ePM tuneup

Having tried a few more things with the camera it's now rounding into shape nicely. It's definitely making me work though - reading the manual or online references are pretty much mandatory with this one!

The touch-screen AF was elusive for curious reasons. I could turn on the AF+shoot screen (handy at times) or turn off touch-AF but the middle ground was missing. Just like the control panel, I did everything right but not quite enough; once aware of the third option it popped up easily. And my first attempts were select AF then half-press shutter - now I know that one must touch the screen longer for AF to kick in on the selected point!

With touch-AF available I've now moved the Fn button to AF-lock and removed focus tasks from the shutter button. That's how my Pentax cameras have been set for some time and it's nice to have that ability in a tiny camera.

On the Pentax side, things have gone quiet. The deal was good as done on selling the K·50 but the buyer decided to seek a K-3 instead.  I have feelers out to Adorama for a possible swap but have not heard back yet. They have a used 14-150 lens with weather seals and E+ rating, perhaps I will get my wide-angle and tele in one lens and let the 40-150 go? That would be a surprise. Most days I could use 14, 30 and 60 primes (dreaming now, so might as well add the 20) and the big lens would be available for all-purpose work.
Hmm?

another fine surprise

Testing the ePM2 in very low light.

No images with flash or low ISO on a tripod, sorry - I'm not that deeply into tests, just the sort of 'why not try this?' variety. That's what I do, if you want more you're encouraged to look elsewhere.

Shot at top is iso 4000, which is my Auto-ISO range maximum.  Looks good!
The bottom is ISO 20,000.  Color is very decent, NR is quite visible - but not all that destructive except on details like fine text.  And I could do better in raw - these are jpegs! These are deep but not 100% crops, and the 'why not' result impresses me a lot. I knew the sensor was good but really now.. like this good?
I also did not feel any big-time focus lag for these; http://www.endoflow.com/exposure/ calculates this scene at EV3.

deciphering the New Red camera

New Red is a complex little camera. It's not that much different from any advanced camera, but its size dictated the absence of a mode dial - so many more items in menus, and Olympus has a reputation for menu obscurities that is well deserved. Even after reading and watching a video, I had to watch again just to enable the Super Control Panel, a screen that allows me to mimic my Pentax info screen (but with touch control!). Even then I didn't know to press OK to bring it up - so it's quite possible that I had already enabled it correctly..

Nevertheless, the camera has worked very well even in my ignorance!

With Sigma 30 and Oly 40-150 (60 and 80-300mme) I don't have any wide-angle options right now; however the NX300 only has a 24-76mme lens so they are very complementary! I also have mic4:3 extension tubes so ePM2 closeups are straightforward - though a tip screen like the NX300 would be nice (that's an ePL5 feature).

My hike to the mailbox is just under 1/2 mile, so I find plenty of chances to capture images.  The trillium are opening, the skunk-cabbage ripe, and plenty of new shoots to shoot :^) With the Σ·30mm attached the ePM2 does very nice work in a very small package!

Each set of test shots shows me something new to work on, and more menu effort follows to correct it.  My focusing efforts were not paying off (especially on complex things like the yellow-flower shot, where I pressed AF several times) but now it's set to center-square only so I'm using focus/recompose mode. It also has magnifying MF override, I need to practice that more! The ePM2 is able to set the Fn button as focus - but my attempts have not paid off yet. At one point I enabled HDR shooting because I thought it was asking what setting I'd choose if I wanted HDR but the camera felt I wanted it ASAP; once discovered & disabled I've been quite happy with the s·CPanel access. I have not found a touch-AF mode that does not immediately take a picture, so more reading to come soon!

 

shocking news.. well OK not much

The Pentax kit has sold.

Taxes, medical bills.. the usual. Got a decent price but I'll miss it.

Small cams rule!

(taken by my little phone)

NX300, ePM-2

hm. er.. wow?

The proverbial blind spot strikes again.
Funny how I had ignored Olympus for so long, as it's the micro4:3 product with in-cam stabilization like Pentax. They beat Pentax to the 5-axis and multi-shot resolution SR tricks, though only because their cameras came to market a half-generation sooner (and the multi-shot enhancement methods are quite different). I really liked the E500 camera in 2008 but took the Sony A200 instead, preferring internal stabilization; my E510 tests showed a sensor was so limiting in its dynamic range that I stopped watching Olympus, even when 4:3 became Micro.

Therefore my previous forays into micro 4:3 have been all Panasonic:

• First G1 and GH1, during the Samsung-partnership era at Pentax; the K-7 was a great body but used an indifferent sensor for the images I was trying to create
• then the GF2 dropped in, albeit briefly
• and most recently the G7 with its too-many-amazing features and customization options for this old dog.

With Panasonic bodies it was lens-stabilizing or nothing.  And now I have the NX300, and the same result: currently I'm using the untabilized 20-50 kit zoom so no SR.

Dynamic range has been an issue in the past with the m4:3 sensors (as noted in my e510 comment above) but Sony has recently stepped into this sensor segment, and Panasonic sensors have improved to keep up. When Olympus was reeling from a large financial scandal, Sony stepped up with some investment capital..and quietly handed Olympus a 4:3 sensor. While they had not made this type before many of us know that Sony's 16Mpic history is a good one! That sensor appeared in the EM5, PL5.. and the supposedly-entry-level PM2.  Reviews show its interface is unusual (to keep size to a minimum) but images impress.

http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/reviews

So I have picked up a used ePM2 (yes, a red one!) and will give it a test drive. The size advantage to m4:3 sensor size is for telephoto lenses. The NX and Pentax 50-200mm lenses are almost the same size (both for APSc, one mirrorless w/OIS and one dSLR with SR inside the body) while the Oly 40-150 is quite a bit smaller and lighter! All three lenses are 300mme so the size is quite relevant.

Among the new features to test now I have Live Bulb, which looks like a great way to integrate light for astronomy images .. especially if I had a telescope adapter.  Well I have one now, and look at that: it was assembled using a C-mount thread, and i just happen to own a C lens already from my time with the Q!  Bizarre how things connect some times..if you swap enough gear, that is.

 No doubt other cool features await my inspection/ discovery, and it will compete with the nx300 for my small-body affections.  For now it will use the still-unsold 30mm Sigma and the 40-150mm Oly telephoto.  If a 14-42 deal comes along I'll add that - then stop.  Honest!

If the Pen wins out it causes a new wrinkle in that I bought my wife an nx300 also. I'd have to steal her camera away and swap it.. Risky! She'd lose the tilt screen but gain an optional viewfinder. I'm getting ahead of myself though: tests first!

retrenching a bit, and new thoughts

When the G7 failed to work out I let a lot of micro-43 gear go elsewhere.  Not everything left in a hurry so a few odds and ends are still here, like the 30mm f/2.8 Sigma and some extension tubes and adapters remain.   While negotiating sales on the last few µ43 items in my collection, I encountered other owners' sales of their Olympus E-PM2 bodies.

Wow, some of the smaller used bodies are cheap!  They should be cheaper than the NX300 since the sensor cannot keep up, I'd expect.. but checking online shows me the excellent Sony 4/3 sensor is in the ePM2, the same one that the EM5 and later models use.  The ePM2 is (slightly) smaller than the nx300 and takes telephoto lenses that are far smaller than the APSc sensors will allow.  Interesting.

Personally I've viewed Olympus Pen (really all their cameras) with a jaundiced eye (whatever that is, why does a yellow eye make a difference?) - my thoughts align well with this New Camera News post. How would I choose a P/PL/PMx (where x=1 to 5) and know which feature-set I had, or didn't have?  The EM5/10/?? feel the same way. Too many similar-looking cameras with discontinuous numbers and letters that fail to convey how things differ.  Ugh.

I have always entered the µ43 system through the Panasonic door, and never the Olympus. The Olys have in-body IS like the Pentax bodies, so you'd think I would have tried one by now.  The confusion above was one deterrent, the appeal of the Lumix bodies another.  But given the NX300 currently in hand why should the Olympus bodies be shunned?  My NX300 plus 20-50 lens has no IS at all, and to acquire an IS lens would cost more than the PM2.  Interesting again!

The PM2 is set up as the 'entry' Pen body, and with no mode dial it seems pretty crippled.  But it has a touchscreen and control panel similar to Pentax' Info-button screen (and the NX300 one too) which makes many functions easy. I'm liking what touch screens offer on cameras, both as an alternative to buttons & dials plus the ability to AF on demand to a specific location. So the leaner option is as good image-wise as the beloved OMD EM-5± and can take lenses that will fit better in a large pocket or small rucksack.  That's a good thing.

The down-scaling that comes with making a lens cover only the 4:3 sensor allows for a smaller 100mm lens, and it produces images that print like a 200mm (or a 150mm on APSc), so less actual telephoto mm yields bigger results. That's another good thing.. and add the really low price for 'strike three'.

I'm not planning to do a major dump/rebuild.. but I might dabble a bit. The price is low enough that, whatever the result, the 'rental' cost would be pretty low.

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

On the Pentax side, I'm letting the HD55-300mm WR lens go. Crazy again, but that's the 4th time I've done that so it's not a huge surprise.  I own both the Quantaray 100-300 and a Spiratone 300mm mirror lens, and all three around 300mm look interchangeably similar.  So I'm swapping the HD for a WR 50-200mm, which is much smaller and takes smaller filters.  This will clarify when to carry which big lens, since I had so much overlap above 200mm. It also brings cash back into the system, which can be used for the 'dabbling' above!

yes, again!

This one! 

This is my 4th copy.. or 5th, or more? Read on!

In this case I paid a mere $15 not $35 for the Quantaray 28-90 1:2 macro, but the lens had a broken mount.  I had hoped to find another bargain at some point, but seeing few options I bought the Q-ray 28-90 not-macro on the PentaxForums site (after checking that the screws on the mount lined up).

Shortly after all this effort I checked on one last possibility.  Sigma had marketed this lens with the same specs but as a 28-80mm; I had owned one of these briefly also. Lo and behold: a silver 28-80 for .. $27! Cool, never tried it in silver.  Sold, again!

So light, so talented, and 1:2 macro at the long end - which saves me the search for a prime that would do the same thing for $100 or more.  (Yes the prime would be much faster than f/5.6 but depth of field at 1:2 is not much in either case.) My 'walkaround' lens does not need to go back to 18mm, so this is more interesting to me than an 18-55 (unless it's raining). Not to mention that this plus the 100-300mm covers a full range on the newly-produced K-1 both cheaply and conveniently.  Ooops, I mentioned it..

So I'd had at least two 28-90 1:2 and one 28-80 1:2 - and now I have 28-80 and 28-90 with 1:2 and 28-90 nonmacro. No wonder I've lost count? It will be interesting to see how they differ - are they really the same FL of perhaps 28-85, or did Q-ray get a special longer copy?  How much does one sacrifice for the 1:2 closeups, if anything at all?  The broken mount still works if I hold it to the camera body, so as long as I don't micro-examine the side with the loose fit I might learn something before I swap mounts.  Let's face it though: these are all $30± lenses so it's not worthy of any huge and definitive study - but still fun. Here's hoping the silver one wins out!

With all these features - why not, again?