This is continuation to my previous blog on first impressions of PEN E-P5. Now I had this camera for two days which gave me some time to walk around with it in between other things to do.

Styling and Handling

PEN E-P5 with VF-4 electric viewfinder. The lens here is 45mm f/1.8 in new black color. This test camera was a pre-production sample but it shows high quality of finish. All buttons and dials have nice firm movements. Silver and black is my favorite of the three color options for E-P5.

PEN E-P5 (top) has at first sight very similar top plate as its successor, the E-P3 (center). The real difference is two control dials, one around shutter button and the other as thumb dial. OM-D E-M5 (bottom) is different. I have written about practising with your camera to force operating controls into muscle memory. Now E-M5´s thumb dial is more to the left which made my thumb rotate E-P5´s similarly situated mode dial quite a few times in error... While E-P5 with VF-4 and E-M5 are roughly as capable and usable cameras, changing from one to another might have its quirks. While E-P3 had an ON/OFF button, both E-P5 and E-M5 have ON/OFF switch. It is a vast improvement because you can feel if the camera is ON or OFF and switch it ON/OFF without looking at the camera.

PEN E-P3 (below) has removable grips and here I have changed the original grip into optional grip (MCG-2) which improves handling very much. E-P5 (above) sadly has no removable grip and the grip it has is simply awful. I carry my camera hanging from right hand with supporting wrist strap. E-P5's grip gives no real support and its sharp inner edge only eats into my fingers. This is the single most important flaw in E-P5 for me. It might sound a small thing but actually it is huge because it makes carrying the camera around extremely unpleasant. The reason for fixed grip is obviously WiFi antenna. E-P5 has metal body and WiFi antenna can´t be inside metal body. Behind grip there is a hole and antenna, and the grip must have certain material and thickness. All the same could have been achieved with a fixed MCG-2 style grip, IMHO. I have asked Olympus to make an optional grip for E-P5. It might hinder WiFi but who needs WiFi when carrying camera around?

The new high resolution viewfinder VF-4 (right) is really not any larger than older VF-2 (left). Its shape is boxier which makes it look it a bit larger. VF-4´s eye-piece (and all optics inside) is bigger though and this makes rubber hood bigger also. VF-2 had its diopter correction around eye piece and it is prone to rotate accidentally. VF-4´s diopter correction is on the right side of viewfinder as seen. Another improvement is VF-4´s locking pin which secures the viewfinder in place. Lock button is on the other side.

From my point of view E-P5 with VF-4 is just as usable camera as E-M5. It can be configured just the way I want and using controls is just as easy when accustomed to it. Compared to E-P3 with VF-2 it is vastly better because of two dials and better configurability. The superior image of VF-4 makes E-P5 to rise above E-M5 but E-P5´s crappy grip would need a quick fix, either from Olympus or any maker of accessories or creative use of InstaMorph and gaffer tape by me. 

ISO Low and 1/8000s Shutter Speed

E-P5 has an extension to its ISO scale, it is ISO Low. Low means here roughly 100. In images above we have ISO 200 above and ISO Low below. Images are JPEGs exposed equally so that red highlight warning just lit up on the lightest part of image outside of window. If you download those images and open them in Photoshop or similar software you can see that white is a bit whiter in image below and all other tones are darker. The latter is obviously seen also here but what happens in the lightest tones is not as easy to see. ISO Low is not real ISO 100. I don´t know how it is technically done but short shoulder in gamma curve hints of just overexposing at ISO 200 and correcting while rendering. On the other hand different response in darker tones hints of something else being done at sensor level. At the moment it is not possible to see what happens shooting RAW files and opening them in Lightroom.

These images are shot with E-P5 and M.Zuiko 75mm f/1.8 wide open at f/1.8 and ISO Low and 1/8000s. Sun is quite harsh because of dry air, shadows are deep. These are again JPEGs opened in Lightroom. They were shot at muted settings with contrast and saturation turned down into -2. I set the final contrast and saturation in Lightroom with only global sliders. The image above shows that you can have everything in detail from the highlights into shadows. The image below was more difficult because there were more details hiding in the shadows. I used 1/5000s as shutter speed to open up the shadows lightly while keepin ISO Low. You can see how the canvas in the background has clipped into white and can not be saved. Also the highlights of golden street artist are suffering.  These image show how ISO Low and new fastest shutter speed 1/8000s give new opportunities to use larger apertures without ND filters. You only need to be careful not to over expose at all with ISO Low.

Focus Peaking 
Focus peaking can be useful with manual focus lenses like Olympus OM series Zuiko 50mm f/1.2 here. I have tried quite a few cameras with EVF and focus peaking and mostly I have not found the peaking feature useful when looking at the whole image. Zooming into image helps but then the peaking function is not actually needed any more. I did not make any side by side comparisons but my feeling is that E-P5´s focus peaking is one of the best I have seen and I found it perfectly usable and exact.
I shot these (slight cropped) images from E-P5´s monitor and they show how focus peaking looks like and works. Above we have a zoom lens as subject and peaking off. Center image shows peaking on and image focused on zoom ring. Peaking can have either white or black as highlight. I liked white better. When peaking is on the luminosity of image is lowered and contrasty and sharp edges are highlighted by white. It is very easy to see. In the third image I moved the subject a bit closer to camera and while doing it I can see how the sharpest details move backwards on subject. With fast lenses it is quite easy to see how the sharpest area moves on a subject with any depth when you rotate the focusing ring.

You can have focus peaking on automatically when camera is on manual focusing and you turn focusing ring. When you stop, peaking goes away. This is handy but I find it too jumpy for me because it is so sensitive to slightest movement of focusing ring. I prefer to have peaking configured to a button (Magnify). Push button = peaking on, touch shutter button = peaking off.

Focus peaking in E-P5 is implemented through a temporary art filter, used only for this function. This feature can not be used for video, it would lower the frame rate.

Shutter Lag 

I did not make any measurements to see how well Olympus´ specs for shutter lags of 50 ms or special 44 ms hold truth. Actually I have no instruments to do so and I´m not too interested of specs like these up to single milliseconds. It only is good that cameras become faster to use and better responding. The image above shows what was the result when I pressed the shutter button when front end of the car on left reached the edge of viewfinder. If you want to be able to compose moving subjects inside images, you need to know how your camera behaves in various situations. Here I had E-P5 prefocused, IBIS on and normal lag mode. Speed of the car is roughly 40 km/h.

AF with 4/3 system lenses

Maybe there is a slight improvement over E-M5 maybe not. I tried shortly but did not notice anything worth closer look because the real thing for 4/3 lens owners is already on its way.

Conclusions

E-P5 is just as handy as E-M5 plus has better viewfinder in VF-4. It also has 1/8000s shutter speed, focus peaking and automatic panning detection in IBIS. It is fast and precise to use, has the best configurability there is and gives just as good images as I am capable to achive. There was not yet a chance to try WiFi as beta version of E-P5 compatible Olympus Image Share was not yet given to test. There are many small spec improvements which do not shake my way of shooting. Did I love it? No, because that grip makes it awful to carry around. Did I love to shoot with it? Absolutely, already the viewfinder is so gorgeous. After a week my fingers would forget E-M5. But not that grip. Did I love the results? No, because I shoot RAW and now I was limited to JPEG. I can´t get the look I want from JPEGs, but the potential is just the same as with E-M5 and I know what I can do with it later.

I know, many E-M5 users are thinking if they should upgrade to E-P5. I´m not sure if it´s worth it unless any of these mentioned features is an absolutely must for you right now: Better viewfinder, 1/8000s, automatic panning detection, focus peaking and WiFi sharing. You won´t lose anything though, just money and grip. For other mirrorless users thinking about upgrading or people thinking about jumping into lighter and happier world of mirrorless, the E-P5 is one of the best options there is. It is beautifully designed and built. It is loaded with features. It gives great images like many people have shown with their E-M5s and E-PL5s. Of course there is no such thing as the best. On the top personal preferences mean more than small measurable differences.

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Olympus is introducing today the new flagship of their PEN line, the PEN E-P5. This camera is not meant to surpass the E-M5, which has been the best mFT camera from Olympus but also belongs to another line, OM-D. However, Olympus has incorporated most of E-M5´s features into E-P5 and made some of them even better. 

Mr. Toshi Terada presenting the E-P5 to European press last month. (These presentations are the culprit of leaks like we have seen again with E-P5. Journalists and ethics...)

New PEN E-P5 is faithful to the orginal PEN F in styling. Even the size is practically the same in all three directions.

Maybe the subject line should have been first impressions. I have tried a pre-production E-P5 shortly, but then only to get those first impressions. There and then I did not take any images with me to see on computer screen because I was supposed to have an E-P5 to test in the beginning of this week. Sadly test sample shipments to Europe were postponed to next week... So, now I write about how I see E-P5 compared to OM-D E-M5 and shortly about those first impressions with camera in hands. I´ll write more after I have checked how certain features are working in practice

How is E-P5 compared to E-M5?

Technically E-P5 is roughly E-M5 minus EVF and weather sealing but with a built-in flash. As E-P5 is a newer model by a year, many features are enchanced. Here´s the list of main features compared to E-M5:

- Same sensor and processor

- New extended ISO setting LOW, which is ISO 100.

- New shutter with 1/8000 second as the fastest speed. (Equal to best DSLRs. With ISO 100 combined possible gain towards shallower DOF in bright light is 2 aperture steps compared to E-M5.)

- Shorter shutter lag: Normally 50 ms. In release mode ”Short” with IBIS off: 44 ms. (Equal to best DSLRs. Increases power consumption slightly.)

- Same 5-axis IBIS, but now with automatic detection of panning. (No need to change into special IS mode as with E-M5. Live View is also stabilized, of course.) 

- Same AF, but now with option for smaller AF points. Olympus calls it Super Spot AF. Smallest spot at 14X magnification is 1/70 th of diagonal screen length. Besides this there is also same smaller AF point as introduced in E-PL5.

- Fastest sequential shooting with AF (AF-C + Tr) is now 5 fps, and E-M5 equal 9 fps with IBIS off and AF locked to first frame.

- Similarly two control dials, but now complemented with a 2x2 Dial Control which doubles the functions of dials. (Example: In 2x2 Dial position (1) control dials may be for adjusting Aperture and Exposure compensation. Switching 2x2 Dial to position (2) changes control dial functions to WB and ISO. These are configurable.)

- Similar menus with same highly customizable controls.

- Start-Up is now 0.5 sec. (Fastest in mirrorless cameras. Fuji X-E1 has the same as limited feature.)

- Histogram can now be displayed during Live Bulb Shooting for assistance in adjusting the exposure.

- One-push (configurable into Fn button) switch between normal shooting and AE bracketing.

- 3.0”, markedly sharper, 1.04 million dot LCD touch-panel with fingerprint resistant coating. It is tiltable in the same way as in E-M5.

- Flash sync time for built-in flash 1/320 s.

- Mysets can be configured into Mode dial like in E-PL5.

- Same BLN-1 battery, but number of shots is up to 400 from 360 with E-M5 according to CIPA/Olympus test standard.

- Metal body with no visible screws except in the bottom plate.

Completely new features:

- New optional hi-res viewfinder VF-4. (See below.)

- Built-in WiFi with smartphone (iOS and Android; Olympus Image Share app) connectivity and interactivity. (See below.)

- Focus Peaking on MF Assist with black or white accent. Peaking can be configured to Fn button.

- Photo Story (as in Olympus XZ-10 to create template based photo montages in-camera on the go.)

-  Automatically generated time lapse movies with interval shooting function. Up to 99 shots to make a max. 10 second movie.

Other:

- Three colors: silver, black and white.

- Limited premium model with wooden grip.

- Premium accessories: Leather Camera Bag, Leather Body Jacket and Leather Strap.

Not available:

- Weather sealing.

- Optional extra grip. (Lack of extra grip is something I discussed with Mr. Toshi Terada and expressed my opinion for the need for such extra.)

Lenses:

- Now M.Zuikos 17mm F1.8, 45mm F1.8 and 75mm F1.8 will be available both in silver and black as regular options and both colors have same price.

Built-in WiFi

When the WiFi button in the upper left of the screen is touched, a private connection screen with QR code will appear. Read the camera´s QR code with a smartphone. Connection will start and smartphone shows thumbnails of all the images on cameras memory card. Easy. Images can be loaded to smartphone and shared from there.

Camera´s playback screen has also a share button. Touching share button adds share icon and these images can be viewed in smartphone with a one-time connection. Touching send button sends images. Afterwards camera can be turned off, if needed, via smartphone.

Wireless shooting via ”Touch AF Shutter”

This is a remote control function where camera´s Live View monitor can be displayed on a smartphone. By touching image on smartphone screen you can autofocus on subject and release shutter. There are two restrictions: E-P5 itself cannot be operated while connecting to WiFi and the only available shooting mode via WiFi is iAUTO.

GPS via WiFi

Another feature of built-in WiFi is transferring the GPS log acquired by your smartphone as geotags to photos in camera´s memory card.

Electric viewfinder VF-4

At the same time with E-P5 Olympus is introducing a new hi-res electric viewfinder, VF-4. It has a 2.36 million dot LCD panel, which is again markedly better than 1.44 million dots in E-M5 or VF-2. VF-4 shows 100% field of view and has 1.48X viewfinder magnification. Eye-sensor is now included in VF-4.

VF-4 is hinged in the same way as VF-2 plus it has locking pin to secure it to hot shoe.

VF-4 magnification compared to other cameras as 35mm camera equivalent magnifications: Nikon D7100 0.61X; Canon EOS 7D 0.62X; Panasonic GH3 0.67X; Nikon D800/D4 0.70X; NEX-7 0.71X; VF-4 0.74X; Canon EOS 1DX 0.76X.

This new EVF has big optics which means also sharp and distortion-free image up to the corners. Looking through VF-4 made me quite happy.

More technical stuff: Image display time lag is 32 ms, eye sensor switching time lag 0.4 s. VF-4 will be compatible with earlier Olympus mFT bodies with an upcoming firmware update for each body. And yes, VF-2 and VF-3 are compatible with E-P5.

Photo from back shows how big the eye piece is. Also eye sensor is visible here. VF-4 has practically the same measurements as VF-2, it only looks boxier. 

Hands-on

When OM-D came, shooting with it felt cramped until I got horizontal grip. That was because I was used to shoot with E-P3 and VF-2. VF-2 sits higher on E-P3 than OM-D´s EVF relative to shutter. Horizontal grip on E-M5 moves right hand slightly forward, adjusts wrist angle and corrects the right hand position, at least for me. Now with E-P5 and VF-4 everything felt very natural. Thumb rest gives support and both dials are easy to use when camera is on eye. I only miss a somewhat bigger grip than E-P5 has now. It would support fingers when camera is hanging with wrist strap.

VF-4 is a big improvement, literally. Viewfinder image is so big, nice and sharp. The difference was most obvious when I raised my E-M5 on eye again.

That´s all I can say for now. Shooting technique with E-P5 plus VF-4 is not really different from shooting with E-M5 because of similar configurability. More on this later.

Olympus E-M5 plus 17mm F1.8 lens. Key West, Florida, USA, 2013

Personally

Of course, with E-P5 plus VF-4 the technical quality or even style of my images would not change in practice compared to E-M5. For me E-P5 is not really different from E-M5 there. The difference is in seeing through camera, the experience. VF-4 would help in focusing and precise composing. This would definitely be the biggest helper and change here. Related to this, the shorter shutter lag would help with VF-4 when composing things which are moving in viewfinder area. These are the most important improvements over E-M5. 

Of other features I would pick ISO 100, but the image quality and possibly limited DR must be seen first. Also every now and then doubling of dial functions by 2x2 switch, 1/8000s shutter speed and automatic panning detection could be handy. I would not miss weather sealing but the missing extra grip is worth complaining. And again, that´s just me, my preferences.

Compared to any previous PEN, E-P5 plus VF-4 is a huge improvement.

The next OM-D 

For some of us E-P5 actually moves our expectations to the next model in OM-D line. I know pretty much what will be the big highlight of this body. Quite obvious to everyone seeing E-P5 should be that the next OM-D series model goes well above E-M5 in features. Incorporating VF-4 should be just one of them. And that is all I can say now...

Prices in Europe and availability

E-P5 body = 990 €  /  E-P5 + 14-42mm zoom kit = 1099 €  /  E-P5 + 14-42mm zoom + VF-4 kit = 1249 €  /  E-P5 + 17mm F1.8 + VF-4 kit = 1449 €  /  VF-4 = 279 €. These will be available during the lastter part of June. There is no E-P5 + 17mm F1.8 kit like some rumor sites have speculated. 

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This what I claim to be true. I have not taken an OM-D apart, though. I have only seen quite a few images.

Some time ago there was a "mistake" at Olympus France web site. They said in a spec line that Olympus PEN E-PL5 has no low pass or anti-aliasing filter. This spec line was removed and it was said that all Olympus bodies with Sony 16MP sensor are alike.

Before this incident I had not thought about LP filter in OM-D. I had noticed that it must be very thin because there is some aliasing and moiré time to time but nothing to be worried about. Also OM-D images are very sharp which also made me think that LP filter must be very thin.

I have used digital backs which have no LP filter since 1997. I went through my old images and checked the frequecies where aliasing and moiré can be seen and compared to them to OM-D images. One of my reasons to play with Nikon D800E was to check its files in Lightroom. While it is said that D800E has no low pass filter, techically it has some kind of a filter and it works a bit differently. So, I loaned a couple more new digital camera bodies which have no LP filter.

This image is an enlarged crop from an OM-D frame showing moiré patterns.

My conclusion is now: Olympus OM-D has no low pass filter at all.

Is it a good or bad thing then? No. It just is what it is. I was curious.

Moiré and aliasing are not problems in RAW files, and when moiré is present it is easy to be corrected with Lightroom tools. Only every now and then there is a jagged edge which needs some hand work. With JPEGs I have not seen any complaints at photography forums. 

So this is sort of a non-issue, but I thought to let you know... ;-)

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No, I´m not going to use both D800E and OM-D. This was just one of my reality checks. It is nice to check every now and then what´s going on with various brands and systems. I did not want have the subject as D800E versus OM-D because this also is not about that. There is no single camera of which I could say that it is made for me. There are a few cameras I could be perfectly happy with, if there were no other choices. Both of these two overlap my needs but differently, and I wanted to know to what extent and how differently.

Size matters

One of obvious differencies between these cameras is physical size and weight. The image above shows them with lenses which give (almost) equal angles of view: Nikon 35mm f/1.4 G AF-S and Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 17mm f/1.8. Both are the best native "35mm" prime lenses from respective brands for these bodies. 

The difference by 2X for focal lengths in these lenses shows that there is also the same difference between image size on sensor. The area of OM-D sensor is roughly one quarter of D800E sensor size. Respective sensor sizes in pixels are 6144 x 4912 pixels for Nikon (36 megapixels) Nikon and 4608 x 3456 pixels (16MP) for Olympus. Sensors have different aspect ratios, 3:2 for Nikon and 4:3 for Olympus. Because of different aspect ratios final images are cropped a bit differently and actual resolutions are dependent on this cropping. I would say that D800E has roughly 37% more linear resolution to start with when compared to OM-D. True relationship with image quality is dependent on many factors including filters on sensor, the lens and of course users´s shooting and post-processing technique.

Handling

I have used Nikon FF DSLRs long enough to be happy with D800E from the start. There´s "nothing" to it. It´s just like a Nikon should be. Olympus OM-D has become pretty much an extension of my right hand. D800E couldn´t become so much used because of weight and size. For me this is the difference, not handling as such but size and weight. Every extra lens makes the disparity only more favorable for OM-D.

This is the situation now. If I were still an advertising photographer I would go for more resolution and Nikon´s excellent 85mm PC-E lens. Nikon has also better AF tracking, but I don´t need it.

Camera Body Tests

I have tested and written about OM-D. Others like dpreview.com or dxomark.com have tested both. I will not go any deeper into that territory here, just refer to a couple of measurements later when they mean something.

Key West, Florida, USA, 2013. OM-D w. 17mm f/1.8 lens

Camera-with-Lens Performance

This is what I´m interested in. Final image quality with RAW images opened in latest Lightroom.

I posted in January a blog on diffraction. There D800E was my example for two reason: diffraction is easy to see because of huge resolution but also it is not such a problem as common "wisdom" says. I´m not going to duplicate those crops from image center here.

Here is my test targets as shot with D800E:

I shot the same with OM-D so that the subject ie. those targets take the same area of frame. Lets compare what happens in corner targets, which are far from extreme corners. 

Above is D800E 35mm at f/8 and below OM-D 17mm at f/4. Nikon D800E crop is 100% and OM-D crop has been enlarged to the same size. Why these apertures? Because that´s my most used depth of field and DOFs are equal when D800E is closed down two steps more than OM-D.

Now, check Nikon 35mm center performance in my previous post. The difference is quite obvious to what is seen here with Nikon 35mm lens. Even here D800E crop is slightly sharper or should I say cleaner than the enlarged OM-D crop but the difference is neglible for any practical need. There is a test of Nikon 35mm f/1.4 G lens at photozone.de. They tested with Nikon D3x. D800E only amplifies the difference between center and corner performance.

In this example ISOs are at 100 for Nikon and 200 for Olympus, these are studio shots on tripod. I shoot normally hand held. To keep shutter speeds the same I would need then to raise my ISO for Nikon to 800 if OM-D is at 200 in order to have same DOF. Actually this would not be a problem for Nikon in this kind of situation. ISO 800 suffers only slightly. The difference is even not worth producing here. What happens though is that D800E loses it´s lead in dynamic range, which can´t be seen with this kind of target. According to dxomark.com these two cameras would have practically the same dynamic range at ISO 200/800 setup. The same is true for tonal range and color sensitivity. The only real difference between these cameras with these lenses would be resolution in the center of frame. (Structures in grayscale is not sensor noise, this structure comes from printed target). 

Key West, Florida, USA, 2013. OM-D w. 17mm f/1.8 lens

In Print

I prepared print size files for you to print and see. Nikon crops are from the center of frame and, lazy as I am, OM-D crop is the same off-center as above. M.Zuiko 17mm has quite even performance over the frame. In print size A3 there is no visible difference in print between images or test target from these two cameras.

Also size A2 prints are quite similar with normal everyday subject, but with this kind of target the higher resolution of D800E (above) can just possibly be seen on glossy paper. It depends on printer, paper etc. Make a 6 by 6.1 cm and 300 ppi background in Photoshop. Copy and drop the above crop from A2 print file into it. Print with your printer. Any difference?

This is an image file for a crop from A1 print. Make a 6 by 8,7 cm and 300 ppi background in Photoshop. Copy and drop the above image file into it. Print with your printer. Any difference?

Real Life

Pixel peeping on screen and reading numbers on some test sites is easy. Knowing what matters in real life and what doesn´t (and how much or how little) is a lot harder. These examples above show that the absolutes are not valid in real life, and these examples are still far from real life and in favor of the one which has the better starting point.

In real life hand held photography there is one more thing which forces these cameras closer to each other. It is in-body image stabilization (IBIS) which OM-D has.

What we have here is again D800E above and OM-D below, but this time I´m shooting hand held in a dim light. Exposure for OM-D is 1/13 s at f/4 and ISO 200 with IBIS on. I can get sharp images with a ratio of 9/10. To get sharp images with D800E, I had to set shutter speed at 1/30 s at f/8 and raise ISO accordingly to 2000. Now my test gave me sharp images with a ratio of 3/10. Sharp and sharp... Well, this is what I get at these parameters. This goes to show the power of IBIS. Besides of sharpness there are other things to consider, at ISO 2000 D800E has fallen below OM-D in dynamic range and color accuracy. IBIS keeps you going within the sweet spot of OM-D for a long time.

Miami Beach, Florida, USA, 2013. OM-D w. 17mm f/1.8 lens

Summary

Technically, if you are striving for the most detailed images, Nikon D800E is far better than OM-D. It has more resolution, wider dynamic range and higher color accuracy. But then also you must be up to task because this goodness does not come for free for the careless shooter. You must use tripod, you must use only the best lenses inside their best performance envelope. Small things mean suddenly a lot if you want keep the performance up. On the other hand D800E has plenty. You can give away a lot and still get great images.

My D800 pluses compared to OM-D

- lots of resolution, dynamic range and color accuracy to start with

- better viewfinder in bright daylight

- possibility to have shorter DOF

My OM-D pluses compared to D800E

- size and weight

- IBIS helps keeping ISO low and dynamic range up

- better exposure metering (ETTR) with a practical gain of at least 1EV in DR 

If I were a hardcore dedicated landscape photographer or still an advertising photographer, I would take D800E. While I am not, D800E does not give me anything above OM-D in practical shooting and in my print range of A3 to A1. It would not make my images any worse either. It only is bigger and heavier and it would strip me from many shooting opportunities which a smaller system gives just by being smaller and handier to have with me.

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What would you think about a building which would contain lots of different themes with which to try cameras, entry would be free, cameras with memory cards would be given free to you to try at your own pace, there would be people to help you with settings if needed and you could take the memory card with your shots with you when you leave?

Hmmm... Sounds great? I think so, too. Actually there is such a place where you can play with Olympus OM-D. It is in Berlin (Germany) and it is called Olympus OM-D: Photography Playground. This playground is built in an old industrial building and it consists of interactive installations by nine artists and groups. The common theme for these installations is Space and Art.

Room with a perspective. Image: Veera Korhonen, vidastudio.fi

You can walk into installations and interact with them - and take pictures according to what is recommended or how ever you want to shoot it. Outside of every installation there is an explanation of the photographic and audio-visual experience the artist has tried to give you and the camera settings you should have to best shoot or video it.

OM-D Playground runs until 24 May at the Opernwerkstätten Berlin, Zinnowitzer Strasse 9. It is open daily between 11 am and 7 pm.

If you happen to be in Berlin before the playground is finally closed, I really recommend you to try this experience! And don´t hesitate to ask for other lenses than the 12-50mm zoom which will be attached to OM-D when they give it to you. With some installations you would like to have a tripod which you can also ask for. The total area you can wander in is around 7000 m2 and this old industrial interior probably inspires you to take some images also outside of installations. The idea is to have fun while exploring the playground and OM-D.

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Some more images from the opening night:

Some of my previously exhibited stuff can be seen in portfolio gallery Exhibitions > Photographics. There it is still quite heterogenous and mostly shows various kinds of possibilities.

Here´s an example to show an idea of what I aim for. The first image shows how the raw file opens in Lightroom at default settings. The other one shows my goal. Everything you see is found from the file, nothing added. As you can imagine, I don´t necessarily know if something is going to turn out worth anything when I take the image. Of course my percentage of total failures has dropped down significantly after working on this project so long.  

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Raw file opened into Lightroom

Same image after my tweaks to get the look I´m after.

Actually I hate winter. Winter is not photographic. The mental landscape becomes lost during winter. There is just snow. I always start shooting when April comes, yesterday I was one day early.

Pohjanmaa is one of my three main projects. Pohjanmaa is a region in Finland. If you check wiki on Finland, you will find the regions in English: Ostrobothnia and Southern Ostrobothnia. They are my Pohjanmaa, and what I want to show is how I see the mental landscape of Pohjanmaa.

Blue overlay shows "my" Pohjanmaa.

If you think of American movies, you could think of Pohjanmaa as sort of mixture of Texas, Mid-West and Bible belt of Finland. I did a short shooting trip yesterday. Here are a couple images from this session. For now they are just nice images among other material.

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Club house of Pohjanmaa MC.

Most of Pohjanmaa is flatlands. I think Pohjanmaa has relatively more entrepreneurs than other regions of Finland.

My public appearances are few and far apart this year. One of these is this weekend during Kuva&Kamera trade show in Helsinki, at Helsingin Messukeskus / Helsinki Exhibition & Convention Centre.

I´m giving a lecture on printing both on Friday and Saturday. There are a lot of issues which I think are important to get the best results. So, I´m talking on shooting and post processing, color management, profiles, printing materials and environments while doing post processing or surveying prints.

After both lectures I´ll be available for questions and discussions at Hanart / Canson Infinity booth for a couple of hours. I have also prepared a small portfolio with various images printed on my favorite Canson Infinity papers which can be seen at Hanart / Canson Infinity booth while the fair is open.

My lectures are:

Friday at 12.00-12.55, stage: Kuva&Kamera -lava

Saturday at 11.00-11.55, stage: Top-Shot -studio

Istanbul, Turkey, 2012

Fotonetti is a Finnish company who makes photo books (and prints) on traditional silver halide photo paper. I made a test book to see how their quality differs both from "ordinary" photo books and pigment prints.

Fotonetti´s English web page is at fotonetti.fi. If you somehow land at their Finnish speaking page, just click the tab "In English" and you have a simple page telling the basics about sizes, covers and prices. At the end of page you have download buttons for Fotonetti Book Creator software.

Software

Book Creator UI. There are no separate software in English and Finnish but the choice of language is made automatically depending on the language of your operating system. 

This software is a quite typical photo book software. It is a simple layout software where you can arrange images and text on pages and maybe use some backgrounds, icons and frames if you want to. It has also ready made page layouts to try, if you don´t have your own layout in mind. I won´t go into details or provide a tutorial here, Book Creator just is so simple and straightforward containing only the barest basics for a layout. This software is no good for any fancy layout with lots of exactly arranged elements on every page. It is best to have one or two images and a little text per page. If you need to have lots of text in your book, look somewhere else. Another thing, very important to remember, about text: while the software refers to font sizes as points this not correct. You are not getting a correct relationship between the definition of point size and what will be printed in book. Luckily the result is nicely WYSIWYG, what you visually see is what you get. So I would concentrate on images and use text only as headlines and captions.

You can get around Book Creator´s restrictions by preparing pages in some other software, saving them as 1:1 jpeg images and using these as page-size images in Fotonetti software.

Images

The paper they use is Kodak licensed photo paper with a luster surface. Colors are good and sharpness with 300 ppi images is excellent. This double sided paper is very opaque and also quite thick. That´s a good point as strong colors or lots of black on one side do not spoil light images on the other side. While the paper is thick, it doesn´t feel too stiff. It is resin based, doesn´t get easily dirty and can be wiped with a soft damp cloth. A very good material for a book to be shown around. 

The same spread as in previous image. When you receive the book the pages are slightly curved because they are cut from roll paper. They even out quite soon.

Fotonetti uses sRGB color space which is sort of a norm. I chose a selection of various images for my test book. There were some with strong and saturated colors, some light and muted ones, some black and white and so on. I got what I expected for. The colors and density were as correct as can reasonably be expected. So, I think that if your system is color managed you will be quite happy with the results. With sRGB you must of course be a little careful when tweaking from RAW images, and I would recommend using Lightroom 4 with it´s soft proofing feature, or some other software with soft proofing. Otherwise it may be easy to hit the boundaries of gamut. This is not realized as easily on screen as on paper if you are not used to work for the printed page. For more casual shooters Fotonetti software has also automatic image corrections. I did not try how they work and had all "corrections" set off.

Technology

A few more words on the technology Fotonetti uses: Like said the paper is traditional silver halide (chromogenic) photo paper and it is developed in traditional wet process. The pages look and feel just like they should. The image is exposed on paper with laser beam. Paper sheet is cut from a roll, moved onto a drum and sucked flat against it. Laser gun moves perpendicular to drum and paper while gradually exposing the image to avoid geometrical problems which are seen (and software corrected) in some systems. After the exposure the paper is "flipped" around and the other side is exposed. Also here it really is quite important that the paper is opaque enough to prevent light migrating through paper. Then the paper sheet is moved into development. All this happens automatically inside the machine. Fotonetti was the first one to adapt this system in Europe.

My take

Compared to ordinary laser printed photo books this kind of image quality is of course superior and it is also a lot more predictable. I asked Fotonetti about calibration and they told that they calibrate their systems every day. So I´m positively impressed on the result. Compared to my own pigment printing with my Epson 9900 printer and Canson Infinity papers, Fotonetti can´t naturally compete because my system gives a vastly larger gamut, and I can be even more exact with profiles and system consistency, have more headroom for tweaks and more paper surfaces to choose from to emphasize the image. But this, of course, is now already comparing apples and oranges.

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There are a few options for covers. One is real leather.

Lately I have been spending more time on my other hobby, aviation history. Looks like I have missed a lot of what has happened during the latest years in aviation industry.

Besides reading and researching I have also worked on some of my own aviation images. Surely, I am not a plane spotter like people at sites like airliners.net. It is a huge site with over two million aircraft images. Photographically speaking most them are un-interesting, just an aircraft filling the frame, but there are also some great ones. Personally I prefer more visiting museums and finding other things than spending time at airports trying to spot and photograph every new aircraft in the world.

This installation was found somewhere near the border of Texas and Louisiana 20 years ago. The idea had been go-karting in the back lot of a restaurant, I think. But obviously the business had failed a few years before...

Right now the political hub of aviation industry seems to be China. Speaking of cameras, can you name one famous camera maker from China? It must take several years before they can compete with the best Japanese companies. Actually they are in the same situation in aviation industry regarding Russia, Europe and USA. Only here the stakes are totally on a different level and the game especially China plays to get fast forward is very hard. As a prime example, China has now been copying Russian technology one time too much and Russia is not selling any more top notch equipment, not even slightly below the cutting edge, unless China signs deals with heavy sanctions. Which China seemingly is not ready for. The southern neighbor India is not watching China´s development at ease. They are working behind the scenes to keep all western and Russian technology out of Chinese hands. China would like to sell their products to other countries (cheaply compared to Russia and others) but many of those countries would like to buy these aircraft with western "free market" electronic systems not to be totally dependent of China in operation and maintenance. Taiwan is very worried about China´s new AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control Systems) aircraft which can see practically every aircraft flying in Taiwan airspace. Originally these were to have Israeli radar systems but then USA stepped in because Israeli radar is too advanced, and China had to develop their own radar for these Russian built aircraft. China is also right now getting it´s first aircraft carrier to some kind of operational (training) status. The source for (Russian) ship and (Russian) carrier-based aircraft technology was Ukraine. There´s a frighteningly complex world with companies and countries selling, buying, spying, extorting, hating and, too little, loving…

A soviet era MiG-23, 05 Yellow, rotting at the edge of an airfield in Panevezys, Lithuania in 2011. Sights like this are still quite common in Eastern Europe.

The Dreamliner

Yes, modern aircraft are hugely complex, they take enormously time and huge amounts of money to develop - and still it may happen as it did with Boeing´s new 878 Dreamliner. This was to be the ultimate airliner but it turned out to become a total nightmare for Boeing, maybe the biggest name in aerospace industry. First of all the original plan to use subcontractors all over the world went wrong with delayed schedules, escalating costs and Dreamliner becoming overweight. The maiden flight was achieved over two years behind the schedule, in 2009. And today all these over 200 million dollar machines are grounded. The reason for grounding being short circuiting in lithium ion batteries! Short circuiting heavy duty batteries means smoke, fire even explosion, and this is naturally something totally forbidden in an airliner. The 787 has two of these batteries, a meagre 1000 $ each… Inspectors have now found even safety circuits to be inadequate and there is no cooling system for batteries while there should be. Actually the whole computerized control system for batteries seems to be unacceptable.

Why am I writing all this? Because here is an analogy to camera industry. We don´t have any more simple mechanical cameras which everyone with a screwdriver and a bottle of glue can fix. Electronics and software, or maybe we should say just software. Cameras are now based on software which drives electronics which in turn moves also what little mechanical parts are left. A CMOS sensor is a programmable device to start with. Stepper motors for auto focusing in lenses are very simple devices but they don´t know how to focus. Software drives them, and that´s why we see huge differences between focusing speeds in live view cameras. Good software is expensive. Should a company hire the coders or should they outsource components (with software)? That´s a long term strategic decision.

 Boeing had a plan to make the most fuel-efficient (by at least a 20% margin) airliner by using as much light weight composite materials as possible, by using electronics and electric motors instead of hydraulics and pneumatics and by outsourcing practically all component manufacture to several expert companies. Only one third of work, i.e. some components and the final assembly was to be made directly by Boeing. They even built a dedicated transport aircraft, the 747 Dreamlifter, to haul these parts all over the world. What they failed in was management, project management. The biggest name in the game failed in the basics. Maybe it seemed to be a simple detail in the whole scheme, but relying on electricity leads into a choice of batteries or an auxiliary engine as the source of electricity. Batteries are lighter and save lots of fuel and maintenance time during the operating years. Li-Ion batteries weigh half of NiMh batteries, a save of 0.01% in total weight. Set goals lead inevitably into a chain of decisions. In 2005 they chose LiCo (sort of Li-Ion) type batteries, which by now are already outdated. The acceptance from authorities for these batteries was gained with batteries made by another company than Yuasa which was finally chosen as supplier. Why this change of supplier? Who knows, maybe because of even higher packaging density. At the same time the cooling system was not thought as necessary, excess weight. 

Now, more than 7 years later they have a problem. All 50+ Dreamliners, already in use by airlines, are grounded until this problem is solved. Only Boeing test flights are allowed. Then, why don´t they just swap the batteries into NiMh ones? These are well tested, approved and would be just 35 kgs heavier. They simply can´t - because of software. The battery control software is not compatible with NiMh batteries. Software is from a French company, Thales and it would take them (or presumably any company) a year to design, write, test and get approved (by authorities) a new software version. That year would cost Boeing way over 1000 million dollars just in compensations to airlines and then more as lost sales. 

Software written by Thales is of course only a tiny part of total software aboard 787. I´ve seen numbers like 15 million lines of code just for fly-by-wire system. (And I have seen numbers like 20 million lines of code for radio and navigation system in a car. Which means that these numbers can not be compared directly. Anyway 1 million lines of "real" code is said to be worth around 30 million $ and almost 20.000 pages if printed.) Those 15 million lines (if true) would be an indication of 787 having a high degree of inherent instability which is good when striving for better fuel efficiency. (More info on 787 Dreamliner in Wikipedia)

What we see here is a company trying to change the game by doing things differently. A product for the same purpose as before but done with new materials and new systems to be better and cheaper to use. New systems… There is always a war of systems, new technology emerging, maturing and getting obsolete. But when is it time to adapt? When is mirrorless surpassing single lens reflex in cameras? When is contrast AF surpassing phase detection AF? Yes, when, not if. The winners are known to wait but not a second too long. Sometimes they even know what they are doing, sometimes they just happen to arrive at the right moment. And sometimes the world moves faster than even the smartest is able to convert his plans into products.

A true classic airliner, RedBull owned Douglas DC-6B displaying at Helsinki, Malmi in 2009.

The Skyshark

My long time favorite example on wars of systems is another unlucky aircraft with an ominous name, Skyshark. Late forties and early fifties was the great time of prototypes in aviation history. It was a transition period from piston (propeller) engines to turbojet engines. In between there exist also turboprop (a turbine driving propellers) engines. Some of the most amazing machines were built at that time because - well because there were no computers and software. You simply had to build prototypes to see if your idea flies and works like planned, and many a times they didn´t.

During World War II Douglas (known for DC-3, DC-6 other DC- series airliners) developed a large single-engined carrier-based aircraft to meet US Navy requirement for a single-seat piston-engined attack aircraft. This aircraft, AD Skyraider, was too late to see any action during WW II but was still adopted by US Navy in 1946. Navy didn´t see any future for Skyraider, though, and already a year later they wanted Douglas to develop a successor, this time based on a turboprop engine. At that time turbojet engines were contraptions which used huge amounts of kerosene fuel to produce lots of noise and little thrust. On the other hand piston engines were reaching the pinnacle of their development and there was little to be achieved beyond Skyraider´s 2700 hp radial engine. As engine maker Allison was developing a turboprop engine called T-40 with over 5000 hp, contra-rotating propellers and practically instant thrust adjustment, this seemed to be the way to go. Douglas built a totally new airframe but with a striking family resemblance to the Skyraider, the A2D Skyshark was born. Meanwhile Allison had run into severe problems with their T-40 engine development and the prototype of Skyshark was not flown before 1950. After a few flights T-40 failed and the prototype crashed killing one experienced test pilot. Teething problems with the engine continued on and on, and it took four more years until Skyshark was thought to be ready for operational use. During this time there had been the Korean war, and out of necessity the Skyraider had become the backbone of US Navy and Marines attack squadrons. It seemed to be adaptable to almost anything, even a four-seat night attack version was developed. So, finally Douglas and Allison had the Skyshark ready, but also the war was over, US armed forces had an abundance of attack aircraft, the carrier strategy of Navy had shifted, and the first true generation of fancy, fast flying swept-wing jets had matured… Bye bye Skyshark it was, to the scrapheap you go. And so went also T-40 engine, it was found to be too flawed to be used in any production level aircraft.

Douglas A2D-1 Skyshark. This one is the first of eight "production" aircraft. First flown June 1953 and crashed because of engine (gearbox) failure a year later. Pilot ejected safely. (Image source: Wikipedia)

But the old trusted Skyraider - it kept soldiering on and on and was used not only by US Navy and Marines but also by US Air Force, United Kingdom, France, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Chad, Gabon etc. The last ones were retired sometimes in mid 1980´s, 40 years after the first flight and almost 30 years since actual production ended. All that said, personally I have never liked Skyraider at all because of the amount of napalm it was used to pour all over Indochina. It was a dirty killing machine while the loser, Skyshark looks like a true fifties hot rod… How ever, by the retirement of Skyraider, the era of huge piston engines was truly over, and turbojet still was nothing but an expensive way to convert kerosene into noise, they only had grown bigger and used more kerosene. By today, both of these engine types have disappeared from aircraft - minus small, piston-engined private aircraft - and aircraft and helicopters have now either turboprops or turbofans as engines. The latter is somewhere between turboprops and turbojets and developing, in a way, closer to the turboprop all the time.