At 08:56 AM 07/04/2006, Evan Ruff wrote:
>Hey Guys,
>
>I had to cancel my subscription to the list due to the demands of my job,
>but I quit, SO NOW I'M BACK.
>
>I'm pretty sure that everyone has had this conversation numerous times
>before, but with the constantly changing landscape in digital cameras, I
>feel like it won't be a complete rehash. I've got some general questions
>about switching to digital, mainly about quality, output, storage and
>models.
**HEAVY SIGH**
Well, I thought I'd chime in at this point, since I've recently been
whingeing on this List about the continuing non-availability of the
E-2 (or -3, or -4, or whatever the next totally professional model of
the E-thingie series is going to be). Some of you may also remember
that I had a buddy who was quite enamoured of the idea of using some
of my legacy OM lenses on his Canon 5D (particularly the Zuiko 21/2.0).
The short story is: our foray into using legacy OM-System lenses on
the 5D has been put on hold, due to other time commitments he has to
a contract he's working hard at the moment. In the meantime, I
*foolishly* gathered together some of the best examples of my legacy
lenses and trotted down to one of the better-known pro shops here in
Calgary, just out of curiosity. After all, what harm could it do? I
just wanted to see how the Zuiko 100/2.0, 90/2.0 and 50/1.2 would
perform on an E-1 body. Honest. I had no intention of
buying. Really. Seriously. I Shit You Not.
Man, somedays I'm a dope.
So I walk into the door, and one of the sales d00ds who knows me
said, "We just had a price drop on the E-1. It's now under a grand Canadian."
P-p-p-p-price d-d-d-rop? <GULP> Uh, well, that's nice, but I'm just
here to tire-kick.
"No problem, we're not busy at all right now. What did you bring?"
he asked, looking at my small gadget bag. I set the bag on the
counter and pulled out the Zuiko 90/2.0 Macro. Sales d00d purses his
lips appreciatively, beginning to show signs of drool and spittle at
the corners of his mouth.
"Haven't seen one of those before on a digital. Let's get that *bad
boy* on an E-1 and see what it'll do." Um, uh, hokay. Sure. I'm
just here to tire-kick. Honest. Er, did you say something about a price drop?
SNICK. With an MF-1 adapter, the 90 locks on to the E-1 like a
heat-seeking missile, and the focusing movement, as always, is
buttery-smooth, way better than the movements of most of the digi SLR
lenses I've tried. We spend a few minutes playing with the
combo. Then the 100/2.0. Then the 50/1.2.
I am weak, Oh Lord. Weak, and sinful.
The viewfinder's *perfect*. The legacy lenses are *insanely* bright
in the viewfinder, yet I'm having no trouble focusing. Manual focus
works well. Aperture-priority exposure works like a HOT DAMN. I
dial in a 1/3 EV underexposure, and play with the 50/1.2 wide open,
chimping the LCD as I set it to show me the exposure histogram with a
single touch of the review button. The build quality of the E-1 is
seductive. Everything looks like it can take the punishment of
actually being owned by moi. The sales d00d's looking like he wants
to konk me over the head, scoop up my legacy glass and run from the
building laughing maniacally.
My hands start to shake.
Um, did you mention a PRICE DROP?
Yeah, he did.
I am weak, Oh Lord. Weak, and sinful. May you (and my spousal unit)
forgive me for what I'm about to do.
"So, you guys take Visa, right?"
**HEAVY SIGH**
Laugh at me all you want. I've got an E-1 with a Zuiko 100/2.0
attached to it. It ROCKS. I'm truly impressed with the thought that
went into the ergonomics of this camera body. My *only* complaint so
far is that they didn't equip the E-1 with memory-enabled multi-spot
metering.
Mebbe the E-x?
***********************************
Now, to attempt to address Evan's points:
>To begin, I've been shooting with an OM-1n and a 4T, using nothing but my
>trusty 28/f2.8, 50/f1.4, 100/f2 and the 50mm/f3.5 macro.
Good combos. Similar to some of my stuff, and hard to get away from
-- but I'm learning.
[snip]
>Unfortunately, I like the digital experience, and it's making me
>force my hand into digital.
Yeah, that's why I broke down and bought a KonicaMinolta A1 a couple
of years ago. You can get 'em used on ePay for a song these days,
and I'm pretty gassed about 'em -- nice camera for the money. A good
used example would be an almost painless way of getting a quality
prosumer-shading-into-pro digi. I've just finished buying a whole
bunch of accessories to extend its capabilities, and now that I have
an environmentally-sealed splash-proof E-1, the A1 will probably do
major duty as an indoor/studio digi for the next few years (or until
it dies, anyways). The E-1's comin' into the bush with me. <Grin.>
>Quality:
>My first question is, how "big" can you blow up these digital pictures
>without looking like a mosaic. Or, how many MPs do I need before I can do a
>20x28, at least as well as a frame of Tri-X. I've searched on the internet
>but I've gotten no definitive answer to this question, and my local Wolf
>Camera said a 6mp can do 16x20, which I find hard to believe.
Actually, whether or not you can do this depends more on the RIP
(Raster Image Processor) of the printer you're using than the raw
number of megapixels. A RIP can either be hardware or software (or
occasionally, both). Some packages have built-in RIPs (MS Word's,
for example, is, uh, less than optimal). Other packages can do RI
processing "internally" or hand it off to the printer and its
attendant software/firmware. The new Epsons, just as one example,
have output from 5 or 6 megapixel cameras that are jaw-droppingly
great, but you pay for that capability. My Canon buddy stitched
together a whole bunch of 6MPix shots of a spot in Kananaskis Country
(Canadian Rockies, 'bout an hour or so from my home) into an HDR
vista photo from a high-end Epson that's maximum-width (19 inches,
IIRC) and over six feet wide. It's stunning -- and at least one
gallery and one of the pro camera shops downtown have asked for
copies. Megapixels are only a part of the story.
> One of my big
>contentions is that if I take pictures with digital, I'm locked into the
>size until the "next-gen" body comes out. I guess that this is the same with
>35mm, but the format is so versatile that I never felt limited.
If by "size" you mean "format" (such as 4/3rds or the 1.6 crop factor
Canon bodies), yeah, you're partially right, but many lenses are
interchangeable amongst different bodies of the same brand, and there
are very competent adapters out there to extend the use of your
existing OM lenses on either Canon or Oly 4/3rds.
>N-O-I-S-E, talk to me. The SD450, even at ISO400, is very noisy. Noisy like
>a train station. Noisy like a football game. Noisy like Jim Kramer. With the
>4/3 system, and its smaller sensor size, how does it compare to the APS
>sensor sizes and even the full-frames in some of the other models. In
>everyone's experience, has this really been a problem, or can you use
>software to pull it out?
I always shoot ISO 100, so I don't care. The noise of the E-1 at
high ISO settings (400 seems to be the breakpoint) affects different
people differently. I'd say try one out. Canons are better at high
ISOs, but do you shoot above 400 a lot? One of my buddies who's
heavily-invested in Canon's digital line doesn't care about Canon's
high-ISO performance, because it's irrelevant to the kind of
photography (nature and bird) that he does.
>xD picture cards... why? It seems that most people are going with SD.
Er, if you're talking prosumer or pro, it's almost all CF,
actually. And a good thing, too -- that's where all the real
development's been.
>Output:
>"They shore got some fancy printers out there now!!" My questions about
>those are mainly in regards to quality. How well can those things output a
>5x7, 8x10, 16x20, 20x28 (?) How much does the paper cost? Can they print
>edge-to-edge, can you hang them on a wall next to a 35mm print without
>noticing (especially my OCD-ness). If I was going to print out some sort of
>project for work, can I print photo-quality front-and-back?
Short answer: how much money (or credit) you got, son? Nothing's
impossible if you're willing to pay for it.
>Storage:
>My negatives are in a variety of archival-quality Clearfiles in three 4"
>binders in a fireproof box in the closet. I'm not worried about anything
>happening to them, short of a serious SERIOUS disaster. Last year, the hard
>drvie storing my 25GB MP3 collection "shat-the-bed," digitally speaking, and
>I had to re-burn all my CDs again. This was... absolutely not fun.
>
>How do you guys insure the integrity of your digital shots?
Backups, backups, backups. Same as any other digital data. If
you're not willing to do this, expect to lose images at some
point. *Same as any other digital data.* Seriously.
> I thought that
>you could burn them to DVDs as a backup, but now I'm hearing rumblings that
>writable optical media only has a ~10 year shelf-life. The thought of a
>drive going and losing my catalog is very scary to me.
Archival-quality CDs and DVDs are available for purchase on the
Web. See for example the Mitsui line:
http://www.nextag.com/mitsui-gold/search-html
A Google search will turn up many more places to purchase such
stuff. You pay for peace of mind, but they're actually not as bad as
I thought they'd be, and you can buy one or two to try 'em out, and
then bulk-buy to save money on per-disc costs. Share the costs with
a friend, ferinstance.
>What is RAW and why do I need to be shooting it? For archive purposes, is it
>possible to compress raw with a lossless algorithm? (Zip, RAR, whatever)
>Does RAW automatically record all the metrics of the shot (Aperture, Shutter
>speed, lens, focal length, etc)
Every manufacturer uses a different RAW format (there's no
standard). It's simply the "raw" data as it streams off the
particular imaging chip (in practise, this isn't quite true, as
there's almost always *some* in-camera processing that occurs before
a RAW image is written to memory, but it's close enough for
jazz). All the major manufacturers' RAW formats are
widely-understood and -supported by various image-cataloguing and
image-editing programs. Oly's no exception here. And I've never
tried compressing any RAW images, but I don't see why you couldn't
get at least some modest compression out of 'em. In fact...
...okay, I just tried it on .ORF (Oly RAW) and .MRW (Minolta RAW)
files. The Minoltas averaged about a 19% compression, and the Olys
varied widely, from a low of about 26% to a high of (are you ready
for this?) *69%*. This using FreeZIP, a lossless ZIP program. This
supports the contention that the Oly RAW format is inefficiently
processed for storage (if it's processed at all, that
is...). Probably contributes to shooting speed, particularly in burst mode.
The maximum-available amount of image info is in the RAW file. *All*
further processing strips at least *some* of the data away, whether
it's bit depth, image size, etc. Shooting RAW theoretically allows
for the greatest post-processing, but there are trade-offs, the two
big ones (in my mind) being write speed to the CF card and number of
images that can be stored for any particular capacity of storage card
or other media.
As for picture info, what gets recorded depends on the camera make
and model (as well as, to some extent, the choices you make when you
customize the camera's functions to your liking). EXIF seems to
allow for almost unlimited amounts of info (I'm sure I'm wrong here,
but it feels like it), but manufacturers make decisions about how
much image info actually gets written. In practise, it's usually
"gobs and gobs." YMMV.
>Models:
>So, I'm looking at all the E goodness available to me. The E-330 sure sounds
>cool, but the selection of lenses available makes me a bit nervous. Seeing
>as how the bodies are (essentially) outdated in a year, I'd like to at least
>be able to point at a really nice lens and say, "I'll drop twelve hond-o in
>this lens and be able to use it forever", but it seems like there aren't any
>real top-tier lenses out there for the E system. What are some of your
>thoughts on the current crop, why is there no fast, fixed aperture
>offerings, etc.
The professional line of E-System lenses are as good as any
anywhere. I wouldn't worry 'bout it. If you're going the E-1 route,
start with an MF-1 Adapter and use your legacy OM glass in Manual or
Aperture-Priority mode, and bang away. Otherwise, buy a Canon (say a
full-frame 5D) and get an adapter. There are Canon "freaks and
geeks" who positively *lust* after certain legacy OM lens specimens,
such as the 21/3.5 and to a lesser extent the 21/2.0. You've got a
couple that would probably be quite competent on a 5D.
>Do the Olys out there now have a dedicated DOF Preview button? Where is it?
Nope. As you dial down the aperture on a legacy lens, you
automatically darken the viewfinder and increase the DOF. The new
E-series lenses don't behave this way. But with the ability to chimp
the LCD, except for once-in-a-lifetime shots, you can check DOF and
just fire again if you need to. (And really, how many split-second
shots are you gonna be presented the opportunity to shoot, yet still
have enough time to check the DOF first? This is [pardon my
bluntness] a bit of a silly concern, IMNSHO.) "F8 and be there."
>With the 4 I shoot in aperture-priority mode almost exclusively, do the new
>boys have this?
Yep. Almost all brands. Certainly the E-1 (in fact, it's one of
only two modes in which you can use legacy OM lenses at all; there's
also Shutter-Priority and a Program mode, which I never really "got"
even on the old OM2Sp).
> How hard was it for you to adapt to the new digital bodies.
The E-1's learning curve was about a day. I'm still finding little
bits 'n things, but the manual's REALLY well written, and the control
layout is so logical and intuitive that I handed the body to my Canon
buddy and he'd figured out about 85% of the functions within fifteen
minutes. He *really* liked how quiet the shutter was -- thought it
would be very useful for birding. Also found himself envying the
12-shot continuous-drive buffer.
>Any chance they've got an OM-5 in the wings?
If you mean film-body OM-5, absolutely none. Olympus finally exited
that market on the professional end in 2002. "It's dead, Jim."
> I keep hearing about how the
>4/3 system is supposed to allow the bodies to be much smaller, but I'm not
>seeing it; although, that new Leica/Panasonic thing is quite handsome.
My Canon buddy compared the E-1 to his flagship 5D; he was impressed
with the E-1's compactness. But yes, it'll be bigger than an OM-4
(it's sure bigger than *my* OM-4, anyways!). Lightweight and solid, though.
>And finally, what about these prosumer fixed lens shooters, like the Sony
>DSC-R1 and the Olympus 8080. Can anyone speak to the quality of the lens,
>control layout, picture output, noise, etc. My thinking is that if I'm only
>shooting 28mm - 100mm, and that these bodies offer that focal length in a
>single, less expensive, smaller package, why not look that way?
As I mentioned above, for a guy wanting to just dip your toes, a
KonicaMinolta A1 off of ePay might be the bee's knees for a year or
two. I certainly like mine, and it's served me well until now (and
hopefully will continue to do so). The image quality is first-rate
at low ISO values (but has noise higher up). My quibbles are with
some of its almost-but-not-quite-pro capabilities, but then it was
never designed for the pro market (though AG Schnozz, one of the
denizens of this List, will defend it vociferously for such use, as
he's sold images taken with the A1).
>Thanks for making it down this far. I'm really looking forward to hearing
>everyone's opinion on these topics.
No big. Enjoyed spouting, and, uh, admitting to the List that I'm a
weenie. Oh well, not the first time -- nor the last!
Garth
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