Let me add my Hooray! To Jim's comment.
On Sep 9, 2015 12:02 PM, "Jim Nichols" <jhnichols@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Thanks for the report. Glad things are going your way. Your words about
the older cameras just help keep me happy with what I am using. I've
actually found that a couple of older lenses are not bad, either.
>
> Jim Nichols
> Tullahoma, TN USA
>
>
> On 9/9/2015 10:52 AM, Ken Norton wrote:
>>
>> I'm photographing a couple of weddings here in short succession. The
>> first one was 100% outdoors, so that was pretty easy to do, the second
>> one may or may not be outdoors depending on weather. I may have a
>> couple more weddings pop up yet this year.
>>
>> For this first one, I was working by myself and ended up using just
>> one camera-lens combo. The Olympus E-3 with 14-42 lens. But I was
>> using the Vivitar 285HV for fill flash lighting across the boards.
>> During the ceremony, I was using the flash bare, but for the formals,
>> I through the reflector on it. Just hot-shoed the thing. Simple, and
>> to the point.
>>
>> It was a low-key affair, and I didn't shoot any reception or dinner,
>> just the outdoor ceremony. Total of 375 pictures taken, 190 unique
>> keepers. THAT is a good ratio when you consider that you overshoot the
>> formals and everything of importance.
>>
>> Several notes:
>>
>> 1. The E-3 is much quicker in shot-to-shot operation than the E-1, but
>> the E-1 is much quicker in making setting changes.
>>
>> 2. The E-3 is NOT forgiving for exposure like the E-1. I am learning
>> that I have to really nail the exposure with this camera if I'm going
>> to keep from hitting the highlight saturation point. I leaned on the
>> fill-flash a whole lot more than I normally do because I had to reduce
>> contrast so much between ambient and subject. The wedding was in a
>> gazebo next to a lake during the late afternoon. I made the mistake of
>> overexposing my background a little bit and unlike the E-1, there is
>> no faking a recovery. No regrets, though, because to reduce the
>> background would have meant having a higher amount of fill-flash in
>> the picture which would have introduced other issues like edgy
>> shadows. I like my backgrounds to be a stop higher or lower than the
>> subject anyway, so no biggy.
>>
>> 3. As usual, Lightroom is the cat's meow for mass editing. But it
>> definitely doesn't do as well with color profile on E-3 files as
>> either C1 or Olympus converters. I'm going to alter the raw settings a
>> little bit to warm the shadows up without cranking the saturation out
>> of whack.
>>
>> 4. B&W conversions with E-3 files are rather nice. I can get a nice
>> film look without difficulty. Somehow the E-3 does really well. Even
>> the in-camera B&W files don't look half-bad.
>>
>> 5. The 14-42 is not the best lens around, but it does do remarkably
>> well. I'll probably snag a 14-54 Mk2 at some point, though. That is
>> the best lens for this application I know of.
>>
>> 6. Fortunately, I was able to shoot everything at ISO 100 to 160.
>> While "noisy" at higher ISOs, the E-1 produces a far better ISO 400
>> file than the E-3. At ISO 100, the E-3 is cleaner. Once you manipulate
>> the images to "Ken Rockwell' saturations, the E-1 is actually a little
>> bit better at higher ISO than the E-3, but keeping the files closer to
>> standard, the E-3 is cleaner. You just can't mangle an E-3 file like
>> an E-1 file. The L1 files are cleaner to work with, but the shadow
>> color shifts can be nasty.
>>
>> 7. The Vivitar 285HV remains one of the best-kept secrets of
>> fill-flash shooting there is. Just put the flash in the yellow or red
>> arc, set the camera to auto with some slight exposure compensation and
>> set the ISO so the shutter speed doesn't exceed maximum flash sync
>> speed. Have a nice day. If you want some "natural" vignetting, zoom
>> the head in a bit.
>>
>> 8. I had the E-1 configured identically to the E-3 and sitting in my
>> bag along with other lenses and the L1 as a spare. Never grabbed it
>> because I didn't need to. Next wedding will be a dual-shooter
>> situation, though, so I'll probably have the E-1 and L1 while my
>> daughter uses the E-3.
>>
>> For the photo business, this has been a good year. A couple of
>> weddings, a couple of portrait sessions, a bunch of print sales and
>> halfway decent click income from the website. I may actually BREAK
>> EVEN this year. Not enough money for a new camera as the income
>> supports household needs, but the giftings of the E-bodies this year
>> have been very welcome and much used. Best of all, the darkroom is
>> back in operation again!
>>
>> Are these lower-pixel count cameras and lower-ISO settings still
>> competitive in today's world? Actually, yes. Thanks to the miracle of
>> Lightroom, there is a great equalization between cameras. I can clean
>> up an image easily enough and frankly there is more than enough pixels
>> as there are only a couple of pictures that get made into larger
>> prints and everything else is either kept small in an album or posted
>> online. While newer cameras make life EASIER in many regards, they
>> aren't always the only solution. Especially when you figure in how
>> much manipulation I do to images, having image files that are highly
>> bendable is more important.
>>
>> AG
>
>
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