Author Topic: My thoughts on using the E-P3 - first model shoot (Read 1983 times)

ralph · « **on:** November 05, 2011, 04:42:12 AM »

Hi All,

I'm pretty new to the forum and to m43 photography in general, but thought I'd report back on my thoughts about the E-P3 now I've really used it properly for a shoot, rather than just poking around the house and out and about with friends.

I was using the pana/leica 25mm f1.4 and the kit lens for an outdoor shoot around central london yesterday on a grey, damp afternoon.

I'm afraid I'm not going to talk about lens sharpness etc. Ok, I will a little - they're both very good. Done. Actually, one more thing about the kit lens; I didn't think I'd use it - i almost always use primes and I actually put it up on ebay, but then changed my mind and took it off again. Glad I did. It's a great lens and very useful. Ok, that's the lenses done with. What matters a lot more to me is how well and how quickly the camera handles - whether or not it gets in your way and make you spend half your time fiddling with it and looking like you don't know how to use it in front of a model, or whether it just lets you get on and make photographs.

So I was interested to see how it would compare from a useability perspective compared to the Canon 1Dmk2 and then Nikon D700 I used to own - both of which are high-end cameras with great handling, and both of which I instantly felt at home on.

And in general I'm really impressed;

The camera is a joy to carry - it plus two lenses seems to weigh nothing - and a joy to use. It gave me the shots I was after extreemly quickly with minimal fuss.

Kit lens:

The face detection focusing is brilliant - it's fantastic not to have to select focus points, and this is a HUGE upgrade from a DSLR in my opionion. I know that people who've upgraded from a P&S cameras are probably quite used to this, but for me it's the first camera I've had with face detection and it's great - it just makes shooting so much faster; no need to fiddle with focus points, or focus and recompose. In general it seems to work really well. Occationally it would struggle with a profile shot and lock onto something random, but I have the big red movie button on the back assigned to select the center focus point, so it was easy to use that and recompose the few times the face detection stuggled.

Pana/leica 25

The exposure metering was mostly spot on and even when it missed by a little bit, the RAW files have enough information that I could pull back every single blown highlight and shadow, which is great.

Pana/leica 25

I was a little nervious about changing lenses out and about, what with the sensor being so exposed (compared to a DSLR) and london being so dirty, but I wasn't going to let that ruin my shoot, so I changed lenses ans needed (often) and this morning shot a the sky at f16 to see how much gunk I'd colleted on the sensor.... NONE! Fantastic stuff! The cleaning clearly works and I guess not having a big mirror box to collect dust in and a big mirror flapping up and down to blow it around must help too.

Kit lens:

So onto the bad....

This is the first camera I've used with a mode dial in a very long time (the 1Dmk2 and D700 are press a button and use the command dial affairs). I didn't think I had a preference, but now I do! GAAH! I hate mode dials!

It's much too easy to turn and kept getting nudged to different settings as i got it in and out by bag. The command dial for apetuer is nearly as bad, but at least that can't get nudged when the camera is off.

I'd been shooting for 10 mins at my third location when I realised i was shooting on F11, in manual mode which resulted in ISO1600 and ruined everything!

Ok, now maybe this is somewhat my fault for not noticing, but if I have my camera set on Apeture mode @ F1.4, put it in my bag, walk round the corner and pull it out again i kinda expect it to still be there!

After that I kept an eye on it and it happened another 2 or 3 times during the shoot, which was only about 3 hours long in about 10 locations (so camera went in and out of bag about 10 times I guess).

I really wish the mode dial had a lock. Or was stiffer, or something! I might have to tape it in place - I shoot on apeteur priority 99.99% of the time anyway...

But that asside the camera didn't put a foot wrong all afternoon and both the model and myself are very happy with the results!

All the best

Ralph

A couple more sample from the Pana/leica 25:

EDIT: I've jsut re-read what I wrote and realised it didn't have much of a conclusion!

So overall I loved using the E-P3 for this shoot. Was it as good as a pro DSLR? To be honest, overall, I think it was better (!)

The mode dial thing is a REAL pain and something I'll have to keep an eye on, or find a solution to, but for simplicity, speed of use, easyness to carry it's ahead a DSLR, and it just seemed to give me exactly what I wanted every single time I took a shot. Perhaps this is partly due to the LCD preview vs an optical viewfinder - things never look quite the same recorded as they do through an optical viewfinder...

Would the images have been any better on a full frame sensor, with canon L glass? Well maybe at 100%, but for any normal application probably not noticeably! Would I swap it for a pro-DSLR? Well yes, but only so I could sell the DLSR on eBay, and another E-P3 and some more lenses

pretzston · « **Reply #1 on:** November 05, 2011, 05:47:45 AM »

They look great!

Do you find your EP3 blows out colors? A dark red is a bright red etc?

ralph · « **Reply #2 on:** November 05, 2011, 06:28:28 AM »

Thanks!

Not the way I have it set up; the colours all look quite good and natural to me. I do have it set on neutral as the picture mode, but then I only flip through the jpegs quickly to see what I want to process from RAW, and they look fine too..

I've noticed the colours can go a bit crazy if you have it on iEnhance picture mode - was taking some photos of some trees with orange leaves and they looked like someone had been at them with a can of orange spray paint!

that's when i changed it to neutral.

Em5 Pete · « **Reply #3 on:** November 05, 2011, 07:05:58 AM »

They look good,
Did you flash on any of them? And if yes, was it a hot-shoe fit unit?
#5 at first looked like an overhead shoot, then I realized the umbrella was wrong for that, and saw you used an angled camera perspective.... nicely done illusion.

pretzston · « **Reply #4 on:** November 05, 2011, 09:02:41 AM »

Where is that iEnhance in the menu system?

ralph · « **Reply #5 on:** November 05, 2011, 12:54:10 PM »

Quote from: pretzston on November 05, 2011, 09:02:41 AM

Where is that iEnhance in the menu system?

Turn the camera on, press the ok button. The colour options are between WB and the IS settings.

Quote from: M5-User on November 05, 2011, 07:05:58 AM

They look good,
Did you flash on any of them? And if yes, was it a hot-shoe fit unit?
#5 at first looked like an overhead shoot, then I realized the umbrella was wrong for that, and saw you used an angled camera perspective.... nicely done illusion.

Nope, no flash, tho I did use a reflector camera left in #1 to make the light as soft as possible. There's still shadows, but they were much to harsh before...

With #5, I did rotate the camera somewhat , but the ground was at a really steep slope too, so the model is stood stright up (obviously, as she's not falling over), the camera isn't straight to her, but neither is the ground at 90 degrees to her either, which is what makes it look quite abstract, as her angle in relation to it is subtly wrong, and your brain picks up on that.

asterinex · « **Reply #6 on:** November 05, 2011, 01:08:52 PM »

Thx for sharing this. Your pictures are very good ! Looks really professional. I'm proud owning a Pen.

And last but not least, what a beautiful girl!

ralph · « **Reply #7 on:** November 05, 2011, 03:20:26 PM »

Quote from: asterinex on November 05, 2011, 01:08:52 PM

And last but not least, what a beautiful girl!

She certainly is, and brave too - not only for putting up with me for an afternoon, but wearing a thin summer dress in London in November and still managing to smile!

lisandra · « **Reply #8 on:** November 05, 2011, 09:15:42 PM »

Im a color gal, these are the best b&w photos of people Ive seen. Good like I cant wait to do some black and white shooting good. the last one is amazingly beautiful

voyager · « **Reply #9 on:** November 05, 2011, 11:29:59 PM »

These are fantastic!

asterinex · « **Reply #10 on:** November 06, 2011, 12:17:21 AM »

Did you apply any post processing ?
And if Yes which software and settings did you use ?

And how did you do the amazing black and white conversions ?

ralph · « **Reply #11 on:** November 06, 2011, 04:59:36 AM »

Quote from: lisandra on November 05, 2011, 09:15:42 PM

Im a color gal, these are the best b&w photos of people Ive seen. Good like I cant wait to do some black and white shooting good. the last one is amazingly beautiful

Wow, thank's Lisandra, that's probably the nicest thing anyone has ever said (or will ever say) said about my photographs!!

Quote from: asterinex on November 06, 2011, 12:17:21 AM

Did you apply any post processing ?
And if Yes which software and settings did you use ?

And how did you do the amazing black and white conversions ?

I use use Photoshop Elements.

I soften skin a little, plus some healing brush where needed, then sharpen the eyes a little and that's about it really...

For the black and white conversions I convert to black and white and then play with the tone curves until I'm happy - the settings vary per photo.

For the colour ones I've desaturated, brightened and played with the hue.

I'll then apply some localised adjustments where needed - on that last one her hands were brigter than face because they're further into the light, so I darkened everything except her face a little.

cosinaphile · « **Reply #12 on:** November 06, 2011, 06:26:51 AM »

a great set , thanks for taking the time to document your impressions , im leaning toward an ep3 as an upgrade to my ep1\gf1`s , i use a lot of mf primes with micro 4\3
so in camera vibration reduction seem to make the ep3 a better choice over the new gx from panny

Jason C · « **Reply #13 on:** November 07, 2011, 07:45:50 PM »

Lovely set, thank you for sharing.

Jason C

Johnhw · « **Reply #14 on:** April 05, 2012, 11:55:49 AM »

Beautiful...love your b&W renderings.

Em5 Pete · « **Reply #15 on:** April 05, 2012, 12:08:46 PM »

Quote from: ralph on November 05, 2011, 12:54:10 PM

Quote from: pretzston on November 05, 2011, 09:02:41 AM
Where is that iEnhance in the menu system?

Turn the camera on, press the ok button. The colour options are between WB and the IS settings.

Quote from: M5-User on November 05, 2011, 07:05:58 AM
They look good,
Did you flash on any of them? And if yes, was it a hot-shoe fit unit?
#5 at first looked like an overhead shoot, then I realized the umbrella was wrong for that, and saw you used an angled camera perspective.... nicely done illusion.

Nope, no flash, tho I did use a reflector camera left in #1 to make the light as soft as possible. There's still shadows, but they were much to harsh before...

With #5, I did rotate the camera somewhat , but the ground was at a really steep slope too, so the model is stood stright up (obviously, as she's not falling over), the camera isn't straight to her, but neither is the ground at 90 degrees to her either, which is what makes it look quite abstract, as her angle in relation to it is subtly wrong, and your brain picks up on that.

After revisiting this #5, I know see how a slight angle really throws the perception off. NOW, I see her standing up, and the umbrella on the ground.

count_zero · « **Reply #16 on:** April 05, 2012, 01:33:19 PM »

I love the colors in #2. Olympus really are the masters at color rendition, especially with skin tones. Everytime I get upset that my E-P3 doesn't do XYZ better than Canikon, I look at my friends shots of similar setting using their $4K Canikons, then my shots, and all is forgiven simply because I like the colors better.

Centauri27 · « **Reply #17 on:** April 05, 2012, 03:29:57 PM »

Great photos, Ralph! Thank you for sharing them with us--and for your personal impressions about the E-P3. I'm really leaning toward the E-P3 (or its successor) for my next camera. I'm a bit surprised about your mode dial problems though, because the dials are plenty stiff on the E-P1.

May I ask you one question? Does the E-P3 offer full-time stabilization (like the E-M5), or just during exposure (like the E-P1)? I read that on the E-M5, with stabilization in effect, you can actually use the magnifier to help you manually tweak the focus. It's a real pain on the E-P1 because the image is dancing all over the place while magnified.

Author Topic: My thoughts on using the E-P3 - first model shoot (Read 1983 times)

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