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Lympa Log - Leica R lenses on Olympus E-330 DSLR

Photos and Text © Gary Todoroff  2006 All Rights Reserved

Apr 02, 2006

First Saturday Night Arts Alive in Eureka, CA gets a new venue with the Arkley Center for the Performing Arts, which will occupy the renovated Sweasey Theater in the background. Until completion of the theater in early 2007, the street is closed and a tent set up for performers once every month.

Last night, with the E-330 noise reduction set to on, long exposure shows no sign of noise. Any artifacts in the photo above are from jpeg "save for web" compression. I did apply perspective cropping in Photoshop to correct the leaning vertical lines.

7-14mm/f4.0 at 10mm 1 sec f4 ISO 200 +1.7EV, Low Key setting, Noise Reduction On.

Ok, I finally took the time to change web log formats from one long page to an indexed group of pages. Taking photographs is a lot more fun than web page design! Actually the Macromedia Contribute software makes the task fairly simple, but still time-consuming.

 

I tried out a new feature on the E-330 last night – the Noise Reduction set to on for some low-light photography. Also, I finally remembered to switch to RAW format. However, I forgot to make the “+jpg” setting, which saves a small jpeg file along with the large RAW (.ORF) file. Without the jpeg file, my usual workflow in Photoshop CS2 could not display the photos.

 

Note to Olympus – get that RAW file plug-in for the E-330 .ORF format over to Adobe, please!

 

Instead, I had to use the Olympus Master software to process the RAW files. The interface is not very intuitive, and I always wonder why programmers need to re-invent how to navigate folders and files. The standard Windows interface (aka Explorer) works just fine. If someone can improve it, fine, but don't give us yet another file interface to learn.

 

E-330

7-14mm/f4.0

at 9mm

1/6th sec

F4.0

ISO 400

+1.3EV

Live View

Mode A

Adobe RGB color space

and Noise Reduction

was used for these available light photos.

 

So while I'm haranguing Olympus for their software, the photos here show why Olympus, despite Master, is still definitely in my plus column.  The flip screen in Live View works great for night-time, slow shutter speed shooting.

 

More notes to Olympus Attn: Olympus Master Software Department

 

Why won't double-clicking a photo in the preview pane of Olympus Master bring it into the working window? Instead you must drag it to the working window or click a tiny Add button.

 

Why can't you Save a file that has been processed by clicking File in the upper left menu - the standard approach on all programs with File in the menu? Instead Save is tucked away as a tiny icon on the lower right of the screen

 

When I finally figured out how to Save a converted RAW file, then switched over to Photoshop, I could not find my processed Tiff file! After a long time searching to no avail, I did the RAW Save function again. Above the File Name window, was a suspicious tab named “Calendar”. Turns out the default mode is not to save the file in a folder like every other Windows file function, but in some kind of Olympus database index that stores photos by date. By clicking the Folder tab, Olympus Master behaved in a slightly more standard fashion. What a strange default mode, that tucks your photo away five or six folders deep and with an Olympus assigned file name - talk about a secret handshake!

 

Perhaps I would not belabor this point so much if not for the fact that I worked for many years as a “maintenance programmer”, modifying software business applications for clients using big mid-range computers. “Maintenance” was actually a complex function of not only making the program modification, but also making sure it integrated with the style of the existing program, which the users were accustomed to. It was like adding onto a house without making it look like an add-on.

 

In the Windows world, Olympus Master looks like an add-on.

 

To conclude on a positive note, Olympus Master does do a very nicely formatted window on all of the digital file EXIF file data, including the type of Olympus lens that was used, something I wish Photoshop displayed better. It always impresses me just how much I can learn when all that exposure and setting information appears on the monitor after taking the photo!

 

Outside the street tent, a trash can provided a handy brace for the E-330.

E-330

7-14mm/f4.0

at 10mm

1 sec

F4.0

ISO 400

+2.7 EV

Live View

Mode A

The above photograph is a good example of why I must add one more plea as yet another:

Note to Olympus - If your C-8080 can provide a live histogram (one of the great features of my 8080), then why can't the E-330? I had to shoot several shots of the above scene, then review the histogram of each shot to finally get a proper exposure. An Exposure Value adjustment of +2.7 is usually not an intuitive call, and I lost a couple of good shots until getting exposure set properly. Live Histogram in Live View, please!

 

Even the dog looks like he's pleading for an E-330 Photoshop RAW interface, although to him that would probably mean beefsteak.

E-330, Leica APO Vario-Elmarit 70-180/f2.8 f8, 1/15th , ISO200, Apeture Mode, +0.7EV

For sharp focus above, the 10x magnification in Live View Mode B allows you to really zero in, as long as your subject doesn't move too much. My daughter's Canine Companion dog, Tillson, had just had breakfast and was relaxing in the warm sun coming in the kitchen window. He doesn't get much slower. Moving kinda' slow myself, I was able to brace the camera on my lap, carefully focus on his right eye with Live View focus magnification and capture a classic back-lit portrait.

 

It seems odd that exposure of +0.7 needed to be added on such a dark subject. The camera meter would normally be interpreting an overall average gray, and a dark subject would already result in some over-exposure. Come to think of it now, I was in Live View B Mode and may not have shut the optical viewfinder curtain - the manual says that leaving the optical finder open can affect exposure in Live View. I need to do some tests in Aperture Mode with stopped-down settings on the Leica APO 70-180, a wonderfully sharp lens with nice background "bokeh".

 

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