Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 19:48:24 -0500
From: "B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: [OM] Playing with an E-1
Odd, Stephen, that virtually no other reviewers have noticed the
problems you did. I've shot with the D60 and the E-1, and there is
absolutely NO discernable difference in write speed, or image review
speed. There is no question that the E-1's autofocus - in low light -
needs improvement; and I'd bet on that improvement being done. But I've
now shot thousands of images with the E-1 and don't find any of the
other problems. In fact last night I was shooting a local rock group for
a young friend in a dimly lit club - and had no problems with any aspect
of the E-1 performance.
These comment are for everyone's consideration and also addresses BD
Colen's comments, as well as Piers.
After looking at the EXIF data from my photos, and some discussion in
the Oly D-SLR forum at DPRview, some of my problems are possibly due
to the fact I had no time or info at hand (like a manual) to get the
camera set up right. I read something on DPReview today from another
poster that when the camera is in Noise Filter/ Reduction mode (which
I presume it is when it is set to ISO 800 as the camera is pretty
noisy at that ISO), the write speed to the card goes way down. See
this link:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1022&message=6765086
Another thing of note is that when the buffer is full, the write
speed to the card with fast cards is 50-60 seconds, according to
Imaging-Review. With slow cards, it can take up to 3 minutes to write
a full buffer to the card. Piers on this list suggested that the card
formatting could result in the slow write speed from the buffer to
the card. I think he may well be right, and both factors were
conspiring to make the write speed to be very slow. I plan to
investigate this further, so stay tuned.
Also, another poster at DPReview recommended that to get the
autofocus to work better on moving objects to make sure that the
camera is in continuous focus mode. I plan to try this next time I
get my hands on the camera, which I hope will be soon. With respect
to the long image review (record to play) from a large res shot, the
data at Imaging-Resource says at max res, it is 3.78 seconds (see
this link: http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/E1/E1A7.HTM). This
is compared to a 1D record to play time of 0.9 seconds. Whether 3.78
seconds is fast or slow in anyone's elso book is a relative term. In
my perception, which admittedly is warped from having gone over to
the Dark Side with Darth Vader, it's pretty dang slow. With respect
to shutter lag, while the "shutter lag, full autofocus" time is very
comparable to a 1D (0.208 sec vs 0.201 sec, respectively), this
comparison is strongly influenced by the lens used, so it is
difficult to compare meaningfully. Comparing shutter lag in with the
camera prefocussed (which is what I personally use to gauge shutter
lag as autofocus time to shutter release *is* so dependent on lens
speed), the E-1 at 76.5 milliseconds is twice as slow as the 1D at 39
milliseconds. Comparing it to a 1D is not a fair comparison, but,
hey, that's what I use in D-SLRs, and I can tell the difference, so
there ya go.
As for the autofocus performance in moderately lit camera store, all
I can say is with the camera set the way it was, the autofocus
performance under these conditions did not impress me. I will post a
photo you can see to gauge the level of lighting in the store to see
what I talking about,,.but be advised the photo is out of focus.
I would love to shoot the E-1 in RAW mode and compare it to the D60
and 1D, as well as compare JPEG performance. One of the things the 1D
does in JPEG mode is to often render a greenish cast to images that
is pretty bothersome (apparently the 1D does not do this in RAW mode,
only JPEG). This often requres me to do some postprocessing in
Photoshop to get rid of the cast. The excellent histogram performance
of E-1 makes me think it may be hitting it's neutrals better than the
D60, which in general is quite good. I'm sure the E-1 is that doing
better than the 1D with respect to that already (at least with
respect to JPEGs). As for future plans, I talked to Calumet today
about getting one for a day to shoot with and take real photographs
with, so I will try to do that as soon as is feasible.
-Stephen.
--
2001 CBR600F4i - Fantastic!
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