Olympus Pen E-P2 Field Review on LL

[Terry]

Shooting ISO200 +1 EV compensation is almost exactly like shooting at ISO 100. You lose the headroom that's all.

This is really to do with auto exposure... and so affects raw too.

Be aware that the histogram is derived from the jpeg. I shoot raw, and set my Contrast to -2, Saturation -2, Sharpening -2, Normal Gradation, Natural colour mode, AdobeRGB.

I think this gives a pretty representative histogram of the raw exposure.

Cheers

Brian

Now I'm completely confused. For all the hooha about Oly color and jpegs don't these settings defeat that process? I understand that the RAWs aren't impacted by these changes but I'm then confused as to what you are doing in Oly studio to get your colors back.

 

[Brian Mosley]

Just shoot at ISO 200 (for maximum auto exposure headroom at base ISO) and don't worry about it. This has nothing to do with the Olympus colour signature.

Cheers

Brian

 

[Terry]

Just shoot at ISO 200 (for maximum auto exposure headroom at base ISO) and don't worry about it. This has nothing to do with the Olympus colour signature.

Cheers

Brian

Yes, I understand the difference about ISO 100 and 200 and yes I understand about getting the proper RAW histogram. Where I get lost is then using the Oly software in your workflow as I thought bringing the RAW file into the Oly software it would automatically pick up your camera settings. If you've adjusted the camera settings with all of the -2's how does your workflow actually work...it is just in many posts you've said you start in the Oly software before going to Lightzone etc.

 

[Brian Mosley]

-2 contrast, -2 saturation, -2 sharpness, natural colour, normal gradation, AdobeRGB colour space... all result in a pretty flat, high dynamic range image file in 16 bit tiff to work with in Lightzone. The unique Olympus colour signature and smooth pixel level character is retained.

I'm very happy with this, but you can get very pleasant colour and even sharper detail from Capture One 5 Pro, with better highlight recovery - even with Panasonic raw files.

Cheers

Brian

 

[Brian Mosley]

-2 contrast, -2 saturation, -2 sharpness, natural colour, normal gradation, AdobeRGB colour space... all result in a pretty flat, high dynamic range image file in 16 bit tiff to work with in Lightzone. The unique Olympus colour signature and smooth pixel level character is retained.

I'm very happy with this, but you can get very pleasant colour and even sharper detail from Capture One 5 Pro, with better highlight recovery - even with Panasonic raw files.

Cheers

Brian

 

[Amin]

Well, this has been enlightening! So this ISO200 thing even effects raw, eh?

Only in so far as the camera uses it for autoexposure and the RAW app uses it to determine the tone curve. If you set the exposure manually and set a flat tone curve during RAW processing, the camera setting for ISO 100 produces identical results to the setting for ISO 200.

Then it's obviously just me, but I've compared these two settings many times and in .jpg form, at least (for the type of stuff I photograph with my E-P1, I usually don't bother with the RAW files), I definitely have a preference for the ISO 100 images. That said, I will have to look into Amin's suggestion about shooting ISO 200 with +1 stop of compensation and compare that to the straight ISO 100 image as I haven't tried this before with this camera...

If you're shooting JPEG, the ISO 200 +1EV is going to appear overexposed most of the time. The in-camera tone curve isn't suited for that.

- Let's say you shoot a typical contrasty in aperture priority, f/5.6, high dynamic range scene at ISO 100 such that you clip both the shadows and the highlights at 1/500s. You've set the ISO to ISO 100, and the camera uses ISO 100 (the base ISO) and 1/500s. Call this image #1.

- Now say you shoot the exact same scene with the camera set to f/5.6 and ISO 200. The camera will again use ISO 100 (base ISO, same as before) but will call this "ISO 200" and will choose 1/1000s as the shutter speed. As a result, the image will have a lower exposure relative to image #1 so the highlights won't be clipped, but the shadow clipping will be worse and most of the tones will be underexposed to save the highlights. However, the in-camera processor will recognize that you have used ISO 200 and will apply a tone curve to "push" all of the tones besides the near-clipped highlights so that they are where they belong. The result is an image with more noise and less highlight clipping.

If you take that ISO 200 RAW and put it in a "smart" RAW app like Olympus Master, it will automatically do the same trick as the in camera processor.

Now let's say that you shoot the same image at ISO 200 +1EV. The camera will use 1/500s, and the RAW image data will end up the same as with image #1, but the in-camera processor will "push" the tones as with all ISO 200 files, resulting in an apparent overexposure (even if the RAW data is properly exposed).

Another (non technical) way to look at it....If ISO 100 were truly better wouldn't Oly have the Auto ISO feature begin at ISO 100 instead of 200.

Yes, for most people and most images, the underexpose and push results in a nicer looking image.

 

[Audii-Dudii]

Only in so far as the camera uses it for autoexposure and the RAW app uses it to determine the tone curve. If you set the exposure manually and set a flat tone curve during RAW processing, the camera setting for ISO 100 produces identical results to the setting for ISO 200.

I know specs aren't everything, believe me, but how do you square this with DXO's tests, which show the dynamic range at ISO 200 is about half a stop less than at ISO 100? Although I haven't done any carefully controlled or measurement-based tests nor do I know how DXO did its testing, this was my subjective opinion as well (and one that I arrived at before I'd seen the DXO results, so I don't think I was biased by them.)

The result is an image with more noise and less highlight clipping.

Precisely. And because I am personally more sensitive to noise than clipped and/or blown highlights -- I do a lot of nighttime photography and blown highlights are something I just have to accept -- this is why I prefer the ISO 100 images. I accept that others may arrive at a different conclusion.

Yes, for most people and most images, the underexpose and push results in a nicer looking image.

I can't argue this point. As I said, my personal preference is anything but the norm...