Olympus DSLR Appreciation Thread - Page 6

The inlens (as opposed to in-body) VR, which is justified so often on the basis that you can see the vibration-reduction through the viewfinder, makes me wonder yet again why the heck we are using optical viewfinders on digital cameras, and not digital ones. If we used the actual digital sensor to aquire our composition, which would be the ideal, and used a digital viewfinder or camera back to view the results, then in-body VR would be like having your VR and eating it too.

I don't think Erik needs anyone to make him feel better. We all know the pros/cons and the pros are indeed very attractive. He doesn't needs to feel insecure for going down the Olympus path, and I'm certain that he doesn't feel that way at all. Because of this thread, I went to a camera shop yesterday and had a play around with the E-3. It seems absolutely superb. The feel, the looks, and the ergonomics are great.

Towert is a very proud Nikon owner, and so am I (and why shouldn't we be). Don't for one second think that we've lost focus and only dwell on technical specs. You've seen what Towert is able to produce and he is certainly not all talk. For us non-professional photographers, every little bit of technology helps. Even for very advanced photographers, I'm sure they appreciate all the help they can get. Eg: The D3 has enabled amazing pictures to be taken at certain Olympic events with relative ease, under conditions that previously proved challenging. Good ISO performance is a must for me too, but it may be less important to others. When I need to freeze action in less-than-favourable-light, I need it. We just appreciate the help the Nikon system can give us. For others, they may prefer help in other regards which Olympus provides. Thank goodness for product diversity stemming from competition.

Anyway, I've previously made a point previously to stop talking about "ISO" so I will I promise I won't utter another sentence that has "ISO" in it, at least not in this thread

Digital viewfinders are too limited in resolution. It would prove near impossible to manually focus. God forbid the use of digital viewfinders!

Can you see in-body stabilisation through "live view"?


Oh one other major advantage of the Olympus E-3 is the distribution of its cross point sensors. The D300 has 15 (four more than the E-3), but they are all stuffed into the middle of the frame (3 x 5). On the E-3, they are spread out throughout the whole frame, which is a major plus. The difference between the cross point and normal sensors is pretty big, especially in low light, low contrast situations.

Why? Most DSLRs don't have split prism focusing screens anymore, just a plain matte. And you could easily give an electronic indication of focus-lock, like my Nikon F801 does when using manual-focus lenses. If anything, focusing based on the digital image should be MORE precise because you are viewing the image that is falling on the sensor, and not an approximation bounced of a mirror and onto a focusing screen...one of my SLR cameras is out of whack and you have to focus slightly front of your intended target in order to actually be focused properly on the film, due to slight path-length differences between the focusing screen and the film. You only notice this in, say, macro photography with large apertures.

No, you're not the only one. There are many people that either photograph during the day or use a tripod at night. The people who don't think it's a silly debate are the ones that make use of high iso performance in low light the most. People who cover events inside in low light, for example.
Sometimes though, a flash is not possible or very rude. Other times, a full tripod is not possible because it is too big to keep moving around. At some of the events I cover, a monopod is the best I can use. Sometimes, I just have to have the camera around my neck and hand hold it though. Some of the events I cover, even if I had a tripod it wouldn't do me any good because the people are moving faster than my shutter speed, creating just way to much blurr.

I actually took quite a few shots during that event, and most of them were unusable even at 4x6 sizes (I was so sad). It was that bad. I had my camera all the way up to 1600 ISO, and was using my fixed 60mm F/2.8. The F/2.8 was very slow for the available lighting. I'll always try to take the picture, but whether I get a usable one or not is another question. ^_^

Well......... If I had a D3, D700, or D300, I would have no worries shotting at ISO 3200. In fact, it would probably give me better results than 1600ISO on my camera. If the camera can handle it nicely, it's a great thing.

I guess, you have to know if this whole "low light ISO stuff" is important to you or not. If it is... well.... your options become much more limited. If it's not though, you are lucky!

I find it difficult to focus accurately using the stock D300 focussing screen. The focus indicator (light) only provides a range of fairly accurate points, but unsatisfactory on the whole. As the amount of available light decreases, the value of the focus indicator also decreases since the D300's autofocus system is nothing special in low-light. I shoot a heck of a lot in less-than-adequate-light sans flash and really need absolutely every trick in the book to help me. I am looking to put a split prism focussing screen into my D300 as soon as I muster the confidence to do the swap myself. Then maybe I can get a Zeiss prime or two

I don't know why you keep talking about 'optical viewfinder' is unnecessary in DSRLs. I'm actually not quite sure what goes on in your mind, this is borderline absurdity you're talking about here.
Let me tell you why DSLR still has an optical viewfinder:

1. LCDs DRAIN battery. Especially if you have a huge 3" ones. That's why most people prefer to compose using optical viewfinder. One of the main selling points of DSLRs over compact digital P&S is that you can take much much more shots compared to P&S. If you want to use an EVF to compose, get a Kodak Easyshare, not a DSLR, simple as that.

2. Now I don't know about your handholding technique, but have you actually tried to use a large DSLR with large lens, composing and taking the shot solely using the back LCD?
Either you have hands of steel, or have no clue what you are talking about. For most people, using your optical viewfinder and holding it against your face gives you extra stability. Using your optical viewfinder will match your elbow position, feet position, etc... this is a basic photography 101 we're talking about here.
Especially if your camera is something as large as D300, with a lens as large and heavy as 17-35mm (this is a very common combination), combined with a flash unit on top, now you are telling me that you'd rather have your camera without optical viewfinder and prefer to shoot like you're holding a digital P&S instead? Rubbish.

3. I know that DSLRs even the high end ones still don't have viewfinders as good as the likes of Nikon F6, but have you actually tried one? Go to a shop and look at the viewfinder from D300, and if you tell me that's not good enough for you to make decent shots, maybe you should take up another hobby.

4. Have you tried looking at LCD screen under bright daylight? If you camera didn't have an optical viewfinder and the light was too bright the LCD was washed out, what would you do then? Stop shooting and go home?

But then again, if you are so persistently anti DSLR, that's your loss, not mine. I'd rather help other people with their camera query or work with my DSLR than debating about this kind of stuff. Please don't tell me you're also anti post processing.

I came to that conclusion about 3 of his posts back. It boggles my mind.

Agreed. The images show the talent of the photographer and thats the inspiration for me to improve.

I think most of us feel that we are working to balance the pros & cons of our respective systems, real or imagined (optical, electronic or the dreaded firmware issues that no system seems to be immune from). For me, a big step from the E500 to the E3 was in the viewfinder. The early 4/3rds cameras were a little tunnel-like in that department, especially for someone wearing glasses. The system continues to evolve and I obviously hope it continues to have enough market share to justify supporting the format. When I bought into the format I spent quite a lot of time looking at Oly/Zuiko specific searches within sites like Flickr and even the original E1 is capable of some beautiful imagery.

Actually, what dj_mocok is referring to is manually focussing for normal/portraiture photos, not macros or whatnot - Live View is definitely superior for that sort of work. The image in the viewfinder is already quite small, using a digital viewfinder with necessarily limited resolution will make it quite a bit harder to focus.

Imagine trying to "nail the focus" whilst tracking a moving object. Sometimes, there just isn't time to check the live-view, zoom in a few times and adjust focus. I understand that in the hands of an experienced user, it would take less time to actually do it than it took me to type up this sentence. However, that is still too slow. I've been practising by shooting buses moving along the road. Nikon Live View also allows zooming in for more precise manual focussing, but I prefer focussing from the viewfinder for the reasons above. Shooting from the viewfinder without a tripod also allows for proper bracing (I think Towert mentioned this earlier). For macro, I can definitely see how Live View can be very useful, probably even more so than a split-prism/microprism focussing screen.

Mercbuggy, the E-3 does indeed have a reasonably sized/bright viewfinder. I wasn't aware of the older cameras' short comings in this respect, but I'm glad they improved it to the way it is now.

Roastpuff, quite a bit harder, if not near-impossible.

Yep...it truly depends on the situation, but unless you are using manual focus lenses and can somehow trip that slow ***** live view shutter so it gets the snap fast, then you cannot pull it off, period. At least, this has been my experience. It's not a function/fault of one's inability to track an animal, but the lack of a fast shutter when live view is activated.

All IMHO...

Nice photos arounds here. Good to see the thread is almost approaching a whole 100 posts...wow...talk about Canon/Nikon buttloving going on...

erikzen, really good stuff. It was nice to be able to freeze the spray in mid-air! What species of whale did you see?

I'm a little vain when it comes to detail/clarity. Would you be able to post a 100% crop of the 2nd picture where the leaf cuts into the water? Thanks!