The school year is winding down. Last track meet... Final Concert...
As usual, I'm "Dad with a camera" at these events.As our kids are not in
private school anymore, the competition among us dads for the biggest lens
is a little diminished. I see the occasional big momma lens, but I know
everybody who has them. Usually, it's moms with advanced P&S
cameras--usually the Canon G series. Otherwise, if it's a DSLR, it's going
to be a Canon or Nikon low-end plastic wonder.
However, the biggest shift that I've seen has been to cell-phone cameras.
People are more than willing to put up with the foibles of these "cameras"
to be able to instantly email or facebook the results. If truth be told,
we've taken as many pictures with our cellphones as real cameras for this
very reason. All it would take is for Olympus to put a G3 chipset in the m43
cameras and it would be curtains for the competition.
Anyhoo, I'm rambling again...
Last night was the final band concert for the season. It was a combined
concert with all of the bands set up in the gymnasium. All of the other
concerts are held in the theatre, but the final concert is always the
combined one in the gymnasium. Uh oh, acoustical nightmare, right? Actually,
no. Both were built several years ago and the room is very nicely
controlled. The walls are facetted, and have built-in Hemholtz Resonators as
well as angled absorbtion cavities. It could always be "better", but it is
remarkably good. Oops, rambling again...
OK, OK, so we're sitting on the bleachers (ugh) way up high so we can see
our girls (all the way across the room on the opposite side--five bands all
setup on the main floor simultaneously). Over the past three years I've
taken a different camera/lens combination each time. There is no solution to
this one, just the photographic equivalent to "triage".
The biggest problem I've had, though, is white-balance. The room lighting is
a bear to get a decent WB setting. The Minolta A1 and the Panasonic L1
refuse to get it right. Film? Even that is tough to get balanced correctly
without getting the skin to turn into "Barby Doll" tones. The bleachers are
gray plastic, so last night I thought I'd give it a shot to see if the E-1
would get a decent WB off of the bleachers. One press of the button and the
camera nailed it.First of all, anybody with an E-1 will admit that it NEVER
works right. Not only did it work right with just one press (hallalujah),
but it positively got it perfect. And I mean perfect! That is the first time
in my life with digital cameras that one press of the button got it right.
Trust me, I didn't risk pressing it a second time.
Rambling? Well not really.
The E-1 was equipped with the battery-grip and the Zuiko 35-80. Exposure was
about 1/100,F5.6 at ISO 800. Not bright, but not the dimmest either.
The little things which I'm referring to? The E-1, although wildly outdated
in significant technical areas (resolution, pixels, high-ISO, general
performance, LCD, kitchen sink), is of an exceptionally rare design. It's
designed like the top pro bodies from Nikon and Canon which have ergonomics
intended for use. It's not a computer-game, it's a camera!
Things like:
1. Soft shutter-release.
2. Quietness
3. Mass (the battery grip plus 35-80 makes this a meaty combination
4. Viewfinder
5. Designed to be equally usable held in vertical or horizontal orientation
6. Settings remembered even when the camera goes to sleep or is turned off
7. General responsiveness
8. You can hold it for a long time without it becoming uncomfortable.
My point in all this (there must be a point, I've been told), is that even
though the E-1 is specification-wise a dog, this dog still hunts. It isn't
always about specifications. There are intangibles which can't be measured.
Unfortunately, intangibles don't sell, specifications do.
Jim has been putting us all to shame this year by shooting so much beautiful
stuff with his E-1. I've been feeling a little guilty. In-camera JPEGs from
this camera really are great and the camera is no slouch. In one aspect, it
is a real shame that specifications have continued to improve, because this
camera has been left behind in the dustbin of history when it really should
be heralded as a camera of great worth.
A Ramblin Schnozz
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