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Rangefinder Magazine
Columns/February 2002
Digital Photographyby
John Rettie
Racing Photography goes Digital and Olympus E-20
fig1.jpg) |
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| Trackside Photo recently switched to digital cameras
for its off-road racing photography. The company is mainly using Fujifilm
S1 cameras, although this shot was taken on an Olympus E-20. Copyright
© Jim Ober/Trackside Photo. |
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Just two weeks after returning from a photojournalism assignment in Tokyo
and then one in Hawaii I found myself in a very different location—Baja.
This time I was working with Jim Ober from Trackside Photo helping him
photograph the Baja 1000 off-road race. It was the first time he had his
team of six photographers cover a major race with digital cameras. Shooting
pictures of race cars and motorcycles traveling at high speeds through
dust and mud is not the easiest of environments for any camera, let alone
a digital camera, yet the team was able to come back to the US with about
3000 images.
Trackside has been a user of Nikon equipment ever since it was formed
in 1968, so the choice of cameras was between the Nikon D1 and the Fujifilm
FinePix S1 Pro. Ober elected to buy five S1s for several reasons. For
starters he feels that the image produced by the S1 is of a higher quality
than the D1. Of course since he bought the cameras the D1X has been introduced
but it costs twice as much.
More than anything, he was worried about battery consumption when out
in the desert for hours at a time. As the S1 uses regular AA batteries
he felt that was better than the D1, which uses a special battery pack.
Each photographer takes at least 12 rechargeable AA NiMH batteries with
them for a shoot, in addition they are given a handful of cheap alkaline
batteries that can always be used as a last resort. He reckons that he’d
have needed three or more battery packs for each D1 or an external battery
such as the battery from www.digitalcamerabattery.com. The cost of those
would have been much higher than a bunch of rechargeable AA batteries.
fig3.jpg) |
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| The Olympus E-20 is a well-made camera that offers
most of the features one would expect in a professional camera. |
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The downside issues with the S1 such, as incompatibility with some newer
AFS lenses was not a concern, as Trackside does not have any of those
lenses. Even the S1’s less rugged body has proven to be sturdy after
five months of service. Over the years Ober has found it more cost effective
to use less expensive bodies and replace them every couple of years and
upgrade them in the process rather than buy high-end bodies. Because of
the rough conditions encountered while bouncing around the desert in off-road
vehicles and the incredible amount of dust they still need repairing and
cleaning every now and again.
Although the speed of operation of the S1 is not as fast as that of the
D1 it is more than adequate for shooting off-road racing where one vehicle
comes by once every minute or so. This provides plenty of time for the
camera to write the images to the storage card and for the photographer
to check images, etc. while waiting for the next car or bike to come along.
Trackside photographers have also found that they get more shots, while
using digital as it is much more conducive to take several images of each
vehicle without worrying about film and processing costs. In addition
the fact that a new roll of film does not need to be loaded after every
36 images also helps them avoid missing the inevitable action shots that
always seem to happen while film is being changed. Each photographer has
a 1GB IBM Microdrive in their camera, which allows them to shoot all day
without changing cards. (At the time Trackside purchased the S1 cameras,
Nikon did not recommend the Microdrive for use in the D1 so this was another
factor that swayed the decision to purchase S1 camera bodies.)
At the end of the day in Baja all the photographers gathered together
and were able to compare shots as they checked images on the camera’s
LCD screens. It’s certainly a great feeling to know that one’s
got the shots without having to wait hours or days to get film processed.
Normally images are downloaded to a Digital Wallet storage drive but on
this occasion the unit was acting up, as it needed re-formatting. Instead
images were transferred to my laptop as an interim measure to make sure
that we had everything backed up. The next day all the images were burned
onto a handful of CD-Rs for safekeeping.
All in all, the Trackside photographers are very pleased with the switch
to digital. Ober is now able to supply clients in a more timely fashion
and he’s more than pleased to be able to close down his wet darkroom,
which has been replaced with a handful of Epson Stylus Photo printers
and Mac computers.
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fig4.jpg) |
| The LCD monitor on the back of the E-20 displays an
easy-to-read menu for accessing the camera’s settings. |
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On this particular shoot in Baja I used my Nikon D1 camera, which performed
flawlessly. I used a digital camera battery pack to power my camera and
was somewhat surprised that it ran out of juice after six hours and only
450 shots. On the other hand I did check the images I had captured on
the LCD pretty much after every vehicle had passed which definitely drained
the juice more rapidly than usual.
As I had a brand new Olympus E-20 digital camera for review during this
time frame it was an ideal opportunity to try out the camera in a real
working environment. Ober had seriously considered purchasing several
E-10 or models instead of the Fuji S1s, partly because they would have
cost less but mainly because their non-removable zoom lens would avoid
the nasty problem of dust getting on the CCDs in cameras with interchangeable
lenses. Indeed, two of the cameras in use during the shoot had bad dust
specks that appeared in every frame, which meant retouching some key images.
However, as you can read below the E-20 turned out to be unsuited to race
action photography which was a real shame.
Olympus E-20
I’ll admit I really want to like this professional camera from Olympus.
It’s got a lot going for it, but I found it to be frustrating in
use. Why? Because it is just too slow—basically if you ever need
to shoot faster than one picture every five seconds forget it. That precludes
it from use as a sports camera or for photojournalism and it even means
it’s limited for wedding photography. However, if you can live with
its slow operation I can recommend it as a good professional digital camera
at a relatively reasonable price (about $1900).
A year ago when Olympus first introduced the E-10 it was greeted with
much anticipation as it offered a higher resolution than other professional
level cameras and yet it cost about $2000 less. Olympus promoted the fact
that it had a non-interchangeable lens as a positive aspect as it would
keep dust away from the CCD, which can be such a concern on regular SLR
digital camera bodies. For those who could live with a non-interchangeable
lens on the camera this was not a problem. In use the camera proved to
be good, although it was horribly slow in playback mode. Apart from this
flaw, I generally liked the camera when I reviewed it in the March 2001
issue of Rangefinder.
The new E-20 model is essentially the same camera but with a 5-megapixel
CCD in place of the 4-megapixel CCD in the E-10. Apart from the higher
resolution Olympus also promised that it had made the camera faster, at
least in playback mode. It does feature a much-improved playback but the
added pixel count has caused the capture time to increase, as Olympus
did not upgrade the processor or amount of the onboard memory in the buffer.
The result is that after shooting five images in quick succession the
buffer is filled. It then takes about ten seconds before enough memory
is freed up so that the camera can take another shot. What’s worse
is the fact that nothing can be done while waiting—the LCD screen
is blank and the camera cannot even be readied for the next shot. This
is fine if you’re photographing a still subject but I found it frustrating
when photographing a model as I found myself holding a non-operating camera
quite often which caused me to miss shots. It also proved frustrating
for the same reason when photographing off-road racecars in Baja. It does
not make much difference what compression setting is used as the camera’s
buffer is filled immediately after capture before it processes and compresses
images and saves them on the storage card.
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fig2.jpg) |
| If you can put up with the relatively slow picture
capture, the new Olympus E-20N produces good photographs. The 2003
Toyota Matrix was photographed in Hawaii. |
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Apart from this the camera is a delight to use, as it is a handy size
with a pleasant grip and controls that are well placed. It has a manual
f/2.0–2.4 4X zoom (35–140mm equivalent) and can be manually
focused via the large ring on the lens. Automatic focussing is fairly
good although it’s not as fast as that on regular lenses from Nikon
or Canon. On the digital side the camera has two storage slots for a SmartMedia
card and the other for a CompactFlash or Microdrive. The large LCD screen
on the back swivels out by 90 degrees for waist level viewing. True optical
viewing through the lens is achieved by a split beam pentaprism which
also allows real time previewing of the image on the screen as well as
through the viewfinder—something that cannot be done by cameras using
35mm bodies. The camera features a pop-up flash as well as a hot-shoe
and a PC connector, making it ideal as a studio camera.
One other minor drawback on the E-20 is that there are two versions available
worldwide with the only difference being the E-20N is set for NTSC video
output while the E-20P is for PAL. Photographers who never use video output
or never travel to Europe will not be concerned by this marketing change
but it could be very frustrating for photographers going overseas who
would like to be able to display images directly from the camera onto
TV sets. Most cameras, such as the Nikon D1 range, give you the option
of selecting PAL or NTSC on one camera model. Some cameras, such as the
Canon EOS-1D, don’t even have any video output.
Of course the quality of the final image is most important and the E-20’s
output is good, although surprisingly it’s difficult to see a significant
improvement over the E-10 camera. The captured image size is 2560x1920
pixels compared to 2240x
1680 on the E-10, which incidentally is still on the market. Some users
are complaining that there is slightly more noise in images captured by
the E-20, compared to the E-10.
I hate to harp on the slowness of the camera but I guess I was expecting
more. Before the advent of the Nikon D1 a couple of years ago this slow
behavior would have been acceptable for a decent digital camera, but now
any professional user can expect a $2000 camera to perform in a responsive
manner. It seems a real shame that such a nice camera is let down by this
flaw. I guess we’ll just have to hope that Olympus rectifies it in
the E-30 (?) camera—hopefully sooner rather than later.
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| The Photoshop 6 Wow! Book is full of hundreds of tips
and techniques for getting great images. |
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Quick Book Review
During a recent trip to a book store I was amazed at the high percentage
of computer books devoted to digital imaging and web site development.
In particular there are literally dozens of different books on Photoshop.
Because of this I am going to start writing a quick overview of one book
each month. They will not all be about Photoshop, but I hope they are
one’s that will prove useful for photographers who are looking to
improve their skills in digital imaging and construction of web sites.
This month’s book is The Photoshop 6 Wow! Book by Linnea Dayton and
Jack Davis, published by Peachpit Press ($49.99). This 472-page book is
the fifth edition of this popular title and it includes a description
of the worthwhile changes made by Adobe in Photoshop 6. The book offers
many tips and techniques for producing stunning work using Photoshop.
Unlike many books, this one is printed in full color throughout so that
it’s much easier to see what the results will really look like. Over
the years I have found previous editions of this book to be one of the
most useful for quickly learning how to use various techniques to produce
desired results. It’s also a great start for experimenting. As the
book includes a CD-ROM with tutorials, preset layer and rollover styles
plus actions and custom presets it delivers good value compared to many
other Photoshop books.
John Rettie is a photojournalist who resides in Santa Barbara, CA.
He has been using a camera as a professional for 32 years, a computer
for 22 years, and has combined his knowledge of both for the past nine
years. Readers can contact him by e-mail at john@johnrettie.com or by
snail-mail c/o Rangefinder.
Further Information:
Olympus E-20
Olympus America
Two Corporate Center Drive
Melville, NY 11747
(800) 622 6372
http://www.olympus.com
Photoshop 6 Wow! Book
Peachpit Press
1249 Eighth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
(510) 524 2178
www.peachpit.com
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