Home Pastries With The OMD

 

That looks tasty, my wife was baking these pastries at home and I immediately remembered a short movie Phillip Bloom made of his mother cooking, it was brilliant, so I decided to do something similar but with stills, and document the main parts of the process. It will be also a chance to talk about the OMD for a bit.

I am not ready yet to give my final impressions on the OMD since I haven't had enough experience with it like other cameras, I am now at around ~ 1200 shots on the clock, back to our topic.

 

I find it easier to pick up the OMD and take shots around the house than I did with my 5D3, don't read this as an advantage for the OMD over a DSLR, it's not, this is an advantage to my current storage camera bag over my previous Lowepro Pro Runner 200AW DSLR storage solution, it's just easier for me to lift the cover on my Thinktank Retrospective 5 bag and pick the OMD with my favorite do-it-all lens attached, the Panasonic Leica 25mm f/1.4 lens (50mm equivalent), the result is that I'm shooting more at home than I used to.

 

So why didn't I pick the Sony RX100 that is always at hands reach, just beside my keys? A couple of reasons, I still don't like holding the camera and shooting through the back LCD compared to a viewfinder, it is not as stable, and the Sony lost aperture quickly once I zoomed in, and I wanted some shots at fast apertures, so I picked the OMD since I was planning to do all shots using available light, at the lowest ISO possible, hand held.

 

 

This is the core flour paste used to make the goodies, in all of the shots there are two equally strong light sources, flourescent ceiling lights, and tungsten spot lights over the kitchen top, you can notice that by looking at the top and the inside of the paste in the image above.

 

I was shooting at ISO 200 which is the lowest ISO setting, and despite planning to shoot close to wide-open, I found myself shooting @ f/3.5 or thereabouts for adequate DOF, this of course resulted in ~ 1/10 sec shutter speeds, but the IBIS dealt with that quite nicely. You can also see that the AWB have dealt with the mixing color temperatures quite nicely.

 

 

This is the filling, white cheese mixed with small mint pieces, you might not believe it until you try it, but it gives those pastries their main flavor and taste. Also despite planning on using the viewfinder, I used the tilting LCD for some of the shots to get more interesting angles.

 

 

Here's the cheese put on a piece of the paste, the image is not sharp because I was holding my daughter with one hand, and shooting with the other hand using the back LCD, not the best scenario when the shutter speeds are slow.

 

 

And here's a full set almost ready to get in the oven, just one more addition remaining.

 

 

Before they enter the oven the top parts of the pastries are painted with raw eggs to give them a brown glow when they get in the oven.

 

 

In the oven, as you can notice, she made several sets of pastries, different shapes and different fillings, the oven light was a weird deep orange color, I guess they made it that way to look similar to fire glow.

 

 

And here's the final product, see that brown crisp on the top? That's the egg paint.

 

Overall, I am very satisfied with the OMD, it has certainly exceeded my initial expectations coming from a 5D3, and I am still learning more of its characteristics everytime I use it.

 

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Olympus OM-D: First Impressions & Comments on DOF

Olympus 45mm f/1.8 wide-open

You probably already know my story with the DSLRs and why I suddenly decided to switch, and start a new life with micro four thirds and Olympus, here's the link if you haven't already read it before.

These are my first impressions on the Olympus OM-D, I have not had a chance to thoroughly use the camera, I only used it 3 times briefly, at home, at work and at a petrol station where the picture above is from. Hit the jump for a quick, fun read.

Can you guess the car? Panleica 25mm f/1.4 wide-open

DISCLAIMER: Excuse the pictures in this post, they are not the best, but this is what I have to show during my very brief time with the OM-D.

QUICK IMPRESSIONS:

• If you don't already know, the crop factor of m4/3 is 2x, just keep that in mind when reading, multiply any focal length by 2.
• The system is incredibly tiny, especially the lenses, the 45mm f/1.8 is very minute, it has a 37mm filter thread, that's the same size as a large coin, incredible.
• The 12-50 kit lens is very nice, it sells alone for $500 and for $250 as a kit with the body, I got it for the following reasons, wide angle, general walk-around zoom (especially for video, it has both mechanical and smooth electrical zoom) and macro which is very useful, 0.72x magnification and a suitable min. working distance of ~ 20cm.
• Focusing is incredibly quick and accurate, and by quick I mean "high-end DSLR + high-end lens" quick and sometimes even faster, and since it's a contrast detection based focus, it is most accurate, there are no front or back focusing issues. Focus tracking is where DSLRs pull ahead, they say, but I haven't had a chance to test it yet.
• It can auto-detect faces despite the selected focus point (during normal focusing modes, no need for a special face detect focus mode), and can focus on the nearest eye on it's own, this is incredibly handy and very accurate. I gave the camera to a friend to try it out, and he took the following picture of me, he didn't choose any focus points, he just pointed the camera at me and snapped away.

That's me, Olympus 45 1.8 wide-open

100% crop of the image above

• That's also one of the benefits of a smaller sensor, you don't have to stop down to get both eyes in focus, and lose shutter speed, there is a biting sharpness with the fast lenses wide-open on m4/3.
• There are 35 focusing points by default, positioned in a 7x5 matrix filling 90% of the frame apart from the very extreme edges, you can focus anywhere you want without recomposing. And the focus point size can be changed by a single button press, using the smallest size I can move it into one of 1100 positions!!
• Lenses don't have a manual focusing switch (they are all focus by wire), so I configured it to one of the function buttons, since there is an EVF, you can get a magnified view by up to 14x to help in accurate focusing.
• I am still not used to the EVF, but it is amazing in displaying all sorts of useful information during shooting, the most useful for me are the live histogram, showing the blown-out higlights and blocked shadows real time, and finally a quick playback of the image after pressing the shutter.

Olympus 45 1.8 wide-open, again auto close-eye detection

• The camera is incredibly customizable, you can change the functions of a lot of buttons, you can select what each of the dials do in every mode, you can switch the dial rotation direction, and you can even change the focusing ring rotation direction.
• I can choose how many fps I need for the low speed setting (1-4 fps) and the high speed setting (5-9 fps), the 9 fps is crazy, I don't use it because I can't take a single shot, the fastest shutter press I can manage takes 2 shots at least.
• It has the best AWB I have ever seen, even under tungsten lighting, a first for me, colors are excellent as well, I hope to see good color tolerance when I mix flash with available light.
• Noise performance is incredible, people saying it is a match for the 7D are not giving it full credit, the 7D noise performance is no match for the OM-D at all, forget about charts and DXO, from my own experience on lightroom, this camera is much closer to my 5D2 up to 3200 ISO, haven't tried 6400 yet, and even then, the noise is very fine grain that doesn't look obtrusive at all.
• In body image stabilization is working very well, I find myself shooting at much lower shutter speeds that I was used to on the 5D3.
• It has abysmal battery lifetime, but I am still breaking it in, still on my first charge, but people who use it as a DSLR (i.e. use EVF only to shoot, and LCD for playback, otherwise both are turned off) claim upwards of 600 shots (some say 1200 shots) per charge, we'll see, anyway I have ordered a couple of 3rd party spare batteries plus a car charger for just $25.
• My OM-D has a defect, the eye sensor doesn't work properly to switch between the EVF and the LCD, it only works in direct sun light or near strong light sources, but I will not return it since I would disable this functionality anyway, and I don't want to stay without a camera anymore.

Panasonic Leica 25mm f/1.4 wide-open

DOF ON MICRO FOUR THIRDS (UPDATED):

This is always a much discussed issue, and I have made my own conclusions based on shooting with APS-C and FF for a long time, and now the micro four thirds. I don't care about DOF calculators or any technical measures, I am talking about DOF from my own perception POV.

There is shallow DOF and then there is SHALLOW DOF, you can see from the examples above that you can get significant shallow DOF even with the smaller m4/3 sensor, it looks the same as f/2.8 ~ f/4 on FF, and very similar to what I used to get with APS-C and fast lenses. This is the shallow DOF that I want, and would not sacrifice it by any means.

Now the really shallow DOF advantage of FF shows when using really fast apertures f/1.2 ~ f/2, and on wide angle lenses (35mm or wider) with fast apertures, anything slower than that like f/2.8 can be achieved with smaller sensors and faster lenses. FF look at f1.2 or f/1.4 cannot be matched by any smaller sensor.

Below is an example to illustrate my point, I picked a picture for my daughter shot one year ago using the 5D2 and the 50 1.4 wide-open, then another one shot with the OM-D and the Panleica 25 1.4 wide-open (50mm equivalent). Subject size is almost the same in both, the major difference however is lighting, the 5D2 is well lit with flash, while the OM-D is lit with a mix of available and tungsten light, I still haven't received my Olympus flash.

UPDATED: due to popular request, I updated my daughter's picture to be shot in the same place as the 5D2 picture, so the background is the same distance behind the subject in both shots, the angle is slightly different however (check the mirror on the right in the OM-D picture, this is not captured on the 5D2).

Canon 5D Mark II and 50mm f/1.4 wide-open, with soft lighting

Olympus OM-D and Panasonic Leica 25mm f/1.4 wide-open

The FF picture @ f/1.4 displays crazy thin DOF, not possible at all with m4/3, but do you always want this thin DOF? Do you want the rest of the face to be OOF? If the answer is yes, then you would better use FF and fast lenses.

You can draw your own conclusions, but for me, both pictures have "sufficient" shallow DOF, the advantage of the smaller sensor is having enough of the face in focus, while still maintaining shallow enough DOF, and enough shutter speed and/or low ISO.

I will be testing a lot more and taking lots of pictures before I do the full review. My next post will be about the Yongnuo RF-603 flash trigger.

RELATED POSTS

A Tale of Seven Cameras, And One Subject
OM-D: Macro Fun @ Home
OM-D, Bits & Pieces
Review: Sony RX100

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The Full-Frame, Large Sensor Bonanza!!!

Credit: photokina.com

 
THE YEAR 2012
 
This year's Photokina exhibition certainly was different, a few months ago, both Canon and Nikon each announced two new high-end full-frame DSLRs (Canon 5D Mark III, Canon 1DX, Nikon D800, Nikon D4), then just before the end of the year each of them announced a more affordable (not really) full-frame DSLR again (Canon 6D, Nikon D600). And to make matters more exciting, Sony announced the revolutionary A99 full-frame DSLR, and the sweet, expensive RX1. A full-frame Leica completes the picture. Do you see a trend here?
 

On the other hand, the mirror-less world has never been more exciting, earlier this year, we had the Canon G1X, the Sony RX100, the Sony NEX-5n, the Fuji X-Pro and the Olympus OM-D. However, the Photokina announcements gave us a huge dump of larger-than-average-sensor compacts and mirrorless, most notable the new Olympus XZ-2, E-PL5 and E-PM2, the Fuji XE-1 & XF-1, the Panasonic GH3, and the Sony NEX-6.
 
You can read a quick summary about most of these cameras on Roger Cicala's blog.
 
 
WHAT DO I THINK?
 
You might know I already have a lovely Canon 5D Mk II, whereas before I had a couple of APS-C Canons and a larger-than-average-sensor Canon G11. I love full-frame sensors, I get better image quality, sharper images, more exposure latitude and lower noise than I ever got with any of my previous cameras, amazing, but there's a huge caveat, shallow depth of field!
 

Too shallow a DoF? Miss focus from my 5D2 ruined the shot, I would have loved to have both eyes in focus, and that's @ f/2.8, two stops down from wide open!!

 
 
I know, you will tell me that we all seek the shallow DoF, and that I am lucky to have a full-frame camera, ok, it's sometimes useful to have that shallow DoF, just not all the time, it is now more difficult to shoot large groups, macro objects, and generally lots of stuff where you need more DoF. I can, of course, stop down and increase the DoF, but that way I will suffer from lower shutter speeds and higher ISOs.
 
I was jealous - and still am - of those Olympus m4/3 users, they can use the excellent Olympus/Panasonic sharp lenses wide-open and still get sharp shots with just enough DoF, and the correct amount of background blur. I know the same can be done with APS-C, I was more comfortable shooting wide-open with my APS-C cameras, but I am seriously intrigued with the small sizes of Olympus m4/3 bodies and lenses, and I love the concept of the EVF, maybe Kirk is an evil-genius writer, but he succeeded in making me like them without ever trying them, the whole WYSIWYG concept (exposure, white balance, real-time information, histograms, etc...) without lifting your eye from the view finder is intriguing, and that's probably an under-estimation.
 
M4/3 cameras keep getting excellent lenses all the time, did you see that luscious 60mm Macro? I would buy one because of the looks alone, did you see how sharp the new 75mm f1/.8 lens is? Did you see the crazy 24-70mm f/2.8 & 70-200mm f/2.8 35mm equivalent lenses from Panasonic? They mean serious business. And now one can't complain about the focusing speed or accuracy anymore (except for tracking moving subjects, in which DSLRs are still king). I have been contemplating getting a m4/3 system for a long time, and I am sure the time will come sometime within a couple of years, however, I would rather have a full-frame camera for the following reasons:

• Image Quality: despite achieving quantum leaps in image quality (OM-D sensor), they can now match the larger APS-C sensors, but they are no match for their larger brothers yet.
• Egyptian Market: zero presence for such cameras or lenses, only Canon & Nikon DSLRs, no Olympuses, Sonys, Fujis or Panasonics. If I buy a system from abroad, I would never be able to sell it.
• Flashes: I shoot a lot with flash, sometimes I am a hard-core strobist, and most of the time, I'm a Neil Van Niekerk bouncer, I am not sure that those systems have the same flash hardware, capabilities and prices as the trusted Canon & Nikon speedlites.

So it remains full-frame for me until we get better, smaller sensors. I have a 5D Mark II, which is an excellent camera, image quality wise. However, I was worried before I bought it from the so-so focusing system, I am not a focus-recompose person, and I love to put a focus point directly where I want my focus to be, despite the 60D having only 9 points, they were 9 great points, all of them were cross type (i.e. more accurate), however with the 5D Mark II, you only get an accurate center point, and the outer points are either horizontal or vertical points, they miss a lot and they completely suck in tracking my kids, even if they are just moving their heads when I am composing. Which brings us to the next part.
 

5D Mark II + 100 Macro L, f/11, Canon 580EX II

 
 
DARN YOU CANON, DARN YOU NIKON
 
Before I bought the 5D2, I waited for Canon's imminent full-frame announcement to see if I would buy that instead, they announced the 5D3 which was way out of my budget, so I only had the option to buy the 5D2, end of story.
 
When I heard about Canon's rumored "affordable" full-frame, I was really excited, it would be the same price as the 5D2 (sell mine, buy new, no loss), and would certainly have more features like a pop-up commander flash, swivel screen, and more importantly, a much better focusing system, rumors mentioned the 7D's great focusing system, I was very happy and excited, until Nikon announced the D600.
 
I am quite impressed with the D600, I see it as an excellent move by Nikon, and I assume it will sell like hot cakes, Mic has received his, and it seems very nice. Am I jealous? Mmmaybe. Do I want one? Certainly. Will I buy one? Unfortunately not, the cost of replacing all of my lenses and flashes with Nikon ones will be huge, and I will lose a lot of money selling my own stuff, so I have to stay still for now, maybe one day I will only have one camera and one lens, switching would be much easier then, I would even buy the Sony A99, drool. Darn you Nikon for producing such a nice teasing camera.
 
Now the Canon, after the D600 announcement, I saw an entry on canonrumors.com that stated the 6D would have 11 AF points, my heart sank at that moment, my only hope in the new full-frame was broken to pieces, and true, the 6D in my opinion is a fail on several levels, but I don't doubt it will sell well amongst hard-core Canonistas, and at some time in the future completely replace the 5D Mark II. Here's what I like/hate about both the Canon 6D and the Nikon D600, and take care that both cameras sell for the same price, so the comparison is relative:
 
Canon 6D - Me Likey:
 

• Full-frame sensor, will probably have excellent image quality, can't imagine it will be better than the 5D3 however.
• Built-in WiFi & GPS, genius, the Wi-Fi remote capabilities with smartphones are excellent.
• Small, light body.
• 4.5 fps, faster than the 5D2 at least.
• Same battery as 5D2, 5D3, 7D & 60D, thanks Canon.
• Silent Shutter taken from 5D3.
• EV -3 sensitive center focusing point.
• Weather sealing.

Canon 6D - Me Not Likey:

• Crappy outer focusing points, a no-go for me.
• 1/4000 max shutter speed, I checked my photos and I shoot a lot of 1/6400 and faster shots in full sunlight.
• Crappy outer focusing points, oh, I mentioned it before.
• LCD auto brightness not available, a very nice feature on the 5D2, sucks not to have it.
• Loss of joystick.
• 97% viewfinder, come on, I hate it when I carefully frame a shot only to find out that I have to crop something I didn't notice while shooting.
• Crappy outer focu..., oh well, you get the idea.

 
Nikon D600 - Me Likey:

• Sony 24 MP full-frame sensor, I expect amazing things.
• 100% viewfinder.
• Can mount DX lenses.
• Can switch between DX & FX modes.
• Commander pop-up flash.
• Dual SD UHS cards, bravo Nikon.
• 5.5 fps, woot.
• Weather sealing.

Nikon D600 - Me Not Likey:

• 1/4000 max shutter speed, however, for Nikon purists, previously they had a base ISO of 200 and a max shutter speed of 1/8000, now that the base ISO is 100, they can get away with 1/4000.
• Center clustered AF points, although it has 9 cross type points, they are all very close to the center point, so they can be considered as one large cross type point.
• EV -1 focusing compared to Canon's EV -3, although I don't it won't differ 90% of the time.
• No dedicated AF-ON button.
• Can't change aperture electronically during live view, you have to have a lens with an aperture ring.

 
As you can see, both cameras are comparable, with a clear edge towards the Nikon, now when someone tells me they want to switch to full frame, I will certainly point them to the D600, at least they can use their DX lenses, bravo Nikon.
 
Oh, I wish Sony makes an RX1 with a 50mm Zeiss lens, and sell it for $1000, I would buy one.
 

 

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