« February 2009 | Main | April 2009 »

March 26, 2009

[REVIEW—OLYMPUS E-30 DSLR]

Price: $2500 with 14–54mm Zuiko lens

Good camera, great lens

The low-down: This 12 megapixel camera with a four-thirds sensor is a de-tuned version of the flagship E-3 DSLR. Build quality and ergonomics are excellent and performance is similar to the E-3. The kit lens supplied for review is the 14–54mm (28–108mm film equivalent) f2.8–3.5 zoom, and that is fast for a kit optic. There is both body top and main LCD display of camera settings and the LCD swivels. Live view is well implemented with slow but accurate contrast-detect auto-focus. There is image stabilisation by sensor shift, and automatic dust removal. There is a set of in-built “filters”, probably of limited use. Do you really need your DSLR to emulate a pinhole camera? But the soft filter is nice. The excellent Olympus wireless flash system controls remote flash unit(s) from the camera. Burst mode is up to 5fps.

Like: This is an excellent camera that produces fine images, but special mention must be made of the lens. Mechanically and optically it is outstanding. Zoom and manual focus are smooth and auto focus is fast and accurate. Contrast and resolution right across the frame are excellent. The smaller sensor also helps with overall sharpness because of the greater depth of field at any focal length compared with the larger APS-size sensors.

Dislike: This is nit picking, but we would have liked a little more damping (resistance) in the manual focus mechanism.

Verdict: Olympus have plugged a hole in their DSLR line-up with this camera that fits in the same price slot as the Canon 50D. Fewer pixels would be nice, and we note that Akira Watanabe, manager of Olympus Imaging's SLR planning department, said last week: "Twelve megapixels is, I think, enough for covering most applications most customers need. We have no intention to compete in the megapixel wars for E-System." So, the E30 is a top quality camera for the fastidious photographer that might not break the bank.

 

*

Posted by terry at 09:08 AM | Comments (0)

[BEWARE THE BLACK PRINTS!]

We recently gave some advice to a reader buying a compact camera. She is so pleased with the recommended camera that she sent us a photo to show how well the camera performs. However, she apologised. “The print is darker than it is supposed to be.”

The print was produced on an in-store Fuji machine. Perhaps the image had been edited on a home PC before being taken to the printer. Whatever, it is a common enough story. “My prints are way too dark. What is going on?”

A quick google on the subject of monitor/printer mismatch shows that the problem is universal and the cause of much pain to digi-snappers. Why do my photographs look great on the monitor and murky on the print?

So distressing is this issue that it has even spawned its own conspiracy theory – printers are set to print too dark because that uses more ink and that profits the printer manufacturers. Dark prints are a diabolical capitalist plot. Which might be plausible were it not for the fact that the pictures also come out too dark at the commercial photolabs where no ink is involved.

We have spent a lot of time and money sorting out the monitor/printer mismatch and we have drawn some conclusions.

A few years ago, when we were all moving away from cathode ray tube to the new LCD screens, we talked to a photographer who runs a large professional studio, all Mac based, about the problem of transition from one technology to another. He told us that all LCD screens have brightness defaults that are far too high.

When new monitors are delivered to his studio the first thing that happens when they are taken from the carton is that the brightness is wound right down, perhaps as far as fifty per cent of the default setting.

After that shock treatment the monitor is colour calibrated.

With CRT screens the brightness and contrast can be adjusted during the calibration process, but with LCDs there is nothing that can be done about contrast. Cheap calibrators simply instruct to set the monitor to the factory brightness default, but that way lies misery.

Our recommendation to those who don’t want to master the intricacies of printing from Photoshop is to reduce the monitor brightness, and then use the “easy print” application that comes with all printers. The Canon and Epson “easy print” modules produce consistent results with little user input.

How do you tell if your monitor is too bright? Well, if your prints are too dark then you can assume it is. But here’s a suggestion floating around the internet – hold a blank white sheet of printer paper against the screen and it should match a blank white document in Photoshop in brightness and colour. If it doesn't, you need to either increase your room lighting or reduce the brightness of the display. Crude, but it’s worth a try.

*

Posted by terry at 09:00 AM | Comments (0)

March 19, 2009

[ON THE BENCH—RICOH CX1]

WE HAVE BEEN KEENLY ANTICIPATING THE RICOH CX1 since its announcement a month ago, and we now have our hands on a review unit.

RICOH take an interesting approach to camera design, solving problems inherent in compact cameras before the other companies get around to it. For instance Ricoh was the first to tackle seriously the issue of shutter lag. They eliminated this annoying problem well before the other makers fixed it.

With the CX1 they have set out to solve another problem – poor dynamic range from the tiny, over-pixeled sensors in compacts. The first thing they have done is to fit the camera with a 9 megapixel – more than enough – CMOS sensor, thereby giving themselves a good base on which to build.

Then they incorporated into the camera a variation of the high dynamic range correction that hitherto has been handled in software, such as Photoshop and Photomatix. The CX1 takes two exposures in rapid succession, one under and one over exposed,  and then combines and processes the two images to extract the maximum detail in shadows and highlights. The DR setting, as Ricoh calls it, can be set from weak to strong depending on the effect desired in the processed image.

Does it work? Yes. But not surprisingly it really only works satisfactorily with static subjects and preferably with the camera also static.

The CX1 does another trick hitherto confined to manual shooting – it will automatically take a bracket of five shots at different focal points in front of and behind the focus point set by the camera. This increases the chances of one shot being in sharp focus at the desired points. Software, such as PhotoAcute, will take these five exposures and create one merged image with maximum sharpness.

The CX1 is blissfully free of gimmicks and crammed with useful features, such as the Level Indicator that gives both a visual and audible [if set] indication of horizontal straightness. Controls are well laid out and Ricoh has taken advantage of the high resolution [920,000 pixels] LCD to give the most elegant, fine graphics on any camera we have tested.

At $599 RRP the CX1 looks like a winner, particularly for those who take their photography seriously.

The only complaints we have so far is that the body is a little plasticky and the absence of an optical viewfinder proved a pain in the whatnot on a bright autumn afternoon in Melbourne. The LCD is edge to edge black in bright light.

One of the CX1’s original features is the ability to take a five bracket set of photos, each of which has the point of focus slightly shifted from the camera’s automatic focus point. The idea is to look at the five individual photos and choose the one that appears to have the best depth of field. However, why not put the five photos into PhotoAcute and merge them using the Depth of Field Extender preset? That way you finish up with a merged photo with everything sharp, front to back, like this…

 

 

[Click on any image for a larger view]

Watch this space in the next week or two for a full review of the Ricoh CX1.

*

Posted by terry at 06:00 PM | Comments (0)

March 12, 2009

[REVIEW—CANON EOS 5D MkII]

Price: $4300 (body only)

Bliss!

The low-down: This 21 megapixel camera with a full 35mm frame-size sensor is a revision of the 5D that was released to great acclaim in 2005. The pixel count has been increased and a full HD movie mode has been added as a function of live view. The body is as rugged and well constructed as ever, the ergonomics are good, but not as well thought out as the rival Nikon D700. The LCD is now the industry standard high resolution 75mm screen. Even with the large files produced by the camera a burst speed of 3.9 fps in JPEG is achievable. There is no pop-up flash – this is a serious camera.

Like: Used with the Canon EF 24-105mm L lens image quality is superb. The resolution is such that small areas of the image can be cropped and enlarged without loss of detail. Low noise performance is exemplary at the highest ISO settings. And the movie mode is surprisingly effective, delivering true high definition video straight from the camera.

Dislike: While the high definition movies are excellent we do have reservations about the utility of this feature. To work properly the camera needs to be tripod mounted and the focus needs to be constantly tweaked manually. The user manual says “auto focusing is not recommended” when shooting movies. Maximum clip size is about 12 minutes.

Verdict: There are now three outstanding cameras in this market niche. The Canon 5D was the first by three years and the MkII is not a lot different from the MkI. Nikon and Sony have come at the design from fresh points of view. For anyone with an investment in Canon lenses the choice is easy, but for the lucky few with the (lots of) money it is a little harder. But the good news is, whichever you choose you will have a superb camera. It was sheer pleasure being reacquainted with the Canon 5D type.

 

*

Posted by terry at 08:51 AM | Comments (0)

[‘TIS THE SEASON]

Every year at about this time in the northern hemisphere the Lesser Spotted Wotsits start coming home from their antipodean holidays and the camera companies show us the wonders and delights they have been working on over the long, dark winter days in Tokyo and Sendai and such places.

Why now? Because this is the time of the annual Photo Marketing Association annual show in Las Vegas where the companies strut their stuff for retailers from around the world.

There’s not a lot of new cameras at the top end of the market this year. Olympus has shown a gap-filling E-620 which looks interesting, packing a lot of camera into a small bulk, as is the company’s wont. We have had a chance to handle a pre-production model and it sits well in the hand and has some interesting new features, plus a set of “art filters” that look more gimmick than useful.

Panasonic and Canon have both entered the go-anywhere compact market with new models that are waterproof, shockproof and will work in sub-zero conditions. The Canon Powershot D10 is a 12 megapixel unit that will go on sale here in May.

We have laid hands on the pre-production Panasonic all-proof Rugged that will be in our shops in April and sell for $700. We liked what we saw. Both the Canon and the Panasonic will sell against the Olympus Tough models.

Also new to the Panasonic line-up is the TZ7 ($770 in April). We gave a pre-production unit a good workout in still and movie mode and were impressed. It is hard to credit that Panasonic made their first digital still camera as recently as 2001 and here they are aiming for a 10 per cent share of the Australian market this year.

Two of the most interesting cameras announced in the last couple of weeks won’t be available for review for some time and we are itching to get our hands on them. Fujifilm and Ricoh, both companies noted for their eccentric but effective approach to digital imaging, have given advance notice of compacts that promise to solve two of the problems afflicting all small sensor cameras – image noise and poor dynamic range.

Image noise is caused by having too many photo receptors on a tiny sensor. Everyone knows this, but no one does anything about it. Until now.

Fujifilm’s new F200EXR has a 12 megapixel sensor – too many for top quality images. But the user can couple adjacent sensors to turn the F200EXR into a 6 mp camera and in high dynamic range mode the camera takes two photos at different exposures and combines them to preserve the shadow and highlight detail. Clever!

Ricoh’s CX1 uses a similar approach of combining two images in-camera to extend dynamic range. And it comes with a sensible 9 megapixel sensor, so noise should not be a big problem. Review units are expected late this month and we are impatient! These two cameras could be a turning point in compact camera design.

*

Posted by terry at 08:48 AM | Comments (0)

March 05, 2009

[REVIEW—OLYMPUS TOUGH-6000]

Price: $500

Rugged, but…

The low-down: This 10 megapixel camera with a 28–102mm (film equivalent) lens is the latest version of Olympus’ go-anywhere camera. It is waterproof (to 3 metres), snowproof (to -10c) and shockproof for a drop of 1.5m. We didn’t test it, but it feels robust enough. The lens is folded in the body and doesn’t extend for focus or zoom. Manual controls are limited, but there is a “beauty” setting on the mode dial. Some controls can be activated by tapping the camera body at certain points which is useful for glove-wearers in the snow who certainly wouldn’t be able to use the minuscule buttons. In program auto mode the pixel count reduces to 5 million for some reason not made clear in the user manual.

Like: The Tough compacts were the first of this type of go-anywhere camera and have served a purpose for adventurous snappers. However both Canon and Panasonic have similar cameras in their autumn lineup.

Dislike: We could not get consistently sharp images. The lens appears to deliver soft focus and poor resolution. Image noise also blurs detail and at ISO400 noise is intrusive. We could not imagine anyone producing a decent print larger than postcard size. Using the Scene settings seemed to improve matters slightly, presumably because the full resolution of the sensor is activated. Image stabilisation does not appear to be effective, and what Olympus calls “dual stabilisation” is no solution because it automatically boosts the ISO speed into realms where image noise (grain) is appalling.

Verdict: If we were in the market for an indestructible compact camera we would wait to see what Canon and Panasonic have to offer. We have tried a pre-production Panasonic unit and were satisfied with the results. As for the Beauty setting on the Olympus – we tried it on a plain person and it didn’t help. It simply blurs skin detail while keeping eyes and hair reasonably sharp. File under G for Gimmick along with Smile Detection.

Posted by terry at 09:15 AM | Comments (1)

[PRINTING DOLLARS AND SENSE]

An email from a reader last week set us thinking about the economics of printing digital images in the simplest form – that is, as standard 10x15cm glossy prints, such as come from the local photo lab machine.

Our correspondent lives in a country town where there is no local photolab, so she has depended on her trusty Hewlett Packard printer. Like just about everyone else she has discovered that the image she sees on the screen and what comes from the printer rarely, if ever, matches. So, how to get economical prints that look right every time?

We tried four printing methods and this is what we found.

Big W DIY printing from user terminals was the cheapest. There was a special of 12 cents per print on the day we used it. The customer uses the terminal to select and, if necessary, edit the images for printing. The editing experience is poor with monitors that are not calibrated for tone and colour, so images must be prepared at home. Or take pot luck from the camera memory card. Print quality is good, with some unpredictability in image brightness. Colours are OK. Prints were ready in 25 minutes.

The Kodak Express shop in the Forest Hill shopping centre charges a premium price of 49 cents a print, and but what you get for your money is a top quality print. The shop does mail order business and can be contacted for more information at foresthill@camsdigital.com.au The Kodak paper is more luxurious than Big W’s Fuji material. Again it is essential to do the image preparation at home. These are the best quality prints we made.

The Canon Selphy CP740 is a postcard printer. These little devices use dye sublimation technology, passing the paper through the printer four times to lay down colour and clear layers. Prints work out at about 37 cents each and we find that the output is consistent and has good print longevity, even on the fridge door. Prints lack the zap of the photolab output because the paper is not as glossy. Prints direct from memory card are fair. The colour medium is dye on a roller, so paper, and what Canon calls “ink”, is sold in packs. A $40 pack contains 108 sheets of paper and the right amount of “ink” for that number of prints.

The Kodak ESP 5 inkjet printer will make prints up to A4 and excels with 10X15 glossies. Kodak’s brilliant trick is to print codes on the back of its paper types which the printer reads to set the printing parameters. The printer uses two cartridges, a black and a colour-plus-photo black. For best results the paper type Kodak Ultra Premium Photo Paper must be used. Colour and tone are good and print life is excellent. Cost is 27 cents per print.

Home printing is on-demand and convenient. Photolab printing is cheaper and the results are hard to match on a home printer.

*

Posted by terry at 09:12 AM | Comments (0)