urban ku # 71 ~ wherein I break radio silence

The Cottage • click to embiggenAs you know, The Landscapist is not about gear and technique. I rarely discuss it. This is one of those 'rarely's. The reason that I am breaking radio silence on the topic is simple - I want to give credit where credit due. In this case, to Olympus.

In my analog heyday, I was a Nikon guy (35mm-wise). Today, every once in a while, I glance over at the Nikon bodies and lenses (3 bodies, 6 lenses) and remember the good old days. There they sit, neglected and unused for going on 3 years now. Whenever I get the urge to shoot film, it's large format - 8×10, for me. 35mm color picturing just seems like to much hassle and too many limitations.

Once I made the leap to digital, I just became addicted to the speed, ease, and tremendous control of digital files in the digital darkroom. For the first couple years I pictured with a high-end 'prosumer' digicam - 7mp with non-interchangeable 4-1 zoom lens camera which could capture RAW files. A great camera which produced wonderful prints - keeping in mind that I am not a digital 'perfectionist'. Those early ku prints still stand up very very well when displayed side-by-side with those of made from my first dslr - an 8mp Olympus E-500.

I chose the Olympus because of the size of the camera and lenses (their 'pro' lens are optically superb) that result from the 4/3rds format,and the fact that the 4/3rds format is an "open' format, meaning that all lenses made for the 4/3rds format by any camera maker are interchangeable on any maker's cameras. Now that Leica has committed to 4/3rds, that is an exciting capability.

Yesterday, my new 10mp Olympus E-510 arrived and, halleluiah, it's a gem. The biggest benefit of the new camera is the fact that Olympus has put IS (image stabilization) in the body - now all my lens are IS. Halleluiah.

Last evening, after a very hot and humid round of golf, I retired to The Cottage in Lake Placid for some refreshing beer and gazpacho (the wife and kids are out of town). Out came the camera for its first exposures. All I can say is that I am very pleased with the results - very low noise at ISO 400 and very sharp detailed results aided by the IS (I balanced the camera on a railing at 1/2 second ss). FYI, the color balance is a bit on the warm side because I picture with only partially corrected WB under tungsten light - I like the warmth.

So there you have it - that's about a technical as I get. I posted this topic because I think Olympus deserves credit for bucking the 'system' with its commitment (along with Leica, Panasonic and Sigma [lenses]) to the 4/3rds format.

For anyone who is considering a 10mp camera, the Olympus E510 and E410 (no IS) are very worthy competitors in the marketplace - especially when you consider the superb compact 'pro' optics.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.