Heresy – The Olympus E-P2 IS better than the Leica M8

The Olympus E-P2 is better than the Leica M8 … at least for me.

A good friend of mine loaned me a Leica M8 body recently (many thanks, Zoran!) with an eye to a sale, as I had a hunger to go Leica digital as I have a few nice old rangefinder lenses hanging about.  This hunger arose and then intensified as I have been having more success with my Olympus E-P2 than I usually enjoy with my Canon 5D outfit for more candid and intimate shots, and I guess I thought that the M8 body might confer a bit more of the old Leica magick on me if I had one.

To get ready for it, I sold off a wad of kit that I owned but never used, and now it has gone I know I didn’t actually want (let alone need) either. This included a FujiFilm S3 Pro DSLR, a Canon G10, and some other digital paperweights. Don’t get me wrong – in the right hands, these are serious tools capable of great work, it’s just that my hands were not the right ones. This was a Good Thing. No-one wanted to buy my old Tamron Adaptall zooms and Pentax Takumar primes either, so I still have them. This outcome was also a Good Thing.

I used  the Leica for a couple of weeks in parallel with my E-P2 “Pen” that I also have been using as a mount for old glass. Before I confer my decision, I must confess that I own and occasionally use a beautiful chrome M6, so I know what a camera fitted with the famous red dot can do in the right circumstances. Notwithstanding my love of my film M6 (note that I have also owned and used an M5 and loved it too), I just couldn’t get the M8 to feel right and work with me as I have done with it’s film-based brethren.

The M8 is a beautiful tool – hand made and handsome in a most purposeful way – that can excel as only a rangefinder can with the right eyes and brain behind it. It seems that I am not one of those appropriately equipped to delight in the M8 experience. Here’s why:

• It’s too heavy.
• I hate the viewfinder – the framelines are worthless, and the 0.68 magnification factor – optimised for longer lenses, just what you don’t need on a crop sensor body –  is not nice when you have been used to a classic M6 with the standard finder magnification of 0.72.
• I had issues with the rangefinder leading to consistently out-of-focus images with a properly calibrated modern Summicron 50mm, if you can believe it.
• I was worried about its worth and felt as though every eye was on me – this is the opposite experience most people report about using a discrete black dumb-looking rangefinder.
• Now I have discovered the value of family video, the M8 can’t actually shoot any.
• The in-camera JPEGs are horrible, although the DNG RAW files are as industry-standard as you can get.
• Because of the excessive inbuilt IR sensitivity, you really do need to invest in IR cut filters for each lens you use, and they are expensive.

There are some good M8 things as well:

• It’s so cool.
• You can use any of the fantastic glass made for a Leica over the past 80 years by Zeiss, Canon, Voigtlander, and yes, even by Leica. It’s all fabulous, and you can pick and choose the rendering intent you are seeking.
• It’s low-light noise performance, although not as good as the Canon 5D, is pretty darn good, and better than the Pen’s. The sensor is nearly APS-H size (but not quite), which is more than double the area of the micro 4/3 standard sensor real estate.
• Did I already say it’s cool?

On the other hand, my creativity with old glass has been recently unmatched by my use of the Pen. I believe that I have recently taken some of the best shots of my 47 years of having access to and using a camera (I started when I was 7 with a Box Brownie) on the Pen. Here’s why:

• It’s so cool.
• It’s small and relatively lightweight.
• I have a huge choice of glass – with just 2 adapters that cost $25 each, I can use any screw or bayonet mount lens  ever designed for the Leica rangefinder family, or any of the almost limitless array of glass built on the M42 / Pentax screw mount. Oh, and don’t forget the modern M4/3 glass from Olympus, Leica, Panasonic, Voigtlander or some of the boutique glass factory products designed to fit M4/3 cameras too. And just like with the M8, you can pick and choose the rendering intent you are seeking by your choice of lens.
• When I use old glass, because of the M4/2 two-times crop factor the sensor sees only the prime middle section of the chosen lens’s image circle – goodbye soft corners, farewell vignettes.
• The Pen’s optional electronic viewfinder (VF-2) is amazing, in that with its 1.15 times magnification you can actually see and compose the picture even in low light with the camera pressed up against your face, just like we all used to do until optical viewfinders were cruelly snatched away from us at the dawn of the digital age, and not replaced in order just to save a few bucks in build costs. You can also examine the effects of your chosen aperture on the depth of field. A side benefit of the VF-2 finder is that at least with some lenses, keeping both eyes open results in a most unusual 3D view of the scene you are shooting.
• This face-stabilised mode allows for sharp images as the camera wobbles about far less than when held at arm’s length like every other digital P&S wonder on the planet does without a viewfinder.
• It has sensor-stabilisation available for every lens that you can fit, making otherwise shaky images possible in low light.
• The JPEGs it makes automatically are far and away better than the Leica’s by a country mile. The RAW images are of course every bit as good for raw material as the DNG varieties that the M8 creates.
• The colour performance and white balance is better than the M8.
• The low-light performance, although not as good as the M8, is pretty darn good, and vastly better than any point-and-shoot can do, because  although not offering any more resolution, the sensor is 9 times bigger (225 mm² vs 25 mm²) than the 1 /2.5 “ sensor in the typical 12 mpix auto-everything Canon/Nikon/Samsung/Pentax and, yes, Olympus offering.
• It’s a fantastic video camera, especially when fitted with old glass.

It’s not all rosy, however – now for the bad Pen issues that have impacted me

• The autofocus with a modern M4/3 lens is slow compared to a DSLR (however it kills the M8’s, which has none at all anyway).
• The crop factor is 2 times, making your old 50mm a short telephoto, and thereby automatically making very wide angle lenses very expensive. The M8’s crop is only 1.3 times, which is far more useful (to me at least).
• It’s so cool especially fitted with an old lens, that people stop you to ask “what camera is it”?

I find that my creativity, especially with people, portraits and candids, soars with the Pen (compared to using but primarily worrying about protecting the M8 because of its cost) especially when it is fitted with a quality old fashioned manual-everything lens. My current favourites are the 50 year old Canon 50mm f1.2 LTM light bucket, and the fabulous Voigtlander Ultron 28mm f2 M mount lens, my new “standard”.

My percentage of keepers is massively higher from the Pen than from the M8. On this basis alone, I am prepared to accept the two compromise areas I don’t really like about the Pen – the crop ratio, and the low light noise performance. Simply put, a successful keeper is infinitely better than and preferable to an out-of-focus or missed shot to me…

If I want really wide or super low light quality, well I just use the Canon 5D instead. It’s horses for courses, I guess. So, I’m staying with the Pen as my choice for a small, super-high-quality unit to use when the Canon 5D is just too big.

Oh, and I have just saved wasting $2500 on a dream that would not deliver for me, too. Just don’t hate me for being a heretic

Through the Olympus E-P2 electronic viewfinder

This is, I believe, a first for the web. I have been looking for an age on the web to find comparison photos that show what you see through the Olympus E-P2’s electronic viewfinder, and what the camera sees. Having failed in my quest, here is a quick comparison pair I have shot for our enhanced understanding of this digital marvel.

What the camera saw:

and now, through the viewfinder:

First things first – the real view through the finder does not suffer from chromatic abberation – this is a a problem introduced by my trusty Canon A720 IS in its macro shooting mode. Second thing – the image you see through the finder is not washed out in the highlight areas – this is again an image issue introduced by the second camera as the dynamic range of the scene can’t be properly recorded. (Maybe a HDR would be better, but nevermind, it was beyoned me today)

The image through the finder is clear, colourful and provides an excellent perception of what you will see in the image you shoot. there is a big range of setting information available, this shows just one mode. In summary, no, its not the same as a Leica’s rangefinder viewfinder, it’s different and in many areas, it’s better. It gives a full screen image of the view that results from the focal length mounted or zoomed, unlike an optical finder. It stops one having to use this as a point and shoot arm’s length unit, with all of the attendant problems that method of shooting brings. I love it.

Street photography so vibrant you can almost smell it

Shot as a grab whilst buying dinner. I always feel odd doing shots like this, I guess I am self-conscious poking a camera at people I don’t know in small places. I suppose the best way to get over this is to keep shooting.

Pizza in mono:

or the same image, pizza in colour:

Same image, same RAW file, different processing. Which image is more relevant for the scene?  I love the strength of the colours, but I also love the raw power of the B&W image.

Colour processing – get the white balance sorted, and then Topaz Adjust. Mono processing then done on top of the Topaz colour image. Shot on an Olympus E-P2 digital Pen, with the kit lens. I think as a P&S camera, it is just awesome. No-one noticed except the guy on the left, who asked for a look at it.

Olympus E-P2 as a night / street camera

In my never-ending quest for the perfect P&S camera that will give me at least some control over depth of field choices, I have deliberately put down my trusty 5D for serious work for a short while, and in its place dusted off my Olympus E-P2 (digital Pen) with a half-hearted promise to myself to have it with me as often as I can (rather than a hollow claim of “all of the time”).

Here are some early results from it as a night shooter:

and

The first is (obviously) a B&W conversion, done outside the camera from a RAW file. The second is (equally obviously) a bit of a fraud – the comet and stars have been added to give it a bit of oomph. Irrespective of the truth of this image, I like it.

The more serious mono image requires a bit of processing info to explain its look – this was a bit more complex than normal – firstly get the exposure and white balance right in ACR. A dark vignette then drops the unattractive edges away. Conversion to mono, with the look of a titanium-toned image, filtered with green to kill off some of the brightness of the overpowering neons.

As for the rendering from the little Pen, it seems to be excellent. These images were shot on auto-pilot at 400 ISO, using the body’s inbuilt image stabilization as (of course) I had no tripod with me when I was returning the rented DVDs back to the shop just around the corner from this magnificent homage to the neon sign’s possibilities. Oh, and the lens for both was the bog standard kit zoom, a seemingly good bit of glass even if it a bit slow for my tastes. I took advantage of a wobbly signpost to rest the camera on, a couple of snaps – no movement as there is no mirror – and here we are.

As for street use, for unobtrusively sneaking in a few candid camera shots, it’s equally brilliant:

How’s this – an image from inside an art gallery, that was so quiet an SLR would have had the curator down on me in no time. Again, shot with the kit lens, opened to its maximum aperture, and set to 400 ISO, and processed to mono outside the camera from RAW. I love it. It’s small – my ruler says it’s just 122mm wide – that’s only about 4 & 3/4 inches. You can use any old Leica/Canon/whatever M39 screw mount lenses as well as any Leica M glass you may have lying around on it. Some call it the poor man’s M8 – I reckon it’s better – what do you think?

Media coverage of the fall of Kevin Rudd, PM

I work nearby the Australian Federal Parliament, and I often drive around it as a traffic- and light-free shortcut. On the day of the political death of Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister of Australia, the media had firmly got hold of the story and was intent on milking it as far as possible, so I joined them for a few minutes. They set up camp on the lawns of Federation Mall on what was a beautiful winter’s day, and the TV reportage orgy began.

And when I saw orgy, I mean orgy. Peter Overton, the Channel 9 News anchorman was flown in – he’s recently departed from 60 Minutes. Karl Stephanovic from the “Today” show, the guy next to Overton whose name I don’t know from another show, Chris Bath, another news anchor was there, and this was at 2 pm when nothing was happening, with no politicians in sight. The imports were all wearing heavy coats. It wasn’t cold for a local.

It was interesting to see the set up used for OB filming – they make efforts to get the light under control:

Here, Chris Bath is standing in direct sun, and they have set up a shade to soften what would otherwise be harsh shadows on her face. There is a tungsten spotlight with barn doors with a blue daylight gel to add some light ready for when the sky darkened later in the day – they were still broadcasting when the politicians emerged in the evening darkness like vampires with Parliament lit up like a Gothic castle as a backdrop. There’s also a reflector ready to add a bit of light as and when the sun was shaded when clouds moved around.

The sheer volume of gear they moved in was eye opening: tents:

satellite trucks:

cameras in abundance:

All in all a circus, to watch the carryings-on of the biggest circus of all…

All of this was shot with an Olympus E-P2 “digital pen” – the media doesn’t understand small cameras. Here is the quality you can pull from this small marvel, even with the ordinary kit zoom lens:

This is a section of the original of the Overton picture cropped out at 750 pixels wide, and quadrupled in area to 1500 pix wide, via Photoshop re-sampling – if I use a better piece of software and sharpen it up it would be spectacular. Now that’s what I need from a P&S camera.

Olympus Pen Firmware – Version 1.1 / 1.4 Update

I have been following the story of the digital Pen firmware updates on the web for a while. Having updated my E-P2 to version 1.1 last night (on the day this firmware was released) I must say that the Pen focuses pretty quickly. I am guessing, but it feels as though the delay has dropped from more than 1 second to under half a second with the kit zoom lens. The camera is nice and responsive now, but of course any further speed improvements will only keep improving things.

I don’t like Olympus’ approach to the firmware update process, though. Here’s why:

1) The Olympus Master Software through which the firmware is acquired and the upgrade performed has a horribly unresponsive GUI interface. It often crashes, and bleed through from Windows beneath suggests that it is poorly programmed. (Yes, I do have adequate resources and bandwidth. I run Windows 7 on an 8 Gb dual-core machine.)

2) It is a one-way process – once updated, there seems to be no way back.

3) The Olympus Master Software takes an absolute age to acquire the firmware over the web. One can think that the process has stalled, as there is no progress indicator suggesting the activity still remaining. If you are silly enough to interfere in the process, you can kill the camera.

Perhaps Olympus should allow its user base to download and update firmware in a similar manner to that adopted by Canon, where the users feels as though they are in full control of the process.

f1.2 by f1.4

A cheap M42 screw adapter to M4/3 more than quintuples my retro lens choices for the Digital Pen.

I am torn between my venerable Canon 50mm f1.2 and this monster, the fastest lens ever released in an M42 (Pentax screw) mount.

Let me introduce you to the Chinon-branded, Tomioka-made bokeh king. On the Digital Pen it is a 110mm equivalent, allowing one to shoot things in the dark at 6400 ISO that one can’t even see. Focusing is an issue, but so what? I love it. Stopped down, it becomes pretty sharp.

This brings to mind Kubrick’s brilliant “Barry Lyndon”, where a Zeiss 50mm f0.7 lens was used for candlelit scenes, with light levels of literally only 3 candlepower. Depth of field was non-existent, but it just added to the intensity and luminosity of the movie.

Here is a 5 shot available darkness panorama shot at 3200 ISO @ f1.2 and 1/4 second, with a guess at focus, as it was bloody dark!

I like the possibilities.

Oh, the leader image of the f1.2 Tomioka was shot on a Canon f1.4 mm

4/3 retro heaven

Those of you who know me know that I have undertaken a long search for a point & shoot camera for unobtrusive use in place of my brilliant Canon 5D rig for when that is too big or just not appropriate. I have been simply seeking a viable point & shoot alternative with good IQ, noise and bokeh possibilities. However, you will also know how much I hate P&S cameras with infinite depth of field generated by the physics of the small sensor size. I have tried many, many cameras in that class, with many steps in resolution, from my first Lumix DMC-LC5 with its Summicron lens and 4 megapixels, through to a Nikon P5100 with more than 14 megapixel resolution, with many stops along the way. All sort of OK for snapshot use, but just of no use to me. Maybe I’m too fussy.

I have tried and rejected an Olympus Evolt 510 SLR with a 25mm pancake as being too big. In its way that was a nice camera, but it had too many shortcomings as well as its size to appeal to me. For some reason, the IQ didn’t seem to be too good – perhaps I just didn’t like it enough to accept it properly.

So, here is my new point ‘n shoot tool, acquired a fair time after I got rid of the Evolt as it was still too big to be fit for my needs. It is an Olympus E-P2 digital Pen, flashed to the latest firmware, in this instance fitted with my venerable Canon 50mm f1.2 screw mount via a cheap M to 4/3 mount adapter, swapped for some old film gear at no cost to me. A period Canon viewfinder and an old Oly RF strap complete the package. Finally a small camera with a big sensor, making bokeh possible. I don’t particularly like the concept of no viewfinder, forcing shooting at arm’s length hence the viewfinder, bit the electronic VF-2 is really useful, turning it into a brilliant package.

Anyone who thinks these cameras are slow hasn’t used one. Watch out night-time streets…