Zuiko and E-5: Day 3

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It's a cool morning today, the sky seems quite blue. Let's start off the day with some technical discussion. Olympus has briefed me about how they achieved "Highest per pixel sharpness" with the E-5. What this means is that with whatever technology that Olympus has, hopefully it's cutting edge, the Truepic V+ "Fine Detail Processor" looks into each pixel and process the sharpness and moire to ensure the best image quality the sensor can capture. Also, the Optical Filter, aka AA (Anti Aliasing) Filter is much weaker than the E-30 to allow more resolution from the Zuiko Digital lens to pass to the 12M Live MOS Sensor. In effect, the only changes made from the E-30 to the E-5 with regards to image capture are these two.

From the sample images, I have started to see improvements on the sharpness of the E-5 over the E-3. I have yet to take some E-30 images to compare, though. I might do it today or tomorrow. I apologize for not having time pixel peep, as I only have 3 days to test this camera.

I managed to make a shot to compare the E-5 and E-30. All settings at default, with ISO200 base and pre-set Sunny WB. Noise Filter is OFF.

1st Image is E-5; 2nd Image is E-30. Click on the camera name to see full 12MP resolution.

From my first impression, the E-5 exhibits sharper resolution, but it's really hard to tell. I think I need a better sample. Hmmm.. maybe later in the afternoon if time permits. Now it's time for breakfast.

What a long and hectic day. In the morning rushed to my aunt's house for the Aqiqah feast (it's a celebration for the birth of a child, where it's recommended to slaughter a lamb and have a feast with family and friends). This time around, I mostly used the Zuiko Digital ED35-100mm F2.0 lens.

The roast lamb being prepared for the feast.

Prayers for child's well-being and family's prosperity

Matrix metering seems able to cope with strong backlighting

At ISO 1600, the shadows are well controlled in strong backlighting

AF is responsive to follow children's playtime action

Colors are still vivid at ISO1600

Later at noon, we rushed to our kid's kindergarten concert event at Shah Alam Convention Center. I decided to leave the Zuiko Digital ED14-35mm F2.0 in the car, and solely used the Zuiko Digital ED35-100mm F2.0 lens. Most of the shots will be from a long distance, anyways. I think all shots in the grand ballroom was shot at ISO1600, and I am very satisfied with the results. The FL-50R became redundant.

See, focus, snap. The AF is fast to rapidly record in split second to get the mood.

Eagerly waiting, the E-5 AF was so quick to lock within milliseconds to capture the moment even at low light

I see Ultraman flying in the hall

Costumes and colors galore in this concert event, and the kids had a great time

Well, that sums up the 3rd and last day of shooting with the E-5. I will be returning the camera on Monday afternoon, during lunch time. I don't think I have time to squeeze during working hours to churn out more shots or explore the E-5.

Zuiko and E-5: Day 2

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Well, I started the day early today. Drove off to a spot near my house to shoot sunrise. Ohhh... what luck, it was cloudy. I got to think of something else.

I went back to the house, and thought of doing some simple comparison with the E-3. No, it won't be the ISO thingy, nor the resolution thingy. We should know that in no way the E-3 can top E-5 in both categories, so I won't bother doing it. What I thought was, how about a test for Auto White Balance accuracy.

E-3 with Zuiko Digital ED50mm F2.0 Macro

Auto White Balance, ISO100

E-5 with Zuiko Digital ED50mm F2.0 Macro

Auto White Balance, ISO200

It was cloudy, and I always have this opinion that the E-3 Auto WB tends to be warm. I took a couple of shots, both with base ISO and tried to see what happened. Both cameras had the external WB sensor On. Voila!! To my eyes, the E-5 has better Auto WB for cloudy skies. This is good!! Now, when will the sky clear for sunlight shots?

Okay... it started to rain. Seems I am grounded for today; no point shooting in the rain as I did it yesterday. I guess some product shots of the E-5 was due.

As for the rest of the day, I will be doing some weekend errands. Let's see how to fit in the schedule for some more test shots.

Throughout the late morning and early afternoon was spent at Ikea. We got ourselves a pair of study desks for our kids. Well, that's done, oh ya, I didn't bring the E-5 along as Ikea don't like to see a photographer with a behemoth of a camera and lens running around its store.

Later in the afternoon, I sent my kid to tuition and had an hour or so of spare time. It is about time to test the video capabilities.

E-5 with Zuiko Digital ED14-35mm F2.0 SWD

E-5 with Zuiko Digital ED14-35mm F2.0 SWD

Dramatic Tone art filter, with S-AF at 4 different points

My observations are as follows:

1. Video is smooth with crisp details captured by the Zuiko lens.
2. When using Art Filter, expect lost of smoothness or details depending on the type of filter used.
3. Auto Focus in single mode works, with the adjustment of focus to the selected AF point (there are 11 to choose from) can be made by pressing the shutter button.
4. SWD lens have smooth CDAF action, with some subtly soft ticking noise captured by the microphone
5. Jitter is visible in locking focus for the 14-35mm f2.0 SWD lens. Non-SWD lens like the 14-54mm F2.8-3.5 mk11 does not exhibit visible jitter in locking focus.
6. AF seems to be very responsive in strong backlight and lowlight situations.

Done with the videos, I waited at the front entrance of my kid's tuition center. I saw the nice sunshine hiding, but waiting to reveal itself from the clouds. It's time...

Though it was raining in the morning, it turned to be uber hot in the afternoon. This is typical Malaysian weather. Looking at the sun, I remembered a long time ago during my days as a novice photographer. One of my many teachers taught me how to make the brightest star seen on Earth appear as a star! It was a two step approach; underexpose by 1 or 1.5 stops, and shoot small aperture f/16. Well, the real challenge to do this shot were the patience to wait for the clouds to clear, and the strong eye to withstand the bright sun!! I think I made like a dozen of shots, and this is the best I could get. By the way, by counting the rays, you can know the number of iris blades in the lens. In this case, there are 18 rays, thus 9 blades.

E-5 with Zuiko Digital ED14-35mm F2.0 SWD

14mm, f/22, 1/250s, ISO100, -1.0ev

Wow.. I am beat!!

I just assembled my daughter's desk, and painted it pink. Now waiting it to dry before putting in the second coat.

I am not sure I have time to do some wireless flash shooting tonight.

For tomorrow, it will be a long day! Firstly, there's an open house and aqiqah invitation in Shah Alam in the morning; where I am expecting a lot of people to be there. Later in the afternoon, my son's kindy will be having the annual concert at a hall in USJ1.

What an eventful day tomorrow. I need to recharge the batteries, and not to forget myself!!

Let's have a piece of New York Cheesecake, and be merry.

Before I went to sleep, I managed to do some lowlight stuff. I set the exposure value at around 2.7EV, which was a room lit with two 60W tungsten bulbs. The subject distance from the lamp was about 5 feet.

The exposure is f/2, 1/20s, ISO1600. That is quite dark indeed. The AF seems to be very responsive.

I am now a very satisfied Zuiko Digital ED14-35mm F2.0 SWD user

The E-5 really does justice to both resolution and AF speed for this lens!!!

Zuiko and E-5: Day 1

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As promised, I picked up the Olympus E-5 test unit from the Olympus Malaysia office at Mont Kiara during lunch.

Weather-proofing legacy from the E-1 to the E-3, and now the E-5

As always, I was briefed by the Olympus Malaysia executive, Mr. Yang (not a real name) with regards to this little monster. In summary, Olympus sees E-5 as having 4 major improvements or sales pitch.

1. Highest pixel sharpness
2. Dust-and-splash proof body
3. World's 1st 3" Hypercrystal LCD with dual-swivel weather-proof monitor
4. Dramatic Tone art filter.

To me, the real deal from his presentation was on how Olympus worked on the image quality. Learning from the E-3 debacle, the new TruePic V+ is the super-engine behind the new and improved sharpness. Simply put, the new image processor kicks ass!! Compared to TruePic III+, the E-5 does not require a strong AA filter to reduce the Moire. In effect, with lower strength AA filter, the overall resolution captured by the 12MP Live MOS Sensor is maintained. The TruePic V+ then effectively cleans the Moire.

He also pointed out that the Art Filter now is no longer part of the camera Modes, but part of the image parameters; it's in the same category when selecting Natural, Vivid, Mute or Portrait. This is a good thing, as the camera settings are retained in the Mode selection which enable me to change any image parameters that I want such as ISO, F-number, WB and shutter speed.

My first touch of the E-5 is rather ordinary, as it is really an E-3 construction. The balance, heft and ergonomics are the same. The changes at the back panels are negligible for me. But one thing I notice is the LCD screen presentation. The crisp images are a welcome for chimping; well, I am a chimper! If you think E-30 trumps E-3's LCD, then E-5 is KING!!!

There's this new battery, BLM-5, which is white in color and has a charge of 1620mA. It's compatible with BLM-1 with the exception that it only can be charged with its own charger. Bummer!!

One caveat, though. Although it was confirmed the Firmware to be 1.0 (production), he told me that the AF performance is still not stable. Hmmmm... so much for drawing AF speeds conclusion.

Right after the briefing, I straight away dived into the menu and quickly changed the settings to my liking.

After a quick lunch, I did a quick shoot. Since this test unit is loaned over the weekend, I do not have much time to lose.

A quick trip to Kuala Lumpur City Center was the easiest. The sky was getting darker as the strong winds blowing in the dark clouds. I had to move fast!

In this 30-minute rapid shoot, I shot in Art Filter 10, aka Dramatic Tone. I also shot in RAW for processing later using Olympus Studio. Oh ya, that reminds me to update the Studio to support E-5 RAWs. It has been a while since I did the last update.

UPDATE!! The Olympus Studio is using the latest software; meaning I can't RAW process the Dramatic Tone art filter!!!

Towards the last 5 minutes, rain was pouring. Nothing to worry here, as the whole system is weather-sealed!

E-5 with Zuiko Digital ED7-14mm F4.0

Dramatic Tone art filter that tries to mimic HDR effect

Upon coming back to office, I happened to bump into my colleague who owns a Canon 7D. Without hesitation, I offered him a look at the E-5. He being a hardcore Canonite, was not smitten with the E-5 with the exception of the Dramatic Tone filter. He deliberated the E-5 for a while, and end up asking about video. I told him it's not full 1080p, only 720p. Well, he's not that particular about it, nor am I. But the funny thing about his question was how to activate the video!!

It was hell when there's no manual to guide me, and I scrolled into the menu many times to look for the button. To no avail, it's not in the menu. After 5 minutes scrolling, we never stopped noticing that the AF points button has a video icon next to it. Pressing the button won't do anything except selecting the AF points. I was feeling embarrassed with my Canonite friend. Then, I thought to myself... Oly tends to do things differently, being odd mostly!! Though there's a button for video, it's shared. Thinking outside the still photography box, and into motion photography box, I concluded that "Hey, what if I activate the Live View?". And yes sir, the AF button is transformed into the Video button. Whew, but why, oh, why do I need to press 2 buttons in sequence to activate the video?

Going back home, I had to walk about half a kilometer to the parking lot. There's a mega construction going on down the lot, and I took a shot.

Comparison of Natural colors with Dramatic Tone. Click texts to see full resolution, and feel free to download as these are set as Creative Commons.

Zuiko Digital ED7-14mm F4.0, 7mm, f/7.1, 1/400s, ISO200, -0.3ev.

It's night time already. Time to make some the low light shots.

For tonight, I am just warming up to the feel of shooting high ISO; thus, won't be making much time writing techno-babble. For a start, the ISO acceptance seems to be up by 1 or 2 stops from E-30. In effect with E-5, I am starting to use ISO1600 as my confident level before having to sweat out perfect exposures (see, with higher ISO, perfect exposure is very vital for low noise images). This is also based on the Noise Filter set to Low, which is my default setting.

E-5 with Zuiko Digital ED50mm F2.0

50mm, f/5.6, 1/30s, ISO1600

There are some complementary tin-can-bottle images depicting ISO increases by 1 full stops from 800 to 6400 in my portfolio. You are free to download these, as I changed them to Creative Commons. Most of the images are full copyrighted, sorry.

Link to E-5 portfolio on Flickr HERE.

Maybe tomorrow I will try to focus on some comparison among the E-5, E-30 and E-3. For a start, I might plan for some AF speed tests (though E-5s AF is not stable yet, at least for the test unit I am using now), or some high ISO tests. Let's see how things go tomorrow.

Olympus E-5

Just got word from Olympus Malaysia that a test unit is coming my way this Friday.

Well, it's going to be a fun weekend!

Zuiko and Around the Corner

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It has been a wet week recently here. The rain comes and goes without warning, and most of the time is the cats & dogs variety. A no-no for most cameras; however, glad I have the E-3 and SHG lenses in my drybox! It has been quite a while since I shot the E-3 and the Zuiko Digital ED 7-14mm F4.0 uber-wide angle lens.

The rain just stopped, but there were still drizzles flying around. The dark clouds were still lingering in the evening sky. I was itchy for some shots. Really in the mood for some serious photography. My mojo was back!

E-3 with Zuiko Digital ED 7-14mm F4.0

7mm, f/4, 1/400s, ISO200

But, I wouldn't want to use the E-30 come the sudden rain. E-3 should do it. What-the-hey!!! This archaic camera still works, albeit the recent announcement of the E-5. I was a bit worried the camera stopped working out of jealousy as I am lusting for the E-5 ever since the rumor came about.

I was lazy to go somewhere just for the sake of taking some nice photos. I told myself, what if I just walk around the corner of my neighborhood and take some interesting snaps. That was a thought, and I was glad I did it.

E-3 with Zuiko Digital ED 7-14mm F4.0

7mm, f/4, 1/200s, ISO200

My son tagged along, but mostly he was on his own running across the empty road, zig-zagging his aeroplane run with great sound effect. He was minding his own business, and so did I. Both of us had a great quality time.

Zuiko and the Balancing Act

In my class, I cram my students with many photography nonsense. Especially with the mantra, "When outdoors in the hot sun, shoot with your flash on and 100% direct." Most of the time, my students will show blank stares disbelieving what I just said.

There are many other mantras, and one of them is, "If you don't like a person in a group picture, please use a wide angle lens." Well, this may be a good topic for another blog. For now, let me stick to the hot-sun-flashing-shooter thing.

Ah, well... I give them the assignment, and these are the results.

E-30 with Zuiko Digital ED14-35mm F2.0 SWD + FL-50R Flash

33mm, f/11, 1/250s, ISO100, -2ev, flash +1ev

My approach is simple. Most of the time, the camera using Matrix metering is quite smart enough to detect the background exposure. Thus, by dialing down the overall exposure compensation to -2ev, the background is darkened. The flash, then is set at higher compensation, say +1ev, to illuminate the darkened scene. In total, the image has a composite of -1ev exposure, which is just the right balance for portrait with landscape picture.

The above image uses slow x-sync flash that limits the shutter to 1/250s; thus, entails for small aperture exposure. In this case, it is f/11.

E-30 with Zuiko Digital ED14-35mm F2.0 SWD + FL-50R Flash

14mm, f/3.2, 1/4000s, ISO100, -2ev, flash +1ev

Say that you are a sucker for shallow depth-of-field, or bokeh-anywhere type of shooter. Then, you can dial up the aperture to f/2 for example, and the shutter speed will still jam at 1/250s. In this case, the Matrix metering is dumb! The picture will be overexposed. The only way to jump the shutter up is to use high-speed sync, in Olympus language it's FP Flash. Be careful though when using this method, as the bulb tend to be abused with low power but long bursts of light. I killed my FL-36 during a wedding once due to FP abuse, and it was not nice!!

Notice the blur effect due to the larger aperture even at wide angle 14mm? I should have used f/2.0 to get more blur. Doh!!

Using the same exposure principles of the first picture, the second image is recreated with the same exposure balance.

Zuiko and a New Compact System

It seems Olympus is coming out with another system.

From the dpreview.com site, there's a mockup camera that has the granular similarity with the Canon S90. I just can't believe this!!!!



If this is to be true, I am hard pressed to thinking of upgrading my S90 with the S95 in the near future.

Hmmmm... I hope more revelations appear in Photokina.


UPDATE!
At Photokina, dpreview.com has reported a bit about this compact.

Click HERE to look at the sheer size of the lens, with respect to the body.

From the extended lens, I can deduce that the lens is larger than the S90. Two things are possible:
1. This is a large aperture lens throughout its range, maybe an F2.0-2.8, with a sensor size of 2/3".
2. This is a large sensor compact, maybe 4/3, with lens aperture F3.5-5.6.

Another hint from dpreview.com, it may be a return of the legendary C-5050 specification; thus, I can conclude that it may be a large aperture lens with 2/3" sensor.

Well, only time will tell and I really expect it to be worth the wait!!