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Olympus E1 SLR

The first "Four Thirds" system (almost) sees the light of day!

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Page 9:Camera Modes & Menus

Review First Posted: 06/24/2003, Updated: 03/16/2004

Camera Modes

Record Mode: The E-1 is automatically in Record mode whenever it's powered on. A Mode dial on top of the camera selects between Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, and Manual exposure modes.

Playback Mode: The Playback button on the camera's rear panel puts the camera into Playback mode. Here, you can review captured images on the card, erase them, protect them, etc. You can cancel Playback mode either by pressing the Playback button a second time, or half- or fully-pressing the shutter button. (The E-1 is a shooting-priority camera.)

Camera Modes and Menus: Pressing the Menu button in any camera mode automatically displays the following menus:

  • Record Menu
    • Flash Intensity: Adjusts the flash power from -2 to +2 exposure equivalents (EV) in one-third-step increments.
    • Saturation: Controls the level of color saturation, in any of four modes. Four options are available. CS adjusts overall saturation up or down, while CM1 through CM3 boost saturation for red, blue, and green colors independently, while CM4 is the Portrait setting, boosting saturation in pink tones. (Corresponding to Caucasian skin tones.)
    • Contrast: Adjusts the E-1's tone curve, to increase or decrease the amount of contrast in the image.
    • Sharpness: Adjusts the in-camera image sharpening.
    • Color Space: Sets the color space to sRGB or Adobe RGB.

    • White Balance Bracket: Enables the white balance bracketing mode, allowing you to choose the number of frames and the size of the white balance adjustment step between them..
    • RAW + JPEG: Allows you to record a JPEG file in addition to a RAW file, or just the RAW file on its own. (RAW + JPEG is handy in that it gives you a JPEG file for immediate use, as well as a RAW file to act as a "digital negative.")
    • Noise Filter: Turns the Noise Filter on or off. (If active, noise filtering is applied to every image as it's captured, increasing the processing time for each photo shot.) Noise Filter works on all images, regardless of the length of exposure.
    • Noise Reduction: Enables or disables Noise Reduction for long exposures. This is the standard dark frame subtraction noise reduction, applying only to long exposures.
    • Shading Compensation: Turns shading compensation on or off. This is the control that enables or disables the "shading compensation," by which the E-1 can compensate for light falloff in the corners of the frame when shooting with wide-angle lenses. As with the Noise Filter option, enabling Shading Compensation significantly increases per-frame processing times.


    • AF Illuminator: Enables the AF illuminator, which helps the camera focus in low light. When enabled, the AF illuminator only comes on under dim lighting conditions. You can also disable the illuminator so it won't give you away when trying to shoot candid photos under low-light conditions.
    • Anti-Shock: Disables the anti-shock feature, or sets the delay anywhere from one to 30 seconds. (Anti-shock releases the mirror slightly before firing the shutter. This gives any vibrations caused by the mirror movement time to die down before the exposure is made.)
    • Pixel Mapping: Activates the pixel mapping feature, mapping-out any bad pixels in the CCD that might have cropped up since the camera was made.



  • Playback Menu
    • Slide Show: Sets up an automated slide show of all images on the memory card. You can also set the number of images to appear on the screen at one time during the slide show, with options of one, four, nine, or 16.
    • Auto Rotate: Turns the auto rotate feature on or off. If on when an image is captured, the camera automatically orients the image correctly in the playback display, even though the raw image data isn't altered..
    • RAW Data Edit: As mentioned in the "Exposure" section of this review, the E-1 lets you create new JPEG images from original RAW files, changing a number of image characteristics in the process. (A partial list includes color space, white balance, contrast and saturation.)
    • DPOF: (Digital Print Order Format) Sets up a single image or all images for printing on a DPOF compatible device. You can also set up an index print of the images on the memory card.


  • Setup 1
    • EV Step: Sets the step size of the exposure compensation adjustment to 1/3, 1/2, or 1 EV units. (For old timers like myself, an EV unit is equivalent to an f-stop of exposure adjustment.)
    • ISO Boost: Turns on the ISO Boost function, which increases the ISO offerings to include 1,600 and 3,200 equivalent settings.
    • White Balance +/-: Tweaks the white balance settings, allowing you to add more red or blue to an image.
    • SQ Setting: Specifies the resolution and compression setting for the SQ image mode. Available resolutions are 1,600 x 1,200; 1,280 x 960; 1,024 x 768; or 640 x 480 pixels. Compression settings are 1/8 or 1/2.7.
    • AE / AF Lock: Controls the function of the AE Lock button, for each of the available focus modes. (There are a *lot* of options here. See the Exposure section of this review for more detail.)


    • Dial: Controls the function of the Command dial and Secondary Command dial in each of the exposure modes.
      • Program: Both dials can control Program Shift (default setting), or control either Program Shift or Exposure Compensation.
      • Aperture Priority: Default setting is for both dials to control aperture. Or, each dial can control either the aperture or Exposure Compensation setting.
      • Shutter Priority: Both dials control shutter speed by default, but one or the other can be set to control Exposure Compensation instead.
      • Manual: Default setting is aperture for the Command dial and shutter speed for the Secondary Command dial. The other option is to reverse the controls.
    • Focus Ring: Specifies the direction for turning the focus ring on the lens. (Set one way, the E-1 will match the focus behavior of Canon lenses, the other way, it will match that of Nikon optics.)
    • SAF + MF: When enabled, this sets the camera to initially determine focus automatically, whenever the shutter button is half-pressed. It then relinquishes control to the user, letting you make fine focus adjustments manually.
    • Release Priority S: On or off. The E-1 normally operates in focus priority mode, refusing to release the shutter unless the AF system indicates that it's achieved a good focus lock. Turning this option on switches the camera to release-priority mode, in which it will fire the shutter whenever the shutter button is pressed, whether the lens is focused or not. This particular menu item controls release priority for single-shot mode only.
    • Release Priority C: On or off. This option enables or disables release priority for continuous-mode shooting.


    • Reset Lens: On or Off. This function resets the focal point of the lens when the camera is powered off. (Although I confess I'm not sure why anyone would care to do so.)
    • PC Mode: Sets the computer interface mode to Storage or Control. In Storage mode, the camera appears as a USB storage-class device, showing up on your Mac OS or Windows XP desktop as a removable disk drive. In Control mode, you can control the camera from a PC, using Olympus' new Studio software.
    • Erase Setting: Sets the default selection for the Erase menu to either Yes or No.
    • Cleaning Mode: Activates the "SuperSonic Wave" cleaning mode if you need to do so while running the camera. (The supersonic CCD cleaning otherwise runs automatically for 200 milliseconds whenever you turn the camera on.)
    • Custom Reset Setting: Offers four "resets," letting you establish up to four "standard" configurations of the camera's settings that the "reset" function will return it to. A fifth option lets you return the camera to its factory default settings.



  • Setup 2
    • Date and Time: Sets the camera's internal calendar and clock.
    • Filename: Resets file numbering with each new memory card, or continuously numbers images from one card to the next.
    • Record View: Turns off the record-mode post-view image display, or sets it to Auto, or 5 or 20 second durations.
    • Beep Sound: Turns the camera's beep sounds on or off.
    • LCD Brightness: Adjusts the brightness of the LCD monitor.




    • Sleep: Sets the camera to put itself to sleep after 1, 3, 5, or 10 minutes. You can also turn the sleep function off.
    • Card Setup: Erases all images on the memory card, or formats the memory card.
    • Menu Language: Sets the menu language.
    • Video Out: Sets the video out signal to conform to PAL or NTSC timing.

 

 

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