Making The Most Of 5 Megapixels.

I have mentioned in a previous post that the Olympus E-1 is a 5 megapixel DSLR camera. That is a 5 million pixels. The dimensions of which are written as 2560x1920.

The eagle eyed amongst you should recognise that as not a million miles away from some computer monitors these days. What that means is that when viewed digitally the images still look pretty good, there is detail in there. What I have noticed is that I am happiest with images of subjects that are closer to the camera. The resolution of small distant objects suffers due to to the smaller number of pixels used on this sensor.

Here is an example of the detail on a close up of my live-in model:

Olympus E1, Olympus 18-180mm f/3.5-6.3

Here we can see fine detail in her fur is resolved really quite well, that is because I effectively filled the frame with this portait making the most of the pixels available on the sensor.

Olympus E-1, Olympus 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5

In contrast the camera fairs much worse when trying to display the small details in the distant trees. They are mushier and much less defined because the resolution just isn’t there in comparison to a modern camera.

Crop of the above image to show what I mean about the resolving power of the camera.

The details here blend together and look a little painterly here. Now at normal viewing distances this is less noticable and I am greatly increasing the effect by cropping in so much into this image.

Now, confession time, I have used software on all these images to squeeze as much out of them as possible wirth regards to the sharpness and resolution. This has involved careful and light pushing of the files sent through Topaz Photo AI. Topaz allows for sharpening and noise reduction that is both powerful and subtle.

Olympus E-1, Olympus 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5

This additional pop of perceived sharpness added to the image really complements the already standout colours.

The one thing that is difficult to compensate for is the lower dynamic range offered by this old sensor. This most often rears its ugly head in scenes like the one above. The dynamic range between the dark woodland and the bright sun hitting the tops of the tress is just too much for the camera to cope with, and you end up with highlights that are completely blown with no data at all.

Bracketing your shots can help here, another alternative is to take the image and convert it to monochrome. This does not resolve the issue but may make it less noticeable. I think this might be because the brain is more forgiving of blown highlights in a black and white images because there is no unnatural looking colour cast to them.

Monochrome conversion of the previous image.

Finally this brings me to one last point about the old E-1 with regard to its imaging. Built in to the camera are controls for managing the JPEG engine’s handling of colour imagery, interestingly there is no way to ask the camera to save a black and white image. Any monochrome work you see from this camera has all been created in post production, which means the photographer had to work hard to previsualise what that scene would look like in terms of light and shade and not hue and saturation of colours. Just another interesting part of using old gear.

There is one other more invasive technique I have tried with this image using Photoshop to take the texture from the tree next to the overexposed one:

Texture replacement in Photoshop to mask the worst of my exposure woes.

A Few Weeks In.

Well, I am a few weeks into my first month with a good old camera. I have thoughts.

Olympus E-1, Olympus 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5

The Olympus E-1 has proven to be a piece of technology that handily ingratiates itself. It is not without it’s flaws, however, and many of these are related to its age. A camera that came out in 2003 will never be able to win hearts with brutish specifications like sky high megapixels.

There is a joy in knowing that such an old camera works at all, and that it has its own character to the images it makes is just a bonus on top of that.

Olympus E-1, Olympus 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5

The colours! Yes they are everything people wrote about prior to my purchase of the camera. There is a magic all of its own in the Kodak manufactured CCD sensor housed inside this rugged old tank of a camera. It is only 5 megapixels, but it makes those 5 million dots count for something with the way it renders colours.

Olympus E-1, Olympus 70-300mm F/4-5.6

Then there are the lenses. The system was not the most developed in its short lived run. Olympus did still mange to provide a number of fabulous examples.

One of my favourites so far has been the 14-54mm lens, which was one of their mid-range zoom lenses. It is a versatile zoom range, equivalent to 28-108mm on a full frame camera, but its most impressive trick is a great close focus - not quite true macro but close enough that it means I do not have to change lenses when photographing small subjects.

The plot twist, or word of warning, here is that this is my second copy of the lens. My first had a slight focusing issue that meant it would always focus behind the actual focus point making capturing sharp shots impossible with any level of consitency. Future Olympus DSLR cameras in the series would allow for autofocus adjustments, but the E-1 does not have such a feature so a second copy of the lens was sourced and it works without issue on my copy of the E-1.

Olympus E-1, Olympus 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5

I also have to make special mention of something that could easily be overlooked, but the camera has brilliant ergonomics. This is one area where you can safely make a statement without caveats about the age of the machine, it is just brillant in the hand. This is especially true when used wearing gloves. The weather in January has been incredibly cold and as such has made glove wearing a must!

Olympus E-1, Olympus 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5

With the handling giving such confidence, the speed of operation only adds to this, it is easy to forget sometimes that you are holding a camera that it is now over twenty years old. There are moments you are reminded of this though. The focus system (while mostly fast and accurate) is limited to three focus points, and they are all basically in the middle of the frame. Focus and recompose methods of image taking are essential to the use of this camera.

Low light can be an issue, but it is a strong reminder that many things can be overcome with good technique and use of assitive tools like tripods and slower shutter speeds afforded by them. The shutter mechanism itself is well damped and does not appear to negatively impact the image making due to uncrontrollable slapping of the mirror.

Most importantly thought is the thought that if the light is not good enough to make a photograph on this camera then maybe that particular situation just doesn’t have the right kind of light for making a photograph. Modern technology and high ISO performance has meant many poor lighting conditions can be overcome through brute force of specification.

This camera has made me a less complacent photographer. Where I would normally ride the shutter speeds dangerously slow safe in the knowledge my image stabilised camera would be able to correct for that, this camera actually forces me to think about the trade off between increasing ISO on a camera that is limited in its capabilites in that area compared to setting up a tripod and slowing down the shutter speed that way.

Olympus E-1, Olympus 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5

Ultimately this is not yet a review of the camera, I will save that until the end of the month, but it is a good time to check in and let you know my thoughts.

Safe to say I am really enjoying the camera and have developed some techniques for getting what I think is the most out of the files it produces and will share some of my post production techniques in another post.

Until next time I hope you are enjoying whatever camera you have and are trying new things every time you go out with it!

Olympus E-1, Olympus 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5

Chapter 1: A Light-tight Box.

What makes a good camera? Well it need to take a picture, save that picture to something, and repeat that a number of times until you get better at pointing it at the right things. An over simplification but essentially, and “essentially” is the key, that is all you need in a camera.

This year I will be using a new old camera every month and revealing its strengths and weakenesses to you through photos created with it, behind the scenes experiences using the camera and hopefully answering your questions should you choose any of the cameras I cover here.

As a sneak peak of the camera I am using this month I posted a picture on my Instagram feed of the viewfinder to see if anyone could guess the camera just from that. A bit of fun and I will be slowly revealing the camera across the next couple of days. Did you guess it yet? Leave your suggestions in the comments there or here and we will see how close someone gets to it!

This should be a fun project, and I hope you will join me on this adventure and invite anyone else to join in too!