Functionality of Legacy Olympus OM MF Lenses with Pen Micro

[Harold Gough]

As of less than an hour ago, I have the 35mm macro. See the first results:

http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... 0810#80810

One of its selling points is the small size of the lens. When closed, both this and my OM MF 50mm f3.5 macro are the same length and the digital one is only slightly wider. There are small economies too, the 52mm filter size accepting the hood I use (via an adapter) for the MF lens and I have high quality 52mm filters, although the need for macro use is limited.

One peculiarity in use:

It wouldn't (auto)focus on the lichens, no matter how I tried, until I first gave it a slightly larger subject, a group of flowers on an adjacent branch. Then it was happy! Can lenses have macrophobia?

More generally, I'm still struggling to see what is in focus on the camera screen and the zoom function is inappropriate for fully hand-held shots. When I get the VF-2 I hope my results will improve.

Harold

[Harold Gough]

I have found one advantage to the built-in screen. To the extent that I can see anything much in it in bright light, I can point the camera downwards from about head height, and at arms length, to compose and focus in a way that I would be unable to do with an optical viewfinder or the VF-2. Similarly, I expect to be able to minimise bending down for low-level shots, but not as well as if the screen were the tilting type.

That is the first, and may well be the last, thing I have to say in favour of it.

Harold

[Harold Gough]

Here is the equivalent shot of the currant flower (see page 5) but using the 35mm ED macro:



I have sharpened it, decreased brightness slightly and increased contrast slightly. 1/320 sec f11 hand-held.

I found the AF a nightmare. It hunted constantly and rapidly used up battery power. This may have been partly due to some movement in the subject, a breeze gusting frequently, rarely still air.

Edit: I forgot to say that the deeply-recessed design of the lens means that I am getting very close to the subject at this magnification and this will prevent much higher magnification. If a teleconverter became available this would get us some increase.

Harold

[Harold Gough]

Here is a hand-held shot with the OM 80mm macro bellows lens* on 65mm extension (from the 4/3 adapter flange). The daffodils are exteme miniatures, the yellow flower cups being about 5mm diameter.

Edit: * I bought the lens 18 months ago and this is the first time I have used it on any camera.

This needed quite a lot of additional brightness due to being about a stop under exposure:



1/400 ISO 400 Aperture priority.

I don't understand why the light falls off behind these daylight shots, just as flash does.

Harold

[OzRay]

I don't understand why the light falls off behind these daylight shots, just as flash does.

Harold

Basically you're exposing for the white in the foreground, so everything in the background gets significantly less exposure.

Cheers

Ray

[Harold Gough]

I don't understand why the light falls off behind these daylight shots, just as flash does.

Harold

Basically you're exposing for the white in the foreground, so everything in the background gets significantly less exposure.

It doesn't work that way with film.

The background usually, e.g with the Narcissus, has the same light intensity as the subject. Exposure compensation, or later brightness adjustment, will expose for that level. I can understand the dark background being the case if I adjusted brightness selectively, e.g. just the petals, but I wouldn't know where to start with that. Also, it happens when white is not prominent, e.g. the currant flowers. In no case has the background been more than a bit more shaded than the central subject.

This could be the one reason I will stay almost entirely with film for daylight shots of flowers.

I have brightened the image more, possibly going slightly too far:



Harold.

[rjlittlefield]

The background usually, e.g with the Narcissus, has the same light intensity as the subject. Exposure compensation, or later brightness adjustment, will expose for that level. I can understand the dark background being the case if I adjusted brightness selectively, e.g. just the petals, but I wouldn't know where to start with that. Also, it happens when white is not prominent, e.g. the currant flowers. In no case has the background been more than a bit more shaded than the central subject.

Well, it's a pretty safe bet that your camera has no idea on a pixel-by-pixel basis what is foreground versus background. So whatever it's doing, it's doing on the basis of RGB values. I wonder if perhaps your camera and its associated software are automatically adjusting contrast so as to give some fixed fraction of "black" and "white" pixels. I've heard that some consumer-oriented photo processing places do that because it keeps the customers happier, so I can vaguely imagine that software might be set to do it by default. Does this happen only for camera-generated JPEGs, or does it also happen during raw conversion? If it also happens during raw conversion, then probably you can see it happening by checking the contrast & brightness settings.

--Rik

[Harold Gough]

Rik,

I shoot RAW only and convert to JPEG in Olympus Master 2. The effect is visible in RAW file thumbnails.

Harold

[OzRay]

Harold

Digital photography mandates an understanding of post-processing. You have a digital negative/positive and to produce a print/screen shot requires digital darkroom work, just like with film. You can't avoid this and seriously need to embrace and understand what it involves. Once you do this, you will revel in the opportunities that digital provides over film. If noting else, think of digital as shooting transparency film, not colour negative. Once the penny drops, you won't look back.

Cheers

Ray

[Harold Gough]

. If nothing else, think of digital as shooting transparency film, not colour negative. Once the penny drops, you won't look back.

That is exactly what I do. I never use print film. It may look like I am expecting print film latitude but I am dealing with the results of errors in metering which are due to having only just sorted the exposure locking, together with difficulty in seeing the inbuilt screen well when reviewing images in-camera in strong light. I do go for slight increase in saturation, as is standard practice with reversal film, but most images do not require brightness adjustment.

What am I missing?

Harold

[OzRay]

. If nothing else, think of digital as shooting transparency film, not colour negative. Once the penny drops, you won't look back.

That is exactly what I do. I never use print film. It may look like I am expecting print film latitude but I am dealing with the results of errors in metering which are due to having only just sorted the exposure locking, together with difficulty in seeing the inbuilt screen well when reviewing images in-camera in strong light. I do go for slight increase in saturation, as is standard practice with reversal film, but most images do not require brightness adjustment.

What am I missing?

Harold

Digital provides more latitude than transparency ever could and you also get some get out of jail cards to boot shooting RAW. I think you may still be in film mode and not quite realising the potential of digital, and what can be modified and how. Olympus software is also pretty average and you'd be better looking at say Lightroom.

Cheers

Ray

[Harold Gough]

Ray,

Olympus Master 2 was installed as a means of accessing Olympus ORF RAW files. I don't like much about it.

I know of Lightroom but have seen it only from the outside, not as a user. I don't have time to read up on it today. A quick Google search offers V 4 for a three-figure sum which is something I would need to justify spending.

I have Photoshop 7.0, Elements 7.0 and Adobe ImageReady 7.0 and have not had much of a look at any.

Harold

[Cactusdave]

Taking up Ray's very valid point about differences between film and digital, and indeed between digital cameras with different sized sensors, I think we need to address the elephant in the room, which is sensor noise, the equivalent of film 'graininess' if you will. The micro 4/3 cameras have a small light sensor onto which a lot of pixels have been crammed. This is a recipe for more noise than is ideal. I have never had the pleasure of working with a full frame digital camera, but I have used the X1.6 crop 10 megapixel Canon EOS 40D extensively for close up work and can compare it with my micro 4/3 Panasonic G1. There is no doubt that the G1 shows more noise over the whole ISO range from 100-800, the difference becoming much more noticeable as ISO is increased. Noise is particularly prominent in unfocused and poorly lit areas. Where I can comfortably work with the 40D at ISO 400 or even 800, I need to keep ISO on the G1 to below 400 and ideally at 100.

That doesn't mean that the G1 is a bad camera or other micro 4/3 cameras are bad. They are light, versatile and are excellent vehicules to give a new lease of life to a whole world of legacy manual focus, manual iris lenses. It does means though, that the appraoch to their use has to take into account a recognition of the noise issue. There are two ways to tackle this, optimal lighting and post processing noise reduction. While I love to use my G1 as a hand held, available light camera, there is no doubt that for close up work it cries out for more light, ideally flash to keep ISO and exposure times low and to avoid shadowed areas on the subject. The G1 is just less tolerant of sub-optimal lighting than the 40D. Trying to pull detail out of shadows with Photoshop tricks will find more noise lurking there too than in a similar X1.6 crop image.

The second way to tackle noise is electronically in post processing. There are many noise reduction programes available, some as Photoshop plug-ins so that they can easily be integrated into Photoshop workflow, some also as stand alone versions. The important characteristics you need in a noise reduction program are the tools to ensure that you get the maximum impact on reducing unwanted noise with the minimum impact on loss of detail, which is the potential downside of all noise reduction programs. I personally use Topaz DeNoise 5 as a plug-in for Photoshop Elements 7. I have no axe to grind for it, I tried several noise reduction programs, found this one suited me best and gave the best noise reduction for the least image degradation, so I bought it. The generous 30 day free trial didn't harm. I find some degree of noise reduction indispensible in getting the best from my G1 images and I can't see why this would be different for other micro 4/3 cameras.

I apologise if I'm preaching to the converted, or teaching grandmothers to suck eggs, but I think this is an important issue to clarify for people new to the micro 4/3 format.

[OzRay]

Harold

Just taking your original image and tweaking it a bit in Photoshop CS4, brings out so much more of the flower than I think that you would consider possible and that's just working with a reduced JPG. It's not acceptable to show post-processed work of other's photos, so you'll just have to take things on trust.

Cheers

Ray

[Harold Gough]

Dave,

In haste, having urgent domestic commitments.

Thanks. All help welcome. I have the camera's noise reduction, said to be for slow exposures, permanently 'ON'.

So far as I remember, none of the images I have posted have had any noise reduction applied after downloading.

I use the same principles as I do with film. (I usually use 100 ISO film, but have taken to some ISO 400 since the ultra-fine-grain Provia 400X came out a few years ago). (Also, I sometimes push films 1 stop, sometimes 2).

At the moment I am taking advantage of IS to hand-hold many shots for which I would use a tripod or flash.

Harold