E-M1 and E-P5 owners. Contrast and Saturation settings.

Guy Parsons wrote:

PipeLine wrote:

I own both cameras and have just gotten to tweak the settings from its default. For optimum jpeg quality, I've read here that some settings need to be adjusted so I did these below:

Sharpness -1

Noise Reduction OFF

Auto White Balance: Warm Color OFF

Gradation AUTO

But I cannot seem to find any recommended settings for both Contrast and Saturation. I stumbled upon an old thread about the E-P3 where the users recommended Contrast -2 and Saturation -1. Do these newer models have better processor now so just stick to the default 0 or do some users here suggest the -2 or -1 settings?

Opinions and suggestions appreciated.

-Keith

In my case Natural, Sharp -1, Contrast -1, Saturation -1 and gradation Auto or Normal seems to make a nice jpeg for review and AF and metering purposes and also makes the blinkies behave at 0,255 setting. Then I use the RAW anyway and ignore the jpeg. The jpeg being only for in-camera review and a standard to compare to later.

Noise Reduction best left at Auto so it will kick in with 4 seconds or longer exposure to help lessen noise, it doubles the exposure time of course when it does the dark frame subtraction thing.

Noise Filter Off to lessen the detail destruction, choose a sensible ISO limit to avoid too much noise, which is easily lessened anyway in post process to taste and to suit the end use of the image.

Warm colour Off only pertains to those images taken in incandescent artificial light, whether to retain or reduce the warm look of those lights. No harm in leaving it off, easy to adjust white balance later anyway, best from RAW of course.

Auto white balance works fine and most times many images can handle a tiny touch of warming in post to make them more attractive.

Auto ISO works fine, just keep the top limit in mind. I variously use 800/1600/3200 for different situations and needs, and let it rip right out to 25600 when desperate for any sort of image in crummy conditions.

Basically you make the settings to what you like to see and it's vastly different if using a usual lousy TN type of monitor panel compared to a properly calibrated IPS monitor of 8 bits or more colour resolution.

As suggested above, if intending to use the jpegs then take one RAW and rezap it with all variations using Oly Viewer 3 or the camera itself to create a bunch of different jpegs to see which ones you like. Make copious notes as it's easy to get lost doing this.

Other than that take RAW+jpeg and use the RAW to make the image you like. With Olympus Viewer 3 the (slow) standard, and the best converters being Capture One and DxO depending on needs, Capture One more for studio and portraits (delivers best skin tones), DxO for technical ability and landscapes etc (delivers best fine details). The rest of the converters follow (closely) behind those two it seems.

In my case E-PL5 but all of E-PM2, E-PL5/6/7, E-P5 and E-M1/5/10 share very much the same characteristics for image quality.

Regards...... Guy

You're the man, Guy. It was actually the old thread I have read about the E-P3 settings and I was using your settings and responses as the benchmarks. I'm glad you saw this thread and gave your say. And thanks everyone for the replies and opinions. As for Gradation, looks like I'll have to do more experimenting but so far, I love how Auto does to my photos especially here in sunny Thailand. I often find I don't need my RAW files because of this. Kudos to Oly for using some magic voodoo with this setting. Uncle Frank, nice photos sir.