The interesting Pen F

I'm playing a lot more with my Pen F while here in SW Florida for an extended stay. I've discovered a few things that I'll share with you good folks.

I'm shooting jpeg exclusively. I want to experience what Olympus offers in its jpeg engine and the new creative dial on the front of the camera. This is a huge change for me. I've been virtually 100% raw since 2007 with my 4/3 Olympus E-1.

The Color Profile 1 is becoming my favorite. Comparing it to Natural in the normal jpeg selections, it offers more contrast and underexposes a bit. I see it very much like a film transparency simulation. The underexposure is to preserve highlights, I presume, just like the old transparency methodology. I did extensive tripod testing recently at the Edison/Ford Estates museum here in Fort Myers and Color Profile 1 was my preference in 100% of the comparisons. Here are two examples made with identical shutter speed, aperture, and ISO (click to see much better images):

Olympus Pen F - Color Profile 1

Olympus Pen F - Natural

It's hard here to give you the experience I have on a large monitor, but the Color Profile 1 is my strong preference when shooting color. I have yet to play with other modes extensively, but I'll get there.

Mono Profile 3 is, well, interesting. I was going to say "trash" but I'll leave it at interesting. I shot a lot of frames with that mode. When I go in and look closely, I see weird jpeg rendering that does not please me. In particular, I was shooting some beach scenes the other day and people in the scenes begin to look like cardboard cutouts against the background. This was consistent with two lenses (25mm Leica and 75mm Olympus) at any aperture. At first I thought it was my 75mm @ f/2 giving me shallow DOF blah blah blah. But the effect is there in all its glory even @ f/5.6. Also, there is a lot of splotchy "grain" in the photos even though I have the film grain setting off. I can certainly play with the filter settings and see what happens (I believe this profile is supposed to somewhat simulate IR, using a deep red filter). I just have to make the time and find the inclination.

Here are some examples made with my 75mm f/1.8. The first image is followed by a pair of 100% crops (one from a different frame). Click to enlarge and notice the weird appearance of some of the people.

Olympus Pen F - Mono Profile 3

Olympus Pen F - Mono Profile 3 - 100% crop @ f/5.6

Olympus Pen F - Mono Profile 3 - 100% crop @ f/2

I am learning to despise the fully articulated screen. The standard flippy screen is much much more to my liking. It's not a deal killer in a way that will cause me to abandon the camera, but I'll think thrice before I buy another camera with this type of LCD. Unfortunately, this type of LCD appears to be the way Olympus is going.

But, still playing, still learning. The Pen F is a very interesting camera.

Jim Pilcher
Summit County, Colorado, USA
Life is good in the woods

Well done. Have you tried any color filters (camera ones) on the mono?

Good observations!

I have thought about the Pen F since it was released, but decided to not buy it and save my money for the E-M1 Mkii. Still I am very interested in the camera and would love to own one. Just to play with the in camera processing. Just maybe I will buy one for my wife for her birthday next year. She loves to play with all the art filters on her E-M5.

Dave

You're right about mono profile 3. I just checked and the default setting for it has the red filter on, at +3 intensity. Of course, you are free to override it and create your own settings for that dial position.

I've also had some fun with the jpeg output of my Pen F, though I still shoot at RAW+jpeg, just in case. I never like throwing my negatives away.

I haven't fully explored the behavior of OV3, but I can say that under some circumstances, the features of the program appear to be "camera dependent".

I have an EPL5 and an EM5M2.  If a use OV3 to edit an EPL5 raw file, the list of "Picture Modes" are "As Shot, Natural, Vivid, Muted, Portrait, Sepia, i-Enhance".  If I use the same version of OV3 to edit an EM5M2 raw file, the list of "Picture Modes" has two additional choices: "Color Creator" and "Underwater".

It seems to me that "Color Creator" could have been applied to any Olympus raw file.  Perhaps Olympus feels that EM5M2 owners paid for the feature, and EPL5 owners didn't.   It should not be surprising that PEN-F "film modes" are not available to EM5M2 owners.