Following the never ending, evolving debates on various web fora about E-1 RAW conversion, I've decided to not stick my head in the sand but to have another look at my choices. As far as I know, the major options are: Olympus Studio Adobe Camera RAW PhaseOne CaptureOne Bibble RAW Shooter Essentials Silkypix Developer DcRaw Silverfast DC And a few others. My choice is from the first 3, for various reasons, none of which imply that the others are no good (for example, Raw Shooter is PC only). At the moment I'm using CaptureOne Pro 3.7 (C1) as default. But I'm going to take another look at Studio. Although as far as workflow is concerned, C1 seems by far the best (although, to be fair, it takes some getting used to), in outright image quality Studio may be better. The problem is that the level of adjustment that can be done in Studio is lower than C1, which means that some processing I do in C1 will have to be moved to Photoshop. Not a showstopper. Many, many "tests" of RAW developers use the in-camera JPEG as a benchmark. This is silly, for several reasons. Perhaps the most important one is that through using RAW, you can - and often should - take "wrong" photos. For example, if you want to maximise dynamic range by deliberately over exposing ("expose to the right"), you do so in the clear knowledge that you will correct this in RAW development. The camera doesn't know this: the JPEG it produces assumes that the exposure is "correct". Following on from this, the quality of information and the degree of control that the RAW software provides is very significant to extracting the optimal image. I strongly believe that most, if not all RAW converters can be adjusted to produce similar results, at least in terms of contrast, saturation and white balance (read "colour"). Many so-called comparative tests mainly reveal that the tester doesn't really understand the software and/or the underlying principles, and I include myself in that. However, it is inarguable that each program has it's own unique default settings, and these, since they establish the "starting point", both give a string initial impression of the software's value, and influence the way in which the user interprets the RAW data to produce a final image. Working on a purely subjective basis, the image characteristics as opened by the software ("a bit dark", "a bit blue", etc) have a strong influence on the corrections the user applies. Well, that sets the background. If I get any conclusive results I'll report back...

Hot on the heels of the announcement of Photoshop CS2 with its new separate RAW processing features, came the "release candidate" of CaptureOne Pro 3.7, and Olympus Studio 1.3. Studio 1.3 comes with a lot of interesting new features and options, so I thought it would be interesting to try it. I'm not really sure what all the conversion engine options are for. If they have pros & cons for different types of images, why not tell us ? But no, Olympus remains inscrutable on this point. To me it seems more a case of "we can't decide, let the user work it out", or simply traditional old "more options os better", however useless they are. Anywaa, one major improvement over Studio 1.2 is that the histogram works again, so at least it is usable. One MAJOR flaw, but really, really bad news, is that 16-bit TIFFs are still created with no EXIF data. What are they thinking of ? This makes cataloging a real headache, and for that reason alone more or kills Studio stone dead as a professional tool. However, if the quality is there - and many people swear by Studio's quality - it might be worth the pain, at least sometimes. So I decided to run a little test, on an image I took recently of a brown bear at the Goldau wild animal park. Here below is the full image (the Studio version in fact). The photo was taken using the Zuiko 50-200mm zoom, handheld, at ISO 100. I processed the image in C1PRO v3.7 and Studio 1.3 using default settings as far as possible, with no sharpening, no exposure compensation, no noise removal. In both cases I output to AdobeRGB. Studio automatically compresses the data, it seems, if you compare the before and after histograms. C1 doesn't, at least not by default, and this accounts for the slightly brighter default result - it is trivial to compensate either way. In fact in both cases outputting to ProPhoto could have advantages, then compressing in Photoshop. In Studio I used the "Advanced High Function" engine (well, why not ?) and left the saturation setting at CS2, sharpening at -3. To be honest the differences to my eyes are negligible. Studio's internal sharpening seems quite good, but in any case leaving sharpening off and using Photokit Sharpener looks better to me. Studio's workflow remains very poor, and even on a Dual 2.5Ghz G5 Mac, it isn't particularly speedy. Studio gets the job done, and produces great quality, but it isn't worth the upgrade from Viewer. C1 gives results which are just as detailed (I really do not see this "plasticky" look some complain about), has far better workflow, gives much more control over the image, and doesn't throw away EXIF data. Bring on Photoshop CS2... 1:1 crop of Studio 1.3 processed image 1:1 crop of C1 v3.7 processed image

Well my E-1 went on a ride to Olympus Switzerland last Thursday. Hopefully it will return soon, with a new rubber coating for the grip, which as seems to be common with E-1s, was coming loose. I also asked them to look at the card compartment door which is sometimes a bit stiff. I delivered it myself to Olympus in Volketswil. I doubt that the extremely correct Swiss German receptionist will forget me in a hurry, as somehow I slipped and more or less hurled the box at her. Despite my profuse and embarrassed apologies, she was not amused...

So I've had the E-1 for just over a year. I've taken about 6000 frames with it, I've made my first commercial sales as a photographer with E-1 photos, and I've probably progressed a great deal as a photographer due to the freedom that digital brings. So maybe it's time for a quick review update.
Gugge Musik group at Rabadan 2005, Bellinzona. Some of the first entries I posted here included photos I took at Rabadan 2004. This time I had the flash!

Problems

I can't say I've had any major problems with the E-1. I've had no failures either of the camera or any components, even when submitting it to quite harsh conditions. I've treated it with respect, but I've assumed it was designed to be used, not left on a shelf, and it has not been mollycoddled. So far it hasn't complained. I have had some problems with auto focus, especially with the 50-200 lens, and even more so with the TC14 converter. The main problem is that the camera has had a bad habit of losing focus on foreground objects. However, a large part of this is probably down to me, not being at all familiar with AF, and underestimating the learning curve. Recently I've forced myself to be more methodical with it, and things have improved a lot. The new 1.4 firmware helped to. Only twice has my E-1 frozen, requiring a battery-remove reset - both times this was with the FL36 flash attached, which I'm not 100% happy with. But then again, I'm a total novice with flash.

What I like, particularly

• The viewfinder. It is far better than any other DSLR in its class, and most above it. I've at least handled most DSLRs, and the only one with a better viewfinder I know of is the Canon EOS 1Ds - and it should be better! The 100% coverage is fantastic, and makes up for the 1Mpix difference between the E-1 and Canon, Pentax, Nikon and Minolta cameras.
• The battery life - it just goes on forever. I've only once been caught with a low battery, and it was my fault, 100%
• Handling: the camera just feels right. It balances perfectly, and all the controls are in the right place - well nearly all
• The lenses. They're all great. Maybe the best is the 50-200 zoom, which is amazingly flexible, applicable to semi-macro close-ups, portraits, and of course wildlife. It is a little bit heavy though!
• The dust shaker. One doesn't really notice it of course, but that's the whole point. It is very entertaining watching one's peers frantically cleaning their Canon & Nikon sensors. I've never cleaned mine. I have no idea how to, and I doubt I ever will. And I change lenses frequently, in all conditions. Finally this brilliant innovation is getting noticed elsewhere...

What I like less

• Image review - it really should be possible to automatically display a image post capture with shooting info, e.g the histogram. I really cannot understand why a firmware update could not incorporate this.
• No ISO information in the viewfinder. This is a fundamental parameter for a digital camera. Ok, you can bring it up by pressing the ISO button, but the camera should remind you, not the other way around.
• The software. Olympus Studio is not very good, certainly not worth the price. It has a few nice touches, such as being able to rename files using EXIF data - why does nobody do this ? - and a decent workflow, but all in all the usability is poor, it isn't always very clear what it is doing, it has some irritating bugs, and it remains slow. Version 1.2 improved the speed, but added several new showstoppers, such as - incredibly - killing the histogram update in RAW development. CaptureOne is far better, although Studio remains the only choice for computer controlled shooting.

Long term view

I think investing in the 4/3rd system was a good move. I have bought the 50-200 and 11-22 zooms, and the 50mm macro, as well as the 14-54 zoom. I might trade the 11-22 for the 7-14 when it becomes available. However, I hope that the system will take off to the extent that a wider range of lenses becomes available, and even that specialist lenses such as a tilt/shift are offered. I would very much like to see a Fuji 4/3 body with the sensor from the S3, and even more to see Fuji making 4/3 lenses. At the moment things are looking quite good. However, I doubt that the E-1, or any 4/3 camera, can fully meet my needs as a photographer. This isn't bad - when I had the Canon T90, I used the Hasselblad Xpan just as much, along with a few other more esoteric devices, like the Hasselblad ArcBody and the Fuji GS670. The Xpan still gets used relatively often - the others not so much. But probably at some point I will add a "medium format" digital system to the E-system. A Hasselblad H1 would be nice! But then again, so would a Zuiko 300mm F2.0 lens... Probably the year in which I've used the E-1 has been my most productive year as a photographer, and I can't say much better than that.

For a long time before I bought the Zuiko ED 50mm macro lens, I (and others, I think) was intrigued by the apparent fact that the 14-54mm zoom actually focusses closer than the 50mm. How could this be ? There was plenty of comment on forums such as DPReview about the magnification factors of the lenses. This didn't make much sense to me, as surely a 50mm is a 50mm, no ? Well no, not exactly, as the closest focussing distance of a zoom lens is not necessarily constant at all zoom settings (focal lengths). To illustrate this, and to see how various Zuiko Digital lens combinations shape up, I've conducted an informal comparative test of the 50mm, the 14-54mm and the 50-200mm to see which can give the best magnification. I'm not really into heavy testing, so it was a bit rough and ready. The subject is a Swiss 2 Franc coin, which is about 26mm across: I set the lens at closest focussing distance and moved the tripod until the edge of the coin was in focus. All shots are at f/8. The lighting and aspect differs as I had to move the tripod to different positions for each lens. All files were rapidly processed in Capture One immediately to sRGB JPEG, with nominal sharpening. Here are the test shots:
ED 50mm Macro, with EX-25 Extension Tube
ED 50mm Macro
ED 14-54mm Zoom, with EC-14 1.4x Teleconverter, at 54mm
ED 50-200mm Zoom with EC-14 1.4x Teleconverter, at 283mm
ED 14-54mm Zoom, at 54mm
ED 50-200mm Zoom, at 200mm
ED 14-54mm Zoom, at 37mm Obviously the 50mm with extension tube gives the highest magnification. The 14-54mm does focus closer than the 50mm, but it does this focusses closest at around 37mm. At 50mm it is someway off. Of the three, the 50-200 is perhaps the most flexible. Although it isn't compatible with the EX-25 [CORRECTION - it has been pointed out to me that this is a mistake - it is in fact compatible] , it can be used to get some quite effect close-ups. There are some combinations I didn't try, such as the 14-54mm with the EX-25 (I ran out of time), but it wouldn't change the result. ps - this entry, and quite a few recent ones, was posted with the brilliant Mars Edit from Ranchero Software. Whilst writing this, for the first time ever it crashed on me, just as I opened iTunes - maybe it found David Sylvian's "Blemish" a little too avant garde for its tastes ? 😊 Anyway, I soon stopped cursing - Mars Edit also has an autorecovery feature which rescued everything I wrote, unprompted and immediately. Now that's what I call software.