A recent blog post I read, and which early-onset Alzheimer’s is preventing me from linking to (Blogheimer’s, maybe ?), led me to realise that for quite a while I’ve been breaking one of the Cardinal Rules of landscape photography - one that I certainly used to fully subscribe to, but which I’ve been flouting for quite a while:

THOU SHALT STRIVE FOR SHARP FOCUS FROM THE NEAREST FIGMENT TO THE FURTHEST FIRMAMENT

Or something like that.  But I have sinned, and have been guilty of letting the background sort itself out.  This is a conscious move to some extent. My reasoning was we expect far off objects to be less distinct, and shoving everything into one plane of focus doesn’t seem all that important, in particular given the tradeoffs.  Of course, it’s not a point one could argue with Ansell Adams (well, obviously, but you know what I mean).  But I bet it would get me into serious trouble in the average British Camera Club.

Here’s a prime piece of evidence, freshly created this morning:

The foreground is pretty much in focus, by my usual standards, but the middle and background rocks are distinctly soft. And the bridge, well it’s practically blurred.

Of course, there are some practical reasons for this.  With the Olympus 4:3 sensor, diffraction sets in noticeably at f/11, and any smaller aperture than that is going to be a compromise. And although, on the other hand, the depth of field at a given aperture is roughly twice that of a 35mm size sensor, it’s not quite enough to compensate, even at wide angles like here.  Sometimes I use this characteristic to my advantage. Sometimes it becomes a bit of a handicap.  I don’t really know if I’ve become more aware of the diffraction issue, and am over-compensating, or if if I actually like the look… when it works, that is. Sometimes it doesn’t.

Is full field sharp-as-a-proverbial-pin-ness overrated, or I am I denial ? Do I need .... a new camera ???

Finally, I did it. I got around to getting a Canon FD lens adaptor for my Olympus E-P2. Back in Ye Olde Days, I was a Canon FD user, and I had some truly awesome lenses for that system. The 135mm f2.0 was probably the best lens I ever used. A pity I gave it away…  However, I have still got the 50mm f1.2L, and the 20-35mm f3.5L.  And they’ve been sitting on my shelf for years, just a whim away from eBay.

So my Novoflex adaptor arrived today. Yes, I know it’s the most expensive, even outrageously so, but it has a pristine reputation for “just working”, unlike many others. I’m tempted by the shift adaptors, but maybe some other time.

It took a while to coax the 50mm in to life.  It was in a strange state, and I couldn’t get the aperture ring to work, even when mounted on my Canon A1. The 20-35 worked straightaway, but the 50mm was the one I was interested in, and it was stuck either at f1.2 (mounted) or f16 (unmounted). Anyway, I eventually got it working. I seem to recall it was always a bit recalcitrant.

So here’s a photo. Of flowers, of course. At f1.2, of course. And the bit we’re all interested in is the out of focus part.  I think we call this “testing”.

Some flowers. At f1.2.

The photo is straight off the card, into Aperture, and out again. Default settings, nothing added, no sharpening, nothing at all.

I’d say the results are promising 😊

It isn’t trivial, slimming down a selection of 16 photos from 6000 candidates… Not that all 6000 are good, but probably 1000 or so are in the same ballpark as the 16 I chose (not that I’m claiming they’re anything special).

Anyway, hot(-ish) on the heals of my Pyramiden & panorama galleries, here’s another more general set from the wonderful Arctic world of Svalbard.

And for those who like to know these things, they were all taken with an Olympus E-3, using Zuiko Digital 12-60SWD, 50-200SWD and 7-14mm lenses.

I’ve been meaning to write more about the Olympus EP-2 for a while, but for various reasons I didn’t get around to it. One of these is that I wanted to compare with the E-3, but I haven’t got a lens adaptor for the EP-2 yet, and in any case, I’m not really into doing “tests”. Anyway, there’s little point: it is glaringly obvious that in terms of image quality, the EP-2 is way ahead, even with the 14-42mm kit lens.  I say “even with” ... to be honest, I seriously doubt that the vast majority of web chattering about lens quality is based on any sort of objective evaluation of real-world use. This lens certainly isn’t limiting my photography.

Oh, and it’s great fun to use.

An EP-2 photo using the Fake Hasselblad preset

There are a few things I don’t like so much about the camera, and all of them are concerned with handling and the user interface.  The control dial is pretty horrible to use. You have to be very, very careful to not completely change the setup when you were intending to dial in +0.3EV. The various ways of changing settings, through the menu, the super control panel, or the info layer (if that’s what it’s called) are just too confusing. At least one of them should go, and actually, although I’m very familiar with it, my choice would be to deep-six the super control panel. As I get used to the info method I’m finding I hardly ever use the control panel. I wonder if it has made it through to the E-5, or if Olympus consider it to be a “consumer” feature ?

Another pretty picture

There are a lot of things I do like. First of all, in my experience so far this camera has by far the most accurate auto-exposure of any Olympus E-System camera I’ve used. Very good and very consistent, unlike the E-3 which frankly seems to use random guesstimation as it’s baseline method. Second, dynamic range is also much better. The photo above would have caused my all sorts of problems with the E-3. With the EP-2, it’s just routine. The EVF is excellent, and without it the camera would not be anywhere near as useful or enjoyable. It would be nice if it were orientable in two axes, like the E-3’s screen. The general feel and construction of the camera is very good, and personally I love the design. It is so much easier to carry this camera around than a DSLR, although it is notable that it is only slightly smaller than the E-400. I like the shutter sound, although it would be nicer if it were a touch quieter. Oh, and I really like the AF-C Tracking Mode - this is fantastic when combined with “focus and recompose” shooting, although I suppose that wasn’t quite what it was meant for! It might not be quite so hot with fast moving targets - I don’t know, I haven’t tried - but it works fine for motionless inanimate objects. 

I’m not quite so keen on manual focus.  I’m still not entirely sure how to pre-set the focus point: I found out once, and then forgot (manual ? what manual). And moving the focus point while zoomed in in MF mode is probably the most frustrating and curse-inducing activity I’ve encountered on a camera in many years. But then again, who cares when you’ve got AF-C Tracking Mode ?

So, I won’t be selling it. In fact, since I bought it, I haven’t picked up the E-3 (or E-400) once. Obviously in some cases the E-3 will still be the better tool, but in general I can see it settling on a quiet semi-retirement.

So I cracked. It’s mainly his fault, but also the ongoing stress of carrying large camera bags through airports and on planes, not to mention on my back, has been getting to me.

This, coupled with a really irresistible price for an Olympus E-P2 with EVF, finally made be think, well, why not ? I can always sell it, quite conceivably at a profit, if I don’t like it.

So far, I’m quite impressed. It was pretty easy to work out how to get to grips with it, since it’s the 4th Olympus digital camera I’ve owned, and the menu logic (or lack thereof) is pretty consistent.

I’m not totally taken with the collapsible 14-45mm lens, especially the “collapsible” bit. It’s just one more thing to get in the way of getting the shot. I’m also quite surprised how loud the shutter is. And I hate, but really hate, the stupid green light around the power button. This camera is supposed to be discrete FFS!! At least Ricoh provided a firmware update to disable the similar light on the GRD2. I can only hope that Olympus will do the same.

As for image quality, well it’s pretty much what I expected. So far I haven’t done any back to back comparisons, but I can’t imagine they will contradict what everybody else says - it’s a bit better than the E-3. I can’t use Aperture for RAW processing, as it doesn’t support the camera, so I’ve returned to Iridient Raw Developer without much regret.

Certainly it is an eminently portable camera, and the kit lens seems quite nice.  I’m not going to add anything else until I get more used to it.  The EVF is ok, I suppose. Apparently it’s the best anybody has ever seen, which is nice, but honestly it can’t hold a candle to the E-3’s 100% OVF.  But it gets the job done.

Early morning grab shot with the E-P2