 vs ISO 800; shutter speed difference - 7 stops, 1/640 vs 1/5; aperture difference - 3 stops; total difference - 13 stops, or 2 to the power of 13 = 8,192, i.e 8,000 times more light intensity)

So much light there is no need for IS - 4,000m above sea level, bright day, snow all around me

Another scenario for no IS is a shoot where you are running of battery power and need to maximize power saving. IS doesn't lead to a huge power drain however; so this is optimal only when you are really low on power and light conditions are favorable enough to get good shots without IS.

Finally the last case when you definitely don't need IS - in fact, IS would degrade the image quality in that case - is when you are shooting on a tripod. Some folks would tell you that when you have IS you don't need a tripod. Depending on your character, you could ask them to give you some of what they are smoking (that's if you are a witty internet-forum-type-of-person), tell them to go jump in the lake (if you are the take no prisoners type), or politely tell them that there are cases when a tripod is a must (if you are an armchair expert type). The good response is that while IS covers many situations where in the past you could only get a good a shot with a tripod, there are still a few cases when a tripod is indispensable - it is just that not all photographers run into these cases. Such cases are when you are doing any of the following:

1. Shooting a sunset (or any other low light situation), there is a huge distance range in the frame (a tree nearby in the corner of the frame and a mountain on the horizon, for example), and you need a lot of depth of field to get them all sharp. To get it, you need f/8 or f/11 or something even higher - but the light is so low, you couldn't get that even at ISO 1600 (who wants a landscape shot with DOF at ISO 1600 anyway - you want detail, not noise). On a tripod, you could dial in your f/8 and shoot at ISO 100 with a long exposure of several seconds. No amount of luck will ever allow you to handhold a sharp picture at 1 second or slower.

2. Shooting in a studio - no one is moving / running away / no once-in-a-lifetime shot opportunities are wasted - why not set up the camera in a way that maximizes the chance of a sharp picture, and use a steady tripod.

3. Blurring motion. You want that milky water look where a waterfall looks like flowing hair. I think that look is cheesy a lot of times, but if you want it, you normally need a shutter speed that is not handholdable. Tripod to rescue.

Some tips for good tripod technique
1. Turn off IS (p. 36)
2. Set it up steadily - if the tripod is light, weigh it down by attaching a bag of rocks to the center column. If you are on a slope, make sure you won't knock it over while moving around the camera.
3. To avoid camera shake from you pushing the shutter release, use delayed exposure or a remote IR trigger (delayed exposure = self-timer, p. 46)
4. To avoid camera shake from mirror flapping, use the mirror lockup function (Olympus calls it anti-shake, explained on bottom of page 63).
5. Ideally, use both mirror lockup and a delayed / remote release to avoid both.
6. Use live view to obtain razor sharp focus with 7x / 10x zoom

Some final comments on the whole keeping steady deal:

1. IS doesn't work well with gusty winds. It seems like your movement and erratic wind gusts are too much for the IS to track. This is just anecdotal evidence from me, so take it for what it is worth.
2. Tripods, IS, and good shooting technique all achieve only one thing - allowing you to shoot at a slower shutter speed. Sometimes that is not what you want. If you are shooting moving objects, you will get motion blur with slow shutter speeds. IS or tripods can't help with that. To counter motion blur, you need a faster shutter - so you need higher ISO or more light (faster lens / flash / studio light).

Continue to Part VI - Working with the shortcomings

Read Part VII - Tricks

Best quality pictures with the Olympus e-510: Part IV: Keeping safe

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 16:14:40 -0500

I have written three entries now about the Olympus e-510 camera - one about RAW , one about focusing, and one about ISO. Here comes the fourth episode in my own version of the Passion for best series - and today's topic is keeping safe.

You are out walking with your camera. You see a shot of a lifetime, reach for the camera, and are greeted with "Battery empty" or "CF card full" warning. So today I want to talk about keeping safe. You may be the world's best photographer, but if you run into technical glitches that render your camera inoperable, you miss the shot regardless of your photographic talent.

1. Batteries.
e-510 uses Lithium-ion batteries, which should be "charged early and often". So if you only have one battery, bring it to a full charge before a shoot to maximize your shooting time.

A shot that I didn't want to miss

But it makes even more sense to have two batteries - or more, if you are shooting something critical where you can't afford a single mistake. I have two batteries, and most of the time I am pretty happy. Here's my recipe.
- mark the batteries so that you can easily tell them apart. Tape something colorful to the end of the battery facing the battery door on the camera. That way you will see the mark right away when you open the battery door and it won't block contacts / interfere with the battery sliding in.
- as soon as you deplete a battery, charge it. Put your second battery into the camera.
- as soon as the battery is charged, put a protective plastic cover that came with it and put it into your camera bag.

With two batteries you can shoot over 1000 frames - provided you don't use flash, and have the LCD turned off most of the time. That should satisfy 99% of your shooting needs. There are some instances when it won't be enough.
- you are shooting for a long time (days on end) and have no way to charge the batteries. This is what happens to me when I am climbing. In that case, you either have to buy more than 2 batteries, or be extra careful with how you use the camera - enable all the sleep modes to save energy, use the LCD as little as possible, don't use the flash.
- if you anticipate a long shoot where your batteries will run out, take the charger with you. Find a power point before you start the shoot. Make sure you can get to it once the event starts. As soon as a battery is flat, stick it into the charger.

By the way, a completely flat BLM-1 battery will take about 4-5 hours to fully charge.

2. Memory cards
if you are a hiker or a climber, it becomes quickly obvious to you that you always have to be conservative with time estimates. If you think it would take you 2 hours to climb a certain route, you have to budget 4 hours if you want to avoid trouble. Mountains are unpredictable. Photographic situations can be just as unpredictable every now and then - so make sure you have plenty of space on your memory card to avoid the "Card full!" message when you are faced with your shot of a lifetime. Again, some advice on this topic:

- if you want to keep safe, take the maximum number of shots that you can see yourself shooting and double it. If you have never shot more than 100 shots on a single day, make sure you have space for 200. If you are paranoid, make room for 400.

- the size of the card depends on whether you shoot RAW or JPEG, and how many shots you produce in a single shoot. I like to shoot RAW, and for most events I don't go over 300-400 images. For that task, I feel safe with 12Gb of CF and XD cards. I had just 4Gb earlier; every now and then it was limiting. Your mileage will vary, of course - depending on your shooting style, and preferred quality settings.

- if choosing between CF or XD card, choose Compact Flash. They are definitely faster than XD. They also come in larger capacities (Currently there are no XD cards available larger than 2Gb; CF peaks at 16Gb - eight times more space). XD cards are a good backup, but I would hate to have one as the main card. Ideally, you would want to have a large and fast CF card (2Gb or larger size, 133x or higher speed) as your main card and a large XD card for backup. If you run out of space on the CF, you could switch to XD (takes two seconds - hit OK, scroll down to CF/XD (bottom left corner of the screen), rotate the wheel one click to change) almost instantly, and keep shooting, without having to stop to physically change the cards by pulling the full one and sticking an empty one in. XD sucks as the main card if you are shooting RAW, and are on continuous shooting drive (let's say you are a photographer at a fast moving event). The buffer fills up very quickly. Note that while the buffer is clearing - which could easily take 30 seconds - you cannot preview the images that you have just shot NOR change any settings through the menus. So if you need to change the ISO or the focusing mode while the buffer is clearing you are out of luck.

- there is an ongoing debate about having just one big card (4, 8, 12, 16 Gb) vs. several smaller cards of the same total capacity. The advantage of multiple cards is that if one card fails, you only lose those images, not the whole shoot as you would with a single card. But to me that is where the advantages end. Here's why: memory cards are solid state memory - no moving parts that could physically fail. They are likely to fail because of a software glitch (camera turned off while the card is writing) or because of the physical damage to the card's connectors. Damaging the pins is much more likely when you pull the card all the time. So I prefer the one card solution. Put all your eggs in one basket, yes - but that way the card stays in the camera all the time and is relatively safe. Having multiple cards is like having eggs in many baskets, but constantly running around with the baskets and risking a dangerous fall.

- it looks like a CF card faster than 133x is not necessary - the camera is not capable of feeding it data above that speed. Buy it only if you plan to upgrade to an e-3 down the road or if you are using an external card reader capable of reading and writing at faster speeds. You won't see any difference in shooting speed with a 266x card, but at least your pictures will take less time to download to a computer.

3. Dust
Your camera has a state-of-the-art dust protection system. I have owned an e-500 and e-510 cameras for two years now, and I have never had issues with dust on the sensor. I have used them with a total of 9 lenses, which I have changed countless times in all kinds of conditions - all the way to -20 Celsius, pouring rain, snow, above 4,000m and so on. Again, never a problem with dust on the sensor. But that doesn't mean that you can do whatever you please with the camera. There is still another place where you don't want dust - your viewfinder. There is no dustbuster in there, and it is hard to get it out of there once it is in. So do keep that in mind when changing lenses. Here's my recipe:

- Minimize the time that you have the camera with the lens mount open. I take out the lens that I want to put on the camera, and rotate the protective cap off so that it is loose. Than I screw off the current lens, place it next to the needed lens, move the cap from the needed lens onto the one I just took off. Then I clip the new lens onto the camera. Once it is in place, I tighten the cap on the old lens, and put it away.
- Make sure you are pointing the camera down when changing lenses so that gravity would prevent dust from entering.
- Avoid dusty / windy environments for changing lenses.
- Store the camera in a bag when it is not in use. Dust can enter through seals, too.

4. Other things
There are many more ways to screw up the shoot than batteries and cards; let me just name a few rakes that I have stepped on myself.

- check your settings before the shoot. Once I power up the camera, I do a quick check on the settings. I hit OK to bring up the control panel on the LCD and check ISO - switch to optimal settings. Check focus mode - make sure it is on my favorite S-AF + MF, or MF if I need it then. Check WB - I always use custom wide balance, so I dial in the right temperature in Kelvins. Check metering - I keep mine on ESP most of the time. Check drive mode - single / burst / remote. Check autofocus points - I like to keep mine on central focus point, but the button is under your thumb and sometimes you hit it and change settings inadvertently. Check the main dial - I like to shoot aperture priority, but sometimes you again inadvertently rotate the dial to the next setting. Finally, check IS settings - turn it on for normal shooting, off for shooting on a tripod.

- if you are away from a computer for a long time and you want to protect your important images, you have a good option if you have dual cards (CF and XD). Provided CF is your main card, view the images on the LCD. When you find one that you can't afford to lose, use the copy function to back them up to the XD card. If you are paranoid, you can even take your XD backup card out of the camera once you are done copying.

- if you are using a tripod with a quick release plate, make it a rule to either
1. always keep the plate on the camera (perfect if you have only one camera and no lenses like 50-200 with a tripod leg - so there is only one location where the quick release plate can be)
2. always keep the plate on the tripod (better if you have multiple camera bodies / lenses with tripod mounts).
Now there is another option - keep the release plate in a place other than camera or the tripod. But that is the recipe for disaster. Once I hauled my tripod and the camera bag to the location only to remember that I had the plate in my jacket pocket - and the jacket was at home. Keep it on the camera or keep it on the tripod. Pick the option that fits you and don't change the rule. As the gum said to the glue, find a good thing and stick to it.

Continue to Part V - Keeping steady

Read Part VI - Working with the shortcomings

Read Part VII - Tricks

Best quality pictures with the Olympus e-510: Part III - ISO

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 17:53:53 -0400

Note: page numbers in brackets refer to the English version of the official instruction manual where the feature is explained

I have written two entries now about the Olympus e-510 camera - one about RAW and one about focusing. Here comes the third episode in my own version of the Passion for best series - and today's topic is ISO.

One way to explain sensitivity is to think about your vision when you go to bed. Let's say you are in a brightly lit room. You turn off the light and slip under the blanket. You look around and everything is pitch black. You cannot discern any details. But later as your eyes adjust you can see shades of gray; you start seeing shapes and silhouettes; it is not pitch black anymore. Your eyes have adjusted to make do with less light by being more sensitive to it.

The camera does a similar thing - although not as well and not as smoothly. Try shooting in a dark room at ISO 100 (=lowest sensitivity), and you might end up with underexposed pictures). This is like the situation with your eyes right after you turn the light off and things are pitch black. Or try to shoot ISO 1600 in bright daylight - you are likely to overexpose everything. This is like waking up and turning on a lamp and getting your eyes flooded with light; or walking at night and being blinded by the lights of an approaching car.

Increasing ISO (pages 56-57) gives you ability to shoot in low light situations, thus increasing the range of places where you can use your camera. But it does come at a price. Just like you don't see as well as in the dark as you do in bright light, the camera outputs lower quality images at higher ISO.

ISO 800, Olympus e-500 with ZD 40-150. e-510 usually matches or exceeds e-500's high ISO ability.

Most of the time you will hear that increasing ISO brings in noise - blotches of color, grain, hot pixels. This is certainly true. The higher the ISO, the more noise you are going to get. On an e-510, some noise is present at all sensitivities (this is arguably a quality of all CMOS sensors), but while noise at ISO 100-400 can be virtually eliminated by in-camera noise reduction without a visible decline in image quality, noise becomes a problem at ISO 800 and an even bigger problem at ISO 1600. At high ISO, e-510 is also very prone to nasty banding, that is much harder to reduce in post processing than noise. This is not to say you absolutely cannot get a good image at ISO 800 or 1600 - you certainly can, it is just that it is much more difficult than at lower ISO.

But noise is not the only - and sometimes not the worst - problem of high ISO. Another one is a decline of dynamic range. In any scene, you are going to have a range of light intensity - some bright areas, some average-lit areas, some shadows. The lightest areas can sometimes differ from dark areas in light intensity by a factor of thousands. The greater the spread, the more difficult it is for a camera to record the full range of light intensity (this is like trying to listen to your iPod on the airport runway). If this spread - known as the dynamic range, or DR - exceeds the maximum range that a camera can record, there will be a data loss. The darkest or the brightest - or, in the worst scenario, both - areas will be cut off, and instead or rendering texture and detail they will render in pure white or pure black.

Increasing ISO leads to a decrease in dynamic range. In other words, you are more likely to blow highlights (clip off the bright areas and burn them to pure white) or underexpose the shadows (cllip off the shadows and render them as pure black) with high ISO. When you are using ISO 400 and especially ISO 800 and 1600 you have to be extra careful about highlights and shadows (another reason to shoot RAW, where you have some control over exposure in post processing).

The quality-degrading influence of high ISO - more noise and less DR - is made worse by incorrect in-camera settings. Screwing up the white balance introduces a color cast and as a result a lot more color noise. Boosting contrast and saturation increases the spread in recorded data between highlights and shadows - which combined with low DR may result in dead highlights or dead shadows. Underexposing introduces much more noise compared to a properly exposed image.

So with all of the above in mind, here's my strategy for ISO:

1. Keep ISO as low as possible.
Increasing ISO is the last resort. Make sure other options for combating insufficient light (tripod, brighter aperture, slower shutter speed, flash, IS) have been exhausted before increasing ISO. If you decide to use higher ISO, go no higher than needed. If 400 would do, don't use 800 (on e-500, you could even go in 1/3 steps - for example before you got to the no-man's-land of ISO 1600, you could try ISO 1000 and 1250 first - every little bit of extra DR and noise reduction that you can squeeze out helps).

2. Use proper white balance.
(pages 57-60) If you are shooting JPEG, make sure your white balance is set properly. This is often tricky because low light sources may also be mixed - e.g. dark room with some light coming through the blinds (=daylight) and a table lamp (=tungsten). Be extra careful with white balance - or avoid this problem altogether by shooting RAW and adjusting it later.

3. Use "Natural" or "Muted" setting
(page 61) On the vivid setting, both contrast and saturation are set to high, risking blown highlights and shadows because of a drop in dynamic range.

4. Use the in-camera noise filter.
(page 63) I have mine turned off because I always shoot RAW and can filter the noise in post-processing. If you shoot JPEG, the in-camera noise filter might help. Since I have limited experience with it (no need for it in RAW), I suggest you read this excellent review for details on that.

Note that "Noise reduction" (page 62) is a separate setting - that one is for long exposures. With exposures over 4 seconds, the sensor stays active long enough to heat up to a point when hot pixels cause distortion in the recording, affecting neighboring pixels. Noise reduction combats that by first taking the exposure and then, after the shutter closes, running the sensor for the same amount of time and recording the noise. Then it takes the original exposure and subtracts the second pure noise exposure from it - the so-called dark frame subtraction. This is like listening to a tape and waiting for the recording to end and then cranking up the volume to hear what kind of hissing and squeaking you hear when the musicians are silent, and then determining how best to adjust the equalizer to reduce the noise (well, not quite, but you get the idea). "Noise reduction" has absolutely no impact on short exposures.

5. Shoot black and white.
(page 61) The most noticeable and distracting part of noise is color noise. Get rid of color and there is no color noise. This is like throwing the baby out with the bathtub water most of the time; but sometimes that can do. Try it one day and see what you think. Sometimes it can be quite interesting - high ISO B&W has grainy, contrasty look reminiscent of film and can be very pleasing sometimes. Blowing highlights is not always a problem - it can be used creatively. In this shot, the top left corner is completely burned to white, but it still prints as a beautiful 8x10.

6. Shoot RAW.
(page 52) If you do, points 2, 3, 4, and 5 become irrelevant. All of that can be taken care in post processing - usually much easier and with more precision. Plus you can try as many options with RAW as you want - change settings around until you have the optimal combination. When shooting JPEG, you have to decide right there on the spot what settings are correct. If you miss them, you are screwed. This is like playing a first-person shooter game and not being able to save a game and reload it when you get killed (=problematic).

Continue reading to part IV: Keeping safe

Read Part V - Keeping steady

Read Part VI - Working with the shortcomings

Read Part VII - Tricks

Best quality pictures with the Olympus e-510: Part II - FOCUSING

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 15:56:51 -0400

Note: page numbers in brackets refer to the English version of the official instruction manual where the feature is explained

I have started writing about getting good images from your camera - if you camera happens to be an Olympus E-510. Most of the time I will be writing with the dual lens kit in mind, although most of what I say will apply to other lenses as well.

Today's topic is focus. No need to persuade you that it is important.

To start with, let's see what we have in the e-510 from the technical standpoint. According to the specifications, it has a 3 point multiple auto focus. That means the camera can focus in three areas of the frame - right in the center, and in two additional spots to the left and to the right from the center. The location of focus points in indicated in your viewfinder. The central focus point is represented as a cross; the left and right points are represented as vertical bars.

Viewfinder view on an e-510 showing the location and the type of the focus points

There is a reason for that. The central point is more sophisticated than the left and right points. The focusing system works by detecting contrast. For example, if you are trying to focus on a branch with lots of small twigs against a bright sky, it willl adjust focus until it achieves the maximum contrast between the tree twigs and the sky. When it is out of focus, the outlines of the twigs will be blurry and the transltion will be gradual (=low contrast). The maximum contrast, or the most abrupt transition from the dark twig to the bright sky will occur when the twig is in focus.

The focus sensors can detect contrast along the vertical axis or along the horizontal axis, or along both. A vertical sensor will find it easy to focus on the blinds on a window. A horizontal sensor might like a fence. A sensor with combined vertical and horizontal abilities (the so called "cross type sensor") should be fine with both.

On the e-510, only the center point is cross type; the left and right are sensitive to horizontal transitions only. That is why your viewfinder looks the way it does.

Given all that, here is the focusing strategy that I developed.

1. Choose the center focal point.

Instead of letting the camera decide what focus point to use, I force it to use the center point (top of page 49). It makes sense to do that because the center point is the only cross type sensor, so it should be the most reliable of the three. Since the viewfinder view is small, checking the focus manually is often impossible - you have no choice but to trust the auto focus a lot of time (unless using live view on a tripod - more on that later). You might as well trust the most sophisticated sensor, the one in the middle. Focus on the area that you need by half pressing the shutter release, get the focus confirmation (the red dot flashing on the central focus point in the viewfinder), re-frame the shot the way you want it (without letting go of the half press), fully press the release to take the picture. Three comments on this:

- before a serious shot, double check to make sure that you are still using the central focal point (top of page 49). The AF point selector button is right under your thumb. You could inadvertently press it and change the setting to the left or right point. Once I shot a concert in low light; the camera hunted like crazy. I thought it broke; and then realized I had accidentally turned on the left focus point. Since I was shooting subjects against very dark background, the left point often pointed into that dark background. No wonder it hunted.

- I like to turn off the focus confirmation beeping (middle of page 82). Most of the time you don't need to announce to the world that you are about to take the picture. If you are like me, you might be annoyed by the beep itself. The only thing that could justify the beep is poor eye sight - if you can't see the red dot flashing in the viewfinder, why not give yourself an audio warning?

- the focus+reframe technique will work only if you set your half press to do AF only and metering is performed continuously (mode 2 explained on page 77). If you set the half press to do both auto focus and metering (mode 1, same page), reframing the shot will result in wrong exposure.

2. Use S-AF + MF mode

You have five focusing modes on the e-510 (pages 49-51) - continuous AF, one-time AF, manual focus, and two combinations of the two. As a said before - in most cases, manual focusing is hard due to a small viewfinder. So which of the AF options to choose, continuous (C-AF) or one-time (S-AF)? I prefer S-AF because I rarely shoot moving subjects, or shoot them in burst mode. To me C-AF only makes sense when you are shooting a moving subject - that is moving towards or away from you. Unoftunately, a lot of times when the subject is moving fast, the focus system fails to keep up with it - try shooting running squirrels and you will know what I mean. So even then I prefer S-AF - get one sharp shot, instead of betting on C-AF and burst mode, and risk getting ten out of focus images.

Both S-AF and C-AF modes can be supplemented with MF - you let the camera acquire focus with a shutter release half press, then use the focus ring on the lens to adjust focus. I like to have that supplement - i.e. shoot in S-AF + MF. Here is why - let's say I am shooting with my favorite lens, the Zuiko Digital 50mm f2 Macro. It is great for portraits; but it has a huge focusing range and a slow focus motor, so sometimes if I screw up and try to focus on a low contrast area, the AF system can't acquire focus, the lens ends up going through the entire focusing range - and stops at the closest focusing distance, completely out of focus. At this point I can force it to go back to the long end of the focusing range by rotating the focus ring on the lens. If I only had S-AF turned on, that would not work. The MF ring is disabled in S-AF mode. MF prefocusing also helps in low light conditions - or in any conditions where focusing is difficult. If you prefocus manually, the AF system is less likely to start hunting (=going through the focal range without acquiring focus).

One comment here - all Zuiko Digital lenses (except for the pending SWD lenses) use focus by wire. It means that the focus ring on the lens is not mechanically linked to the optics in the lens. The ring rotation is detected electronically and appropriate adjustments are made by activating the focusing motor in the lens. This means two things:

- MF focus will not work unless it is turned on (MF, S-AF + MF, C-AF + MF modes only).

- you cannot focus the lens manually (regardless of the mode used) if the camera is turned off. It needs to be on because focusing is always done by activating a motor - both when you let the camera autofocus and when you manually rotate the focus ring on the lens.

3. Use manual focus in Live View Mode

Like many others, I thought Live View (pages 23-24) was a cheap gimmick - until I tried it. I was doing an assignment shooting old books - using a tripod and studio lighting. No fear that the subject will run away or light conditions will change. Perfect scenario for manual focus. But it is tricky to achieve with the small viewfinder. Enter Live View. Turn it on, frame the shot. Select the area in the frame that you want to be in focus - it can be anywhere in the frame, not just around the AF focus points locations (which is wonderful). Use the 7x or 10x zoom feature to enlarge that area (page 24). Manually focus until it is razor sharp. Take the picture. Using this method, I shot 70 frames that day - all perfectly acceptable in terms of focus and sharpness (sure, a lot of them were junk still - but at least I didn't have to throw out any shots for focus problems alone).

So Live View manual focus works like a charm - provided you have a static scene to shoot and a way to steady the camera. It won't help you take a life size macro shot of that dew drop on the flower (the cliche that everyone has to try once they get a macro lens) while handholding the camera - since shutter release is delayed, your movement while the mirror flips up and down will result in an out of focus picture.

4. Expect less than optimal performance in low light or with a dim lens

Since AF relies on detecting contrast, it works best in bright conditions. In low light, there is often not enough light for it to work properly. It also struggles with dim lenses, and here is why. The system always tries to focus with the lens wide open - to ensure that it gets as much light as possible onto the AF sensors. Let's say you are shooting with a 50mm f2 macro - even if you have it closed down all the way to f22 for the shot itself, it would still focus at f2 and then close to f22 for the exposure. Compare it to the kit lenses - with the wide zoom (14-42mm f3.5-5.6), the brightest you can go at 42mm is f5.6. Compare that to the 50mm f2 macro lens with its f2 aperture. The macro gets in EIGHT times more light then the kit lens zoomed all the way (f2 and f5.6 are 3 full stops apart, 2 to the power of 3 equals 8 ). No wonder the kit lenses often hunt when fully zoomed in.

So if you want to shoot a concert in a local bar, expect focus problems - you are likely to shoot zoomed in all the way to get those portrait shots, and the light will most likely be dim - you will be in autofocus hell. Compensate by manual prefocusing, studying the location where you are going to shoot, moving closer if necessary, using a flash, or buying a brighter lens.

Read part I: RAW vs. JPEG

Read part III: ISO

Read part IV: Keeping safe

Read Part V - Keeping steady

Read Part VI - Working with the shortcomings

Read Part VII - Tricks

Best quality pictures with the Olympus e-510: Part I: RAW vs. JPEG

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 14:08:42 -0400

Note: page numbers in brackets refer to the English version of the official instruction manual where the feature is explained

I have had the Olympus e-510 with its two kit lenses (the 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 and the 40-150 f4-5.6) for over a month now. Before that, I have shot about 22,000 frames with the Olympus e-500 dual lens kit. The menus and handling of the two cameras are almost identical; so I felt immediately at home with the new e-510. After two years of shooting with both cameras, I feel like I have learned a thing or two about them, and about things that you need to do to get the best quality pictures from them. So here is a summary of what I have learned.

RAW vs. JPEG

For the most of my time with the e-500, I have shot in JPEG. I never felt the need to shoot RAW - never saw the advantage of it. I regret it very much now. Some of my best shots that are fine compositionally, have the right parts in focus, and have pleasing colors, unfortunately also have blown highlights (here is an example with sunlit snow) or incorrect white balance settings (like the red cast here). Had I shot them in RAW, I could easily correct the white balance and perhaps recover the highlights. With the JPEG, if I manage to correct both, it will be at a cost of some quality degradation.

Sometimes of course you don't care about the best quality - if you are taking a quick snap, a JPEG will do just fine. But you never know when that picture opportunity of a lifetime will present itself. So my solution is to shoot RAW + SHQ - the RAW output plus the highest quality JPEG processed output. That way I can quickly preview the JPEGs that I have shot. If I don't need additional quality, I can just use the JPEGs; if I do need it, looking at JPEGs helps me decide which RAW files to process.

So here are my thoughts on the RAW vs. JPEG dilemma (consult pages 52-53 to see how to set the camera's recording mode):

1. RAW is 12 bit color, JPEG is 8 bit. RAW gives a huge advantage for postprocessing compared to JPEG. Postprocessing JPEGs is like scanning prints and modifying the scans; processing RAW is like developing film and printing differently every time. The latter gives you far more room for experimenting.

2. Adjusting the white balance in RAW is easy as moving a color temperature slider; in JPEG color correction adjustments invariably lead to image degradation.

3. Perhaps most important of all, RAW gives you control over the exposure. You can develop the RAW file in such a way that you don't have any completely black shadows or any completely blown white highlights. You can also make sure that you have the full tonal range in the picture, stretching from perfect black to perfect white. If you blow the highlights in JPEG, that is the end of the story. They are gone forever. No amount of postprocessing will bring them back.

4. If you want to have the extended dynamic range in your image - for example, you want to shoot a snow capped mountain with some foreground grass and boulders with deep shadows. You are dealing with a huge dynamic range that the camera often cannot deal with in a single exposure - you will either blow the snow and the sky, or kill detail in the boulder shadows. With RAW, you could develop it twice, once to preserve the highlights, and once to preserve the shadows, and then digitally blend them to have the full dynamic range.

5. Shooting styles change, postprocessing techniques improve. You may decide that some of your old photographs should have been shot differently. Perhaps you develop a taste for a more contrasty look - you can always go back to the RAW file and develop it with that in mind.

So, in summary: Always shoot RAW.

Continue to Part II - FOCUSING

Read Part III - ISO

Read Part IV - Keeping safe

Read Part V - Keeping steady

Read Part VI - Working with the shortcomings

Read Part VII - Tricks

Two hours with an Olympus e-510

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 18:41:38 -0400

I have used an Olympus digital SLR for close to two years now - an e-500. During that time, I shot 22,000 frames with it - about 30 frames a day, although there were days when I shot many more. Earlier this month, leaving Russia, I left the camera behind with a relative that wanted the camera - thinking it would be good for the relative to have what she wanted, and for me to get the recently released e-510.

Here are my first impressions of the camera after two hours of monkeying with it and comparing it with the e-500:
Again, these are first impressions, so take them with a BIG pinch of salt.

- the packaging is more efficient. The box with the dual lens kit e-510 is half the size of that for the e-500. That's due not only to the smaller lenses, but mainly to the more efficient use of space and less excessive padding.

- the kit lenses are really small and light. The new 40-150 is remarkably compact - it more than doubles in length fully extended. The two lenses are roughly the same diameter.

- the body finish has texture unlike the smoother surface of the e-500. It feels cheaper to me than the e-500. Only one word comes to mind in describing the card compartment door - flimsy.

- the controls are very familiar. Anyone with the e-500 experience doesn't need a long time figuring them out. New buttons for live view and image stabilization are easy to figure out.

- the 1/3 EV steps in selecting ISO are gone. No more ISO 125, 160, 250, 320, 500, 640, 1000, 1250 - only full stop steps (100, 200, 400, 800, and 1600). Not a huge loss, but I grew to like these baby step ISO changes. Less of an issue now since high ISO noise is far better controlled and one can use a higher ISO without reservations (which wasn't the story with the e-500).

- high ISO noise is hugely reduced. I need to test this more, but the initial impression is very positive.

- continuous shooting is noticeably faster.

- autofocus with kit lenses is same or faster than e-500.

- resolving power is a huge improvement. It feels like it is not just the extra 2 megapixels - the sensor is capable of producing better detail - perhaps because now you can turn off the noise filter, perhaps because it is a different sensor, and most likely for both of those and a host of other reasons.

- the colors are good - but they don't have the heart-warming tones that the e-500 had. This is the biggest loss, and I am not sure yet that I will be able to deal with it.

- the indoor artificial light performance is quite erratic - in other words, unpredictable for an e-500 user. I always use custom white balance and I struggled with the settings that would allow to minimize color casts. Finally got some adequate, but not pleasing results.

Overall, as a photographic tool it is far better. It feels like a faster, crisper, more sophisticated e-500. But the "film" of the camera is very different and will take some getting used to. It reminded me a lot of the Nikon D80 that I use at work - a superior tool electronically, but not necessarily artistically.

Here is a quick snap from today: