IR With the Olympus E-300

[tomcat]

I tested the Olympus E-300 today with the Hoya R72 IR filter and found that the E-300 is surprisingly good for IR photography. It is much more sensitive than the Canon 20D and could still produce coloured IR images. What's more, both the 14-45mm kit lens and the 50mm f/2.0 Macro lenses are tack-sharp and do not exhibit any hot spot problems.

Check out my IR pics taken with the E-300, including probably the first IR macro shots posted in Clubsnap, in the Olympus sub-forum here, if you are interested:
http://forums.clubsnap.org/showthread.php?t=113777

[2100]

Um...think the 50/2 has got hotspot problem.... Your macro pics...

[teerex]

Exceptionally sharp landscape pics, but macro
I like the landscapes for their sharpness and colour tones.
Have always been impressed with your IR colour tones.

[tomcat]

The macros still required quite a lot of trial and error to get the best settings for the E-300.

Macros generally require deeper depth of field to get more parts in focus and this tended to increase the exposure time required which makes worse blurring due to wind movement especially when any movement is magnified in macrophotography. That and also the poor lighting conditions yesterday resulted in much under-exposure problems in those shots which translated to noise problems when post-processing. I would probably have to take IR macros at ISO 400 and under bright cloudless conditions with no wind for better results with the E-300.

[tomcat]

Originally Posted by 2100 Um...think the 50/2 has got hotspot problem.... Your macro pics...

Hotspot problems are usually very obvious in the unprocessed original images if they are present for a particular lens. I don't see the usual symptoms in the original images taken with the 50mm/f2 lens which were however plagued by wind-blurring, shallow depth of field and under exposure problems instead and that's why for now, I feel that it does not have a hotspot problem. I would try it out on normal landscape shots later on to see if it really have a hotspot problem or not.

[vortex]

wow...u got some really sharp and nice colour pics there!!!