My New Rig

I have used Olympus PEN-system since summer of 2009. With E-P3 and new Olympus 12 and 45mm lenses it has grown into a matured level for me. Image on the left has everything I need for over 90% of my images. 

I have travelled a road from 35mm film system cameras to medium and large format cameras, from there  to best digital backs and 35mm size digital system cameras. As smaller cameras I have tried all kinds of point and shoot cameras (both film and digital) and APS-C size digital system cameras. This does not mean constantly leaping from camera or system to another but owning tools according to needs.

Every camera is a compromise. You get something and lose something. During my professional career sheer quality with the best workflow was the prime qoal. Issues like portability, weight or size were not very important for most of time. 

Now I do photography to express other things and need a tool to suit my way of doing it. I want to be able to print with no compromises in quality in A3 and A2 sizes and high quality up to A1 or A0. But I want also portability. I always want to use a viewfinder, keep looking through it without any need to chimp or because of camera. I need a camera that can be controlled without looking at buttons.

I was very interested in Olympus PEN -system since the beginning in 2009, used it and learned to get every drop of quality out of it. E-P1 and E-P2 felt like my system even though lack of prime lenses and restricted software support (LR2 conversion was horrible) plus slow autofocus have been frustrating at times. But now the pieces have fallen into their places. Olympus E-P3 with high quality, fast prime lenses fills my needs, finally. Now, after a month´s usage I have really grown together with E-P3 and it is now configured just the way I want. E-P3 is the ultimate ETTR (expose to the right) machine. With it and in body stabilisation I can shoot perfectly exposed, sharp RAW images in most available light conditions. Lightroom 3.5 seems to do a very good RAW conversion from E-P3 files.

I have other lenses and equipment for this system of course, actually a lot - and I have full frame 35mm and medium format digital back systems alsoas well as P&S. But the big ones are for specific planned needs. For those 10% of situations.

Of course I am not claiming that my new rig is perfect and final. It never has been. I am happy to get all the improvements that future will bring. But I could just as well keep shooting with this body, viewfinder and those three lenses if this was the final level of optics and engineering.

-p-

A full frame 35mm DSLR is an overkill in size and weight unless there is a specific use where it gives noticeably better final in-use image quality or other benefits compared to E-P3. These uses seem to arise less and less. My two D3xes live mostly a very relaxed life. In contrast my 5D2s with lots of lenses do mostly music videos - by my son. 

I have always used black cameras since metal OM-1s. For a change I wanted to go back to that style. They only call these silver now...

Olympus E-P2 plus VF-2

Here they are, the Olympus Twins. Without lenses and detachable viewfinders (and the shiny new black finish, of course) the new E-P2 would be hard to tell apart from it´s brother, the E-P1.

EP-2 has some refinements over EP-1 but the biggest new thing is it´s electronic viewfinder VF-2. E-P2 has a slightly higher hot shoe and a new accessory connector behind it. VF-2 is simply slid into hot shoe and new connector. Push the VF selector switch under the eyepiece and you have a whole new way to look at the world with a PEN. 

I had a pre production EP-2 (firmware 0.9) for a few days and was able to try it and VF-2 in practise. My E-P1 has seen quite a lot of use since late June. Sadly the new EVF is not compatible with E-P1. As a body E-P2 is operated exactly in same fashion as it´s predecessor. So, It felt like a brother should and took just  a couple of minutes to configure menus and map buttons to suit my way of shooting. The only change I made later was to map Fn button for depth-of-field check. This feature is just one of the benefits of EVF over E-P1´s plain brightline optical VF.

Viewfinder VF-2

People at Olympus did not confirm this but obviously VF-2 has Epson´s new TFT panel. Anyway, it has 1.44 megapixels, it´s big and it´s bright. I compared VF-2 to Canon´s EOS 5D MkII and Nikon D3x. Not fair of course, but this new EVF really has a big image. With my glasses I can see the whole image and it´s, well, big. In bright daylight it is no match to these full format 35mm viewfinders. They are smooth, continuous tone, true color; VF-2 on the other hand is still artificial, has paler colors and shows it´s pixel nature in comparison. But when you come to a dimly lit or even an average room the relation changes. VF-2 is brighter and nicer. And when you go somewhere really dark you can´t actually see anything through these fancy optical viewfinders - and 5D MkII stops focusing at all. VF-2 on the other hand turns quite grainy but I can still compose, and the E-P2 focuses at a press of a button just fine.

I had used Lumix 20mm/1.7 lens plus optical VF-1 combination for so long that it was kind of a shock to shoot the first shot through VF-2. It went black for a second... Well, that´s because of a mechanical shutter. When you shoot in continuos mode there is no blackout between shots. After half a day I actually kind of forgot about EVF, it was so nice to work with because you can evaluate very quickly exposure and DOF when you get used to it. It´s a keeper for me.

But isn´t it kind of a funny looking gadget on EP-2! If E-P1 with VF-1 has actually a stylish retro look, then this is what - huh, commie retro style? I can´t help comparing it to a DDR-era Pentacon Six and it´s Soviet Kiev 6 or 60 descendants or what about a brand new (still being made in Ukraine) Arax/Kiev 88 with TTL prism! Oh brothers, Olympus!

The considerable height of VF-2 comes from several issues: add-on construction, articulated construction where eyepiece can be tilted up stepless up to 90 degrees, big screen, high quality no-distortion eyepiece with diopter correction, and finally the hot shoe of E-P2 is higher because of the needed extra connector. Actually the height from base plate to eyepiece is practically the same as with EOS 5D MkII. In practise I did not feel that VF-2 compromised E-P2´s compactness in any way. Which was emphasised by the fact that I had to keep the camera´s identity and design un-noticed all the time. Olympus did here the right thing and did not make a small but crappy EVF like Panasonic for GF-1. What I was missing was some kind of locking for VF-2 to secure it better, now it is possible knock it off the hot shoe.

VF-2 shows of course all the same information as camera´s back LCD. With E-P2 there´s a lot to choose with new finer grids, level indicators, live histograms, exposure information etc - or just a clean, unobstructed view. VF-2 can be also used for  play back and you can switch between VF-2 and LCD at any time. VF-2 is simply the best electronic viewfinder for still cameras I have ever seen. 

 

Other new features

The new connector behind hot shoe can also be used for other accessories, like stereo microphone adapter (EMA-1) and stereo microphone (ME-51S). This adapter slids also into hot shoe - but only one accessory fits in at a time, same goeswith external flash. This has not bothered me so far but I can understand those who disagree.

AF-follow lock is better than with E-P1 according to specs but I did not notice any great difference. At least it´s still not in the league of EOS 5D MkII which is kind of low level for usability for me. 

HD-video is still 720p but now also manual controls work. There are two new art filters: Diorama and Cross Process. Diorama makes people and buildings toylike by blurring up and down and Cross Process gives you fancy color effects. I´m not thrilled, although I actually have used E-P1´s ART 6 for a jerky video project. Last and least there is some more image automatics (i-Enhance) and play back control option via HDMI.

One accessory I would really like to see is an extension cord between body and VF-2. It would give many new possibilities for remote control.

All in all, for me E-P2 is the very same camera as E-P1, just a connector for VF-2. Otherwise same hardware with mentioned accessory and software updates. I´m lucky Olympus brought E-P1 like it did because I have had fun and shot so much with it. Too  bad Epson product development was half a year late for E-P1. Speaking of product development, I feel that Olympus and Panasonic are fighting too much against each other and not together for micro 4/3 system. One more stupid decision is that EVF connectors for Olympus and Panasonic are different!

Availability and price

E-P2 is still being readied for full scale production. Although this pre production sample felt already well finished and I didn´t find any problems with EVF operation, which is the new part of package. EP-2 with VF-2 will be available during January 2010. Olympus is still struggling with E-P1 back orders which they can´t make fast enough. Lets see how they manage then with E-P2. Price for body with  VF-2 is given at 899 euros, which is not bad and in reality shops will sell under that anyway. 

New Lenses 2010

I wished Olympus would introduce fast wide angle and tele primes. In reality those are marginal wishes and Olympus is introducing two consumer series zoom lenses. They are 9-18mm/4.0-5.6 and 14-150mm/4.0-5.6, really compact zooms with ED glass, and available during the first part of 2010. With EP-2´s good stabilizer they are more usable than numbers say, but still...

-p-

Image quality that can be brought out when working with E-P2 (or similarly E-P1) RAW files is outright outstanding when compared to it´s 12MP image size, small physical size and carry around ability. Even so when conditions are far from optimal. The image above is shot hand held with Lumix 20mm/1,7 lens @ 1/40s, f/2.0 and ISO 1000. Doesn´t that tell how dim it was! Images on this page are tweaked my style and don´t represent camera´s quality as such. I´m a photographer not a copy machine... ;-)  This crop is 100%. I did not produce any comparison pair but feel free to compare with your rainy night ISO 1000, f2.0 shots.

Canon TS-E 17mm f/4 L

I tested Canon´s new superb 17mm tilt shift lens already in June. But then came E-P1 and I´ve been shooting like crazy. Now, finally I found time to write my impressions on this great lens.

Canon´s new super wideangle tilt shift lens is absolutely fabulous (well I kind of said it already but that´s what it really is) but it also is not one of the easiest lenses to use. Even a regular 17mm lens takes some time to master but this beast with it´s ample movements gives a whole new meaning to wideangle distortions. Of course  already it´s price at about 2500 euros rises it above the reach of casual shooter. This is a PRO lens.

TS-E 17mm is a totally new lens, a new design and only Canon has such a lens presently. This kind of lens is basically a normal/short tele lens with a powerful wideangle adapter in front. This is very obvious if you look at the huge bulging front element. This large element, however, is one ingredient in the performance of this lens. One other important feature is nano coating inside of first element. I have noticed in practise that lenses with nano coating have time after time a better micro contrast than other lenses from either Canon or Nikon. This lens has also UD and aspherical elements but I`m not going further into technical specifications. They can be found at Canon websites. A sad but also obvious fact is that lens prices will get higher as manufacturers are trying to make lenses that are up to 20+ MP sensors. More and more nano coatings, special glass, special surfaces etc and tighter tolerances at manufacturing.

Another Canon first in TS or PC lenses are separately revolving tilt and shift adjustment planes. This gives the shooter more options. I will not go here into using these adjustments. Tutorials can be found elsewhere. Usage is familiar to every shooter who has used Canon TS-E lenses. Everything goes smoothly and precisely. Everything in the handling of this lens tells about quality. 

Suited for

As I see it, this TS-E 17mm is suited for interiors, landscapes, architecture and product photography. In this order. I´m going to write later on using this lens and Canon´s new TS-E 24mm f/3.5 MkII in product and landscape photography. So, I´m passing those genres here.

Interiors

Above we have an interior shot which combined from three TS-E 17mm shots: one normal and two extra shots with lens at maximum shifts to the right and left. These three shots were combined into one photograph in Photoshop. Now, this kind of job SHOULD actually be done so that lens stays put and sensor moves, a job for a view camera or special tripod head for 35mm camera. When sensor stays put and lens moves, the vantage point moves and combining of images is not automatic like it is in the first case. When lens moves, you need to do some manual work in Photoshop to get things aligned and it is more difficult the wider the lens. With masks aligning can be done reasonably fast if you know how to do it. Below panoramatic shot we have the single center image on the left.

Image Quality

TS-E 17mm gives a very high image quality in interior shots. Better than any comparable wideangle lens I have ever used. 

Above on the right there are two 100% crops from combined shot above. They are from the left upper corner and right lower corner. Sharpness and contrast holds on even with maximum shift. There is some chromatic aberration but surprisingly little considering angle of view. Very little distortions. Canon body used here is 5D MkII, ISO 100, f/11. 

Finally on the left the smaller crop is from a shot with Nikon D3x and Nikon´s formidable 14-24mm zoom. The difference here is real, both images are focused equally, same aperture f/11. Of course any difference is most obvious in the corner, but same trend is seen through out the whole picture. Canon image is sharper and has better contrast in these only slightly sharpened shots. D3x is a ”sharper” camera than 5D2 as such at ISO 100 and Nikon´s 14-24mm zoom is a VERY good lens. This only shows how good the TS-E 17mm really is.

Above another version of the same interior. Done in the same way as the horizontal one but this time I had camera vertically. Same procedure, same possible difficulties while combining shots. This version gives a much nicer sense of spaciousness and also an aspect ratio that is suitable for most interiors. This image shows also how careful you have to be with corners with such an extremely wide view.

One more interior. Same procedure: three vertical shots with maximum shift, combined in Photoshop. Curvature of vertical line to the left of image is NOT caused by TS-E 17mm lens. I had to go and check afterwards and it actually is a fault of builders. This curvature is obvious here but not really noticed by the naked eye while standing in the room.

Buildings, Architecture

Architecture did not take the first spot in my suited for list. Here´s why. With this lens you have to be really careful with angles and not distort the building too much. This is not a horror example. This is the true nature of TS-E 17mm ;-). I think a 24mm TS/PC lens is more suited for architecture. 17mm is for those situations where you really need those extra angles and know how to tame the beast. Shot with 5D2, ISO 100, f/13. Image quality is superb.

TS/PC lens or ordinary wideangle and Photoshop?

Well, the lens always wins. To be able to get the same result in Photoshop you need first a wider lens to shoot from the same spot because you end up cropping later. Here a 15mm lens, above. Same image corrected in Photoshop below it, before crop. My big TS-E 17mm image above has been cropped only slightly from the right (construction work). As you can see, the needed amount of tweaking is huge AND you lose most of image area while cropping. You get less and inferior pixels.

 

Tilt and Backlight

Tilt is kind of obvious. You can control plane of focus. Above I got all the flowers sharp at f/5,6. With an extreme lens like this you have to be again careful with what happens in the corners. Either you like the effect or you hate it!

Despite of huge front element this lens tolerates backlight really nicely. There is no veil all over the image on the right. Contrast stays high. Flare spots are easy to retouch if needed.

Conclusion

A very special and high quality lens for pro shooter, a very special and fun or frustrating lens for special wideangle effects. A must have for any Canonist shooting lots of interiors, a no brainer for wide angle landscape photographs with 35mm FF. All the others watch your step.

-p-

E-P1 + 14-42/3.5-5.6 ED vs. Canon 5D + 24-105/4 L IS

What would be the perfect travel camera? Which lenses? How much weight and bulky size? What kind of compromizes between size, quantity and quality? I guess these reflections are quite familiar to every photographer.

Canon 5D and zoom lens 24-105mm f/4 L IS was my travel companion for a few years. I don´t like to carry a lot of equipment with me, and this combination gave me good image quality and versatile focal lengths in a manageable size and weight. Image stabilization compensates for a mediocre maximum aperture, and lens focuses close enough. 5D has also very good high ISO performance up to ISO 800. Later I have used the same lens with 5D MkII but this combination is not as balanced because this zoom is not able to perform with 5D MkII´s higher resolution sensor. But that would be another story. Below is a landscape from Mauritius with Canon 5D and 24-105mm lens. Focal length here is 45mm @ ISO 400.

 

But then came Olympus E-P1

When I compared the general look and feel of my E-P1 shots with my earlier shots with various digital cameras, I noticed that at ISO 100 they are not that far behind from 5D images. Both have a 12 megapixel sensor which explains some. 5D is also an older camera. I don´t know how Canon and Olympus sensor tehcnologies are evolving comparatively but still 5D sensor has quadruple area which makes it even now a far better camera at higher ISOs. But lets forget high ISOs now and stay at ISO 100.

I can already hear people crying that it is not fair to compare these two cameras. A used 5D with a new 24-105mm lens costs three times as much as E-P1 with kit zoom. 5D is full format camera and 24-105 has wider zoom area. Yes, all of this is true but I can compare which ever cameras I want to when I choose my travel camera. It would be futile to compare cameras like Sinar P2 with PhaseOne digital back and Canon´s any Ixus. In that case there´s no point because they really are different, but here I have a reason!

To compare travel cameras I decided to travel with E-P1 and 5D. I took a train to Helsinki and shot churches and statues and boats and market and streets and buildings and shop windows... and some trains. It was nice to behave like a tourist for a couple of hours, have ice cream and then travel back home. Well, the train ride took only 20 minutes, but still it was nice to visit downtown Helsinki on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, which I don´t do often.

Shooting with these cameras

5D wins hands down because it has a view finder and can be hold steadily like a camera should. I had VF1 on E-P1 all the time but it is usable only for a limited range with kit zoom. I do not like to shoot through LCD screen. Period. E-P1 wins hands down because it is so light and small. It is also as fast to use as 5D. It´s easy to shoot candidly, and after that shooting with 5D feels like a performance. Both feel solid, real cameras but using them are different experiences. For how and what I like to shoot both cameras focus and expose equally well and both can be tailored to behave as I like.

Images

I took a few dozen pictures with both cameras. I used E-P1 kit zoom´s focal lenghts: 14, 18, 25, 35 and 42mm and tried to frame as closely as possible with 5D from the same spot. There were of course some fluctuation in corresponding focal lengths because these cameras have sensors with different aspect ratios. Taking several images at every focal length cancelled any unbalancing effect from this. 

I shot SuperFine JPG + RAW with E-P1 and RAW only with 5D. I opened Olympus JPGs and Canon RAWs in Lightroom. Images were quite close in general appearances, and as needed, I fine tuned Canon images as needed to have same tone and sharpness as E-P1 JPGs. Then I chose 15 representative image pairs and printed them in A3 size for evaluation. Of course I compared those pairs also on screen.

Observations

At E-P1´s (right) 14mm and 5D´s (left) 28mm focal length 100% crops are very close to each other. In this pair Canon´s lens was at a little bit wider setting because it´s difficult to set it exactly. 

At E-P1´s (right) 18mm and 5D´s (left) 35mm focal length 100% crops are again very close in quality to each other like above.

These crops are from E-P1´s (right) 25mm and 5D´s (left) 50mm focal length images. Now here is a difference, which can be seen very obviously in the word ”NESTEKAASUA”. Actually the same thing is seen in previous images if you look closely at leather surface or stone around ”1863”. Also you can see some graininess in E-P1 crop. 5D images are very clean, it simply has a better sensor and related algorithms etc. than E-P1. Now we must remember that E-P1 images are in-camera processed JPGs. We need to wait for Adobe´s RAW processor update to get really comparable results. Okay, so there is a difference in 100% crops. Images are very seldom enjoyed in 100% crops in real life. When can we actually expect to see this or any difference in practise? In A3 size prints I can´t see any these mentioned differencies. In size A2, yes, some people can see it when they are asked to compare prints closely side by side. Otherwise, it´s there but it´s not obvious to anyone. In the internet? No-one has monitors large enough. And, really, I think very few photographs are about extreme micro contrast. By the way, look at the ropes. Don´t they look sharper in E-P1 image? Here E-P1´s slight roughness is actually good and it also shows in A3 prints when compared.  

Let´s move one step forward: E-P1 (right) at 35mm and 5D (left) at 70mm focal lengths. E-P1´s humble little kit zoom has not been any worse so far compared to Canon´s mighty professional L-zoom. Actually it is slightly better at 25mm (50mm) focal length and another tad better here. Neither lens has a straight image plane, which means results are depending on subject, but these pairs seem quite typical. Also this contrast difference is barely noticeable in A3 prints. One of the worst features in E-P1 is smearing in red color. You can see it clearly in diagonal red lines.

Finally we descend to E-P1 (right) at 42mm and 5D (left) at around 84mm focal lengths. Descend because here E-P1 kit zoom is clearly worse than Canon lens. In A3 prints the difference between cameras is seen mostly as lack of contrast in almost all E-P1 images. In my opinion Olympus m4/3 kit zoom an admirable lens at 14-35mm area. It´s value for money is outstanding. At 42mm it is not actually bad but, well - try to walk a bit closer and shoot at 35mm setting.

-p-

Olympus E-P1: Infrared

E-P1 is turning out to be a capable camera in more ways than I hoped for. One of the happy surprises with it is its capability to shoot infrared images. 

Almost immediately it was obvious that E-P1 has a different IR response than my Canon and Nikon DSLRs. They are not sensitive to IR and E-P1 is. That was seen in standard landscapes with sky in view. High sky has a very different tone. Below is one of my early cloud shots with E-P1. No filters used here.

It is really easy to make tonal adjustments in Lightroom to make skies almost black and get moody images like this one. Of course you need nice clouds to start with ;-)

That´s, by the way, one of E-P1´s other strong points. Clouds just happen, you need to have a camera with you right at that precise moment.

In the Internet I had previously noticed some sites on using Olympus 4/3 cameras for IR images. This information came back to my mind after these cloud experiments. So, I tried to experiment some more with IR filter. I had Cokin´s square A007 filter, which is the same as 89B (Wratten) or R72. Images below are shot keeping this filter in front of lens during exposure, just by hand. Even this clumsy trial proved the point for me and now I have ordered threaded IR filters for my lenses. Here´s some early advice if you want to try. These images were shot as JPGs and adjusted tonally in Lightroom.

• You can compose with IR filter in front of lens using LCD screen. It is not necessary to remove filter like with normal DSLR.
• E-P1 focuses nicely through filter, just point into a contrasty area.
• E-P1 exposure metering works fine. Just compensate +3 or +2 EV.
• You need a lot more exposure than normally, roughly 8-10 stops.
• It is possible to shoot noisy handheld images at ISO 3200-6400, even ISO 1600.
• You get a really nice quality by using tripod and ISO 100-400.

Kit zoom at 19mm focal lenght, 13 seconds, f/8, ISO 400, tripod. Image is not quite sharp because I was handholding square Cokin filter against lens, which caused some vibration. 

17mm pancake prime, 1/40 s, f/2.8, ISO 6400