Wolfgang Lonien

Ich, um 1963:

NASA has published the following image yesterday, and put it into the public domain (using a CC license):

This was taken with the VIIRS instrument on the Suomi NPP satellite. Get the full size of 8000×8000 pixels from Flickr for your pixel-peeping pleasures, or as a really impressive desktop wallpaper. Enjoy.

See also on the Flickr blog, or at NPR. The image was provided by NASA Goddard Photo and Video – thanks.

From an Olympus Japan Press Release of today, which Chris Cheesman of the British Amateur Photographer magazine pinpoints to Haruo Ogawa, Director of the Olympus marketing division:

“As the originator of the Four Thirds System and Micro Four Thirds System standards, Olympus Imaging Corp. will continue to develop and enhance the product lineup for both standards to meet the diverse needs of our customers.”

Ogawa-san has said similar things late last year already, as was translated in part1 and 2 from a Japanese pdf document, where he also said:

“In this line of work, if you rob the customers of their dreams, you are finished.”

A lot of people were afraid that Olympus would abandon their E-series of cameras, and that the E-5 might be the last model of that line, and this was Mr. Ogawa’s answer to it. He also said (this was in mid December, 2011) that they are already working on the E-5 successor.

I would still like to see a successor to an E-520 or an E-30 as well, but at the moment, let’s first wait until Feb 8th, and see their new OM-D (Micro Four Thirds) camera. The rumors sound good so far…

After seeing how well Michael Adi is using his OM Zuiko 1:1.8 50mm lens on his Olympus Pen camera, and how beautiful and sharp his photos are, I had to try mine again as well. And since I only have an OM-43rds adapter, I had to mount it onto my E-520 DSLR instead of the smaller ‘Pen’ (E-PL1):

I tried the lens fully open today, since Michael said that his copy is pretty sharp even wide open. And yes, if you focus carefully, you can get nice results, like these for instance:

No wonder that Michael likes this lens so much – it renders things really different than the 50 macro would do. Glad that I have this, and if you don’t have an older manual lens from film days, get one and try it – that can be fun!

Thanks for viewing and reading.

Tulpen, gestern im örtlichen Supermarkt gekauft:

Tulpen, Januar 2012 - E-PL1 mit Kit Zoom, 1,3s bei Blende 5,6, +1,3EV, Stativ, mit RawTherapee etwas entsättigt

Danke für’s Anschauen.

In my day-to-day usual workflow, I’m pretty much back to using RawTherapee, which gives me much more control than Corels’ AfterShot Pro. I still use that from time to time tho, and had some nice results from a model shoot from last June (I think that at least the model would prefer those newer conversions to others which she had already, and/or made on her own).

Today I played around with some raw files from other cameras, like this:

Needle Tower, Seattle - ©2010 Lars Rehm, DPReview

This is a night shot for the DPReview test of the Nikon D7000 camera, and this image was taken at a whopping ISO of 25,600. With a time of 1/80th of a second, that means that such images are – theroretically – hand-holdable. I “developed” the raw .NEF file you can download from their site using RawTherapee, and tho of course the full size image has some bad noise, resized (with The Gimp) for the web like here, it still makes a pretty decent image. Not that I would shoot like this – for a photo like that I would always prefer to use a tripod and base ISO to get the best and sharpest result possible. But camera testers have to do things like these, because people (like me) want to see those results…

The second image is from the same site, test of the Nikon D5100:

Glass of ale, ©2011 Barney Britton and DPReview

This ISO 12,800 shot taken with the Nikon D5100 was underexposed over 1.3 stops, so at this ISO setting, “pushing” the image back to a normal output increases the noise that much that even here – at this relatively small size – you can see it. It is nonetheless more than remarkable what you can do with a modern camera (both those Nikon cameras share the same superb Sony APS-C size 16MP sensor), and yes, taking shots in pubs in the evening is where you actually need good results at high sensitivities. Better get a noisy shot at ISO 3200, which you can still convert to black & white, than a blurry and noisy one at ISO 800 with a camera like mine, or no photo at all. Makes sense.

Here’s one which I took myself this morning:

I had my E-520 on auto ISO, capped at 400, so this is ISO 400. But this shot was also underexposed more than 1 stop – I forgot that my object was almost white, and that I should compensate for this. As you can see, I can use my older Olympus camera with its 10MP Panasonic sensor up to ISO 400, and still push it one stop. Full size image for pixel-peeping on Flickr, as usual.

But those who know me know also that mostly I’m using my camera at base ISO (which is ISO 100 in most cameras), no matter if I take portraits using flash or even night shots like the one above. Here’s an example, also from this afternoon, when Zuleikha was playing “Ubongo” with Mitchie:

I used my studio flash at approximately 30% of its power, and pointed it to a white wall at camera right. The camera was at f/5.6, 1/160th of a second, and ISO 100. For this, any digital camera of recent age is more than good enough. But if you want more (like more dynamic range for instance), then the cameras mentioned above are good ones (and compared to a D700 or even a D3S, they’re even halfway affordable)

Let’s see what Olympus will bring next – they made appointments for a press conference on Feb 8th. An early ad on the back cover of the British Amateur Photographer read: “Oh My Goodness!”, and since then they even filed the rights for a product called “OM-D” – even here in Germany. Interested in that? Then go on and read 4/3 Rumors…

Thanks for reading and viewing (and even commenting?)

I’m on day 10 of 30 of my free trial period of Corel AfterShot Pro, which was formerly called Bibble Pro. Here are some almost out-of-the-box conversions (I adjusted exposure and white balance and turned on lens correction, but changed nothing on the colours or curves afterwards, except the usual slight sharpening using RawTherapee):

The first version of both images was converted using AfterShot Pro, the second using Olympus Viewer 2. As you can see, AfterShot Pro differs in mainly 3 points:

• it’s much more contrasty in its standard settings, up to a point that it actually loses details
• it has much too strong reds, which are strong with Olympus anyway, and
• it does lens corrections, but as a more universal program, it doesn’t do these as good as the camera makers’ software (or the in-camera process if all you shoot is jpg images)

The first two points could be addressed I guess – but I would have to make some camera / lighting profiles myself to really optimize the output. Too much work & cost for a program which costs money in itself IMHO; I could do the same with RawTherapee, which would save me the process of booting up a virtual copy of Windows 7 just to use the Olympus Viewer 2 software.

The third point isn’t as simple, especially with zoom lenses. Either you have a (or some) very good lens(es) which you don’t have to correct (but who of us mere mortals has Leica or Zeiss or Olympus SHG glass anyway?), or you need the best correction you can get – and that is normally the one from the lens makers themselves. It’s really important if you take photos of architectures or interiors, for portraits, not so much.

So after 10 of 30 days trial period, things don’t look as good for Corel/Bibble as they did in the beginning. Why should I pay around 100 dollars/euros for a program if the ones I have already give me better results with much less work? Do I need the extra features, like layers, or that I could use this for lots of different cameras from different makers? Not at the moment. That would be different if I had other cameras maybe, but as long as it’s Olympus only, I’m glad with what I have. It does do awesome conversions for the Panasonic G3 for instance, but then again – who knows what RawTherapee 4 will bring? At least from that one, you can get as many nightly builds as you want, and you can even help to improve it.

Which is maybe what I should do as well – the Gretag MacBeth Color Checker doesn’t cost more than a program like Corel/Bibble (and as such, it’s only a third of what others cost). With a reference like that, I could make as many camera / lighting profiles as I want – for every program which can load these.

I’ll let you know how I decided after my trial period is over…

Heute hat uns Arzu besucht, eine Kollegin und Auszubildende beim Sicherheitsdienst der für meinen Arbeitgeber tätig ist. Arzu hatte ich schon einmal in der Firma fotografiert, und sie fragte kürzlich nach weiteren Bildern – zum Beispiel wollte sie unbedingt eins zusammen mit Zuleikha:

Aber auch von ihr alleine haben wir natürlich welche gemacht. Dieses hier wollte sie in schwarzweiß:

Und das folgende Bild fand ich auch noch ganz nett:

Die beiden Portraits von ihr sind ganz leicht mit The Gimp nachbearbeitet, und alle Bilder wurden mit dem Olympus Viewer 2 und mit RawTherapee vom Rohformat in die endgültige Form konvertiert (und das schwarzweiße auch noch ins 4:5 Format beschnitten).

Danke für’s Anschauen.

Well-known historian and Leica expert Erwin Puts recently wrote about three Leica lenses to have (because people asked). I read this most interesting entry of his, and then went and roughly calculated the cost – together with an M9 body, these three would cost almost 15,000€. Well…

If you consider the new Fuji camera, you could save a lot. But what about a Micro Four Thirds setup? Even if you’d consider the best of the best, like the 12mm Olympus, the 25mm Panasonic/Leica, and the 45mm Olympus lenses together with an E-P3 body, you could get it all together for around 1/6th of the price of that Leica setup.

And if you’d consider an E-PL1 with just the 20mm Panasonic lens for a start (same image sensor of the E-P3), that would get you in the region of some 600€ or so.

Ok – you won’t get that famous Leica quality, and also not the sturdy and mechanical stability, and the famous brand name. But you’d get about 50% of the quality (if not better than that) for maybe 1/10th of the price. An E-PL1 (250€ including kit zoom) or an E-P3 (around 800€, faster autofocus) with just that Panasonic/Leica 1.4/25mm lens (under 600€) would be a starter’s dream combo for on the streets IMHO… I’m just using that E-PL1 with its kit zoom at the moment. Do I get Leica quality? No, of course not. But then again, I don’t have to spend some 15k to have fun and still very good results…

Viermal das gleiche Bild, jeweils mit Standardeinstellungen und verschiedenen Rohkonverten zu JPGs verarbeitet und dabei in jedem der Programme einen Weißabgleich auf den Hintergrund (weiße Wand) gemacht. Anschließend verkleinert und zusammenmontiert.

Wir hatten die vier in voller Bildschirmgröße ohne Anzeige der Dateinamen durchlaufen lassen, und sowohl Mitchie als auch ich hatten sowohl den gleichen Favoriten als auch dasselbe Bild, welches wir überhaupt nicht mochten. Sogar ihre Kommentare waren quasi identisch zu meinen Gedanken.

Was meint Ihr? Das beste und das schlechteste Bild? Kommentare? Danke im voraus für Eure Anmerkungen.

P.S.: gerade auf Flickr das ursprüngliche Bild in voller Größe durch unsere Lieblingsversion ersetzt: