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E-520 settings

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redstarblackrose

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Not tryingt o be TOO lazy here, but there'S a mountain of thoughts (solutions) for this.

I FINALLY got an E-camera after a couple of years of living at The DPReview site. My E-520 with the two kit lenses came a few weeks ago. I have been super busy but have had a chance to use it (at work in studio) and at home (unforunately only at night... not outdoors yet so I'm seeing the E-520 at its worst).

I've pretty much mastered the metering/wb/operating features. My old manual SLR days and a few years with a really nice-at-the-time Fuji S-602 gave me a real jump into mastering these things.

Now I'm ready to jump into the color/sharpness/fine tuning settings. Any thoughts of what works for you or where to look? I know that Wazniak (sp??) has been a standard. I'm betting that I'll probably be shooting JPEG's to start. My PP software will be Mac Photoshop until I can get a faster computer to handle Aperture or LightRoom.

I will experiment, but I'd love to have a few suggestions so that maybe I don't need to invent the wheel when so many of you are driving real fast already.

Thanks in advance,

RedStarBlackRose

PS: I LOVE the feel of the camera.
 
I've switched to shooting primarily JPEGs since I got the E-520, it was just RAW when I had the E-510, for pleasing out of the camera JPEGs I would recommend the 'Natural' picture mode with +1 sharpness, -1 contrast. Set gradation to normal, I wouldn't recommend using 'Auto' gradation, find it completely useless and it literally obliterates IQ in some cases.

For portraits, the 'Portrait' picture mode is excellent, skin tones looks very nice and pleasing and the images are understandably a little softer. Also, it seems the gamma of the images are slightly higher in order to avoid excessive contrast...all in all makes for very nice portraits indeed (with the right WB).

For B&W, the monotone is quite excellent, I use it with +1 sharpness, +2 contrast, ISO 800/1600 (for night) and ISO 400 for day. WB is key, as the WB mode you use will affect the image correspondingly. Surprisingly, 'Auto' WB has worked well for me so far for B&W.

For NF, I use 'Low', as it seems to have a good balance of noise and detail and lastly, I usually end up using 'Medium SuperFine' (5 MP mode) most of the time as my images are mostly for the web.

Hope this is enough to start you off...good luck!
--
Raj Sarma
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rssarma
 
Thanks Raj:

This is the type of info that I'm looking for.

I hope to take a few suggestions, play off my own experiments, and see what's best.

I will probably be printing a lot of finals, perhaps even off offset presses (magazine/literature,etc). But I'm trying to go one step ata time and get the camera to produce the best images (I'm not even beginning to worry about press gain etc att his early stage)
 
I never try the other picture modes other than Natural, except that I set contrast to -1 (same as you) and sharpness to -2, so that I can apply a more finely-tuned amount of sharpening in Aperture.

I'll disagree with your choice of Meduim-SF quality, though. Why not just shoot at Large-SF? You're only saving 1-2MB, and you're down to about 7.5mp.

Just my opinions.
 
I have used an E510 for about a year now and a few days ago I came upon an E520 deal at my favorite camera store that I couldn't refuse.....After all the debate over sharpness & JPEGS, I just had to put this to rest in my own mind, even if I just end up ebaying it. So far I’m finding its really an entirely different camera from the E510, but you just about get the best of both IMHO without resorting to RAW. My suggested settings for the E520 are as follows:

1) For Sharp JPEGS:

shoot +2 sharpness then add USM 150%, 1 pi wide & 3pi threshold approx = E510 optimum sharpness settings (i.e. NR low & sharp -2).

2) For Nice Highlight DR and Rolloff:

Shoot contrast -1 or 2. I’m still waiting for a sunny day when I’m not working to see if there is an improvement in the JPEG DR but my preliminary observation on DR is that it is slightly better than E510 both in JPEG & RAW (contrary to dpreview test), but again I have not been able to do a good like for like comparison yet.

3) Auto WB tends to cast red for both inside flash & outside shots, so if you don’t want to use custom WB I have found that an Auto WB correction of – 1 or 2 on the red channel and + 1 on the green channel works well both inside and out….and any leftover hue can be fixed in JPEG editor.

In summary for E520 these are my favourite settings for JPEGS that will produce photos requiring little to no post processing:
Mode: Natural
Contrast: - 2
Sharpness: +2
Saturation: 0
AutoWB: -1 on red channel & + 1 on green channel
Metering: ESP (not tied to AF) or spot in extreme situation

Gradation: Normal (haven’t tried auto under bright sun, but again simple gamma adjustment in pp will fix this also)

Hope this helps

--
John K
(Oly E510, E520 & rest of gear in profile if interested)
 
Wolfe_boy said:
I never try the other picture modes other than Natural, except that I
set contrast to -1 (same as you) and sharpness to -2, so that I can
apply a more finely-tuned amount of sharpening in Aperture.

I'll disagree with your choice of Meduim-SF quality, though. Why not
just shoot at Large-SF? You're only saving 1-2MB, and you're down to
about 7.5mp.
Click to expand...
Actually I believe the resolution matches 5MP (2560x1920), I agree the file size advantage isn't plenty, but the resolution makes it easy for me to upload or send things across without re-sizing.

--
Raj Sarma
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rssarma
 
Hi all,
Thanks for the tips, learn something new everytime I visit this forum.

I've had my E520 for couple of months, very pleased with it. However, I could not find any shortcut to turn AE bracketing on and off. Have to go thro' the convoluted menu system to do it. Cannot set it to be used with Fn key either.

Anyone know of any short cut to this function?

Thanks in advance
 
That;s grea advise. Thnk you for sharing.
 
Hi John

I agree with you the E520 is a totally different camera to the E510. In fact I think its better working on the default setting if you not sure.

I use VIVD mode with a +1 sharpness setting and I then shoot RAW plus JPEG.

To prevent or greatly reduce shadow noise I then use a technique of exposing to the right (see article on the Adobe web site) and then in Elements I process the RAW file to what I want.

Best

Siegfried
LJohnK said:
I have used an E510 for about a year now and a few days ago I came
upon an E520 deal at my favorite camera store that I couldn't
refuse.....After all the debate over sharpness & JPEGS, I just had to
put this to rest in my own mind, even if I just end up ebaying it. So
far I’m finding its really an entirely different camera from the
E510, but you just about get the best of both IMHO without resorting
to RAW. My suggested settings for the E520 are as follows:

1) For Sharp JPEGS:
shoot +2 sharpness then add USM 150%, 1 pi wide & 3pi threshold
approx = E510 optimum sharpness settings (i.e. NR low & sharp -2).

2) For Nice Highlight DR and Rolloff:
Shoot contrast -1 or 2. I’m still waiting for a sunny day when I’m
not working to see if there is an improvement in the JPEG DR but my
preliminary observation on DR is that it is slightly better than E510
both in JPEG & RAW (contrary to dpreview test), but again I have not
been able to do a good like for like comparison yet.

3) Auto WB tends to cast red for both inside flash & outside shots,
so if you don’t want to use custom WB I have found that an Auto WB
correction of – 1 or 2 on the red channel and + 1 on the green
channel works well both inside and out….and any leftover hue can be
fixed in JPEG editor.

In summary for E520 these are my favourite settings for JPEGS that
will produce photos requiring little to no post processing:
Mode: Natural
Contrast: - 2
Sharpness: +2
Saturation: 0
AutoWB: -1 on red channel & + 1 on green channel
Metering: ESP (not tied to AF) or spot in extreme situation
Gradation: Normal (haven’t tried auto under bright sun, but again
simple gamma adjustment in pp will fix this also)

Hope this helps

--
John K
(Oly E510, E520 & rest of gear in profile if interested)
Click to expand...
--
Community of Photographers
http://www.photographyisfun.ch
 
Hmm, I just upgraded from the E510 to the E520 and I assumed you could use the same approach for bracketing. On the E510 I created a My Mode setup with burst and AE -1/0/+1 bracketing. Then I set the Fn button to enter My mode. Worked fine, sort of. By that I mean as long as you wanted the burst based on the metered exposure. You cannot apply the Fn button and AE compensation to shift the bracketing up or down.
 
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