E-300 maiden pics

[serene]

Hi everyone,

Here is the link to my maiden e-300 pics.
http://getsurin.multiply.com/photos/album/7
I walked around my workplace and these are some shots I took over 15-20 minutes.
Something is wrong with my white balance (set it at 4000wb) which became bluish when outdoors. Today, it is very overcast so I won't say the results are disappointing. I use the 14-45mm lens kit. Other than the wb, I left use ISO 400 and the rest on P mode. (don't know how to set the rest yet )
The indoor pictures were taken w/out flash. (2 days ago). One of them was a picture at my office and the other one part of my X'mas presents. The rest were taken this afternoon. Except for some cropping, there was no photoshop editing. So, we see the camera as it is.

Hope the rest will post their pics here soon.
Serene

 

[chancy]

Hello Serene,

Congrats ! You're off to a good start.

Taking pains to guesstimate colour temperature & set manual white balance will pay off in the long run. Meanwhile take time to review the effect of WB settings from the LCD & see if it correctly reproduces the ambient light. Colour Temp of 4000k is too low & is more suited for indoor lighting (florescent), around 5500-6500 may be appropriate. Sharpness & Saturation could be tweaked a little higher else if could be the resizing that's robbing some details

Wish you had a tele lens for the man on the scaffolding shot

That's quite a number of shots & walky in 15 mins.

There're albums on still life, nature & old Singapore. Are these taken with the 5060 or the Mju-II ?

Thanks for sharing,

Cheers,

 

[serene]

Hi Chancy,

Thanks for looking at my pics. I think the sharpness is not not so much because of the resize but I could not get razor sharp pictures unless my camera is mounted on something. ( I did some experiments a few days back and confirmed this to be true for me).I did not encounter this problem with my 5060wz and I am not one who is not careful to hold the camera still. I wonder if it could be due to the long and dimmer lens which could be sensitive even to my heartbeating.

The other pics are taken w/ 5060wz. The film oly - I never get to scan any of them.

Actually I took a lot of pics but did not include them as they would seem repetitive.

Thanks for the lead, I shall tune my WB accordingly for outdoor shots. My first transition to the world of DSLR does seem fine for now.

Let's see what pics I get at the fountain after I get my hands on the 50mm. I should be able to get brighter and sharper ones,

 

[chancy]

Let's see what pics I get at the fountain after I get my hands on the 50mm. I should be able to get brighter and sharper ones,

Hello Serene,

Wither the 50 or the 14-45, the water sprays are likely to distract the E300 autofocus from your human subjects. It'll be a great time to practise your manual focusing plus large aperture, high shutter speeds to freeze motion/water spray, reduce handshake and isolate subject from background. 3-in-1

Cheers,

 

[Merciless_Knight]

Hello Serene,

Wither the 50 or the 14-45, the water sprays are likely to distract the E300 autofocus from your human subjects. It'll be a great time to practise your manual focusing plus large aperture, high shutter speeds to freeze motion/water spray, reduce handshake and isolate subject from background. 3-in-1

Cheers,

Thanks for the tips Chancy. :thumbsup:

 

[serene]

Hello Serene,

Wither the 50 or the 14-45, the water sprays are likely to distract the E300 autofocus from your human subjects. It'll be a great time to practise your manual focusing plus large aperture, high shutter speeds to freeze motion/water spray, reduce handshake and isolate subject from background. 3-in-1

Cheers,

Hi Chancy

I will try with larger aperture (only 3.5 max :cry: ) compensated by higher S.But I do not know how to focus manually when my subject is moving in and out :embrass: Also, I noticed that similar shots in the forum showed water frozen. Sort of tempted to try something different with water running to give the feel of the moment. But the focus problem could be well due to the slower shutter speed. Maybe I will try out varying the metering as well.

 

[nightpiper]

hi serene, glad to hear that u r having fun!! some nice presents u got there too. well, the adaptor is my present which i bought for myself.

is the E300 able to use custome WB & store its value like the E1? for me, i always keep my WB at 5300+2 & if i m inside shopping malls or restuarant, i use custom WB & store the values in the presets.

since it has been raining everyday, i reckon u won't have too much light for outdoor pics, hence the not-so-sharp syndrome. i have been trying to take some macros with my new toy but w/o success, too low light. but the purplish look on the pics seem arty in a way. :bsmilie:

so how do u find the cam so far? itching for more accessories purchase? maybe a 150mm telephoto? :devil: or a FL50? :devil:

 

[bariq]

Hi everyone,

Here is the link to my maiden e-300 pics.
http://getsurin.multiply.com/photos/album/7
I walked around my workplace and these are some shots I took over 15-20 minutes.
Something is wrong with my white balance (set it at 4000wb) which became bluish when outdoors. Today, it is very overcast so I won't say the results are disappointing. I use the 14-45mm lens kit. Other than the wb, I left use ISO 400 and the rest on P mode. (don't know how to set the rest yet )
The indoor pictures were taken w/out flash. (2 days ago). One of them was a picture at my office and the other one part of my X'mas presents. The rest were taken this afternoon. Except for some cropping, there was no photoshop editing. So, we see the camera as it is.

Hope the rest will post their pics here soon.
Serene

Hi Serene,
Congratulations and welcome to the club. Try shooting pics with auto wb, the auto wb works most of the time, or device a technique of getting the custome white balance whenever u need using a expo disk or other method.

The pics at the fountain looks more blurred, not due to cam shake but due to the perpective view of the cam on the kids thru the fountain water, this confuses the matrix or multi point focusing systems. So in these kind of situations use spot metering. Other technique u can use is to think of the the same focal distance as where the kids are and focus first then lock the focus, turn the cam towards the kids and shoot. Using aperture F5.6++ i think will put the kids + water in focus. just my 2 cents

happy shooting.

 

[bariq]

Another important point, if you are using white balance between 2000-4000 and shooting indoors, then the flourescent lights or shiny objects appear as pink/purple in the pics. Try this, set ur cam at 2300 wb, then shoot a flourescent light with say low shutter speed and see what happens, you will get a pink light hehehe..

enjoy

happy shooting.

 

[serene]

since it has been raining everyday, i reckon u won't have too much light for outdoor pics, hence the not-so-sharp syndrome. i have been trying to take some macros with my new toy but w/o success, too low light. but the purplish look on the pics seem arty in a way. :bsmilie:

so how do u find the cam so far? itching for more accessories purchase? maybe a 150mm telephoto? :devil: or a FL50? :devil:

Hi Nightpiper,

The max aperture I have on the extended zoom of 14-45mm is F6.3. I will try the same shot on a better day and see whether I still get all the grainy results. I understand from a foreign E-1 user that this is the characteristic of the processing algorithm of the e-system. So that images can be sharpened w/ Photoshop. Also, he mentioned to me that the sharpening can be set in the camera. Do you have any idea how to do this?

150mm will be nice to have so is the FL50 - ;p But this can wait till I can take better pics :embrass:

 

[serene]

Hi Serene,
Congratulations and welcome to the club. Try shooting pics with auto wb, the auto wb works most of the time, or device a technique of getting the custome white balance whenever u need using a expo disk or other method.

The pics at the fountain looks more blurred, not due to cam shake but due to the perpective view of the cam on the kids thru the fountain water, this confuses the matrix or multi point focusing systems. So in these kind of situations use spot metering. Other technique u can use is to think of the the same focal distance as where the kids are and focus first then lock the focus, turn the cam towards the kids and shoot. Using aperture F5.6++ i think will put the kids + water in focus. just my 2 cents

happy shooting.

HI Bariq,

In fact, the camera could focus properly the 2 gateway buildings (see the other pics) and I have to made a few tries before I succeeded. One question about spot metering - I wish to take a group of children - can this be achieved? ie, all the children in the group will be in focus?

Thank you
Serene

 

[chancy]

Hi Chancy

I will try with larger aperture (only 3.5 max :cry: ) compensated by higher S.But I do not know how to focus manually when my subject is moving in and out :embrass: Also, I noticed that similar shots in the forum showed water frozen. Sort of tempted to try something different with water running to give the feel of the moment. But the focus problem could be well due to the slower shutter speed. Maybe I will try out varying the metering as well.

Hello Serene,

I apologise, I was refering to your soon-to-be 50mm F2

For the existing lens, if your subject matter is candid, pictures are likely taken from afar. That means you're working closer to the tele end of your 14.45 & slower end of lens maximum aperture ie. F5.6 rather than F3.5.

I think if you wish to break from the usual mould of freezing water spray (refreshing change), break the rules harder, use a far slower shutter speed.

However, a slow shutter is likely to create a wall of moving water that may hide the kids, choose a suitable angle that gets both in view.

A slower shutter speed also blurs the actions of active kids. You may wish to try the use of flash to stop motion. Some reading available here.

But with persistence & a good eye for the moment, you may just end up with a keeper.

Keep working on the manual focus, it's tricky and a challenge for me too.

Best of luck !

Cheers,

 

[chancy]

HI Bariq,

In fact, the camera could focus properly the 2 gateway buildings (see the other pics) and I have to made a few tries before I succeeded. One question about spot metering - I wish to take a group of children - can this be achieved? ie, all the children in the group will be in focus?

Thank you
Serene

Hi Serene,

Well, you will need to differentiate between spot focus vs spot metering.

After much use, I've taken to using spot focus which focuses only any subject placed in the central cross. I've found it to be predictable & faster than the 3-point AF. Off centre subjects can be handled by AF lock which will allow image recomposition.

Spot metering is very selective & accurate metering on your key subject (usu. mid tone). It requires practise as your exposure can go awry if area to meter is not selected properly. But it's a good aid in situations of extreme lighting.

For photos of group of kids, focus on the kid whose action/expression matters most to you & use a smaller aperture to get details for the rest. If that's proving a challenge, just focus on the nearest subject to the camera & let a smaller aperture do the trick.

Practise & good luck !

Cheers,

 

[bariq]

HI Bariq,

In fact, the camera could focus properly the 2 gateway buildings (see the other pics) and I have to made a few tries before I succeeded. One question about spot metering - I wish to take a group of children - can this be achieved? ie, all the children in the group will be in focus?

Thank you
Serene

Spot metering means the cam uses a single point to find the light intensity, where as multi metering (matrix) is used to find the light intensity in 3,6,9,11 points depending on the number of metering points available in the cam, and the cam sets the aperture and shutter speed based on the algorithm available. Mostly when there are bright and dull points in the matrix the cam gets confused and most of the time takes the bright spot into consideration and the whole pic goes a bit under exposed.

Ok coming onto the point whether can use spot metering on group photo for kids, yes u can. All you need to focus on the kid or place where u feel is the appropriate light (or some kind of importance) and shoot. using apertures like 2.8 will blur the objects other than the subject and apertures like f9 or above will get the whole view, u can try a few shots with apertures before you make up ur mind which aperture to use.

Let me add some more you can use center weighted metering instead of spot metering, this method averages the light of the entire frame and gives extra importance to the centre.

 

[serene]

Thanks everyone for the kind advice. I realised that the slow shutter speed of 1/100 - 1/125 might have been the 'culprit'. So, I changed to faster shutter speed of 1/1000 and the results have been sharper. This time, I used spot metering. Unfortunately, there were no children at lunctime today.

http://getsurin.multiply.com/photos/photo/7/35.JPG
http://getsurin.multiply.com/photos/photo/7/37.JPG

I think there has been an improvement. Will try again, when I have time.

Thanks

 

[bariq]

Thanks everyone for the kind advice. I realised that the slow shutter speed of 1/100 - 1/125 might have been the 'culprit'. So, I changed to faster shutter speed of 1/1000 and the results have been sharper. This time, I used spot metering. Unfortunately, there were no children at lunctime today.

http://getsurin.multiply.com/photos/photo/7/35.JPG
http://getsurin.multiply.com/photos/photo/7/37.JPG

I think there has been an improvement. Will try again, when I have time.

Thanks

Oh no the kid in the previous pics already grown to be a man (in the current pic),, so fast like ur shutter speed hehehehe. nice pics.. happy shooting.

 

[tomcat]

Hi Serene,

The WB still seems to be too blue. I would suggest that you use AWB instead of one of the preset WB unless you are sure that the chosen WB setting is correct. In any case, the only way to be absolutely sure is to do a CWB. The E-1/E-300 has a one-step CWB mode that makes CWB much easier to carry out compared to most other DSLRs.

Also, for general photography, just set the camera to ESP or centre-weighted exposure metering mode would normally give good results. Like what bariq and chancy said, spot metering is for special exposure conditions and can give the poor results if used wrongly.

 

[blurblock]

Thanks everyone for the kind advice. I realised that the slow shutter speed of 1/100 - 1/125 might have been the 'culprit'. So, I changed to faster shutter speed of 1/1000 and the results have been sharper. This time, I used spot metering. Unfortunately, there were no children at lunctime today.

http://getsurin.multiply.com/photos/photo/7/35.JPG
http://getsurin.multiply.com/photos/photo/7/37.JPG

I think there has been an improvement. Will try again, when I have time.

Thanks

Your pictures are atuned towards blue colour and underexposed. Try to +.5 to your EV. it should turn out better.

Btw 1/100 - 1/125 isn't anywhere near slow.

 

[serene]

HI Blurblock,

Yes, I shall be tuning my WB. The WB was made for my indoor shots which produced good results. (mostly w/out flash) I will t&e (trial and error) and see if the e-300 allows the settings to be saved. As for the under-exposure, will see if increasing EV helps. It was quite dark really (about to rain) and the slow aperture did not help. But maybe, I am missing some other things. Will try again...

 

[serene]

Oh no the kid in the previous pics already grown to be a man (in the current pic),, so fast like ur shutter speed hehehehe. nice pics.. happy shooting.

Hi Tomcat,

Actually I waited for some minutes and still no kids wanted to play at the fountain. Then, I remembered Chancy's advice to freeze the water so I used a faster shutter. The camera is quite responsive, I am glad. Actually, I found that the faster shutter did not really compromise the brightness. Today is only marginally brighter than yesterday.