Note to Chuck and Nathan -- generally I fully agree with you -- if my
efforts were intended as a thorough scientific study, I certainly
couldn't just use only the small images and JPEGs as a basis for
comparison. RAW I would think would be the only basis for comparison. I
certainly appreciate your thoughts.
What I'm interested in, though, is how the equipment (OM vs digital)
compares for use in general ... particularly for guys like me who frankly
are just picture shooters ... using the camera as an opportunity to take
something really nice when the opportunity comes up. It's certainly not
point-and-shoot exactly, but it is opportunistic. So I'm really
interested in how the equipment can make it easier and straight-forward to
get something nice from a circumstance that appears in front of me -- a
nice landscape, a nice in-city situation, etc. I want to be clear: I
take a lot of images - maybe a thousand on an extended trip. I want to
know how the results might be better in the digital context.
But this is what made the OM such as wonderful system for guys like me.
Terrific image thru the viewfinder - and wonderful glass and really great
electronics to produce a nice result. And terrific responsiveness - I
never felt that I couldn't react to an opportunity well, with the OM
system. PS: the E-3 feels like a great extension of this; I picked up a
420 yesterday, and it just didn't have the same positive feeling. Man oh
man, small is good, but light maybe not so good.
I've followed through on this philosophy for over 40 years -- from my
first OM-1 (hmm, I think in 1966); earlier, the Pen-F (I think in 1963,
but this might be a bad calendar memory.) I had a lot of mamiyaflex and
rollicord B/W experience prior to this. I've probably taken 25,000
images and some seem to be really good. PS: 20x30 for landscape etc.
works well in this context, and I have probably 100 of these hanging
around the US. That's just fine for me (arggghhh - i know that for you
that are real photographers, this is an awful perspective.)
Anyway, sorry for this stream of consciousness. I just wanted to put in
perspective what I'm trying to understand about the new world of digital
-- by comparing what somebody like me can get from the E-3 (and maybe 420
et al) compared to what I had been getting from the OM system. This is
why I'm probing the low-end (e.g., 4 meg JPEG) and what it might produce
-- and I want to see for myself what this means by seeing real examples.
Incidentally, Chuck and Nathan - I'm now including RAW as a part of the
investigation.
So why am I burdening this list with all of this? Mainly, I've been
lurking (and sometimes contributing) for a number of years, and really
respect the perspectives you all have given. I can't name all of the
people I've come to respect enormously -- for example, Moose, Iwert, AG,
Walt (bless his heart), Chuck, Bill B, Winsor, ANdrew, C.H., etc... this
is just a small list, and I've left off so many of you. But all of you
have really contributed to what I like about photography and, as a
consequence, have told me a lot about what I don't know. But maybe what I
learn about myself in this small project and the OM vs new world (E-3)
might be interesting to you.
Bob Benson
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