E-5 vs. E-1: more work

[bousozoku]

I've been slowly acclimating myself to the E-5 body since buying one in November. Find my way has been interesting since so much has changed in the 7.5 years between the E-1 purchase and the E-5 purchase. I would imagine that I spent some time with the E-1 to set it the way I liked it but I don't recall a lot of change.

It seems as though the E-5 is a lot of work. As shipped, the camera can take high ISO photos but they look mushy from all the noise reduction and filtering. I've turned that off but haven't really seen an improvement in detail so far. Letting the camera choose an appropriate ISO value by default can go as high as 1600, but even at 800 the photos really look horrible, though maybe not worse than the E-1. I need new settings.

I was photographing swimming back in December and again last night. I tried the auto focus in December and it worked. Since that was my first time shooting a swim meet, I just let the camera do its thing. All 11 focus points were engaged and it was focusing on all sorts of things. Since I didn't know how to override it (I've been using manual focus almost all the time I've used a camera), I got what it thought I wanted. Yesterday, I set a single focus point in the centre, hoping that it would work. Since I wasn't getting quick focus, I changed from S-AF to C-AF and it was better. Eventually, I was frustrated and changed to manual focus.

The raw files require a bit more work to get the look I expect, but that's not bad at all.

Mainly, I'm using the E-5 with the original 50-200mm, a Leica 25mm, the original 14-54mm, and the 50mm macro.

What changes to the settings would help me? I could really use some help.​

 

[jjtml]

Hi Bousozoku,

Congrats on your E5 purchase. My set up is roughly the same as yours, I use the original 14-54 as well as the 50-200 for a majority of my shots as well. (I also have the 8mm, 35mm and a variety of OM lenses for MF work) If you haven't read the extensive E-5 manual, I would recommend you do so from cover to cover. The E-5 has a lot of settings which can be customised to your needs and the manual will help explain how to do it.

ISO
First off, I do not recommend using default ISO, always choose the lowest possible ISO you can. Generally, I find myself using ISO 200 in excellent to decent lighting conditions and I sometimes drop to between ISO800 to ISO1600 if required. I did a comparison between E-3 and E-5 using the different ISO settings some time back, do a search on it and you can see the results there. I consider photos all the way up to ISO1600 usable, something which E-3 was not able to do (it could only go up to ISO800 without really degrading the image)

IS
Check your Image Stabilisation is on if you're shooting handheld. Read the manual to what IS 1/2/3 means. If you are shooting tripod on still objects, you may want to disable IS.

AF
I rarely use all 11AF points. Majority of the time, I am using only the centre focus and recomposing. I don't shoot swimming but I suspect the water may throw off the AF and as such, you probably want to pre-focus and/or use S-AF+M for fine tuning. I rarely shoot in C-AF, I find S-AF+M decent enough for sports photography. Check your shutter speed as well, you want to shoot at least 1/250 to freeze the action, 1/500 or higher recommended, that could have contributed to your image quality.

RAW files are very good to work with, especially in less than ideal lighting. If it's an outdoor shoot, I would usually just use JPEG, it works very well at ISO200 and even at ISO400. If you start hitting ISO800 and ISO1600, shoot RAW + JPEG to get better fine tuned results later on

Shoot more, set up test shots, shoot at different ISO's at the same subject, RAW + JPEG to find out what results are acceptable to you and what is not. Once you find your acceptance treshhold, you can focus more on shooting and less on worrying. =) Happy shooting!

 

[bousozoku]

Thanks for your help.

I probably won't use auto focus ever again, unless I just can't see and then, I probably shouldn't be doing photography.

I remember the discussions about IS and I'm leaving it at the default for now, but with swimming mostly requiring horizontal panning only, I should switch it to avoid problems.

I haven't used JPEGs since 2006, I believe, when I finally got Phase One Capture One. Raw processing has been saving me with these photos since I've had to change the EV at least.

So far, I'm not even pleased with the ISO 400 photos. I suppose that I should change the noise filter to Low to see how that works for me. I'll keep playing with it.

 

[Oly5050]

Thanks for your help.

I probably won't use auto focus ever again, unless I just can't see and then, I probably shouldn't be doing photography.

I remember the discussions about IS and I'm leaving it at the default for now, but with swimming mostly requiring horizontal panning only, I should switch it to avoid problems.

I haven't used JPEGs since 2006, I believe, when I finally got Phase One Capture One. Raw processing has been saving me with these photos since I've had to change the EV at least.

So far, I'm not even pleased with the ISO 400 photos. I suppose that I should change the noise filter to Low to see how that works for me. I'll keep playing with it.

How can u not be pleased with iso 400? The e5 is way better than e1 for noise handling. I shoot up to iso 1600 on the e5 with no issue. By the way, i dun shoot in low light. If the light is bad, i use flash. Bad light equals bad photos.

 

[rhino123]

How can u not be pleased with iso 400? The e5 is way better than e1 for noise handling. I shoot up to iso 1600 on the e5 with no issue. By the way, i dun shoot in low light. If the light is bad, i use flash. Bad light equals bad photos.

Some of the time, it is not good to use flash... shooting swimming events is one of them. Water, reflect light and so when you shoot flash, you might get very bad glare from the water.

 

[bousozoku]

How can u not be pleased with iso 400? The e5 is way better than e1 for noise handling. I shoot up to iso 1600 on the e5 with no issue. By the way, i dun shoot in low light. If the light is bad, i use flash. Bad light equals bad photos.

At ISO 400, I'm seeing photos lacking detail. I turned off the noise reduction and noise filter and I see lots of noise, even at ISO 200.

The E-5 doesn't seem better at ISO 400 and the ISO 1600 photos were complete rubbish beyond a thumbnail. I'm apparently doing something wrong.

Some of the time, it is not good to use flash... shooting swimming events is one of them. Water, reflect light and so when you shoot flash, you might get very bad glare from the water.

I have been using flash during swimming, but I think that it was actually making the water look more dramatic and the circular polarizer was taking care of glare problems. It wasn't nearly as helpful as it has been in other sports.

 

[Oly5050]

Definitely something wrong. I was shooting F1 with the E5 at ISO 1600 with the 50-200 SWD at 200 mm at F3.5. It was fine. No flash. There is NO WAY E1 can match the performance of the E5 in terms of AF speed and sensor performance. I am well acquainted with both because I use the E1 and the E5 too. I sold my E3.

 

[bousozoku]

Definitely something wrong. I was shooting F1 with the E5 at ISO 1600 with the 50-200 SWD at 200 mm at F3.5. It was fine. No flash. There is NO WAY E1 can match the performance of the E5 in terms of AF speed and sensor performance. I am well acquainted with both because I use the E1 and the E5 too. I sold my E3.

I don't normally use auto focus, so it really doesn't matter. Olympus just doesn't do low light well. I just hope I find settings that improve the look of the photos. I'd rather they don't look like water-colour paintings.

 

[bousozoku]

Photographed more swimming last Tuesday. Started without flash EV +1.7, Noise Filter to Low, IS = 3. Photos bright and blurry. Attached and used flash while setting EV to +1.3, photos better but still not so good.

I took a few in the house just 30 minutes ago, without flash and with inbuilt flash. Photos look much better for detail but still have that nasty noise, which could be expected at ISO 1600 but not at lower sensitivities. It's sad because this means that I'll be taking a trip to Nikon next time, unless there are some huge changes. I don't feel 100 % that I wasted money and I'm glad I got it at a slight discount, but geez, I could have got better performance out of a Nikon D7000.

If Olympus abandons Four-Thirds to concentrate on micro Four-Thirds, there isn't any place to go anyway because there aren't any good lenses for what I take.

 

[nissanmanic]

Photographed more swimming last Tuesday. Started without flash EV +1.7, Noise Filter to Low, IS = 3. Photos bright and blurry. Attached and used flash while setting EV to +1.3, photos better but still not so good.

I took a few in the house just 30 minutes ago, without flash and with inbuilt flash. Photos look much better for detail but still have that nasty noise, which could be expected at ISO 1600 but not at lower sensitivities. It's sad because this means that I'll be taking a trip to Nikon next time, unless there are some huge changes. I don't feel 100 % that I wasted money and I'm glad I got it at a slight discount, but geez, I could have got better performance out of a Nikon D7000.

If Olympus abandons Four-Thirds to concentrate on micro Four-Thirds, there isn't any place to go anyway because there aren't any good lenses for what I take.

I remember the discussions about IS and I'm leaving it at the default for now, but with swimming mostly requiring horizontal panning only, I should switch it to avoid problems.

i note the use of IS 3 and you mentioned you often do panning in the horizontal (landscape) position, but IIRC IS 3 is for panning in the portrait position which may explain the blurriness since IS 3 disables the IBIS in one axis. There is admittedly substantial noise at ISO 1600, but that can't be helped, but could be mitigated slightly by shooting in RAW then using better 3rd party noise removal software. just my humble opinion.

a discussion on dpreview about shooting swimming event w the E-5, maybe you might wish to bring up your problem with him? dpreview

 

[tgxworld]

Photographed more swimming last Tuesday. Started without flash EV +1.7, Noise Filter to Low, IS = 3. Photos bright and blurry. Attached and used flash while setting EV to +1.3, photos better but still not so good.

I took a few in the house just 30 minutes ago, without flash and with inbuilt flash. Photos look much better for detail but still have that nasty noise, which could be expected at ISO 1600 but not at lower sensitivities. It's sad because this means that I'll be taking a trip to Nikon next time, unless there are some huge changes. I don't feel 100 % that I wasted money and I'm glad I got it at a slight discount, but geez, I could have got better performance out of a Nikon D7000.

If Olympus abandons Four-Thirds to concentrate on micro Four-Thirds, there isn't any place to go anyway because there aren't any good lenses for what I take.

I don't normally use auto focus, so it really doesn't matter. Olympus just doesn't do low light well. I just hope I find settings that improve the look of the photos. I'd rather they don't look like water-colour paintings.

Hi, im an E5 user myself and this post caught my attention. Pardon me if im being harsh but do not think you know your reciprocals well looking at your photos from deviant art.

Firstly, your photos are blurry not because the camera is bad or it made it blurry. Its because your shutter speed is too low for what you're shooting. Furthermore, when you zoom you amplify movements. With E5 and its zuiko lenses, you're looking at the best and fastest auto focus camera around in the market. By manual focusing, you're also contributing to the blurry photos. Try focusing with a Canon 5dmark2 in low light and you'll get what i mean. Im pretty sure if you get a good aim and focus with care you'll get images that are sharp.

However, one thing i have to agree is that the E5 performs badly in low light conditions. I would never go above 400 as the images are practically useless above that.

I had an urge to post because most of the time people blame the camera for the pictures not coming out right. More often than not, we forget that the camera is just a tool that requires the user to control.

 

[spidey89]

Hi, im an E5 user myself and this post caught my attention. Pardon me if im being harsh but do not think you know your reciprocals well looking at your photos from deviant art.

Firstly, your photos are blurry not because the camera is bad or it made it blurry. Its because your shutter speed is too low for what you're shooting. Furthermore, when you zoom you amplify movements. With E5 and its zuiko lenses, you're looking at the best and fastest auto focus camera around in the market. By manual focusing, you're also contributing to the blurry photos. Try focusing with a Canon 5dmark2 in low light and you'll get what i mean. Im pretty sure if you get a good aim and focus with care you'll get images that are sharp.

However, one thing i have to agree is that the E5 performs badly in low light conditions. I would never go above 400 as the images are practically useless above that.

I had an urge to post because most of the time people blame the camera for the pictures not coming out right. More often than not, we forget that the camera is just a tool that requires the user to control.

I've just seen his pictures, his pictures are not blur due to the slow shutter speed, they seemed more of out of focus. Manual focusing doesn't contribute to blur photos, but it contributes to out of focus, Owning the E-1 and the E-3 myself, the viewfinder in the E-3 is bigger than the E-1, and I've manual focused on the tiny viewfinder of the E-510 which was my first DSLR and I got sharp images, even with motion. I'm sure that Bousozoku can focus manually pretty well, but since none of us are there, and Bousozoku is probably not used to the E-5 yet, it could be a reason for the ou of focus images as well. He could have used autofocus which could have focused on the wrong thing as well.

The 1600 aren't too bad, but they aren't too good, when taken into consideration of my tolerance for noise. If you saw his sports photos, they're pretty sharp despite them most likely being focused manually.

 

[tgxworld]

I've just seen his pictures, his pictures are not blur due to the slow shutter speed, they seemed more of out of focus. Manual focusing doesn't contribute to blur photos, but it contributes to out of focus, Owning the E-1 and the E-3 myself, the viewfinder in the E-3 is bigger than the E-1, and I've manual focused on the tiny viewfinder of the E-510 which was my first DSLR and I got sharp images, even with motion. I'm sure that Bousozoku can focus manually pretty well, but since none of us are there, and Bousozoku is probably not used to the E-5 yet, it could be a reason for the ou of focus images as well. He could have used autofocus which could have focused on the wrong thing as well.

The 1600 aren't too bad, but they aren't too good, when taken into consideration of my tolerance for noise. If you saw his sports photos, they're pretty sharp despite them most likely being focused manually.

Hello Spidey89!

Im afraid i have to disagree with you. I based my conclusions above from the photos from his deviant art.

bousozoku on deviantART
Looking at the photo above, he was shooting at 1/100 which is too slow for the type of shot he is shooting. However i just noticed that he shot it at 50mm which at 1/100 of a seconds photos would normally turn out fine. From the ghosting, it could be the camera was moving while he shot the photo. Plus the whole photo does not look sharp at all and im certain the whole frame cant be out of focus which brings my point to either camera shake or slow shutter.

bousozoku on deviantART

and this. he got his subject within the depth of field range but the photo is still blur. Which is why i concluded its due to the shutter.

 

[microcosm]

http://bousozoku.deviantart.com/#/d4m2ww4
This image is clearly out of focus... look at the lane floaters...

http://bousozoku.deviantart.com/#/d4m2x4c
Again, the focus is near, the swimmers on the further lanes are never going to be sharp...

Focusing issue...

 

[Oly5050]

The e5 outperforms the e1 in terms of AF speed, n noise control. If u could be happy shooting the e1, you should be ecstatic with the e5. With e1, i find the af very slow. N i generally dun shoot beyond iso 200 on the e1.

Question is, is the e5 u bought used?
Second, since u mf, i guess i cannot ask how many af points u set. So i would ask if u set the dioptre rating on the e5 viewfinder correctly? Or maybe u should try trusting the af on the e5. With the hg kens, it shd be good. Btw, i never use the kit lenses. Too slow for me personally. The only standard lens i use is the 9-18.
Thirdly i dun thk u need to pan. But if u want to u may need to play with ur shutter speed etc to get the right settings. Good point on the IS if u pan. Use the correct IS settings. The e5 is a very competent camera. Get a 50-200 swd with it.

 

[Oly5050]

Ok a few more things, stop using c-af. Its worse than s-af. Secondly, shoot in raw n dun go beyond iso 1600. Choose the iso based on ur ideal shutter speed. Of course shoot at the widest aperture u can get. Switch off SAT. Try not to pan n keep IS on for a start. Sorry but i have u tried the e1 in the same situation. I cannot believe that you are finding the e1 outperforms the e5?

Happy chinese new year to all!

 

[spidey89]

Hello Spidey89!

Im afraid i have to disagree with you. I based my conclusions above from the photos from his deviant art.

bousozoku on deviantART
Looking at the photo above, he was shooting at 1/100 which is too slow for the type of shot he is shooting. However i just noticed that he shot it at 50mm which at 1/100 of a seconds photos would normally turn out fine. From the ghosting, it could be the camera was moving while he shot the photo. Plus the whole photo does not look sharp at all and im certain the whole frame cant be out of focus which brings my point to either camera shake or slow shutter.

bousozoku on deviantART

and this. he got his subject within the depth of field range but the photo is still blur. Which is why i concluded its due to the shutter.

Normally 1/100 in sports situation would be slow, but since he used flash, the flash caused ghosting but still got the subject sharp

 

[bousozoku]

Thank you all. I guess it's just that it's a difficult time for me after my mum and an uncle died, plus I'm shooting a sport I don't yet know in a nerve-wracking environment. Then, I have people talking to me, which makes for an interesting time, and I'm not particularly focused, as I cheer for my cousin also. I had trouble shooting a cross-country meet with the E-1 when my mum was walking all over the place and I was trying to keep her out of the runners' path. :bsmilie: I'm sure if I felt better, I'd be more aggressive in my pursuit of answers and processing more photos.

I've been shooting raw for 5 years now. That was the first change I made to the E-5.

The E-5 is new, as far as I know. I did a lot of unwrapping, so I figure it had not even been opened by the store staff. The discount sealed the deal, though. Olympus didn't complain when I registered.

Okay, on the two photos mentioned:

The photo of the starting blocks is clearly a depth of field problem. There is no possible way to get enough depth of field and I wasn't singling out anyone in particular. It was more of a search for the right timing off the blocks. I consider all of this practice since it's a new sport for me.

Concerning the other photo, I was more interested in the effect of the water but yes, the focus is off. I have other examples I had not posted where the focus is on the swimmer. I'm shooting 220 - 250 photos and it takes a while to process each, especially when I'm feeling bad.

I'm not using AF, but when I did, it wasn't fast enough to keep up. I switched from single to continuous and it worked better but it couldn't focus as quickly as I could. I switched from 11 focus points the first meet to 1 the second meet because auto focus was all over the place and not on the swimmers most of the time.

As far as manual focusing goes, I'm uncomfortable with the plastic eye piece, but it's only been 3 swim meets so far. My timing has been off. The butterfly and breast strokes require some good timing (and all swimmers seem to have different timing) and of course, no one has waited for me. As of the third meet, I was in the rhythm quite a lot. I've yet to post any of those photos.

I thought I understood the IS setting, but I'll remember it as the opposite of what I thought. :bsmilie: Such is life.

Concerning the 50-200 SWD. Forget that. It won't get me anything but will take money away. AF is still a joke to me. Once I'm acclimated to the E-5, I'll be okay.

Canon 5D Mk II? The day I buy Canon photo equipment is the day they're the only company making photographic equipment and everything I have is broken. Their printers (my i9900 especially) and scanners are fine, though. I even bought a Canon point-and-shoot camera for my mum. Trying one isn't likely, either.

The noise is bad. It looks like something Olympus could have prevented by using an adjacent pixel luminance/colour method. Instead, they soften the details. Wasn't the change to a less aggressive anti-aliasing filter meant to make the details sharper?

I hope I get a handle on the E-5 soon but swim meets are going away shortly so I won't have any more practice on those for a while. At least, don't have any feeling to throw it against the wall.

 

[tgxworld]

Normally 1/100 in sports situation would be slow, but since he used flash, the flash caused ghosting but still got the subject sharp

Hi, what do you mean by flash causing ghosting? flash duration should be way shorter that 1/100.
Thanks for sharing!!

 

[spidey89]

Thank you all. I guess it's just that it's a difficult time for me after my mum and an uncle died, plus I'm shooting a sport I don't yet know in a nerve-wracking environment. Then, I have people talking to me, which makes for an interesting time, and I'm not particularly focused, as I cheer for my cousin also. I had trouble shooting a cross-country meet with the E-1 when my mum was walking all over the place and I was trying to keep her out of the runners' path. :bsmilie: I'm sure if I felt better, I'd be more aggressive in my pursuit of answers and processing more photos.

I've been shooting raw for 5 years now. That was the first change I made to the E-5.

The E-5 is new, as far as I know. I did a lot of unwrapping, so I figure it had not even been opened by the store staff. The discount sealed the deal, though. Olympus didn't complain when I registered.

Okay, on the two photos mentioned:

The photo of the starting blocks is clearly a depth of field problem. There is no possible way to get enough depth of field and I wasn't singling out anyone in particular. It was more of a search for the right timing off the blocks. I consider all of this practice since it's a new sport for me.

Concerning the other photo, I was more interested in the effect of the water but yes, the focus is off. I have other examples I had not posted where the focus is on the swimmer. I'm shooting 220 - 250 photos and it takes a while to process each, especially when I'm feeling bad.

I'm not using AF, but when I did, it wasn't fast enough to keep up. I switched from single to continuous and it worked better but it couldn't focus as quickly as I could. I switched from 11 focus points the first meet to 1 the second meet because auto focus was all over the place and not on the swimmers most of the time.

As far as manual focusing goes, I'm uncomfortable with the plastic eye piece, but it's only been 3 swim meets so far. My timing has been off. The butterfly and breast strokes require some good timing (and all swimmers seem to have different timing) and of course, no one has waited for me. As of the third meet, I was in the rhythm quite a lot. I've yet to post any of those photos.

I thought I understood the IS setting, but I'll remember it as the opposite of what I thought. :bsmilie: Such is life.

Concerning the 50-200 SWD. Forget that. It won't get me anything but will take money away. AF is still a joke to me. Once I'm acclimated to the E-5, I'll be okay.

Canon 5D Mk II? The day I buy Canon photo equipment is the day they're the only company making photographic equipment and everything I have is broken. Their printers (my i9900 especially) and scanners are fine, though. I even bought a Canon point-and-shoot camera for my mum. Trying one isn't likely, either.

The noise is bad. It looks like something Olympus could have prevented by using an adjacent pixel luminance/colour method. Instead, they soften the details. Wasn't the change to a less aggressive anti-aliasing filter meant to make the details sharper?

I hope I get a handle on the E-5 soon but swim meets are going away shortly so I won't have any more practice on those for a while. At least, don't have any feeling to throw it against the wall.

Sorry to hear that, I'm sure you'll get used to the E-5 soon

Hi, what do you mean by flash causing ghosting? flash duration should be way shorter that 1/100.
Thanks for sharing!!

Hmm.... How do I explain... When your shutter speed is not fast enough, it still captures ambient light, so though the flash has "imprinted" the subject onto the sensor, the shutter has yet to close thus ambient light is still falling on the sensor thus creating the ghost, depending on whether its normal sync or rear sync, the ghost will appear in front or behind the subject

An example would be a car, its like, when the car is moving like 200km/h (its just an example), and you need to brake, the time it takes to step on the brake takes less than a sec, that's like our flash, but just because our brake is immediately engaged, doesn't mean the car will stop then and there, it will skid, when it skids, its like our ghost, doesn't really makes sense, but that's the best explanation I can come out with at the moment

Normally when you use flash and the subject isn't moving like taking a portrait, the subject will be pin sharp, but since this is moving, if your flash duration isn't short enough as well, the subject will not be short


Found a video I've watched before, this is as close as I can find regarding what I was saying, check out first and rear curtain sync nearing to the back, happens with slow shutter, hopefully this will help you understand what I meant
[video=youtube;_zlvVBDKbhI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zlvVBDKbhI[/video]