Olympus EVOLT E-500By: Shawn Barnett and Dave Etchells8.0 megapixels, ZUIKO DIGITAL lens mount, digital SLR design, and loads of features! <<Lens Tests :(Previous) | (Next): Shutter Lag & Cycle Time Tests>> Page 8:Exposure & FlashReview First Posted: 09/25/2005, Updated: 12/05/2005 |
Exposure
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In Program mode, the camera is in charge of the aperture and shutter speed, while you control the remaining exposure options such as ISO, metering, and white balance. Program mode also provides access to the exposure compensation adjustment, which lets you adjust the camera's automatically determined exposure setting by plus or minus five exposure equivalent (EV) units, in steps of 0.3, 0.5, or 1.0 EV. (You can specify the level of adjustment through the Setup menu.) Also through the camera's menu system, you can program the Control dial to allow Program Shift, meaning you can sort through a small range of equivalent exposure settings for a given shot. Aperture Priority lets you set the aperture (the available range depends on the lens attached), leaving the camera to automatically determine the appropriate shutter speed. In Shutter Priority, you can select shutter speeds from 1/4,000 to 60 seconds, with the camera selecting the corresponding aperture setting. The Manual exposure option lets you control both aperture and shutter speed yourself, and the shutter speed range also includes a Bulb setting for variable length exposures as long as eight minutes In common with other Olympus cameras, a handy feature of the Manual mode is that, as you scroll through the various exposure settings, the camera indicates whether it thinks your chosen setting will produce a correct exposure. It does this by flashing the exposure differential (the difference between your settings and what the camera metering system thinks is correct) in green on the viewfinder display, up to a limit of +/- 5EV.
The 15 scene modes include Landscape, Landscape Portrait, Night Scene, Night Portrait, Children, Sport, High Key, Low Key, Macro, Candle, Evening Sun, Fireworks, Documents, and Beach & Snow modes, which optimize the camera for specific shooting situations. The five most commonly used scene settings also have places on the Mode dial, and include Portrait, Landscape, Macro, Sports, and Night Scene. (A sixth Scene setting provides access to all 15 modes.) In Portrait mode, the Olympus E-500 uses a larger lens aperture, reducing depth of field to throw distracting background elements out of focus. Landscape mode keeps foreground and background in focus, adjusting the camera's color handling to emphasize blue and green hues in the image (producing more intense foliage and sky colors). The Macro setting is for shooting small subjects, and the focus range will depend on the lens. Sports mode biases the exposure system toward faster shutter speeds, to help freeze fast-moving subjects. Night Scene employs slower shutter speeds, allowing more ambient light into the image. Limited menu options are available in the scene modes, as their purpose is to simplify camera setup for novices. (A multitude of menu choices would only add complication to what are intended to be easy-to-use camera settings.)
The Olympus E-500 lets you adjust its light sensitivity, in one or 1/3 EV steps, with options of 100, 125, 160, 200, 250, 320, and 400 ISO equivalents, or to an Auto mode in which the camera selects an ISO appropriate to the subject's brightness. An ISO step size option on the Setup menu lets you adjust the variation between ISO settings. You can also enable "boosted" ISOs through the Record menu, allowing 500, 640, 800, 1,000, 1,250, and 1,600 equivalents, and set a maximum ISO point for the Auto mode which won't risk noise in bright situations. The higher ISO settings are helpful when you want faster shutter speeds under normal lighting, to help freeze fast action. Of course, as with all digicams, the higher ISO settings produce photos with more image noise, in much the same way that higher-ISO films show more film grain. To combat this problem, the E-500 offers a Noise Reduction option through the Record menu, which reduces the amount of image noise from long exposures, particularly at the higher ISO settings.
Five metering systems are available on the E-500: Center-Weighted, Digital ESP, Spot, Spot HI, and Spot SH. All are accessed through the Metering button on the camera's back panel. Under the default Digital ESP setting, the camera takes an exposure reading from the center of the image as well as the surrounding area and chooses the best exposure based on brightness and contrast across the entire scene. Center-Weighted metering also reads from the center of the frame, but from a large area. Spot metering simply reads the exposure from the very center of the image, so you can pinpoint the specific area of the photograph you want properly exposed. (Spot metering is very handy when you have a subject that's backlit, or that has a very different brightness, either lighter or darker, than the background.) The two additional Spot options provide highlight and shadow control, whenever shooting in very bright or very dark conditions.
An AE/AF Lock button locks the current exposure settings whenever pressed, so you can independently lock exposure and focus. (AE Lock is useful when you want to base your exposure on an off-center subject. Point the camera at the subject, lock the exposure, then recompose your shot however you like. Your subject will be correctly exposed, regardless of what might be in the center of the frame when you finally snap the shutter.) Through the Setup menu, you can designate the function of the AE/AF lock button, and how it works in conjunction with the Shutter button. This button will also lock the flash exposure.
In situations where exposure compensation is necessary, simply press the Exposure Compensation button and turn the Control dial (in all exposure modes except Manual) and the EV value will display on the LCD monitor. You can increase or decrease the exposure in either 0.3, 0.5, or 1.0-step increments (selected via a menu option), up to a maximum of +/- 5 EV. Or, you can use the Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) function to automatically bracket an exposure in three-step increments of either 0.3, 0.7, or 1.0 EV units each. The auto bracketing will center its efforts around whatever exposure you've chosen as the starting point, including any exposure compensation adjustments you've made. AEB is handy for those times when you want to make sure you get just the right exposure for a critical subject.
White balance options include Auto, Tungsten, White Fluorescent, Neutral White Fluorescent, Daylight Fluorescent, Outdoors, Cloudy, Shade, One-Touch, and Custom, to accommodate a variety of lighting situations. Pressing the White Balance button and turning the Command dial adjusts the setting, and the Kelvin temperature is displayed in the LCD monitor. The E-500 offers a Custom setting, which lets you choose from a range of Kelvin temperature settings. The One-Touch option is useful for basing the white balance on a white card. You can also adjust the white balance, controlling the amount of red, green, blue, and magenta in the color balance, in any of the selected modes. This ability to "tweak" the white balance, called White Balance Compensation, is very helpful when dealing with difficult light sources. The E-500 also features a white balance bracketing setting, accessed through the LCD menu. If activated, the camera will take three successive images, either biasing between red and blue or green and magenta. You can set the images to vary by two, four, or six arbitrary adjustment steps.
The Olympus E-500 also offers two Self-Timer modes for self-portraits or those occasions when you don't want to risk camera shake on a long exposure by pressing the Shutter button to trip the shutter. You can choose between a two- or 12-second countdown. The two-second countdown is useful for times when you're taking a long exposure with the camera on a tripod, and you want to minimize any camera shake from pressing the Shutter button. The Drive setting also accesses the Remote Control modes, for use with the optional IR remote.
There are also options on the Record menu to set the color mode, which offers Vivid, Natural, and Muted color, as well as Monochrome and Sepia options. In addition, the Olympus E-500 has a Gradation setting to control the brightness of the entire image. You can choose between the Normal, Low, and High Key settings. A color space option under the Record menu lets you choose between sRGB (for Windows machines) and Adobe RGB (for Adobe Photoshop) color options.
Sequential Shooting Mode
The E-500 offers a Sequential mode that mimics the motor drive on a film camera, recording as many as four images at about 2.5 frames per second when you hold down the Shutter button. As is usually the case, the number of frames you can capture quickly is limited by the camera's buffer memory capacity and the frame rate is determined by the file size.
Flash
The E-500 offers a built-in, pop-up flash, with six operating modes: Auto, Auto Red-Eye Reduction, Fill-In, Off, Slow-Sync Red-Eye Reduction, Slow-Sync 1, or Slow-Sync 2 modes. Auto mode lets the camera decide when to fire the flash, while the Fill-in mode fires the flash with every shot. (Fill-in is useful for throwing light on backlit subjects, keeping their faces from being obscured in deep shadow.) The Red-Eye Reduction modes fire a brief burst of low-power flash pulses before firing the flash at full power, making the pupils of your subject's eyes contract, reducing the occurrence of the Red-Eye Effect. The Slow Sync modes allow more ambient light into the background, producing more natural lighting behind a flash-illuminated subject. The First Curtain mode fires the flash at the beginning of the exposure, while Second Curtain mode fires the flash at the end of the exposure. A button on the rear panel pops the flash up from its compartment, and a second press displays the flash menu. You can also adjust the overall flash intensity from +/-2 EV through the Record menu, in 0.3, 0.5, or 1.0 step increments. The flash option menu also offers a range of Manual flash exposures, setting the flash output to Full, 1/4, 1/16, or 1/64 of its maximum power. This mode is handy for working with studio strobe systems with slave triggers. In manual flash mode, the flash emits only a single burst, so it will trigger conventional slave circuits properly. A flash bracketing mode works similarly to standard Auto Exposure Bracketing, taking a series of three images at different flash levels when you're not sure of the best flash exposure.
The E-500 also features an external flash hot-shoe, for attaching more powerful external flash units. The Olympus FL-50, FL-36, and FL-20 flash units, as well as several other manufacturer flash units.
As noted earlier, the E-500's flash head doubles as a very powerful autofocus-assist illuminator.
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