[Atlas]

Hi All,

Thought I would say HI and introduce myself

I am from Brisbane Australia and have had various cameras over the years. We recently got an Olympus E300 digital SLR with 2 lenses, 14-45, 40-150.

Now that we have a real SLR to play with I am really getting into it

I have bought a few books, trying to setup a mini studio in the garage, have bought Photoshop 7 (still trying to figure it out !!). Spent last week getting some filters and tripod ect.

Am now raring to go.

Cheers,

Atlas

[shuttertalk]

G'day Atlas... congrats on your recent purchase, and welcome onboard!

Hope to see some pics soon!

[Kombisaurus]

Hi Atlas,

Welcome to Shuttertalk!

You win this complimetary t-shirt for posting your first post!


Congrats on the new camera gear, I hope to see what you can do with it.

I'm also quite interested in the Four Thirds format and really want to see it become more widespread, as I think it has many advantages over the more traditional 35mm formats (although my own gear is all 35mm format, not Four Thirds). Its encouraging to see more and more people like yourself popping up who have bought into it.

Cheers
Adrian

[EnglishBob]

Welcome to australiaphototalk.com... err Shuttertalk

Look forward to seeing some of your work

[Petographer]

Welcome to australiaphototalk.com... err Shuttertalk

Look forward to seeing some of your work

Hi Atlas. I'll echo what Englishbob says. Welcome to the forum.

[Atlas]

Thanks Guys,

I take it from the posts, there ar a few Aussies on here ??

[Petographer]

Thanks Guys,

I take it from the posts, there ar a few Aussies on here ??

You bet. Stick around, you'll see.

[Schellamo]

Hi Atlas, can't wait to see some pics!

Peto, your just jealous of the 45 degree day we had yesterday!!
(Celcius that is....are canadians metric??)

Kombi, wheres my t.shirt? I posted a first post once too y'know!!

[Irma]

Welcome to Shuttertalk, from a Mexican living in Germany....

Congrats on your new camera gear....

[matthew]

We recently got an Olympus E300 digital SLR with 2 lenses, 14-45, 40-150.

Wo-Hoo! Another Olympus user!

I've been using the E-1 for about six months, with the 14-54 and 40-150, and recently added the FL-36 flash to my collection. My mother uses the E-300 with the 14-45 and 40-150. They're great.

That's it - from now on I'm using 4/3 numbers whenever I mention my focal lengths. Now that there's two of us, everyone else will just have to remember to double it for a 35mm equivalent.

[Kombisaurus]

Here's your t-shirt Schell... sorry its 428 posts late!



And for anybody else who missed out on their own T-shirt, simply right-click on the image above and select "Set As Background" (Internet Explorer users only I'm afraid)... Then you'll have one of your very own (size XXL)!

[Don Schaeffer]

You are serious, a great addition to the forum.

[Petographer]

Hi Atlas, can't wait to see some pics!

Peto, your just jealous of the 45 degree day we had yesterday!!
(Celcius that is....are canadians metric??)

Kombi, wheres my t.shirt? I posted a first post once too y'know!!

Yes we are metric. @45 celcius you guys can have that. :o I'm happy with never getting below -2 F and above 94F. I use standard because metric came about when I was in school. It was more of a transistional period unlike the kids of the next generation grew up with metric. So now i kind of use both.

[Atlas]

We recently got an Olympus E300 digital SLR with 2 lenses, 14-45, 40-150.

Wo-Hoo! Another Olympus user!

I've been using the E-1 for about six months, with the 14-54 and 40-150, and recently added the FL-36 flash to my collection. My mother uses the E-300 with the 14-45 and 40-150. They're great.

That's it - from now on I'm using 4/3 numbers whenever I mention my focal lengths. Now that there's two of us, everyone else will just have to remember to double it for a 35mm equivalent.

Hiya,

First of many silly questions...But are all 4/3rds lenes created equal ?

As in, in theory, could you use the E1 lenses on theE300 and vice versa ?

Cheers,

Atlas

[matthew]

are all 4/3rds lenes created equal ? As in, in theory, could you use the E1 lenses on the E300 and vice versa ?

Yes, all are interchangeable. Any 4/3 format lens will work on any 4/3 body. Also, since they're all designed around the same standard, there's no worry about matching performance between the cameras and the lenses. So far only Olympus and some Sigma lenses are available; Panasonic will probably introduce some along with their new 4/3 body.

Olympus has three lines of lenses. Their "consumer" lenses (14-45, 40-150, 35 macro) are generally as good as their "standard" mid-range lenses optically, but are just a little slower in their autofocus and widest aperture. They're also not weatherproof, which only matters if you're using an E-1. I bought the 40-150 telephoto, and love it.

Mike Johnston's "First Annual 37th Frame Lens Awards" included some gems.

Best Lens Available for DSLRs: Olympus Digital Zuiko 50mm ƒ/2 Macro
Best Telephoto Zoom for DSLRs: Olympus 50-200mm Digital Zuiko
Best Lens Line for Overall Optical Quality (tie): Olympus Digital Zuiko (for Four-Thirds System) Leica R (for 35mm SLR)

So, you're in good company.

[Atlas]

Hi Matthew,

Thanks for the detailed reply.

I was fortunate to spend the day down the Gold Coast with my family today, and managed to take a couple of good shots, but mainly really BLURRy ones...Such a beutiful location and so little shots that worked...

Form what I can see via the meta data is that 40-150 lens anything at the 150 lenght without flash has come up blurred... Below about 108 they seem ok with no flash... 150 with the flash on has also helped it seems...

I had everything set to auto, was this a mistake. Conditions for the important shots were late a/noon early evening on the beach, I thought there was sufficeint light....

There would have been some really great shots, but alas they were blurry.... I can see this is going to be frustrationg and take some time to learn... So much for the LCD, after each shot I looked at the LCD, and they looked fine....

I am currently waiting for a strom to come through, 1 good shot so far

Any hints gladly accepted as to why I may have had probs at the beach

Cheers,

Atlas

[Atlas]

By the way...

I have bought some filters on speaking with the camera shop :

UV, Neutral Density x2, Circular Polarising & 1B skylight.

The UV I mainly got for protecting my lenses...Can you leave these on, even for night shooting ?? today I aslo used the UV & Circ Polarising together, is this ok ??

So many questions.....If this is covering old ground (as I am sure it is) could you please point me to the threads that may be helpful for a 'newbie'.

Thanks again,

Atlas

[Atlas]

Hi again,

Well the storm did come, not too much rain, but not a bad light show !! Hope you enjoy the shot below, please bare in mind I am very knew to this and still haev much to learn.

I used manual focus and between 5-10 secs on the shutter. Once I actually was able to focus (what is the easy way to do this at night in a storm ?) I had a few good ones come up. I am a lot happier with this than my beach shots !! ;-)



Cheers,

Atlas

[Kombisaurus]

Hey Atlas,

Wow.. speccy lightning shot! well done!
Its been threatening a storm here in Perth for the last day or two, but it never eventuated (and I think its supposed to be sunny again tomorrow).

With regard to your blurry shots, I suspect it is due to camera-shake. The longer the focal length you use, the more the shake will be exaggerated and so the faster your shutter speed needs to be to avoid noticable blur. Check your EXIF metadata to see what your shutter speeds were for these shots. Try using Shutter Speed Priority (Tv mode) and setting the shutter speed manually based on the info below.

There is a very general rule of thumb that says in order to get sharp hand-held shots, you need a shutter speed that is at least as fast as the reciprocal of the focal length (when converted to 35mm equiv.) This means that if you are shooting at 100mm (which is 200mm when converted to a 35mm equiv) then you need a shutter speed of 1/200th of a second in order to keep it sharp. When you are shooting at 50mm (100mm equiv) then you can get away with a 1/100th sec shutter speed, and so on.

In reality, everyone is different, and there are many factors that can influence how steady you hold a camera... so you'll need to adjust this rule to suit yourself and the conditions. But it gives you a good starting point and describes the relationship between shutter speed and camera-shake nice and simply (ie if you double the focal-length, you'll double the camera-shake and require a shutter speed twice as fast to compensate).

Oh, and using a flash is also great for keeping shots sharp, Not only does the extra light mean you won't need as fast a shutter speed, but also because the flash is so brief, even when using it with a slowish shutter speed it can have a good sharpening effect. Its just a shame the internal flash gives such a harsh look on most shots

Here is another thread with lots of good advice for getting sharp photos:

http://www.shuttertalk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=4145

Regarding the filters, you should have no problem using a UV filter at night except perhaps sometimes it might show a bit more flare from bright lights, but it shouldn't require longer exposures or reduce the amount of light entering the camera like a polariser will. Many people keep UV filters fitted to the front of their lenses permanently for protection which is quite sensible (but personally I prefer lens hoods for protection instead).
I have used stacked filters numerous times, but be aware that this can cause vignetting, especially with wide-angle lenses or when using more than 2 filters. Also every extra layer of glass you place in front of the lens will decrease optical quality slightly, introduce another two dust-gathering surfaces, decrease contrast slightly, and increase the potential for flare. But while this sounds bad, these effects are very minor and there are plenty of more important things that make or break a shot...
Purists may prefer not to use filters unless necessary, but for the vast majority there will be no noticable difference.

Cheers
Adrian

[Schellamo]

I don't have any extra advice, but I just wanted to say that is an awesome storm shot!!
How did you know where to focus?
I love the colour of the sky too!

Oh yeah, and thanks for the t.shirt Kombi

[Atlas]

Hi Adrian,

Thanks heaps for the info. I will give it a try.

It would seem that 'auto' mode will only be good for basic shots anything else will require adjustment of some sort, and that I suggest will take LOTS of photos and time to figure out what settings should be used when and for what type of shoot.

I can see there will be advantagein a little notebook that I can carry with me and jot down the tips I pick up along the way

Here are another couple from last night's storm:





Regards,

Atlas

[Atlas]

Hi Schellamo,

I had lots of good lightning shots, trouble is most were out of focus... The only way I found to get close with those above was to use manual focus on something I could see off in the distance, like a house light or something, focus, then point my camera where I was hoping the lightning would be, and using a shuter lag speed between 5-10secs... All other settings were left on auto.

The colours are natural as caught by the camera.

Cheers,

Atlas

[patch17]

g'day Atlas and welcome to the forum.

great lightning shots. just set your lens focus to infinity, you don't really need a point to focus on because they're so far away.

[Atlas]

Hi Patch,

How do I do that ??

All, I have now mastered the galleries, so please have a look at some shots from yesterday :-)

http://www.shuttertalk.com/gallery/index.php?cat=10441

Regards

Atlas

[matthew]

Hi

Adrian is right on with his suggestion about keeping your minimum shutter speed up. Since you're using 4/3 format, you double your focal length to get a 35mm equivalent. But, because the E-300 and 40-150 are quite a bit lighter than the 35mm film SLRs that the rule was developed for, I would suggest that you triple it. So, if you're shooting at 100mm 4/3, keep your shutter speed around 1/320s or higher; if you're at full telephoto (150mm) keep it at 1/500 or so. if you can't get the shutter speed that high with an acceptable ISO (400, maybe 800) and aperture (f5.6 is great) then go down to double the focal length and try to stabilize the camera if you can.

Using the flash might have helped for another reason: if you're in Auto ISO, deploying the flash increases the sensor's sensitivity, which should increase the shutter speed. I may be wrong... I've never actually played with my mother's E-300, and only recently got a flash for my E-1.

The LCD is good for checking composition, but doesn't give critical information like exposure and sharpness. The histogram will tell you about the exposure, but focus is up to you. Low-light autofocus is iffy; if you're using manual focus make sure that the diopter correction is set where it's supposed to be. (Left side of the viewfinder.) But, the previous suggestions are correct: anything beyond about 50 feet might as well be infinity.