Proud owner of a new Olympus E-PL6

Michael Meissner wrote:

alexisgreat wrote:

Can I connect this analog video out cable to a computer monitor? Or must it be connected to a TV?

If your monitor supports old-style yellow RCA jacks for NTSC/PAL, then you can use it. If you have an mp4 player, dvd player, or camcorder with RCA jacks for analog video input, you could use it. If you are looking for something small and portable, look for the monitors made for 3rd party car backup systems.

Since the standard for video input has changed over the years, newer computer monitors have been dropping the older plugs, but if your monitor has the old plug, it should work.

Note, the resolution is not so great, so it will look really grainy if you display it on a large modern monitor.

Newer cameras like the E-PL6 have HDMI output as well. However, with the exception of the E-M5 mark II (and possibly newer cameras designed after the E-M5 II), if you plug in a HDMI cable, the camera will only do playback mode, and it will not take pictures. The E-M5 II can finally do live view over HDMI and is not restricted to analog video output.

Thanks, I was actually thinking of plugging into my desktop's video card's HDMI input (it's an EVGA 8800 GTS) but it seems like it would only do play back and be of no use in Live View? My laptop has integrated video but maybe I can buy an external video adapter of some kind that can take RCA? On second thought I do want something more portable, so the monitors made for 3rd party car backup systems might be my best bet. I have old TVs that take RCA connections but they are too big for this purpose. I do have a 7" portable DVD player, that might work. Is the resolution around 640x480? I know the resolution of LCD's on the back of cameras (as well as EVF) is spec'ed differently from monitor resolutions- as far as I can recall you have to divide by four (for RGBG) to get the "actual" resolution? So the EV-4, which is spec'ed at 2.36 million pixels, is actually a little over half a million pixels (so a bit more than 800x600- which is awesome) and the rear 3" LCD which is 614,000 pixels is actually a little over 150,000 pixels which makes a bit over 400x300 in "real" resolution.

The reason I really like this camera is because it's very modular, I can strip it completely bare and basically just have a sensor and the rear LCD to attach to a telescope's 1.25" diagonal, when it becomes just about as light as an astronomical CCD camera, or just add the kit lens, which is small enough for digiscoping coupled to a 1.25" telescope eyepiece or I can add things like an EVF, or a flash, or use a remote or an external viewing screen. It's too bad more than one thing cannot be attached at the same time to the accessory port. Maybe in the future, Olympus will amend that. I see the camera has HDR so I would love to use it for some landscape photography too, especially low light landscape photography like Milky Way landscapes and doing sunrises and sunsets. That being said, I know the camera isn't weatherproof but is it okay to take to the beach and do sunrise/sunset photography from there?

I dont know if I can get the answer to this, but is it possible to use 1.25" telescope light pollution filters with this camera without getting much vignetting? I suppose I would need to thread the filter into the telescope-camera adapter somehow? Or attaching the camera body to a 1.25" diagonal without getting vignetting?

I looked up the clear apertures for my filters and it is 23mm. I hope this is enough to avoid vignetting since the diagonal of the sensor is less than 23mm. My Orion correct image 1.25" diagonal has a clear aperture of 27mm. Looks like most 1.25" filters have a clear aperture between 23mm-27mm. Filter thread pitch is 0.6mm and filter thread width is 28.4mm

http://www.amazon.com/8754-1-25-Inch-45-degree-Correct-Image-Diagonal/dp/B0056HFFV6

I found a "sort" of answer here:

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/246806-vignetting-with-31mm-filters/

The KAF-8300 measures 13.7x18.1mm, so the diagonal is 22.7mm. D31mm filter clear aperture is 28mm. The difference is 5.3mm.

Internal filter wheel places filters 21mm above the CCD, so the limiting f/ratio without vignetting is 21/5.3=3.96.

Filters in the external filter wheel is 25mm from the CCD, so the limiting f/ratio without vignetting is 25/5.3=4.7.

The KAF-8300 is a CCD camera that has a four thirds size sensor so the same measurements apply. My telescope has an f/6.3 focal length with a focal reducer and f/10 without. Adjusting these numbers for a 22.5mm diagonal and 23mm clear aperture filters means the distance from the filter to the camera sensor needs to be x, where x/0.5=10 when the scope is f/10 (x=5mm) or x/0.5=6.3 when the scope is f/6.3 (x=3.15mm). I'm not sure there's any way to avoid vignetting if this is the case- but what is the minimum distance the filter can be from the E-PL6 sensor? If we use the 27mm figure then it's a bit easier to do (x/4.5=10 and x=45mm at f/10 or x/4.5=6.3 and x=28.35mm).

These numbers might need to be adjusted in a positive direction since the Four Thirds sensor is smaller than I thought (in terms of imaging area):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Four_Thirds_system

The sensor measures 18 mm × 13.5 mm (22.5 mm diagonal), with an imaging area of 17.3 mm × 13.0 mm (21.6 mm diagonal)