Olympus C-5060 Wide ZoomOlympus makes a strong update to the top of their prosumer lineup<<Optics :(Previous) | (Next): Shutter Lag & Cycle Time Tests>> Page 6:Exposure & FlashReview First Posted: 11/21/2003 |
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In Program mode, the camera selects both the aperture and shutter speed, while you control the remaining exposure options such as ISO, Exposure Compensation, White Balance, and metering mode selection. Aperture Priority lets you set the aperture from f/2.8 to f/8.0 while the camera chooses the best corresponding shutter speed. In Shutter Priority, you can select shutter speeds from 1/4,000 to four seconds, and the camera selects the best corresponding aperture setting. (See the note in the second paragraph below about maximum shutter speed though.)
In Manual mode, you control both aperture and shutter speed with the addition of much longer shutter times (as long as 16 seconds), plus a Bulb shutter setting for manually-timed exposures as long as 120 seconds(!). A helpful feature of the Manual mode is that, as you scroll through the various exposure combinations, the camera indicates whether or not the current setting will produce a correct exposure. It does this by showing the f/stop and shutter speed in green, and the exposure differential (the difference between your settings and what the camera meters as correct) in white, in exposure values (EV) within a range of +3 to -3 EV. If you exceed a +/- 3 EV deviation from the camera's metered exposure, the exposure variables flash red in the display. Additionally, you can activate the live histogram display, which graphically shows the under- or overexposure, or the Direct histogram display, which points out the under or overexposed areas on the LCD monitor directly. (Overall, the 5060 one of the more helpful cameras when shooting in manual mode.)
In common with a number of other digicams, the C-5060 Wide Zoom's maximum shutter speed is somewhat dependent on lens aperture, in that its very highest shutter speed (1/4,000) is only available when the smallest lens aperture (f/8) has been selected. Shutter speeds of 1/2,500 to 1/4,000 are thus only available when under automatic exposure control in either Program or Aperture Priority exposure modes, or in Manual mode when an aperture of f/8 has been specified.
For point-and-shoot convenience in what might otherwise be tricky shooting conditions, the C-5060 also features five Scene modes. Portrait mode keeps the subject in sharp focus but the background slightly blurred, by using a larger aperture to reduce depth of field. Two landscape modes (Landscape Portrait and Landscape Scene) instead use a smaller aperture, to capture sharp detail in the foreground and background. A Sports mode biases the exposure system toward higher shutter speeds, so you can "freeze" fast-paced action. Finally, a Night mode optimizes the camera for night shots and portraits, using slower shutter speeds to increase the contribution of ambient light to the exposure. The C-5060 Zoom also allows you to apply specific Scenes to the Program, Aperture, Shutter, Manual, My, and Movie modes. Through the Shooting menu, the Scene option applies Portrait, Landscape, or Night presets to the current image, giving you the benefit of a preset shooting mode while maintaining full exposure control.
The C-5060 Wide Zoom provides a fairly typical range of ISO settings, the default ISO 80 extending the range a bit lower than the more common minimum value of 100. (Although I hasten to point out that several competing camera models reach as low as ISO 50.) The lower default ISO is welcome, as it will result in lower image noise when shooting under bright conditions. (Higher ISO settings are often useful for working in limited light conditions, but they result in noisier images.) In addition, the available lower ISO is helpful when trying for motion-blur effects in more brightly list surroundings. (Note: When ISO is set to Auto in Program exposure mode, it automatically resets to 80 when you switch to Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, or Manual exposure modes. A specific ISO setting can be combined with any of the exposure modes via the "MyCamera" option.) To combat the higher image noise that results from longer shutter times when shooting in dark conditions, the C-5060 Wide Zoom also offers a Noise Reduction mode, which uses dark-frame subtraction to minimize image noise on long exposures. That said, the 5060 produced some of the cleanest low-light exposures I've seen to date from a prosumer camera, even with the Noise Reduction system disabled.
Three metering patterns are available on the C-5060 Wide Zoom: Spot,
Multi, and ESP multi-patterned metering. All three are accessed by pressing
the Metering button on the top panel and turning the Command dial. Under
the default ESP multi-patterned setting, the camera takes readings from
a number of areas in the viewfinder, evaluating both brightness and
contrast to arrive at the optimum exposure. Spot metering reads the
exposure from the very center of the image, so you can pinpoint the
specific area of the photograph you want properly exposed and lock in
on that exposure by depressing the Shutter button halfway and holding
it down until you recompose the scene. The unusual Multi Meter function
lets you take up to eight individual spot-meter readings from the center
of the LCD monitor (inside the exposure brackets) by repeatedly pressing
the AE Lock (AEL) button. Each reading is marked on a relative exposure
scale across the bottom of the LCD panel, and then averaged to produce
the overall reading. You lock the Multi-Spot reading by holding the
AE Lock button down for one second (the word "Memo" appears
in the LCD display), and can cancel it by pressing and holding the AEL
button one last time. This is a very useful exposure option for advanced
photographers. The screen shot above right is "borrowed" from
my review of the previous C-5050 model, the feature works the same on
the 5060.)
Enabled through the Shooting menu (Setup sub-menu), a Record View function
displays the most recently captured image on the LCD screen while the
image is being recorded to the memory card. It's a great way to check
your images without wasting time switching back and forth between Playback
and Shooting modes. The camera's Quick View function also allows you
to check previously captured images in Shooting mode, by pressing the
Quick View button. You can review the most recent image or scroll back
through other stored files until you return to the Shooting mode (by
pressing the Quick View button a second time).
In situations where exposure compensation is necessary, pressing the
+/- button on the left side of the camera and turning the Command dial
increases or decreases the exposure values (EV) in either one-third
or one-half-step increments (selected via a setup menu option), up to
+/- 2 EV. If exposure compensation is currently activated, the amount
of adjustment appears in the LCD information display, except in Manual
mode, where there's no automatic exposure to be adjusted.
The C-5060's Auto Bracketing (BKT) function is selected through the
Shooting Mode Menu (Drive submenu), setting the camera to automatically
bracket each exposure by as much as +/- 2 EV in either three- or five-step
increments (0.3, 0.7, or 1.0 EV units each). The bracketing function
centers its efforts around whatever exposure you've chosen as the starting
point, including any exposure compensation adjustments you've made.
This is a nice implementation of a useful exposure feature. The five-step
option is particularly welcome, as the three-step exposure bracketing
offered by many cameras often forces you to choose between a too-narrow
bracketing range or too-large exposure steps.
The C-5060 Wide Zoom's white balance menu offers a broader range of
options than I've seen on other high-end consumer digicams. No fewer
than 11 options are available, including Auto, Shade, Cloudy, Sunny,
Evening Sun, Daylight Fluorescent, Neutral Fluorescent, Cool White Fluorescent,
White Fluorescent, Incandescent, and One-Touch / Custom. One-Touch is
the manual setting, where white balance is calculated by placing a white
card in front of the lens and pressing the Menu / OK button. The Custom
mode lets you pick from four previously-saved white balances, set manually
in similar fashion to the One-Touch option. (I really like this
ability to save up to four separate custom settings. This lets you switch
back and forth rapidly, without having to re-shoot a fresh white card
test each time.) You can also fine-tune the white balance setting with
the "WB+/-" setting under the Picture submenu. An adjustment
bar appears on the LCD screen, with options to shift the color toward
either the red or blue ends of the spectrum. I've always appreciated
the ability to fine-tune white balance like this. Most digicams tend
to have slight biases in their white balance systems under various lighting
conditions. Once you get used to how a particular camera shoots, it's
very helpful to have this sort of tweaking adjustment available to modify
the color balance. The 5060's large number of adjustment steps provide
very fine-grained control over a surprisingly broad range of color adjustment.
The C-5060 Wide Zoom has a 12-second Self-Timer (which can be used with
the optional infrared remote) for self-portraits or on those occasions
when you don't want to risk camera shake by pressing the Shutter button
to make the exposure. You can also use the included IR remote control
to trigger the shutter without the Self-Timer, which gives you a three-second
delay after pressing the remote's Shutter button, before the shutter
is fired. As useful as the 5060's remote is, this is one of the few
areas where I had a complaint about the 5060's performance: The mandatory
three-second shutter delay when using the remote can be frustrating
when you're trying to capture a specific moment. I'd really like
to see an option to turn off the delay when using the remote. The remote
control is rated to work as far as 16.4 feet directly in front of the
camera, or as far as 9.8 feet when at a 15-degree angle from the sensor
window. My own usage indicated that these ratings are conservative,
although high ambient light levels can reduce the remote's range.
The Function menu option enables you to capture images in Black &
White or Sepia modes, or to use the White and Black Board settings for
capturing text on white or black backgrounds respectively. (These modes
appear to adjust image contrast and default exposure levels to maximize
contrast and force the background toward the appropriate tonal value.)
The C-5060 Wide Zoom also features sharpness, saturation, and contrast
adjustments.
Flash
The
C-5060 Wide Zoom has a fairly standard built-in flash unit, with five
basic operating modes: Auto, Red-Eye Reduction, Forced Flash, Flash
Off, and Slow Synchro modes. Flash range is rated to extend to approximately
13 feet (3.7 meters) in wide-angle mode and to about 8.0 feet (2.2 meters)
at the telephoto setting. The Slow Synchro mode combines a slow shutter
speed with the flash to let more ambient light into the background,
producing more natural lighting behind a flash-illuminated subject.
When photographing moving subjects, Slow Synchro will record some motion
blur because of the longer exposure time, with the initial or final
image frozen by the flash exposure. Through the Shooting menu, three
Slow Synchro modes are available. Slow 1 fires the flash at the beginning
of the exposure (producing a blur in front of the subject), and Slow
2 fires the flash at the end of the exposure (producing a blur behind
the subject). You can also opt to fire the Red-Eye Reduction pre-flash
in conjunction with a Slow Synchro exposure.
An Olympus-configured hot shoe on top of the camera allows you to connect
an external flash for more powerful flash needs. Olympus offers the
FL-50 and FL-20 external flash units as accessories, which couple with
the camera to allow flash exposure compensation when using it. (The
FL-50 is a fairly advanced unit with a power-zoom head that tracks the
zoom setting of the camera lens, while the FL-20 is a very compact,
less expensive unit of more modest capabilities.) The internal and external
flash units can be used together or separately. Third-party flash units
can also be used, although some units may not be able to synchronize
with the camera, and Olympus warns that some flash units can damage
the camera's circuitry. (Be sure to check the trigger voltage on your
flash unit's hot shoe contacts, to insure that it doesn't present more
than a few volts to the camera's flash contacts. If you measure more
than 10 volts or so on the flash units contacts, don't risk connecting
it to the 5060. Use a device like a Wein Safe-Sync(tm) to protect the
5060 against high trigger voltages in external flash units.) Assuming
that they use a low trigger voltage, most third-party flash units should
work fine with the 5060. The main limitation will be that the camera
will have no control over the flash power, reducing you to manual flash
exposure control via the camera's lens aperture setting and any power
adjustment that might be available on the flash unit itself.
Another nice feature of the C-5060 Wide Zoom's internal flash system is its Flash Brightness adjustment, which allows you to change the flash brightness from +2 to -2 EV in one-third-step increments. When using the built-in flash with an external unit, you can use this feature to adjust the balance of light between the two, by dialing-down the intensity of the internal flash while controlling the power of the external unit manually.
The C-5060 Wide Zoom's flash also has good support for external "slave" flash units, letting it work with conventional slave trigger units. Like most digicams, the C-5060 normally uses a small metering pre-flash prior to the main exposure to set the flash power level. This pre-flash will falsely trigger conventional slave units, causing them to fire before the 5060 actually opens its shutter. Several third-party "smart" slave triggers are available that ignore the pre-flash, firing the slave strobe on the second pop of the camera's flash. The 5060 avoids the need for such special "smart" triggers though, by offering a special "slave" flash mode that causes its internal flash to fire only once per exposure. Olympus showed some welcome forethought in designing this flash mode, in that they give you a choice of ten different power levels for the internal flash when firing in single-pop mode. This lets you balance the amount of light coming from the 5060's internal flash with that coming from the slave unit(s). Very nice! (By the way, if you want no light to come from the camera's internal flash, you can tape a piece of exposed slide film over the camera's flash window, which will filter out most of the visible light, but let enough infrared pass to trigger a sensitive slave unit. - Be careful not to cycle the 5060's internal flash too quickly when doing this though, as it could overheat and possibly melt the slide film, making a mess.) The 5060's slave-flash option is only available when the camera is set to manual exposure mode. As an added bonus though, if you set the flash intensity in "slave" mode to a low value, you can actually use the on-camera flash during continuous shooting, although the maximum frame rate is limited to about 1 frame/second.
Special Exposure Modes
Movie Mode
The C-5060 Wide Zoom's Movie mode is accessed via the Mode dial on top of the camera (marked with a small movie camera symbol). Movies can be recorded at either 640 x 480; 320 x 240; or 160 x 120 pixels. Each records at approximately 15 frames per second. Sound recording can be turned On or Off in the Movie menu. Thanks to the C-5060 Wide Zoom's huge buffer memory and fast internal processing, the maximum recording time appears to be limited only by memory card capacity, regardless of the movie resolution being recorded. (Although I suspect you'll need a fairly fast card to keep up with the camera's data rate.) The available seconds of recording time appear in the status display panel (and on the LCD monitor if activated), based on the quality mode selected and space remaining on the card.
Sound recording with movies presents something of a dilemma for camera manufacturers. The problem with sound recording is that any camera-generated noises will be faithfully recorded along with the ambient sound, generally dominating since they're so close to the microphone. To avoid this problem, most cameras that offer sound recording in movie mode generally don't permit zooming of the lens while recording is in progress, since the sound of the lens motor would be so obtrusive.
With the C-5060's movie mode, Olympus has taken a very intelligent approach, enabling or disabling lens zoom (as well as continuous autofocus) based on whether or not sound recording is enabled. In all circumstances though, digital zoom is available, and the lens zoom can always be adjusted to any position prior to the start of recording. Olympus' movie mode implementation makes a lot of sense, offering as many camera functions as possible, governed by whether or not sound is being recorded. Beyond the sound/zoom tradeoff, a wide range of recording options apply to Movie mode as well, including spot metering, exposure compensation, focus lock, self-timer, ISO, and white balance, all of which are also unusual features to find available in a digicam Movie option.
First seen in the Camedia C-3030 (February 2000), the C-5060 Wide Zoom again offers in-camera "editing" of movies in Playback mode. This capability is accessed via the Playback menu, Movie Play submenu, and Edit option. Here, you can scroll forward and backward frame-by-frame through the movie, and set cut points at the beginning and end of the segment you're interested in. Movie content between the two cut points will be preserved, the rest discarded. In a nice touch though, Olympus allows you to choose whether to modify the original movie file, or just save the selected portion in a separate file - a feature that makes the Movie mode much more useful.
Audio Record Mode
The C-5060 Wide Zoom's Audio Record mode records up to four seconds of sound to accompany an image. Activated through the Shooting Menu (Camera sub-menu), the audio recording takes place immediately after you make an exposure. A status bar appears on the LCD monitor with the word "Busy" displayed. Green dots light up along the status bar to indicate how much time you have left until the recording is finished. You can also add audio clips after the image is recorded by selecting the Audio option in the Playback menu (Play sub-menu).
Panorama Mode
The C-5060 Wide Zoom offers a Panorama exposure mode when using an Olympus brand panorama-enabled xD-Picture Card. (The function is unavailable when using a CompactFlash memory card, or any other brand xD-Picture Card.) In this mode, the exposure and white balance for a series of shots are determined by the first exposure. The Panorama function is accessed in the Shooting menu through the Camera submenu. When activated, it provides light blue guide lines at the edges of the pictures to help you align successive shots, leaving enough overlap between them for the stitching software to do its job. Up to 10 shots can be taken in a panoramic series. Images are saved individually and then assembled on a computer after they've been downloaded.
"2-in-1" Mode
Accessed through the Record menu, "2 in 1" photography mode records two vertically-oriented, half-sized images. After capture, the images are saved side-by-side as one full resolution image, giving a split-screen effect. As with Panorama mode, a set of guidelines appear in the LCD display, to help you line up shots.
Sequence Modes
Taking advantage of its large memory buffer, the C-5060 Wide Zoom offers several Sequence modes that mimic the motor drive on a film camera, continually recording images for as long as the Shutter button is held down, or until the memory runs out (this varies with the image quality and subject, as well as available card space).
The 5060 has a total of three sequence modes, varying in the time between shots, and the maximum number of shots that can be recorded without pausing. High-speed sequence mode captures four frames (regardless of resolution/quality setting) at a rate of approximately three frames per second. "Normal" sequence mode slows to about 1.4 frames/second, but permits much longer sequences to be captured. Depending somewhat on the speed of the memory card you're using, normal sequence mode can capture 10 full-resolution "HQ" images. In AF sequence mode, the camera pauses to focus between shots, further slowing the frame rate, but insuring that moving subjects will remain in focus as they approach or recede from the camera. The slowest shutter speed available in all sequence modes is 1/30 second, and the TIFF and RAW file formats aren't available. A notable limitation of the Sequence mode is that the camera's internal flash cannot be used, at least not in an automatic-metering mode. However, if you have an external flash capable of recycling at three frames per second, and you shoot in Aperture Priority mode, the external flash may work just fine. Likewise, using the 5060's "slave flash" option (available only in manual exposure mode), you can set the flash to fire at a lower, non-metered power level when shooting in sequence mode. The maximum frame rate is limited to about one frame/second, but most consumer digicams don't allow any combination of flash and continuous shooting at all.
My Mode
Accessed by turning the Mode dial to the "My" position,
this mode lets you save customized settings and then access them simply
by turning the Mode dial. For example, if you consistently shoot in
the same environment, you could save the exposure settings for those
specific shooting conditions, so that they can be instantly recalled.
(I can imagine this option being very handy for situations where you
might have to switch quickly between two different settings. Think of
a wedding reception, for instance: Standard "program" mode
for outside shots on the lawn, etc, but a custom setup in My Mode to
shoot the indoor scenes under incandescent lighting.) My Mode even lets
you edit the Shortcut menu items, which appear when the Menu button
is pressed, to reflect often-changed settings. The My Mode is very flexible,
letting you preset the nearly all of the camera's parameters.
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