Olympus E-PM2: Small Camera, Big Surprise

amalric wrote:

Carl, about ISO, There have been v. long threads on the difference between Olympus ISO scale and the DxO one, until a very analytic mind redefined the thing in terms of Brightness only (amplification), in an article at DPR. You might check both, because it's a core concept in Digital.

Getting in knots about ISO ratings is a bit silly, just use the darn thing at the lowest sensible ISO and make a good result from the RAW. Some say stick to the big steps like 200/400/800/1600 and from there on up use 1600, and play with the under-exposed RAW to get the same or possibly better result than using the camera's higher ISO settings. I never do it though, I just use 25,600 if I really need some sort of shot in the dark and then work a bit harder with the RAW.

Another feature you might find interesting is the digital 2X zoom: contrary to others it is a high quaity one, with pixel binning to give the full 16 Mpx while cropping.

Huh!

The 2X DTC crops the centre 4 MP from the 16MP sensor, then interpolates that back up to 16MP for the jpeg. The RAW is still the same full 16MP and a slightly better result is obtained by using the RAW and making the same crop (and same interpolation if desired).

There is also Auto gradation, a relighting feature, which helps with High Contrast days

Auto gradation can help with revealing what's in the shadows, but some say at the expense sometimes of slight under-exposure. At least Auto Gradation will show what is possible with the image for the better attempt at the RAW. I use Auto Gradation particularly for slide copy as it can quickly reveal the detail in the murk of a slide, which is then better handled later by the RAW conversion.

, and a Tone control one. B&W filters (I use the orange one) give v. impressive B&W.

Yup, my Mode dial MySet for B&W has the orange filter "permanently" assigned. Later of course I use the RAW to choose between using colour or B&W version of the image.

I mwntion this because Olympus grows these festures across all the models, and one might miss them, when looking at one one camera only.

That's the glory of Olympus M4/3 as the "humblest" model has much the same features as the top model and basically the same image quality on all, so that is impossible to tell which camera took the shot.

Basically it's like having a small dragster in your pocket.

Fine, if you don't mind the oil stains and smell of burning rubber.

Regards.... Guy