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[OM] One down

Subject: [OM] One down
From: Ken Norton <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2015 10:52:37 -0500
I'm photographing a couple of weddings here in short succession. The
first one was 100% outdoors, so that was pretty easy to do, the second
one may or may not be outdoors depending on weather. I may have a
couple more weddings pop up yet this year.

For this first one, I was working by myself and ended up using just
one camera-lens combo. The Olympus E-3 with 14-42 lens. But I was
using the Vivitar 285HV for fill flash lighting across the boards.
During the ceremony, I was using the flash bare, but for the formals,
I through the reflector on it. Just hot-shoed the thing. Simple, and
to the point.

It was a low-key affair, and I didn't shoot any reception or dinner,
just the outdoor ceremony. Total of 375 pictures taken, 190 unique
keepers. THAT is a good ratio when you consider that you overshoot the
formals and everything of importance.

Several notes:

1. The E-3 is much quicker in shot-to-shot operation than the E-1, but
the E-1 is much quicker in making setting changes.

2. The E-3 is NOT forgiving for exposure like the E-1. I am learning
that I have to really nail the exposure with this camera if I'm going
to keep from hitting the highlight saturation point. I leaned on the
fill-flash a whole lot more than I normally do because I had to reduce
contrast so much between ambient and subject. The wedding was in a
gazebo next to a lake during the late afternoon. I made the mistake of
overexposing my background a little bit and unlike the E-1, there is
no faking a recovery. No regrets, though, because to reduce the
background would have meant having a higher amount of fill-flash in
the picture which would have introduced other issues like edgy
shadows. I like my backgrounds to be a stop higher or lower than the
subject anyway, so no biggy.

3. As usual, Lightroom is the cat's meow for mass editing. But it
definitely doesn't do as well with color profile on E-3 files as
either C1 or Olympus converters. I'm going to alter the raw settings a
little bit to warm the shadows up without cranking the saturation out
of whack.

4. B&W conversions with E-3 files are rather nice. I can get a nice
film look without difficulty. Somehow the E-3 does really well. Even
the in-camera B&W files don't look half-bad.

5. The 14-42 is not the best lens around, but it does do remarkably
well. I'll probably snag a 14-54 Mk2 at some point, though. That is
the best lens for this application I know of.

6. Fortunately, I was able to shoot everything at ISO 100 to 160.
While "noisy" at higher ISOs, the E-1 produces a far better ISO 400
file than the E-3. At ISO 100, the E-3 is cleaner. Once you manipulate
the images to "Ken Rockwell' saturations, the E-1 is actually a little
bit better at higher ISO than the E-3, but keeping the files closer to
standard, the E-3 is cleaner. You just can't mangle an E-3 file like
an E-1 file. The L1 files are cleaner to work with, but the shadow
color shifts can be nasty.

7. The Vivitar 285HV remains one of the best-kept secrets of
fill-flash shooting there is. Just put the flash in the yellow or red
arc, set the camera to auto with some slight exposure compensation and
set the ISO so the shutter speed doesn't exceed maximum flash sync
speed. Have a nice day. If you want some "natural" vignetting, zoom
the head in a bit.

8. I had the E-1 configured identically to the E-3 and sitting in my
bag along with other lenses and the L1 as a spare. Never grabbed it
because I didn't need to. Next wedding will be a dual-shooter
situation, though, so I'll probably have the E-1 and L1 while my
daughter uses the E-3.

For the photo business, this has been a good year. A couple of
weddings, a couple of portrait sessions, a bunch of print sales and
halfway decent click income from the website. I may actually BREAK
EVEN this year. Not enough money for a new camera as the income
supports household needs, but the giftings of the E-bodies this year
have been very welcome and much used. Best of all, the darkroom is
back in operation again!

Are these lower-pixel count cameras and lower-ISO settings still
competitive in today's world? Actually, yes. Thanks to the miracle of
Lightroom, there is a great equalization between cameras. I can clean
up an image easily enough and frankly there is more than enough pixels
as there are only a couple of pictures that get made into larger
prints and everything else is either kept small in an album or posted
online. While newer cameras make life EASIER in many regards, they
aren't always the only solution. Especially when you figure in how
much manipulation I do to images, having image files that are highly
bendable is more important.

AG
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