Hi Ken,
I'm not sure where you would turn if you must use automatic features. My
experience with recent ZD lenses is that they are definitely on the sharp
side.
My choice for portraits is to go back a generation to Leica-R or Pentax
manual lenses. You could probably do the same with your Oly lenses. Those
lenses, used on the E-1, can perform extremely well.
Just my 2 cents. ;~)
Jim Nichols
Tullahoma, TN USA
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Norton" <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Olympus Camera Discussion" <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2010 5:21 PM
Subject: [OM] Brutal Truth - Have we gone too far?
>I delivered some 8x10 prints to a customer last night. Portraits taken
> with the L1 with 14-50, flash lit, yada yada... Results were cropped a
> bit.
>
> I'm having a justification problem. The resulting prints are TOO
> sharp. I'm not talking about edgy, I'm talking almost over-the-top
> edgy. For portraiture it crossed over a line. The E-1 pictures has a
> natural sense of smoothness to them which gives the impression of
> softness even when brutally sharp, but this combination using the L1
> and 14-50 lens definitely went beyond what I feel is "sellable".
>
> I can dumb things down, that's a given. You can't make something sharp
> that isn't, but you can soften that which is too sharp. No problem
> there. But what I'm questioning is the need for "more/better" in this
> regard. What does more pixels give me? What is to be gained if I have
> to dumb the picture down anyway? It's not that I'm complaining--heaven
> forbid I do that, but I'm noting that I've possibly reached a point of
> sufficiency and blown past it in portraiture.
>
> I've noticed in other photographers' portraits this over-sharpened
> look--typically caused by hyperventilating USM, but usually the lenses
> lack the edginess to make it look critical-sharp and not
> mega-post-processed. The ONLY sharpening applied to these portraits
> was demosiacing sharpening during RAW conversion. I almost always send
> my images off to Millers with no additional sharpening as they apply a
> touch of sharpening in the print process. (The E-1 shots in the same
> batch of prints from the same exact printer were fine).
>
> It looks like the E-1 with 14-50 seems to be about the best
> combination for portraiture because the excessive sharpness/contrast
> of the lens is sufficiently countered by the WWE AA filter. The wimpy
> AA filter in the L1 just seems to make this setup too hairy for
> portraiture without processing to dumb things down. The E-1/14-50
> combination really does give the look I got from medium-format Mamiya
> cameras--sharp, but comfy. The Portra films always did a nice job of
> "smoothing out the wrinkles", but the L1 gives the photos that
> industrial look.
>
> So, to my question...
>
> When my CDFO makes note of the over-sharpness in the prints, how can I
> justify to her the necessity of getting some new uber-camera? See my
> situation? I foolishly bought that E-1 years ago and now I couldn't
> get rid of it even if I wanted to.
>
> BTW, speaking of new cameras. Last night I spent some quality time
> with the new E-PL1. Honestly? I like it a lot more than the E-P1.
> This is one slick little camera. But it just lacks that "gotta have
> it" characteristic. I think the buttons are among the better feeling
> and the overall layout is halfway logical. I just can't get used to
> the sound of the shutter and the lag. When taking pictures with these
> Pen cameras, I find that shutter-lag just long enough that the camera
> feels one beat behind the rest of the marching band. On my shortlist?
> No. Disappointed? No. That screen is very nice, but way low on
> pixel-count. Time for Olympus to get with the program.
>
> AG
> --
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