Since Noise Ninja 2.0 has been released as a public Beta for Mac OS X, I've been trying it out on some ISO 3200 photos, and comparing with the Olympus post-processing tools (not in-camera noise reduction). The following sequence of 100% screenshots shows various combinations: This is the raw image, no noise reduction of any type This has Olympus Studio RAW Noise Filter turned on. This has both Olympus Studio RAW Noise Filter turned on and Olympus Studio Image Editor Raw Noise Reduction on, set to auto. Note things are getting a bit plasticky This has Noise Ninja's supplied ISO 3200 profile applied to an otherwise untreated image. This has Noise Ninja's supplied ISO 3200 profile applied to an image with Noise Filter turned on. This has got everything on - Noise Ninja's supplied ISO 3200 profile applied to an image with Noise Filter on and Noise Reduction set to auto. To my eyes, the best result is to go direct from the raw image to Noise Ninja, without applying any Olympus tools. This may be because the Noise Ninja default profiles are built with this in mind. Note, they're also intended for "average" JPG images, whereas I'm creating 16 bit TIFF from RAW. There is probably quite a lot of scope for improving things by creating profiles for this scenario. It seems to be a fairly straightforward process. It may also be because Noise Ninja produces a more "photographic" rendering, which is more pleasing to the eye. Either way, Noise Ninja is impressive, and makes E-1 ISO 3200 genuinely usable.

Following a current thread on DPReview, and based on some recent observations, I've revisited the "Olympus Studio" vs "Photoshop Camera Raw" question, with some alarming results. I've been using Camera Raw routinely for some months. It is fast and intuitive, and apart from high ISO images, seems to be close enough in quality to Olympus Studio to make little practical difference. However, when processing a photo recently taken in Italy, in Camera Raw, I was disappointed to find that I had apparently blown out the red channel. No amount of tweaking curves seemed to be able to save it. Later, when reviewing the shoot in Olympus Studio's slide viewer, it slowly dawned on me that here I was not seeing any such problem. So I reprocessed in in Studio's Image Editor, and hey presto - well exposed image. It is difficult to work out what is going wrong in Camera Raw; I'm starting off with the default settings, which should, I presume, give me something close to Studio's default settings. But it doesn't. This might be an extreme case, or perhaps Camera Raw doesn't like saturated reds, but for now, despite the usability issues and the bugs (see below), I'm going back to Olympus Studio for RAW developing.

Adobe Camera Raw version

Olympus Studio version

Bugs

• 16 Bit TIFF files do not have EXIF data written to them
• In Color Management preferences, "Embed Color Profile" will always embed sRGB profile if selected. If deselected, the in-camera profile is retained.
• If Studio crashes, the OlyCheckMarkInfo file is lost. It seems it is only closed / save on Quit. There is no way to save it otherwise. This means that if Studio crashes, which happens sometimes, all work on sorting images is lost

Annoyances

• No easy way of selecting images to open in Image Editor - you have to close it to get back to the slide modes, and the file browser cannot show previews of ORF files
• Using RAW Developer from the slide modes doesn't allow you to see the histogram. So Image Edit mode is more or less obligatory
• RAW Developer is very, very slow and clumsy. Even deselecting or selecting a checkbox, which has no effect on the result, forces a reprocess / redraw.
• RAW Developer is very poorly documented

Whoops. I seem to have forgotten to post here 😊 Well it has been a long road, paved with good intentions. My E-1 has clocked up thousands of shutter cycles, and produced about a Gbyte of photos, of which at least 2 are sort of ok. In the meantime I have fitfully tried to use other cameras - the XPan has had two films through it in 5 months (38 frames!) and the Fuji 670 less than 1 film. This is not because "digital is better than film" - really this has nothing to do with it - it is because the E-1 is just a fantastic camera, incredibly user-friendly, encouraging, and impossible to put down. The fact that it is digital is just a side issue. So what are the key points I've learned ? Well, first, inevitably, the E-1 is not 100% dust proof. The sensor can get dust on it, but so far a simple restart sorts it out. It just seems that the ultrasonic shaker needs a few attempts in some cases. But I've been changing lenses whenever I feel like it, which is often. Another point is battery life....well so far I've failed to run down a battery. This thing is incredible. The record so far is: 1Gb CF full, 2Gb Microdrive full, extensive reviewing, and 2Gb MD downloaded from camera on battery power, and still no indication that the battery is even thinking of packing up. And this is using the internal battery, not the grip. I really haven't got any negative points to report on. Ok, the 50-200 is a bit heavy for hand holding (I had to try hard to find something!). Oh, and the stop down button is a bit fiddly, but no more than on my Canon T90 ... less, really.

Currently in Lugano there is an open air sculpture exhibition, showing works by Arnaldo Pomodoro. The works are highly reflective and have many interesting shapes. I thought it would be interesting to play around with them a bit at lunchtime. I wasn't the only one...

Hmm. For the last couple of weeks, the weeks have seen wonderful weather (in both "normal" and "photographic" terms), and the weekends have had dull skies. A bit of a shame because it is magnolia season here and whilst I'm not usually much of a flora photographer, I like magnolias. There are white ones, red, purple, mauve, often in photogenic settings. Great for shallow depth of field work. So whatever the weather, I had to do something! Last year I got some shots with my Canon 135 F2.0 lens which I was pleased with. This lens is really nice, an all time favorite of mine. Weighs a ton, but the "bokeh" is really smooth. I wanted to see how the two Olympus lenses would compare. Obviously, being zooms, they're not quite the same thing. But they're not bad. I'll post some comparative shots next, but my feeling at the moment is that the 50-200 is a bit smoother. In the meantime, I HAD to post this. This is nothing like anything I've done before, and I doubt I would have tried it without a DSLR. This is the second version, using spot metering off the magnolia leaves. I really like the high-key effect combined with the shallow DOF Looks a lot better on an A3 print, mind you!