Japanese costumes, beautiful little village.

Thanks Charlie. Yes, the geometry is interesting, but I love the colors too much to make it a B & W. If it had a few more faces it could be better as a B & W, perhaps.
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rayk

I just had a look through your galleries. Very nice stuff, as always. I can't really tell which images are Canon or not, without looking at the exif. So I guess to a large extent the way we finally render color is in part the camera, but a large part must be the choices made in PP. I know I don't fiddle with the E-1 shots much, but work the daylights out of the Ricoh shots to try and get the same look.

I have never thought of owning a Canon. I think my other choice would be Nikon, but I guess that is just because I have had them in the past. Still, the E-1 was my first Olympus.
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rayk

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E-500 2 lenses kit,Vivitar 285
Topcon Re Super,25mm,35mm,58mm,87-205 Zoom
BuiesGMtl
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mtl_e_man/

Thanks for visiting, and for your nice comment.
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rayk

thanks very much for sharing those fine images, like being there. Well done.
BTW, I have been using PhotoKit per your suggestion and it is very effective.
Thanks!

Bob
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Doing my part to support PIC (Photographic Industrial Complex) and always blaming bad images on the camera



E-1, E-330, C-5050, C-2500L, 7-14mm, 14-54mm, 18-180mm, 35mm, 50-200mm, etc

Thanks Bob. It was a nice day to stumble upon a festival.

Photokit has become one of those pieces of software I can't live without now. It really is a 'do all things' series of plug-ins that make working on jpegs as easy as shooting and processing RAW, I believe. And it seems to be very stable, touch wood!
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rayk

...for a couple of days, it is because I am now going out the door for a couple of days rest in an onsen in Nagasaki, on a little island with some very strange Christian practices. More about that when I get back.

Thanks everybody, for your posts.
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rayk

Those are excellent color captured with your E-1! You must have also enjoy the vacation too.

Yes, we had a good time at the festival, and sightseeing in the village generally, thanks. Sorry for the late reply, but just got back from a weekend away, sightseeing a small part of Nagasaki prefecture. More about that later.
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rayk

Your postings of images from Japan are always breathtaking. The colors, the richness of the photos, the depiction of various of Japanese scenery and various aspects of their customs, are always a treat for me personally. But you also consistently demonstrate the fact that 4/3 cameras can take some of the most gorgeous photos. Like I mentioned to Jono in another thread, if folks first tuned into posts like these, they would most likely want to know right away what camera took these gorgeous photos. All too often (all of us really), we tend to get involved in the next latest toy (guilty as charged), but it only takes postings such as yours and some other long-time posters to this forum, to show that the E-1/E300/E500/E330 can keep up with the best of 'em. I have yet, with all of the cameras I've tried, seen images that have that richness in color (in particular blues, yellows, reds) that the Oly E-1 is capable of.

Keep these coming...
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Have a great day!

Thanks Ben. Yes, the E-1 suits my purposes, and it still produces the same quality it always had. Without much effort on my part, too, i have to say. The only hankering I have for a new camera is to have a smaller, lighter model for the sake of carrying it. I have a Ricoh GRD for that, but it doesn't really cut the mustard with me, as far as color, range and sharpness go. It is ok, but not up to the E-1 quality. Probably not much is, really. I will try the E-400, but Phil's photos of Japan don't actually inspire me with confidence, and I don't need all those megapixels!
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rayk

I almost missed this thread...

Lovely pictures from down south... I heard late last night that there was a Hot Air Balloon Festival in Saga pref. over the weekend - did you manage to catch any of it ??? It made the national news so I thought it must have been a big meet with supposedly excellent clear skies ???

Do you have any other news yet on that other matter we spoke of the other day - will you be making it public any time soon ??

Thanks again for the pictures - very nicely rendered and such a good job with the PP - I gather that Studio is working out for you then ???

Hiroko and I were out and about yesterday getting last shots of the Fall colors - nice weather but absolutely pisssing rain this morning with a touch of wind - so the leaves are probably done for...

I post some pics later in a new thread...

Cheers...

Higuma said:

I almost missed this thread...

Lovely pictures from down south... I heard late last night that
there was a Hot Air Balloon Festival in Saga pref. over the weekend

• did you manage to catch any of it ??? It made the national news

so I thought it must have been a big meet with supposedly excellent
clear skies ???

Click to expand...

The Saga International Balloon Festival is an annual event, and one of Saga's biggest festivals. But I am ashamed to sat that after living here for five years I still haven't been! I had great intentions this year, but although it was fairly cloud free, there was a fair bit of haze around to knock out the colors. I saw many of the balloons, as the venue is reasonably close to home. Next year.....

Higuma said:

Do you have any other news yet on that other matter we spoke of the
other day - will you be making it public any time soon ??

Click to expand...

I haven't got any dates yet, so I will keep mum, at least until I know it is actually happening.

Higuma said:

Thanks again for the pictures - very nicely rendered and such a
good job with the PP - I gather that Studio is working out for you
then ???

Click to expand...

Thanks Fred. Studio is great. Faster than Viewer, good batch processing, and still keeps the colors that the camera shoots. I haven't seen anything better for conversions in any other program, at least for color, which I think is the E-1's main attribute. So I shoot much more RAW now, thanks to Studio, thank you very much.

Higuma said:

Hiroko and I were out and about yesterday getting last shots of the
Fall colors - nice weather but absolutely pisssing rain this
morning with a touch of wind - so the leaves are probably done
for...

Click to expand...

I think we will have a very lousy fall, color-wise. The typhoon knocked the trees around, the temperatures down here are still very high - 25 degrees C yesterday, would you believe? But we got the biggest thunderstorm I can remember experiencing late last night, a really huge amount of rain in a very short time. Amazing!

Higuma said:

I post some pics later in a new thread...

Click to expand...

Takako and I went to Hirado, a small island off the top corner of Nagasaki, with some unusual history. We had a great time - onsens, lots of pictures, so I will post some of them later, too. Thanks for visiting, and for the nice comments.

rayk

As always the photos are superb... Love to see your photos.

Thanks for visiting. I will put some more up later today, if you have time to have a look.
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rayk

Your're E1 photos have the effect of leaping off the page...sort of a 3d quality almost. Can I ask what do you use? Thanks

As always, excellent images - your shots are always so full of color. Thanks for posting these and more would be great!
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Best Regards, Jim
http://www.pbase.com/jrm60

Thanks Jim. Japan is so full of color, especially at events like this. And an old photography teacher (a very wise man, and a great photographer) convinced me that color photographs should be just as informative as black and white, but as an added difficulty should also be about color. I try and do that, but it doesn't always work out for me.

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rayk

I'm not quite sure what you mean by what do I use. But here are some notes about shooting and post processing that I use.

My camera is set to sharpness +3, saturation CS2. Sometimes I shoot SHQ jpeg, sometimes I shoot RAW, depending on how keen I am feeling about getting the exposure correct. I usually try and shoot at f5.6 or thereabouts, as it usually gives enough depth of field (I like a lot of DOF). I shoot in A mode, and let the shutter speed look after itself, mainly. I tend to underexpose my shots a little, as I like the color to be rich. I use the exposure compensation all the time, changing it for each photograph to give me the exposure I want. I have the thumb wheel directly programmed for that.

I use Olympus Studio to convert the RAW to jpeg, and only ever really adjust the exposure, and then only occasionally. I get a jpeg file at +3 sharpness, and in sRGB color profile. I then post process in Photoshop CS, using a series of plug-ins from PixelGenius, called Photokit, to two part sharpen, make contrast masks, adjust the exposure if needed, and I often decrease the brightness and increase the contrast in PSCS. And finally I put the thin black frame around them. Each picture only takes a couple of minutes to PP.

Nothing special about my work method, or my photographs, really.

I believe the key to getting fair results with digital files is in the initial exposure, which I am very careful to get how I want it, and in the sharping. Too much is as bad as not enough.

I hope this is what you wanted, sprocket1, and that it helps.
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rayk