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

The Silk Road is the title of a book recently published by Swiss traveller and photographer Alessandra Meniconzi. I've wanted to post on a review of this for some weeks, but just couldn't find time to do it...so this mini-review will have to do for now.



Bringing together photographs taken during a number of voyages through Western, Central and Eastern Asia, the book retraces the network of routes collectively known as the fabled "Silk Road".

This collection really is something quite out of the ordinary. The photographs of landscapes and people (and The Silk Road is very much about people) are simply radiant. Some good examples of her work from the Himalaya are here. The way in which the light is captured in these photos is difficult to express in words, as so much emotion is conveyed through them. At nearly 250 pages, this is a substantial piece of work. The book is beautifully presented, and a real pleasure to explore. I guess my favourite part is the section on Tajakistan - a practically unheard of Central Asian republic - but there are gems everywhere.

Meniconzi travelled frequently by mountain bike, well off the beaten track, and took the time to become familiar to and with the people of the regions she travelled through. This is no voyeuristic collection, no "click and run" operation, but a work which is full of empathy for the people it represents.

It is telling that she has little time for discussion of the apparatus of photography, revealing only that she uses just a few lenses and a basic camera. Quite a lesson for those of us who are so sure that a better camera and a €10000 lens would make us geniuses.

You can find out more about Alessandra Meniconzi at her web site, as well as information on ordering the book.

I think it is fairly clear that I highly recommend it!

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...

I discovered this book by the German landscape photographer Helmut Hirler in Zürich. It is one of a small series of very nicely produced panoramic photography books, but this one is really quite different: black & white, mainly infrared (possibly all) panoramas of Icelandic landscapes. With a terrain as colourful as Iceland, black & white is not immediately obvious, but these really work.



The book itself is beautifully presented, a cloth bound volume held in a slipcase. Printing quality is excellent. Hirler, who seems to have quite a strong reputation in Europe, appears to have used a Linhof 617 camera, although technical details are non-existent (not that this matters). He has a feature page at Linhof, which would tend to confirm this assumption.

There are some gorgeous images in this book, especially of the many impressive Icelandic waterfalls. A particularly striking image is an ethereal, other worldly shot of the settlement at Glaumbær, and another favourite is the rivulets and falls at Hraunfossar. Everywhere his treatment is delicate, with a strong eye for composition, and without any sign of the tendency towards gloom and despondency all too often apparently beloved by germanic artists.

The only criticism I do have is that the sequence of images at Dyrhólaey is a bit dull at times, and overlong, although one photo of the sea swirling around a basalt stack is quite magical.

All in all this is a very unusual treatment of a subject that is becoming more and more popular, and it deserves a wider audience.

It doesn't seem so easy to find in the anglophile part of the Internet, but it can be found on the German Amazon site.

"Iceland" is published by Edition Panorama, ISBN 3-89823-189-5

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.