On 12/13/06, Joel Wilcox <jfwilcox@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Well, the E-330 does make photographs. I just haven't shot many
Update on the E-330:
Ali Shah is going to want to kill me for saying this, but Live View is
Really Great! Really REALLY GREAT! I suspect that I will use B mode
(MF, MLU) a lot. I had a chance to shoot with the DZ 14-54, Z 90/2,
DZ 50-200, and the DZ
1.4x TC with the latter. It is eye-opening to see how little movement
it takes to ruin a photo with the DZ 50-20 +1.4x TC at max extension.
With my Bogen 3221 and 3047 head, I have to use anti-shock without
fail or the result is too soft to use.
The search for a decent RAW converter goes on. RSE offers no
support. Viewer has come back somewhat to favor. Whereas the Olympus
RAW plug-in for Photoshop CS does OK in producing a file that looks
right with the tiny increments of sharpening I use, the contrast is a
little more heavy-handed than in Viewer. Color is otherwise about the
same between the two. One has to be extremely careful sharpening the
Viewer version.
The "Natural" picture mode setting really does turn around
natural-looking colors -- very faithful. I do just about feel like I
could go straight from the camera to the printer. ESP is incredible
in this camera. I haven't yet felt the need to try anything else.
The only monkeying around with exposure comp has been with the Z 90/2
+OM adapter, which is simply to be expected.
The monitor is just outstanding. What a pleasure both in its size and
faithful rendering of the capture. Plus the replay and various info
modes are outstanding too. The camera remembers your last info mode
so that for the duration of the display just after the shot was taken
it displays whatever feature you were last using (e.g., blinking
highlights, histogram, etc.). This was useful to me as I was trying
to dial in enough exposure comp to eliminate blown highlights. I
didn't actually need to select display at all to check for this.
After each shot I could immediately see whether I had dialed in enough
exp comp to eliminate the blinking, blown highlights. I'm sure this
is nothing new for you guys shooting one of the Bigs, but it's new to
me. When you are already shooting with Live View, this feature is
just that much more immediate and useful.
The layout of the controls and buttons on the camera is just
remarkably smart and enjoyable to use. It's certainly very different
from the E-1, about which I have no complaints, so I am surprised that
I am so enamoured with the E-330 layout. To be sure, there is more
stuff embedded in menus and a fair amount of "dual-purposing" of
buttons. There are features of the camera one cannot possibly intuit
and they just have to be dug out of the manual. I guess that's "bad,"
but I honestly don't see how it could be better when you consider that
the camera has three different major shooting capabilities to the
E-1's one.
I have never really taken advantage of the E-1's "MyMode"
capabilities, and you can set up a bunch of them in the E-1. The
E-330 has fewer, but I think I will try to use them. For example, in
LV B mode (MF, MLU), it makes sense to use anti-shock. I think it
will be very helpful to have a MyMode profile for shooting on the
tripod and one for handheld work. That's as far as I've gotten in
thinking this through. It will make sense to select a AEL-AFL setting
for MF that allows one to use the AEL button to auto-focus in B mode.
This is a goodie that came along with the 1.2 firmware update. I've
yet to try it, but I suspect I'll use it a lot when I'm trying to get
crisp shots with the DZ 50-200 and TC at the long end and have the
luxury of being able to use LV B mode.
I'm having a ball! I don't feel like I deserve this, but I'll take
it. This is exactly what I wanted in a DSLR ever since I got used to
what the C-8080 could do.
Joel W.
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