When Olympus JPEGs fail...

Having had the Olympus E-PM2 for a little bit now, I've been somewhat perplexed at the fact that the JPEG engine is so celebrated. I mean, I honestly don't see it. I guess I don't go outside much, so I don't really ever get these "Olympus colors," but it seems like the Panasonic JPEGs delivered consistent, if slightly flat, results, where Olympus... well, just look.

One of my buddies' bands was playing a show at a local venue. I was with my E-PM2 and my 17mm f/1.8 and got some cool shots. But at the beginning of the set, I took one look at the lighting and realized I'd have to shoot in B&W. So I just switched on the Sepia filter, since I love that filter.

OOC JPEG

What? So I tried just setting it up for straight up B&W. Or was it Grainy B&W, I can't remember. I do know I tried both, and both looked this awful:

OOC JPEG

So after this, I turned off all filters, and just shot a handful of pictures anyway. They looked awful on the screen.

OOC JPEG

So I went home, and I imported these pictures into Aperture. I have to say, for all the hoopla about Olympus JPEGs, I've pretty much preferred the default RAW conversion that iPhoto/Aperture comes up with, and see what a better job Aperture did with these three pictures:

Aperture Default RAW Conversion

Aperture Default RAW Conversion

Aperture Default RAW Conversion

Sure, these pictures are still terrible, but there's a distinct lack of the alien glow and straight up confusion the Olympus JPEG engine seemed to have about what's going on. So I wonder. Pretty much everyone who sings the praises of the Olympus JPEG engine seem to be LR users, so maybe Aperture does a better Olympus RAW conversion than LR does. Anyway, I took my time getting rid of that awful red glow and these are ultimately the pictures I ended up with:

Final Product

Final Product

Final Product

Now, these, I can live with. But there was no way I was getting these B&W pictures from the Olympus JPEG engine. Since getting the E-PM2, I've been really enjoying my RAW files, but I'm not feeling the JPEG files at all. Maybe it's because like these pictures, I often shoot in awful shooting conditions and rarely outside, but it seems like the Panasonic JPEG engine more consistently delivered files that were, if flat, still usable. I don't ever remember my G5 getting so confused to the point where the live view was unreliable, the way my E-PM2 got, and I shot in some awful lighting.

Anyway, the lesson learned is, don't believe everything you read on the Internet, because I thought I would be able to take my editing time down with the Olympus, and it's been the opposite. I'm not complaining because I think the end results are really, really, really good and a definite jump from the G5. Also, the E-PM2 is just a faster camera and easier to use for fast motion. So I'm not complaining. I'm just saying the Olympus JPEG engine isn't a cure-all.

That said, when it works, it really works:

Some people are just made for the Grainy B+W filter.