Olympus’ new prime lens, the m.Zuiko 17mm f2.8 “pancake”, is the subject of recent review over at SLR Gear. Their conclusions? Certainly not the highest praise ever for a lens, but keeping in mind this is a consumer-grade optic (from an optics giant who likes to keep three carefully dilineated quality tiers going at once, with this representing their ‘standard’ quality branch), using highly compacted optics in a veritably tiny package, it’s not so darn bad. And, it is, at any rate, the smallest thing going if you’re buying into micro Four-Thirds. It is, like so many Olympus lenses, very strangely calibrated to perform better wide open. Not complaining, I love wide open, but it’s still a bit weird to see on the test charts.
› archive for July 13th, 2009
Olympus Updates Master, Shows No Love for E-3
Olympus has updated its Master software to include the new e-Portrait and Art Filter controls in the software. Except you still have to have a camera that could use these in the first place, in a bit of software lockdown all too familiar after their deal with pano-stitching only working on certain xD cards. So, if you don’t own an E-P1 yet, this is a pretty unexciting update. There might be something in it for you E-P1, E-30,E-620, and E-450 owners, though.
To get the update, make sure you have Master installed (it comes with all Olympus cameras), then make sure you’re connected to the internet, go to Help-> Update Software and follow the instructions.
Business Slow? Keep Busy Elsewise.
For all you working pros or semi-pros out there who’re finding the economic slump still affecting you, and therefore with more times on your hands than you would prefer, Don over at Lighting Essentials has a list of 10 things you could be doing other than twiddling your thumbs.
Obviously we at Roberts have a vested interest in keeping you in work, so there’s that. His tips seem pretty solid, and I second his sentiment about starting a blog on your server if you haven’t yey. We’ve been working on our SEO (search engine optimization, for those of you not in the hip), and it’s well worth spending the time and occasional frustration to look into right now if everything else is slow.
Canon Rebel T1i Review
Continuing this apparent ‘Review Friday,’ DCResource’s newest review is Canon’s second video-enabled body, the Rebel T1i. Sporting most of the same guts as the Canon 50D, at a lower price point and with video, the T1i is an attractive product on paper. Hop over to DCResource and you’ll experience their reviewer’s very paractical, every-man-every-day approach to reviewing equipment.
Panasonic DMC-GH1 Survives DPReview
DPReview is definitely the predominant reviewing site, and the do a very admirably and un-enviable job of trying to do very objective, rational reviews in the face of bias and rabid fans. And they do a pretty good job. I, personally, think they place too much emphasis on a few areas because it makes measuring easier (noise performance, for one), but that’s the name of the game.
All of this is lead-up is to say “Hey, DPReview has their massive 31 page review of Panasonic’s GH1 up!”
The GH1, of course, is sitting in an interesting spot, with a sensor half the size of the 5D Mark II’s, but with an interface and lens designed from the ground up to handle video better. And so far, it sounds like it wins the video battle. But, hey, read that long review for yourself and make your own decisions. Then come back to us and order yours with free ground shipping to the lower 48..
We like gloss, yes we do
And if there’s anything with gloss, shine, and a delicious GUI, it’s the browser enhancing digital-image experience called Cooliris 1.11. A small download at 2.9mb, it’s a free to use (and if you’re a geek, integrate into your website) infinite wall of photos which navigates much like the Coverflow function in iTunes, but sleeker and sexier.
And its ruining my web-viewing experience. I checked out Derek’s fine E-P1 shots using Cooliris (by navigating to the set page in Flickr and booting Cooliris from the bouncing logo) and everything was smooth, intuitive, and shiny. Clicking an image brings up any tags or details and the scroll wheel zooms away from the highlighted image so you can click and drag to scroll the wall. It doesn’t integrate image saving or EXIF data, so be a dweeb and sign up to be an alpha/beta tester. The whole of it will massage your eyeballs and immerse your attention.
When I closed Cooliris the standard index of 75×75 pixel thumbnails, frozen as next-year’s fruit-cake, actually confused me for a moment.
It’s not that Flickr has a bad built-in slide show function. It’s tidy and well behaved, like it should be wearing a dark, wool business suit. Cooliris is wearing a slinky dress and a lamp-shade, and probably isn’t measuring the drinks.
So other than ocular hedonists, what use is Cooliris? For a photog with a limited budget (OK, so all budgets that aren’t spawned by the House and Senate are limited) or wants to display their work online with a lot of panache and not a lot of coding -Cooliris is certainly something to consider.
Olympus E-P1 Review Coming
Due in equal parts to excitement and boredom, we’re going to work the first field test of the Olympus E-P1 into a proper field report. I used one for a little over an hour yesterday around the gardens at the Indianapolis Art Museum, trying purposefully to test several of what I knew would be this camera’s field weaknesses in good light. The results? Not yet. We’ve gotta get a few short video clips together, so look for that full report Monday. In the meanwhile, why not take a look through my selected results in our own little trial gallery? Most of the pictures are straight out of the camera, Large Superfine JPG with whatever the default NR was set to. In a few shots I’ve done some quick and dirty processing in Adobe Lightroom to show how the JPEGs shape up. I didn’t have a large enough card to justify shooting RAW, so tests for RAW conversions will have to wait for next weekend’s Worldwide Photo Walk.
I can say, initially, that I was very pleased with the overall performance, though it’s not without quibbles. It was so fun in the field, though, that the quibbles came to me as afterthoughts afterwards. Look for the full report Monday.
And, all you non-Oly vendors: want us to do a nice field test for your new camera, gadget, or gizmo too? Just make sure we can get our hands on a demo unit and we can do a similar experience review for you as well.
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