I posted this before inadvertantly under my Pumacat handle, but as
most of you don't me from that handle, I thought I would repost it
with some edits and some additions.
________________________
One of the guys I shoot with, Mike Doran, got an E-1 loaner for use
to use for the AMA Superbike race at Fontana, CA for the weekend.
I shot with the E-1 extensively for those three days at Fontana,
literally in the field at times. I shot with the 14-54 and 50-200 and
the FL-20 flash and battery grip with the camera. I've used the
camera both in the hot pits and trackside for racing action shots.
These are some initial impressions:
The metering true to my recollections of using the camera twice previously,
is that it is quite good, giving for the most part, very nice histograms
that are rich in data from end to end. Not a lot of time required for
post-processing as a result, though overall, the C*n*n gear doesn't take any
more post-processing than the E-1 gear does now that I have my workflow
nailed.
I find the ergos on the camera to be a mixed bag; overall, the key
controls, e.g. shooting mode, shutter speed, etc, fall to hand easily
enough, but to me there's no "logical flow" to the myriad of small
buttons that set white balance, iso, image review, AEL,
focus points...the buttons are scattered all over the camera that makes
using it a bit disjointed-feeling to me. I definitely prefer Canon ergos,
which I have liked and found very logical and easy to use from day one, much
like using my first Mac computer was. I don't need to say anything about the
build quality, which we all know to be superb.
The optics, as we all know, are superb. Really sharp, excellent contrast,
and workably fast lenses. Not the fastest lenses, but workable. The camera
and lenses are relatively light and very easy to handhold while
shooting. The 14-54 is a versatile standard zoom, with the wide angle
giving a 35mm equivalent of 28 mm, and I liked the look that I got
from the lens at this focal length. The lens is also small, light and
compact. The 50-200mm was nice, too, and gave very sharp images of
the racing when I got the camera to focus correctly, which was about
50% of the time for racing action photos, lower than what I get with
my Darth Vader gear. I find the zoom rings to be stiff, but the
manual tweaking of focus that has been mentioned previously is very
nice.
Image quality and color are excellent when the camera "gets the
shot", colors seem for
the most quite neutral, and the sharp optics give crisp images that
have very color, with only a slight color cast.
The caveats:
Autofocus:
For the most part, the autofocus works well in fairly bright or bright
daylight shooting, but I still find the autofocus to be somewhat slow under
certain circumstances, and there are times when it is downright sluggish.
For example, if I take a shot of a bike at corner that is fairly close, then
move the focus point somewhat further up-track to another apex, the
autofocus can gets very confused and take a very long time to readjust
focus. This is most notable when moving the subject focus from far way to
close, or close to far away. Sometimes the camera gets totally confused and
just will not find focus at all, at least with respect to when I need to get
the shot. It also, as I have pointed out before, focussed poorly in low
light. At one point yesterday and today, the clouds got very dark and the
E-1 had notable difficulty finding focus.
Speed writing and reading images:
This is something I have commented on before, and I continue to be of
the opinion that this camera is really slow when it comes to writing
images. I am using professional Lexar 40X CF cards, amongst the
fastest cards on the market. I missed a no. of shots because I was
still waiting for the image to be written. For example, if I take a
shot of a bike going by,
and then try to take another shot of a bike going by that is say, a car
length or so behind, I can't get the shot because the camera is still
writing the previous image. I lost a number of shots this way, even when
taking static shots in the pits. This one thing I find to be quite
exasperating about the camera, and the biggest thing that would give me pause
about buying one.
Noise levels:
At ISO 100, the image quality is excellent, I haven't tried it at
ISO 200, but at ISO 400, the noise from the E-1 is unacceptable. A
camera this expensive with the noise it has at ISO 400 due is a
minus for me, as someone who might think about buying into this
system.
Overall summary: It's a very nice camera. I find it much more suited to
taking shots in the pits than for action. A sports photojournalists camera
this is not, it's just not fast enough when writing image data.
When the camera gets the image, the quality, color, neutrality
and sharpness are truly excellent. However, I still feel this camera
is two years
to late to market. I feel that a promising camera is let down by only average
autofocus performance, noise, and for me, unacceptably slow write times.
I will put up some racing images tomorrow, meanwhile here are links
to some pit lane photos I took with the E-1.
All of the shots that I took (check the photo tagline) on this page
were taken with the E-1.
http://www.amasuperbike.com/image/2004ama/fontana/2/
Some shots from my SportsShooter.com page.
http://www.sportsshooter.com/members.html?id=1138 (photos no. 2, 3, 4 and 6).
Cheers.
-Stephen.
--
2001 CBR600F4i - Fantastic!
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