Olympus C-7070 Wide ZoomThe Olympus C-7070 offers a nice range of "enthusiast" features in a capable and affordable 7-megapixel camera.<<Optics :(Previous) | (Next): Shutter Lag & Cycle Time Tests>> Page 5:Exposure & FlashReview First Posted: 03/01/2005, Updated: 04/27/2005 |
Exposure
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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. You can access Program Shift mode simply by pressing the up and down arrow keys to scroll through a range of equivalent exposure settings. Thus, you can bias the exposure toward a faster shutter speed or greater depth of field. Aperture Priority lets you set the aperture from f/2.8 to f/11 while the camera chooses the best corresponding shutter speed. In Shutter Priority, you can select shutter speeds from 1/4,000 to 16 seconds, and the camera selects the best corresponding aperture setting.
In Manual mode, you control both aperture and shutter speed, with an available Bulb shutter setting for manually-timed exposures as long as two minutes. 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.
For point-and-shoot convenience in what might otherwise be tricky shooting conditions, the C7070 also features seven Scene modes (Portrait, Night Scene, Landscape, Landscape and Portrait, Sports, Underwater Wide, and Underwater Macro). Portrait mode keeps the subject in sharp focus but the background slightly blurred, by using a larger aperture to reduce depth of field. Night Scene mode optimizes the camera for night shots and portraits, using slower shutter speeds to increase the contribution of ambient light to the exposure. Landscape mode instead uses a smaller aperture, to capture sharp detail in broad scenery. Landscape Portrait mode ensures that you have a sharp subject in front of a well-focused background, so that you don't sacrifice detail either in your subject or the scenic background. Sports mode biases the exposure system toward higher shutter speeds, so you can "freeze" fast-paced action. Night Scene mode is for capturing vivid color in dark shooting conditions. The camera employs a slower shutter speed, so a tripod is recommended. Underwater Wide and Underwater Macro modes are for use with the camera's optional underwater housing, and preserve color underwater. Typically, you need a red filter to counteract the large amount of blue, but the C7070 Wide Zoom's Underwater modes boost color for more accurate results. The C7070 Wide 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 Scene presets to the current image, giving you the benefit of a preset shooting mode while maintaining full exposure control.
The C7070 Wide Zoom provides an adjustable ISO setting, with available settings of 80, 100, 200, and 400, plus an Auto setting. The default ISO 80 setting is slightly lower than the more common minimum value of 100, although more cameras are starting to offer lower ISO options like this. 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 lit surroundings. (Note: When ISO is set to Auto in Program exposure mode, it automatically resets to 50 when you switch to Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, or Manual exposure modes.) To combat the higher image noise that results from longer shutter times when shooting in dark conditions, the C7070 Wide Zoom also offers a Noise Reduction mode, which uses dark-frame subtraction to minimize image noise on long exposures.
Four metering patterns are available on the C7070 Wide Zoom: Spot, Multi, Center-Weighted, and ESP multi-patterned metering. All four are accessed by pressing the Metering button on the left side of 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. Center-weighted reads the exposure from the entire frame, but gives a particular weight to the reading from the center spot.
The unusual Multi Meter function, which dates back to the film-based OM-4T, lets you take up to eight individual spot-meter readings from the center of the EVF or 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 earlier C-5050 model, the feature works the same on the 7070.)
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 (and opt to delete it if you wish), or scroll back through other stored files until you return to the Shooting mode (by pressing the Quick View button a second time or by half-pressing the Shutter button).
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 C7070'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-steps with increments of 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, and captures up to five sequential shots with differing exposure while you hold the Shutter button down. 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 C7070 Wide Zoom's white balance menu offers a broader range of options than found on most high-end consumer digital cameras. 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 digital cameras 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 7070's large number of adjustment steps provide very fine-grained control over a surprisingly broad range of color adjustment.
A 12-second Self-Timer is ready for self-portraits, or 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 optional IR remote control on the C7070 Wide Zoom to trigger the shutter without the Self-Timer, which gives you either (more or less) immediate actuation, or a three-second delay after pressing the remote's Shutter button, before the shutter is fired. 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.
The Function menu option enables you to capture images in Black & White or Sepia modes. The C7070 Wide Zoom also features sharpness, hue, saturation, and contrast adjustments.
Flash
The C7070 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. The 7070's flash range extends from 2.6 to 12.1 feet (0.8 to 3.7 meters). 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 a moving subject), and Slow 2 fires the flash at the end of the exposure (producing a blur behind a moving 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-series external flash units as accessories, which couple with the camera to allow flash exposure compensation. (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 ensure 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 7070. Use a device like a Wein Safe-Sync(tm) to protect the 7070 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 7070. 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 C7070 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 Olympus C7070 Wide Zoom's flash also has good support for external "slave" flash units, letting it work with conventional slave trigger units. Like most digital cameras, the C7070 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 7070 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 Olympus 7070 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 7070'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 strobe, 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 7070's internal flash too quickly when doing this though, as it could overheat and possibly melt the slide film, making a mess.) The 7070'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 one frame/second.
Special Exposure Modes
Movie Mode
The Olympus C7070 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. You can choose between 15 or 30 frames per second through the settings menu. Sound recording can be turned On or Off in the Movie menu. At the highest resolution and frame rate, the maximum recording time per clip is limited to 20 seconds, but all other resolution and frame rate combinations can be recorded continuously up to the limit of the memory card's capacity. The available seconds of recording time appear in the status display panel or LCD monitor, 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 loud.
With the C7070'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 (if it is enabled), 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 digital camera Movie option.
Another useful feature in Movie mode is the Camera Movement Compensation option, which can be activated through a Record menu option. More like the image stabilization we've seen on camcorders for years than the optical image stabilization technology popular on many current long zoom digital cameras, this option moves the image capture area across the surface of the CCD to counteract any blurring from camera movement. This function is only suitable for subtle camera movements, but is a nice feature nonetheless. Because the method of compensation is to move the sampling area in response to motion, the image area is cropped, similar to the way a digital zoom crops an image, and a much smaller angle of view is available from this otherwise "wide zoom" camera.
First seen in the Camedia C-3030 (February 2000), the Olympus C7070 Wide Zoom again offers in-camera "editing" of movies in Playback mode, through the Playback menu. 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 C7070 Wide Zoom's Audio Record mode captures 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.
Panorama Mode
The Olympus C7070 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 - even if an Olympus-brand xD-Picture Card is also in the camera - or when using 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.
Sequence Modes
The Olympus C7070 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 Olympus 7070 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 two frames (regardless of resolution/quality setting) at 2.5 frames per second. "Normal" sequence mode slows to about 1.0-1.1 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 a large number of 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. TIFF and RAW file formats aren't available in sequence modes, but the full range of JPEG compression levels and sizes are.
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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