Olympus DSLR Appreciation Thread - Page 4

lol i like how most of this is just erikzen getting burned. dude you're a beast for holding your beliefs under all that.

Olympus DSLRs having dust reduction first was the one major reason why I bought them. Having read so many reports and comments from users about having to clean their sensors and the troubles it caused, having one was a god send. My old E-300 is almost 4 to 5 years old now and has absolutely no issue with dust till now and I've brought to places where changing lens would pretty much guarantee you'll get some.

The 12-60 is an awesome lens to use. Its quite a bit bigger and heavier than the tiny kit lens but the extra wide angle, reach and much largerr aperture was worth it. One the most versatile lens I've used.

The 50mm happens to be on my short list as well but I've found a compelling reason to buy it yet. From what I've seen so far, it looks fantastic though!

Exactly. As Lance says, "it's not about the bike."

My dad used a Voigtlander 35mm rangefinder for forty years (until it was stolen) that he purchased in Austria while in the military. It had a static 35mm lens that opened out from the body with a neat bellows mechanism. The shutter had to be manually cocked by a tiny lever for each shot, and the film was wound by literally winding a knob. Exposure was all manual (he owned, but almost never used, a handheld meter). Focusing was done by guesstimate as well, using the depth-of-field scale on the top of the lens as a general guide since there was no linked rangefinder. For indoor flash exposures, he used single-shot bulbs & a concave reflector off-camera.

He was deliberate in all elements of his shots, and he rarely took a bad a frame, taking better photographs than I ever have using far "better" equipment.

No, it's not about the bike at all.

Sorry I'm 'late' to what has been somewhat of an Oly bashing.

My first Oly DSLR was an E500. Great value twin kit lens package with good optics. Lovely colours out of the camera, the first reliable dust system, lightweight camera and lenses. Main attractions to 4/3rds, the lens system - affordable, compact and x2 crop factor for wildlife photography.

My present Oly DSLR - and E3 with their midrange pro glass (14-54 and 50-200 & 1.4 telecon). The whole package is still relatively light weight, superb build quality (and weather-proof), deep feature set, excellent lens quality. I do not make poster sized prints so noise is no issue and noise ninja takes care of what is there anyway. In any case most of the noise debate (not just with 4/3rds) is fueled by people who also chase the pixel count.

At this level, I am the limiting factor re: image quality, not the E-3 and not the glass, simple as that.

Not sure who you hang around with, but I'm gonna disagree with you there.
It's nice that you're enjoying your E3 though.

There's no denying the value of good high ISO performance for available-light photography though. As good as Noise Ninja (or any of the other well-regarded noise-reduction programs) is, you will inevitably lose a bit of detail. This is perfectly acceptable if you'll be making small prints for web-sized viewing, but the limitations will really show when you need to crop aggressively.

While I do agree that the user is most often the main limiting factor (as I am with my own camera), having the appropriate gear for the job is very important. Just imagine going to a night safari with a point and shoot instead of your E-3/50-200. Even better (I imagine) would be a D3/200-400.

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That makes no sense to me. It boggles my mind.
What do you mean by good glass?

No matter what lens you have, you're getting the same ISO performance out of the camera.

Where you trying to say that it will be sharper, and so you can afford to blur the picture more?

Or were you saying you can photograph at a faster speed? Because, frankly, in low light you need ALL the help you can get. You can't just say "oh, well the lens makes up for it". The simple fact that it "makes up for" is not good enough. Everything has to be as fast as possible. I need usable ISO 3200, F/1.4 or F/1.2 for dim lighting without flash.
Sadly, F/2.8 is VERY SLOW when it comes to dim lighting. If you MUST work with F/2.8, you better be able to crank that baby up to ISO 3200, or ISO6400 and still get usable pictures, or your SOL without a flash.

Or maybe you meant something else?

This was shot at ISO1600, F/2.8, 60mm, 1/20sec. No added noise reduction.

It is quite blurry if you view it full size, but at this size I think it's perfectly usable.

Now if she was moving even the slightest, it would have been horribly blurred. I really wish I had a nikon D300 that could give me The same results at ISO 3200 or 6400 as my D50 at ISO1600(max).
That would have got me up to at least 1/90 of a second, which would have resulted in many more usable pictures. And to be honest, this wasn't that dark!

I want to see the Olympus at ISO6400 if it goes up that high, right out of the camera with no noise reduction.
Edit: After looking at dcresource for the E3 and E510, the high iso performance is pretty awful. There is no use in defending these cameras for ISO performance, it's just not where they shine.

I looked at the E-3 ISO results from dcresource and compared it to my D50, and the D50 did much better in their tests.

http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/ni...htshot1600.jpg
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/ol...htshot1600.jpg

You simply have to use the Olympus camera when there is enough light, or with a flash, or carry around a tripod. I couldn't justify going all the way and getting a DSLR with expensive lenses, and not being able to use it in dim light. Others can. It's up to personal preference I see.

I hope you don't take our comments as offensive. We're only trying to look at things objectively. ISO 800/1600 + F/1.4 is going to cut it for most low-light situations, but there are situations where this is not ideal. Eg. F/1.4 has too thin a DOF. You would probably want to be able shoot at ISO 6400 + F/4 instead.