I am back in the DSLR business. This time with a photo taken with the Olympus E-510 with IS, with the zuiko 50-200 ED (100-400mm equ. 35mm) zoom lens that opens 2.8~3.5.
This setup is great. If the E-510's grainyness was fully controlled, it'd be an awesome setup (it is already for the price).
The IS with that fast lens allows me to shoot 400mm photos with like 1/30s exposures hand-held with minimal shake on the photo. Impressive.
The camera is like $675 with the 2 lens kit, and the 50-200 is another $800. That's cheap! And they came out with the ultimate 12-60 zoom (24-120mm). The new E3 body is $1600 but is overweight.
This photo is un-touched, as I had issues with the new raw format and my toolchain... so I know the colors are ugly, and don't even match what I saw then. Will fix it sometimes soon. Meanwhile you can still comment on the composition :)
Posted by Sharon Menke on November 29, 2007 at 12:14 PM
I love how the moon came out. All you need now is the wolf howling..LOL
Posted by Lon Overacker on November 29, 2007 at 6:07 PM
Dan,
What a great moment you've captured. I can't tell if the two people are giving each other high-fives, or performing some sort of yoga... either way, great shot.
You said you haven't done any processing, so no need to comment on the colors or banding in the sky. oops, I guess I just did.
Nice shot.
Lon
Posted by Dan Truong on December 1, 2007 at 6:34 AM
Thanks. :)
Those 2 persons were climbers (most likely), and they walked there and then hung out for a minute. I have no clue what they were doing. Either discussing a bouldering problem or making some yin yang stuff.
I'm glad they showed up there as I was looking for a silouette to frame my moon.
And the moon was an excuse to try that new olympus 50-200 lens I have.
So you see after all it was all a very selfish intent. :)
The previous week-end I played with the camera in Pinnacles, and a commercial airplane passed over us at 10000ft: Plane
I also shot the moon then: Shooting the moon
These show a few things:
- The antishake is great. Maybe 5 stops?
- The lens is great. Fast. Sharp.
- The camera tends to blow highlights as discussed in DPreview
- The camera's small CCD has noise as discussed in dPreview
This is nice! I really like the moon, and the two folks add a nice element and balance to the composition.
I don't know if you have noise reduction software. If not, Neat Image is excellent.
Glad you like the new camera!
-PB
Posted by Dan Truong on December 4, 2007 at 5:53 AM
OK, I posted the balanced version in man and nature.
Yow you can comment... What was it about color banding again?
Posted by Anil Rao on December 4, 2007 at 11:55 AM
Hi Dan,
This is a very interesting photograph. I love the strong graphic elements and the drama. Really well done.
BTW, what's up with the pointed hands of those two people?
Posted by Dan Truong on December 4, 2007 at 8:44 PM
For info on the e510 body:
There are a few reviews online ( 1, 2,3), and I agree with DPreview:
Cons
- The e510 4/3 CCD suffers from higher noise level than regular DSLRs. To counter that I will lock the max ISO to 200, and the use of the e510 IS (which buys me personally at least 4f-stops at 200mm).
- The e510 noise filter is too aggressive because of the above. As DPreview suggests, I will turn it off and lower the sharpening to -2. That allows the e510 to extract more details than the Nikon D40 or RebelXti.
- The e510 has some highlights clipping, which is a limited problem for me as I shoot RAW. I will however likely underexpose by -1/2ev or so, as DPreview notes it is missing 0.7eV in highlight headroom compared to other brands.
- I often don't like what the AF picks for me, for ex. when I shoot someone on a climb while I'm parallele to the wall. I think I'll switch to a 1-point AF, and aim at what I want then recompose. I think a 20 or 30 point AF wouldn't help me either anyways as this is extreme sport photography usage that will fool the smarts anyways. The only alternative is an AF that "reads" excactly where my eye is looking in the frame. Canon had that.
Pros
For these minor flaws (I can adjust for them), I get in return an affordable system, that most importantly is very light and compact. I think the kit is about 2lbs with the 2 kit lenses.
When I have time for quality I will bring my bulkier lenses (2lbs each), which for what they do (open at 2.8) are already extremely light, and cheap too ($800). Even there, I'd be much lighter than a Canon/Nikon setup. I don't need a photo backpack. I don't even need a regular sized SLR bag yet.
For the lenses, the ED 50-200 (100-400mm equiv 35mm film) has very good reviews (1,2,3,4,5). The most notable issue is a little vigneting, but good resolution (MTF50 > 1500lp/ph across the board). The kit lenses are also reviewed there and good. I don't know how they measured resolution, but if they used the e300 body, they must have hit the body's CCD resolution limit. I have noticed the vigneting on some photo's sky, but easilly corrected in raw processing in 2 seconds.
I have photo and weight comparisons of the lenses and body here.
Discussion
7 repliesThe corrected version is on man and nature.
I haven't forgotten CANP.
I am back in the DSLR business. This time with a photo taken with the Olympus E-510 with IS, with the zuiko 50-200 ED (100-400mm equ. 35mm) zoom lens that opens 2.8~3.5.
This setup is great. If the E-510's grainyness was fully controlled, it'd be an awesome setup (it is already for the price).
The IS with that fast lens allows me to shoot 400mm photos with like 1/30s exposures hand-held with minimal shake on the photo. Impressive.
The camera is like $675 with the 2 lens kit, and the 50-200 is another $800. That's cheap! And they came out with the ultimate 12-60 zoom (24-120mm). The new E3 body is $1600 but is overweight.
This photo is un-touched, as I had issues with the new raw format and my toolchain... so I know the colors are ugly, and don't even match what I saw then. Will fix it sometimes soon. Meanwhile you can still comment on the composition :)
What a great moment you've captured. I can't tell if the two people are giving each other high-fives, or performing some sort of yoga... either way, great shot.
You said you haven't done any processing, so no need to comment on the colors or banding in the sky. oops, I guess I just did.
Nice shot.
Lon
Those 2 persons were climbers (most likely), and they walked there and then hung out for a minute. I have no clue what they were doing. Either discussing a bouldering problem or making some yin yang stuff.
I'm glad they showed up there as I was looking for a silouette to frame my moon.
And the moon was an excuse to try that new olympus 50-200 lens I have.
So you see after all it was all a very selfish intent. :)
The previous week-end I played with the camera in Pinnacles, and a commercial airplane passed over us at 10000ft:
Plane
I also shot the moon then:
Shooting the moon
These show a few things:
- The antishake is great. Maybe 5 stops?
- The lens is great. Fast. Sharp.
- The camera tends to blow highlights as discussed in DPreview
- The camera's small CCD has noise as discussed in dPreview
This is nice! I really like the moon, and the two folks add a nice element and balance to the composition.
I don't know if you have noise reduction software. If not, Neat Image is excellent.
Glad you like the new camera!
-PB
Yow you can comment... What was it about color banding again?
This is a very interesting photograph. I love the strong graphic elements and the drama. Really well done.
BTW, what's up with the pointed hands of those two people?
There are a few reviews online ( 1, 2,3), and I agree with DPreview:
Cons
- The e510 4/3 CCD suffers from higher noise level than regular DSLRs. To counter that I will lock the max ISO to 200, and the use of the e510 IS (which buys me personally at least 4f-stops at 200mm).
- The e510 noise filter is too aggressive because of the above. As DPreview suggests, I will turn it off and lower the sharpening to -2. That allows the e510 to extract more details than the Nikon D40 or RebelXti.
- The e510 has some highlights clipping, which is a limited problem for me as I shoot RAW. I will however likely underexpose by -1/2ev or so, as DPreview notes it is missing 0.7eV in highlight headroom compared to other brands.
- I often don't like what the AF picks for me, for ex. when I shoot someone on a climb while I'm parallele to the wall. I think I'll switch to a 1-point AF, and aim at what I want then recompose. I think a 20 or 30 point AF wouldn't help me either anyways as this is extreme sport photography usage that will fool the smarts anyways. The only alternative is an AF that "reads" excactly where my eye is looking in the frame. Canon had that.
Pros
For these minor flaws (I can adjust for them), I get in return an affordable system, that most importantly is very light and compact. I think the kit is about 2lbs with the 2 kit lenses.
When I have time for quality I will bring my bulkier lenses (2lbs each), which for what they do (open at 2.8) are already extremely light, and cheap too ($800). Even there, I'd be much lighter than a Canon/Nikon setup. I don't need a photo backpack. I don't even need a regular sized SLR bag yet.
For the lenses, the ED 50-200 (100-400mm equiv 35mm film) has very good reviews (1,2,3,4,5). The most notable issue is a little vigneting, but good resolution (MTF50 > 1500lp/ph across the board). The kit lenses are also reviewed there and good. I don't know how they measured resolution, but if they used the e300 body, they must have hit the body's CCD resolution limit. I have noticed the vigneting on some photo's sky, but easilly corrected in raw processing in 2 seconds.
I have photo and weight comparisons of the lenses and body here.
Other lenses: 1,2.