Technology Tales

EVF or OVF?

In photography, some developments are passing fads while others bring longer lasting changes. In their own way, special effects filters and high dynamic range techniques cause their share of excitement before that passed and their usage became more sensible. In fact, the same might be said for most forms of image processing because tastefulness eventually gets things in order. Equally, there are others that mark bigger shifts.

The biggest example of the latter is the move away from film photography to digital image capture. There still are film photographers but they largely depend on older cameras since very few are made any more. My own transition came later than others but I hardly use film any more and a lack of replacement parts for cameras that are more than fifteen years old only helps to keep things that way. Another truth is that digital photography makes me look at my images more critically and that helps for some continued improvement.

Also, mobile phone cameras have become so capable that the compact camera market has shrunk dramatically. In fact, I gave away my Canon PowerShot G11 earlier this year because there was little justification in hanging onto it. After all, it dated back to 2010 and a phone would do now what it once did though the G11 did more for me than I might have expected. Until 2017, my only photos of Swedish locations were made with that camera. If I ever was emotional at its departure and I doubt that I was, that is not felt now.

If you read photography magazines, you get the sense that mirrorless cameras have captured a lot of the limelight and that especially is the case with the introduction of full frame models. Some writers even are writing off the chances of SLR’s remaining in production though available model ranges remain extensive in spite of the new interlopers. Whatever about the departure of film, the possible loss of SLR’s with their bright optical viewfinders (OVF’s) does make me a little emotional since they were the cameras that so many like me aspired to owning during my younger years and the type has served me well over the decades.

Even so, I too have used mirrorless cameras and an Olympus PEN E-PL5 came into my possession in 2013. However, I found that using the screen on the back of a camera was not to my liking and the quality of mobile phone cameras is such that I no longer need any added portability. However, it needs to be remembered that using a Tamron 14 to 150 mm zoom lens with the body cannot have helped either. Wishing to sample a counterpart with an electronic view finder, I replaced it with an Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark III earlier this year and have been getting on fine with that.

The body certainly is a compact one but the handling is very like an SLR and I have turned off the automatic switching between viewfinder and screen since I found it distracting; manually switching between the two is my preference. As it happens, using the EVF took a little acclimatisation but being able to add a spirit level overlay proved to as useful as it was instructive. The resulting images may be strong in the green and blue ends of the visible spectrum but that suits a user that is partial to both colours anyway. It also helps that the 16.1 megapixel sensor creates compact images that are quick to upload to a backup service. There have been no issues working with my Tamron lens and keeping that was a deciding factor in my remaining with Olympus in spite of a shutter failure with the older camera. That was fixed efficiently and at a reasonable cost too.

As good as the new Olympus has been, it has not displaced my existing Canon EOS 5D Mark II and Pentax K5 II SLR’s. The frame size is much smaller anyway and January saw me acquire a new Sigma 24 to 105 mm zoom lens for the former after an older lens developed an irreparable fault. The new lens is working as expected and the sharpness of any resulting images is impressive. However, the full frame combination is weighty even if I do use it handheld so that means that the Pentax remains my choice for overseas trips. There also is an added brightness in the viewfinders of both cameras that I appreciate so the OM-D complements the others rather than replacing them.

While I can get on with EVF’s if SLR’s ever get totally superseded, I am planning to stick mainly with SLR’s for now. Interestingly, Canon has launched a new enthusiast model so there must be some continuing interest in them. Also, it seems that Canon foresees a hybrid approach where live viewing using the screen on the back of the camera may add faster autofocus or other kinds of functionality while the OVF allows more traditional working. That of itself makes me wonder if we might see cameras that can switch between EVF and OVF modes within the same viewfinder. The thought may be as far fetched as it is intriguing yet there may be other possibilities that have not been foreseen. One thing is clear though: we are in an age of accelerating change.

A display of brand loyalty

Since 2007, my main camera has been a Pentax K10D DSLR and it has gone on many journeys with me. In fact, more than 15,000 images have been captured with it and I have classed it as an unfailing servant. The autofocus may not be the fastest but my subjects tend to be stationary: landscapes, architecture, flora and transport. Even any bus and train photos have included parked vehicles rather than moving ones so there never have been issues. The hint of underexposure in any photos always can be sorted because DNG files are what I create, with all the raw capture information that is possible to retain. In fact, it has been hard to justify buying another SLR because the K10D has done so well for me.

In recent months, I have looking at processed photos and asking myself if time has moved along for what is not far from being a six year old camera. At various times, I have been looking at higher members of the Pentax while wondering if an upgrade would be a good idea. First, there was the K7 and then the K5 before the K5 II got launched. Even though its predecessor is still to be found on sale, it was the newer model that became my choice.

My move to Pentax in 2007 was a case of brand disloyalty since I had been a Canon user from when I acquired my first SLR, an EOS 300. Even now, I still have a Powershot G11 that finds itself slipped into a pocket on many a time. Nevertheless, I find that Canon images feel a little washed out prior to post processing and that hasn’t been the case with the K10D. In fact, I have been hearing good things about Nikon cameras delivering punchy results so one of them would be a contender were it not for how well the Pentax performed.

So, what has my new K5 II body gained me that I didn’t have before? For one thing, the autofocus is a major improvement on that in the K10D. It may not stop me persevering with manual focusing for most of the time but there are occasions the option of solid autofocus is good to have. Other advances include a 16.3 megapixel sensor with a much larger ISO range. The advances in sensor technology since when the K10D appeared may give me better quality photos and noise is something that my eyes may have begun to detect in K10D photos even at my usual ISO of 400.

There have been innovations that I don’t need too. Live View is something that I use heavily with the Powershot G11 because it has such a pitiful optical viewfinder. The K5 II has a very bright and sharp one so that function lays dormant, especially when I witnessed dodgy autofocus performance with it in use; manual focusing should be OK, I reckon. By default too, the screen stays on all the time and that’s a nuisance for an optical viewfinder user like me so I looked through the manual and the menus to switch off the thing. My brief flirtation with the image level display met an end for much the same reason though it’s good that it’s there. There is some horizon auto-correction available as a feature and this is left on to see what it offers since there have been a multitude of times when I needed to sort out crooked horizons caused by my handholding the camera.

The K5 II may have a 3″ screen on its back but it has done nothing to increase the size of the camera. If anything, it is smaller that the K10D and that usefully means that I am not on the lookout for a new camera holster. Not having a bigger body also means there is little change in how the much camera feels in the hand compared with the older one.

In many ways, the K5 II works very like the K10D once I took control over settings that didn’t suit me. Both have Shake Reduction in their camera bodies though the setting has been moved into the settings menu in the new camera when the older one had a separate switch on its body. Since I’d be inclined to leave it on all the time and prefer not to have it knocked off accidentally, this is not an issue.  Otherwise, many of the various switches are in the same places so it’s not that hard to find my way around them.

That’s not to say that there aren’t other changes like the addition of a lock to the mode dial but I have used Canon EOS camera bodies with that feature so I do not consider it a step backwards. The exposure compensation button has been moved to the top of the camera where I found it very easily and have been using perhaps more than on the K10D; it’s also something that I use on the G11 so the experimentation is being brought across to the K5 II now as well. Beside it, there’s a new ISO button so further experimentation can be attempted with that to see how it does.

If I have any criticism, it’s about the clutter of the menus on the K5 II. The long lists through you scrolled on the K10D have been replaced with a series of extra tabs so that on-screen scrolling is not needed as before. However, I reckon that this breaks up things too much and makes working through the settings look more foreboding to anyone who is not so technical in mindset. Nevertheless, settings such as the the type of file to capture are there and I continue to use RAW DNG files as is usual for me though JPEG and Pentax’s own RAW format also are there. For a while, I forgot to set the date, soon found out what I did and the situation was remedied. The same sort of thing applied to storing files in different folders according to the capture date. For my own reasons, I turned this off to put everything into a single PENTX directory to suit my own workflow. My latest discovery among the menus was the ability to add photographer and copyright holder information to the EXIF metadata attached to the image files created by the camera. With legislative proposals that dilute the automatic rights of copyright holders going through the U.K. parliament, this seems a very timely inclusion even if most would prefer that there was no change to copyright law.

Of course, the worth of any camera is in the images that it produces and I have been happy with what I have been getting so far. The bigger files mean less images fit on a memory card as before. Thankfully, SDHC card capacities have grown even if I don’t wish to machine gun my photography altogether. While out and about, I was surprised to apertures like F/14 and F/18 when I was more accustomed to a progression like F/11, F/13, F/16, F/19, F/22, etc. Most of those older values still are there though so there hasn’t been a complete break with convention. The same comment applies to shutter speeds where ones like 1/100 and 1/160 made there appearance where I might have expected just ones like 1/90, 1/125, 1/250 and so on. The extra possibilities, and that is what they are, do allow more flexibility I suppose and may even make it easier to make correct exposures though any judgement of correctness has to be in the eye of a photographer and not what a computer algorithm in a camera determines. For much of the time until now, I have stuck with an ISO of 400 apart from a little testing in a woodland area of an evening soon after the camera arrived.

Since the K5 II came my way a few months ago, I have been meaning to collect my thoughts on here and there has been a delay while I brought mu thinking to a sensible close.At one point, it felt like there was so much to say that the piece became larger in my mind that even what you have been reading now. After all, there are other things that I can adjust to see how the resulting images look and white balance is but one of these.The K10D isn’t beyond experimentation either, especially since I discovered that shake reduction was switched off and it has me asking if that lacking in quality that I mentioned earlier has another explanation. Of course, actually making use of my tripod would be another good suggestion so it’s safe to say that yet more photographic explorations await.

A new acquisition

Back in the early days of this blog, I mulled over the idea of having a high-end digital compact camera to complement a DSLR that then was delivering very dusty images; that Canon EOS 10D was cleaned since then and comes in for occasional use to this day. That was nearly three years ago and a first generation Ricoh GR Digital was the item that then was catching my eye. At the time, I failed to justify spending that much money on such a thing and ended up acquiring a new Pentax K10D DSLR instead. The question that rattled about my head was this: what was the point of spending DSLR money on a compact camera? Its one that never really went away and comes to mind when you see the prices of interchangeable lens compacts like Olympus’ Pen and equivalent offerings from Panasonic and Ricoh (there, it’s interchangeable lens units rather than actual lenses).

The strongest counterpoint to the cost conundrum is the little matter of size. SLR (film or digital) cameras are sizeable things and there is a place for having something that drops into a pocket. It is that which has propelled me into taking delivery of a Canon PowerShot G11. It may need a good-sized pocket but, unless you are going out with no jacket, it shouldn’t be a problem most of the time. For those shorter sorties when I don’t fancy bringing an SLR out, it well-built and looks the business though some acclimatisation is in order to make the best of the knobs, buttons and menus. Nevertheless, the included manual will help with this process (there’s a paper quick start guide and more detailed documentation on CD).

The camera hasn’t seen extensive use just yet so here are a few early impressions. Firstly, there’s the matter of size: it’s even smaller than the first camera that I ever bought (more than fifteen years ago) and that was a Ricoh 35 mm compact film camera. That comparison is even more striking when you consider the feature sets. The Ricoh was a fixed 35 mm lens affair with things like date and time stamping, ISO choice and a nod towards scenic mode selection. In contrast, the much newer Canon is loaded with the sorts of things that normally are found almost exclusively on SLR’s, starting with its effective 28-140 mm focal length range.

Exposure modes such as manual, aperture priority and shutter priority complement scene-based modes and another for movies (not a concern of mine, it has to be said). As if that weren’t enough, there’s exposure compensation too. It came as a surprise to me to find a form of manual focussing included though it is not as convenient as turning a focussing ring on a lens. You can see the inbuilt flash above but there’s also a hotshoe and a place to attach a tripod too. Settings like white balance and file format are accessed using the Function/Set button with the lever underneath the shutter release button controlling the focal length of the lens. In addition, there’s also image stabilisation and that’s important when you’re using live view to compose a photo. Spot metering and focal point selection are other things that find their way into the package. Some may be excited by other things but exposure and focussing are essential for any photographic efforts.

An optical viewfinder is included and it has dioptre settings too but my first impressions are that live view though the rear screen trumps it and I see no need for such things on SLR’s. That also flips out from the camera body and can be rotated either for self-portraiture or for folding back in on the camera body for use like a non-articulated screen. Another use is with those occasions when the subject means holding the camera in positions that would be impossible with a conventional screen; holding the camera over your head or down low on the ground are the sorts of situations that come to mind.

Of course, there’s more there than those features that I have listed and the specifications on the Canon website are as good a place to start as any. So far, my only testing has been of the cursory checks variety and to make sure that the thing works properly. Still, this has given me more of a feel for the camera and how it operates. As you’d expect, high ISO settings are noisy but a bigger surprise was that the smallest aperture setting is f/8. Being used to SLR’s, I was expecting to get f/16 and its like on there but a spot of internet investigation showed that I should have been taking the size of the sensor into account with my expectations. Any trials so far have been in dull weather so I’d need to use it in a wider variety of conditions before giving it the sort of wider appraisal that you’d find in the likes Outdoor Photography (who liked it, it has to be said). For what it’s worth, I have found no major criticism so far though I cannot see it usurping my SLR’s but that never was the intention anyway.

Another Olympus E-system review

I don’t buy Amateur Photographer much these days but sight of a review of Olympus’ E-410 and E-510 SLR’s got a copy into my possession. Amateur Photographer review features are usually comprehensive and this was no exception; there was none of the vitriol directed towards the Live View feature by Practical Photography, a defining feature of what i consider a lop-sided and none too useful review. The verdict was a positive one in the main with the E-510 getting the nod over the E-410 because it fared better on the usability side of things. Image quality, my major concern, was said to be impressive with only dynamic range counting against the results. The Live View feature didn’t attract the harsh commentary devoted to it by Practical Photography. Following this review, I have to say that the E-510 does tempt me with its combination of good image quality, dust removal and image stabilisation.

A tale of two reviews

Recently, I encountered two very different reviews of the newly launched Olympus E-410 DSLR in Which Digital Camera? and Practical Photography, respectively. The review in the former was a positive affair, though it was a first look at the camera, but the impression formed by the latter reviewer was lukewarm in nature.

The camera features a live electronic viewer on its back, a carry over from digital compacts and a feature that I may never use. While that might be the unique selling point for the camera, good image quality and the fact that it possesses a cleaning mechanism for its sensor are of much more interest to me.

Ironically, the Practical Photography review spent most of its time talking about the very feature of the camera that interests me the least, with only a scant mention of quality; to be frank, I didn’t find it a very useful appraisal even if the electronic viewfinder may not be all that it’s cracked up to be and it’s picture quality and camera handling that ultimately matter to the photography enthusiast.

In contrast, Which Digital Camera? seemed to give a more rounded view and proved to be of more interest and I’d be interested to see what the likes of Photography Monthly and Amateur Photographer might have to say. Incidentally, I also shall be awaiting the Which Digital Camera? appraisal of Ricoh’s Caplio GX100 in their next issue.