New gear and revelations

I recently had a stint in hospital. Not something that would prove lethal in a modern first world hospital, but something that made me very grateful I do not live in a third world country.

On waking up from a long sleep, I found a photography magazine that my mother had brought in for me. In her own words it was a bit odd to give me a magazine on photography, but what else would interest me? Then something funny happened.

I got the photo bug back. The type of feelings I used to get, before I worked in a camera shop for nearly a decade (and got quite sick) and it struck me that in many ways nothing has really changed. Photography is still practiced with the same goals as it always had and the technology is there to facilitate that not change it. Put simply I had forgotten that a good image is simply a good image. Here where people going bush or travelling and taking the same images as we have always taken presented the same way it has been for years. How had I lost sight of this? Too much time talking gear, not enough looking at photos? Or maybe I just stopped buying paper magazines too soon. The magazine format and nowhere to go also makes you take your time and absorb, so maybe this helped.

What do you do when the bug bites? You buy more gear (please ignore all relevant posts prior to this about less is more, just for this post). My lofty wish list* was whittled down to reasonable shopping list after some quotes came in. I decided on a "new tech" camera, a problem solving lens and a new Pro1000 Canon printer (still not purchased, but coming). The logical set up would have been a 60mm macro to fill a gap and EM10 mk2, but I was/am embracing life!

My first purchase was a Pen F. Did I really think it would change my world? No, I have been around cameras too long to think a couple of generation shift would make much difference these days. It did however have a couple of features that I could really do with. A silent, vibration free shutter for long lens landscapes and street shooting and a better manual focussing dynamic than the EM5, both real benefits, not "fluff". The EM10 mk2 actually has most of the features I wanted and is better for a video set up, but the Pen is dead gorgeous and felt better in the hand.

How does it go? It is better laid out than the OMD EM5 (one of the few early criticisms of that camera), but the menu has been changed a bit, maybe to accommodate its extra features so I cannot get the two models set up the same (Grrr). It seems that Olympus has just chosen to drop some features on some buttons in the custom menus. It does have some new ways to do AF selection, but I cannot match these with the older cameras. AF may be slightly faster, but the more precise focus point is a blessing.

The extra pixels do not make a sharper or contrastier image, but the extra file size, the silent and vibration free electronic shutter, mounted on a tripod with the pro zooms should produce some big, waste free images. Maybe the dynamic range is better? Still to be confirmed.

The second thing was the 40-150 f2.8 pro lens. This one broke all of my rules, but I was after a landscape lens that would give me a gapless range with my 12-40 for tripod work. As stated before, I prefer prime lenses for most work, but zooms are just too good for tripod work. If you don't have to shoot quickly why waste pixels with poor framing options.

PenF 40-150 at 75mm f2.8 lower right third of the image, about 4mp (off centre sharpness test). The 75mm lens image is identical. Standard processing.

I love my 75-300, but there was a sizeable gap between 40 and 75 in an area that I use a lot, and the corner performance of the long zoom is good but not perfect. The fast, heavy, weather proof and expensive 40-150 ended up being the best choice. I am not going to further bore you with irrelevant test images, but here is my take after using the lens for a week or two.

It looks to be as sharp as the 75mm at the same apertures and focal length across the frame. 

It is slightly sharper in the centre than the 75-300 at equivalent focal lengths, where the cheaper zoom is strongest, being roughly as sharp at f2.8 as the longer zoom at its widest aperture, but sharper stopped down to the same aperture. It is clearly sharper in the corners, being nearly perfect across the frame-my main reason for buying it. It sits more steadily in the hand, has a noticeably "snappier" looking image and is nicer to use except for the weight. The tripod collar helps with balance also, but this is really an issue introduced by the lens itself. Bokeh, in comparison to my primes could be slightly better, but for landscapes that is irrelevant.

Both the 12-40 and 40-150 seem to be designed to create beautiful images to the eye, regardless of how very well they do on the test bench. 

*The 4 perfect primes list of the Leica 12mm and 42.5 ($3000), the 300 f4 ($3500) and my 75mm as well as the newly announced 25 f1.2 ($?). Impractical or ideal?

Autumn Fail

I missed Autumn this year.

EM5 12-40  40 f4

Between the changes to my work circumstances, impatience to get to Japan again for more street shooting and cultural cleansing and an ample dose of apathy, I missed Autumn. 

During a flood emergency in my basement (and record flooding locally that even made the news in the Czech Republic!), that forced me to manually bail out the 8 bathtub sized pool under the house, a little magic caught my eye in the garden. I dropped the bucket and grabbed the first fully loaded camera that came to hand.

The lens is the 12-40 that is still in the "not sure" category with me, but I think I have come to terms with its character. Pekka Podka said in his review that Olympus intended to have a lens not high in super fine detail resolution like the older 12-60, but strong in contrast and smooth rendering (not exactly sure on the precise wording there, as it looks as though his excellent site has been taken down). 

I feel the images have a slightly under exposed look to them, with too much noise and softness, but I have not yet explored its exposure accuracy and forget that I tend to shoot in poor light hand held, where f2.8 is a luxury. Every time I test it, it comes up with comparable quality to my primes**, but in the field something (maybe me?!) goes awry. I also feel the lens misses focus more than other lenses on the EM5 mk1*, but will probably be better on the newer cameras. 

It does not help that I tend to use the lens at 40 f2.8 where it is known to be weakest by a small amount, especially compared to the 45/75 lenses. When I do landscape work it is sharp edge to edge and the focus issues* go away. 

If I look at the images it takes at normal size or when printed, it does a lovely job, but if I go in and pixel peep, it looks to have less detail than the tele primes, rendering a simpler sharpness more on par with the 17mm. Like the 17mm it sharpens well and the colour/bokeh/contrast are good. 

*The EM5 mk1 has a small achilles heel with its focus. It tends to shoot past small subjects. This varies by circumstance and I feel with some lenses and it frustrates my father in law no end when he tries to photograph small spiders, as it focusses perfectly on the ground around them.

** not as sharp as the 75mm (no surprise), smoother, but less snappy than the 45, roughly equal to the 25mm (but more ca) and better in the corners than the 17mm. It is also known to be a better edge to edge 12mm than the prime.

No Eyes Here

A theme that has crept in to my street images around home is heavily shaded eyes.

Evandale Market EM5 12-40

The reason is, of course, the light.

The Spring or Autumn light in Tasmania is strong, bright and low in the sky and the people lucky enough to share it are going to need some shade for those eyes.

OMD 17mm

In Japan it is Umbrellas, but In Tasmania it's manually shaded eyes.

Manic Melbourne

Meg and I had a little jaunt over to Melbourne a few weeks ago, she for work and me just because.

I spent the better part of three days working on my street technique and discovered a few things.

1) your mistakes are often your best stuff, even after all these years. Frustrating but true. Maybe it's that you are as surprised and delighted as another viewer by the discovery of a new image taken "less well" that works or maybe it is just luck.

OMD 45mm

2) Technique that works in one city may not work in another. Harajuku Japan suited the 17mm focussed on about 2 mtrs at f4-5.6. Melbourne defied this. Maybe the distances were different, or the people or the light or maybe my mojo was not packed in the case when we came over, but for some reason a longer (25/45mm) lens was more successful, even for grab shots.

EPM2 45mm

3) Revisiting the same place gives you a feeling of easy comfort, but this may not always be a good thing. Seeing differently is not always linked to just seeing different things, so reinventing yourself in a known haunt is tough, but clearly defined and going somewhere new is not automatically going to change you, just your view. Be aware of the difference between improvement and being in a rut.

OMD 45mm

4) Those little OMD cameras (and Pens) frikkin' rock, even the old ones! The lenses aren't bad either. Yeah they miss the odd shot, as do most cameras, but if you are prepared and "sorted" with your technique, they are quiet responsive and deliver a deep and glowaciuos image. This is only getting better in the newer models, but any of the cameras with the 16mp sensor or later are good.

EPM2 25mm

Welcome back Silver FX

A year ago I switched to a Mac computer. In the process I lost the FX suite (now owned by Google). I purchased Silver FX at full whack a few years ago, then it grew into the full suite thanks to Google upgrading anyone who owned one to all and found some good stuff in there.

Paying for it again (even at less than $40) was a bit of a pride thing....really shits me. I had the disc, but no go and my activation number was ignored, so I let it go grumpily. 

Reading a blog on line the other day (more photos less gear?), I noticed an announcement that it was free at the moment, so I grabbed it again. 

Not too proud to say I missed it and am glad to get it back.

Lightroom and PS can do a lot with mono conversions, but there is something about the depth or control and a programme with full focus on only black and white that makes a difference. It is dated by the standards of some of the "film simulation" programmes out there, but I am not interested in that, I just want the best digital mono image I can create easily and cleanly. My favourite tools are the contrast and structure sliders and the filter controls.

All of the above were taken within 50 feet of each other at Perrin dunes on Tasmanias' east coast with the 12-40 and 75-300 lenses. All very "Death Valley".

The colours are from the copper and gold toning options at weakest setting then modified to a finer degree.

ANZAC Day

It only means something to Australians and New Zealanders, but it is our shared national day.

It is also a great time of the year (high Autumn) to photograph proud men and women and the spectacle of military pageantry.

Gear? The OMD and 75-300 zoom (look at that colour!)

The one above is from my old favourite kit (1Ds mk2 and 135 f2L). Much the same quality, but twice (three times?) the weight of an OMD and 75 f1.8. How things have changed.

Aren't Pelicans great.

Equal parts goofy and awesome, they are hypnotic with their antics.

Camping at the end of the season with my friend and father in law John, we stopped for lunch at St Helens on the Tasmanian east coast and were entertained by the local royalty.

Camera stuff; OMD and the 75-300.

Little Landscapes

Tasmania has more than its fair share of beautiful places. It's hard to travel in any direction before becoming aware of a very photogenic location on many scales. 

When I was young, the only place worth photographing that I could reach on foot was the Cataract Gorge reserve in my home town Launceston. After repeated visits, having done all of the usual images, I started to look for smaller details. The elusive waterfalls that my friends could never find were actually only 1 foot high, but with a wide angle lens placed low looked ten times larger. 

Sticking with that method bore fruit when camping at Boat Harbour last year. We had missed the true summer season, so we had the place to our selves (still managed to find the most mosquito infested part of the camping ground though and someone left the mozzie flap open).

Around sundown (when the mosquitoes were planning their massed strike), inspiration hit in an area of about 50 foot square on the foreshore. The tide had recently exited leaving clean, wet rocks full of brilliant colours and textures. The light at this time of the year is cool and brilliant, full of the expectations of autumn, releasing the tired hold of summer.

The above image was captured with a Fuji XA1 camera and 27mm lens. This whole kit cost $599 and would have to be one of the best landscape kits available for the money. Taken in late evening gloom, the exposure was about 30 seconds at F8. The camera was secured on a sturdy tripod, with a cable release used (the Fuji cameras do not need an overly heavy tripod and the camera has WiFi control/release, but old habits are hard to break).

Dilm or Figital?

Why do we still worship the memory of film and how good is our memory?

Film photographers are an old and declining breed, or a new and exciting breed, depending on how you look at it. True film shooters (they had no choice) chased the best technical and visual quality they could extract. They would leave no stone unturned to get their desire look, defined sharpness, contrast or the right grain look, but all were limited by films very nature. Film shooters were an accepting lot, all collecting from the same garden, but all trying to present a different arrangement.

The art community experimented with the "wet" process (limited as it was), creating looks like "cross processing", stretching the limits of chemistry any way they could or chasing workable flaws in an effort to stand out, but they were the few beating a different drum. Most of us just wanted as good as we could reasonably expect from our work flow.

Recently I was struck by a disturbing thought. The only time recently (digitally) I felt able to term any of my work as "film like", was when it looked overly grainy, poorly processed or badly taken. I was accepting things I did not like to fit in with the conventions of the digital world.

The modern acceptance of film falls into two camps;

In the red corner we have the true film users*, who can see and often need the difference, but  have to explain their choice of medium or just don't bother and let it go unnoticed. Chris Gambat of the Phoblographer recently stated he cannot get the dynamic range or look of medium format film out of digital and Eric Kim in his new ebook on Proof Sheets stated that the red/yellow/orange of Portra film eludes him in digital. Personally I have never felt that digital black and white has the depth or richness of film, putting me off using it on the whole.

In the blue corner we have the "App" film shooters. They may or may not actually use film, but either way, they are going to make sure you are aware of their intent with signature signs such as too much grain, poor focus, passed off as "artistic selection" and introduced, artificial, film flaws such as scratches, fading and bad processing (every thing true film users try to avoid).

The above image is digital. It is processed to look like I liked my black and white images to look when produced in my own darkroom. My preferred look was clean, rich and brilliant, without any soft or mushy grey tones, with tight and sharp grain (and no more than needed) and a slight warm tone (sepia/selenium), usually applied to the paper on printing. The hairs on my arms stood up when I re discovered** the look and the new process to get it.

Part of the secret is the highlight control of the OMD/Sony sensor. The recovery of detail in highlight tones takes on a film like look and the more sparkly highlights are beautiful (look at the umbrella handle above). My attempts at the same look with Canon tended to be brilliant, but thin, loosing detail for more sparkle.

I am home again.

So, sorry there wont be any fashionably "fake" film images on my gallery any more, but the reality is, I never liked that type of look in the first place.

* often with an unbroken trail of film use from their first camera to now.

**by accident I hit grey scale conversion in the middle of processing a contrasty and vibrant colour image. The unfinished colour image lead to the finished mono one.

Through a Glass Door

Street photographers use many tricks to get their images.

Sometimes the "trick" offers itself up. 

Leaving a store in town I noticed, first the man on the right, dignified, patient and then the man on the left, happy and relaxed. Between my composition and myself was a panel of door glass. At first I cursed the quality robbing effect of this enormous, low grade and unwanted lens filter, but as the taking of the image went on longer than intended, I realised that I was effectively invisible to my subjects. This allowed me a second bite, a rare commodity in street shooting. The second image was better In every way. I know that if this was taken on the other side of the glass, I would not have loitered unnoticed.

The camera was an EM5 with 25mm lens.

The quality is down a bit (notice the reflections in the top right corner), but street shooters accept that as part of the game.

High Drama

Walking outside, going to the car to get some dinner, the light was blinding across the garage roof.

Looking up, all I could see at first was glare, but as the clouds moved diffusing the light, a world of drama was revealed. I raced inside to grab a camera (a pretty random act usually, but I got lucky with a card and battery loaded OMD with 75mm attached). Out I came again and luckily, the light was much as I left it. This summer has been long, dry and hot, but has dished up some powerful spring/autumn like cloud formations.

I could not describe a more pedestrian looking vista of a garage roof, power lines and suburbia if allowed to intrude in the image above, but excluded, the true heroes are allowed to shine. 

The whole show lasted a few minutes until the sun was fully hidden by cloud, but who cares when you get a chance to see natures' brilliance from you front yard.

Who Knew?

We (photographers or not) are often our own worst critics and editors.

The image above was loaded yesterday to my 500px account, started late last month. 

I decided to add another web presence as any website follows a pretty slow growth path and the more aggressive social gallery sites help get your images onto more screens.

The image above was taken late in the evening on our first trip to Japan last (their) spring. I liked the idea of taking it. I liked the success I achieved when taking it, but ultimately the image failed to inspire after an initial period in the sun.

I cannot say with any certainty what was wrong with it, but candidates are the slight (corrected) wide angle distortion, the slightly cramped feel, the coat corner invading the edge, the cold pinkish hue from wet evening city light (hence the conversion to mono) or the slight softness from the slow shutter speed/wide aperture combination?

Some of the images from the trip ended up being converted to black and white and added to the Traveller series. This one still loitered in the relegation zone. Finally, after most of the other images had been loaded I decided to give it a go in the last batch. 

It's now my most liked image on 500px and it has been on the shortest time of the top 10!

With one exception the other images featured are not my favourites. What do I know? Obviously not as much as I thought. Might go trawling the "crappy" files. 

Weather is

The Japanese have a saying, "weather is". 

They have a very accepting and philosophical nature. If it rains, they don't complain, you just use and umbrella or get wet. Simple, no fuss. But on the other hand that can create a mentality of "be ready for anything". Tokyo can dish up some pretty serious rain (we have only been there a few days with glorious weather, the majority of days in spring were wet and about half in the  summer trip, it took four trips to Harajuku to get sunshine). The sun is mild by Australian standards, but the heat and humidity can be intense, so a brolly serves dual roles.

The girl above makes an almost pointless study of the weather as she is equally prepared for either extreme. There may be an element of fashion driving her choices also!

The camera was the OMD EM5 and the lens, the 75mm at f4. The width of the streets in Tokyo and Osaka allow a lovely distance for photos with a short telephoto lens.

Second visits

Florence, centre of the artistic world, cradle or Italian medieval history.

On our first visit we hated it.

My wife and my memories of Florence on our first visit are a mix of heat, dust, bad smells and getting lost (a lot). Roses were covered in a fine dust, the sun became a burning pink ball each evening, we witnessed the collapse and imminent death of a tourist, a messy moped accident resulting in a broken arm that still managed to be waved about in conversation, warm pools of urine (human or horse, not sure) and the most frustrating map I have ever used (all of the marked streets were the same size, from two lane roads to cramped alleyways). 

It did not help that on the night of our arrival we wandered into the market area around dusk, entering a seedy world of hawkers, beggars, dodgy looking types and market stall holders at the end of a long day. This was the only time in our trip we felt genuinely skittish.

Contrast this with our arrival in Seina in the middle of a medieval festival, complete with parades and a race through the Piazzo Del Compo to see who will ride in the Palio. It was a furious and thrilling first two hours until the clouds burst clearing the piazzo in seconds!

Porcellino, the enormous brass bore in the market area has a shiny nose from being rubbed by tourists. Apparently if you rub it you will return. "Touch that and you are coming back on your own" my wife said and she meant it.

Oddly, many of my favourite images from that trip came from Florence and it was one of the better hotels we stayed in, although not great. The worst hotel was in Siena, but we have much better memories of that city, go figure.

The second trip in winter a few years later could not have been more different. Our hotel was an off season revelation, the people were softer, even in the market area (the global down turn humbled many) and soft rain cleaned the streets, as did the police, seemingly less tolerant of corner hawkers. 

We did not rub Porcellinos' nose, but we came back anyway. An open mind really can open new (or old) doors. 

Double Talk

Where would the Italians be without their hands? A bit pointless on the phone, but it's in their blood.

This is one of my favourite images from our trip to Italy in 2012(?). I initially preferred the colour image, but over time, the black and white won me over. Wonderful character and emotion.

Camera was the 450D canon and the lens the 135 f2L. This combination worked well enough in it's day and I still miss the lens (although the 75mm Olympus is more useful and maybe a little better at half the size). This may be an odd combination to some, but weight was really an issue with those big canon lenses, so light weight cameras were the best (only) solution.

Here is the colour one for comparison, although it is a little lighter than earlier versions.

In Japan They Don't Smile

If you have ever heard that in Japan the people do not show emotion, you have been miss informed.

Looking through my images from the two trips to Japan, I noticed something that had been observed before, but became stark in contrast to other images I had been looking at earlier the same day. There are a lot more images containing strong emotions, especially happiness in these photos, a lot more than my collection of street shots from Italy or Australia. It is not uncommon to see Japanese people sharing moments of shared joy, especially with their children, but even then they keep these to themselves out of respect to others. Perfect really.

Shooting street images in Japan is easier than in many countries, but the image maker must beware. The people have a strong tolerance to the behaviour of others, but that does not mean they do not feel intruded upon. Respect, distance and common decency are all as relevant there as anywhere else.  

Testing times

Poor Pepper (or Miss Daisy as we sometimes call her).

My obsessive testing regime needs consistency, so poor Pep has been my muse for the last few years. I don't think dogs can roll their eyes, but if they have an equivalent, I reckon I cop it a lot.

This image came from my slightly manic "Lets go back to full frame Canon" period. After shooting various subjects for a weekend with a 6D, EM5 and XE-1, I had convinced myself I needed full frame again. In my last test the strong afternoon light through our bedroom window and a content, sun chasing hound allowed just one more test to confirm my move.

It back fired brilliantly.

I fired off about 10 properly aimed shots with the 6D and an 85 f1.8 and then grudgingly about the same with the OMD and various lenses, all wide open. On inspecting the images, the Canon's shots missed focus and showed twitchy exposure more often than not. Much as I had been expecting, but avoiding in my previous tests, but still the results rattled me. Looking at the Olympus images, I was bemused, but not surprised that all of the images, regardless of lens, had focussed on the eye. The depth of field at f1.8 was more forgiving, the lenses were sharper and the odd exposure miss cue was salvageable and fully avoidable (I was being lazy to the point of unfair to the Olympus, shooting one handed while holding the Canon in the other hand and not "pre chimping" as I had pretty much made up my mind to move on).

The bit of fringing on the collar disc is not "CA", but a greenish colour cast by a slightly tinted, hardened glass window (it is in every shot to some extent, often showing up in fine hair highlights). The chosen shot was taken with the EM5 (stay of execution) and the amazing 75 f1.8.

This image has been enlarged to 20"x30" and still has plenty of legs (you can clearly count the hairs in her top eye lid). Bye bye full frame. 

Of the images below, the middle one is the original file before a bit of post processing. The one on the left is with the 25mm showing colour consistency.

Journeys

On one of my photo walks this morning I chanced upon an image that is more mystery than story.

My home town has become a new home for a lot of people from around the world with stories far more interesting, horrifying and emotional than anything I have lived through. Looking at this mans hands is like looking at a book cover, without the ability to read the pages. I hope he finds safety, happiness and a future here, things I take for granted. 

A Rainy Day With Creepy Crawlies

Out of my comfort zone today in more ways than one.

My father in law John runs a website dedicated to the spiders of Tasmania and has even written a book on the subject called "Webs" and that gets him in contact with many other lovers of wild things like Patrick, who's property we visited today. Hanging around with him to "take some pics" usually involves more than a little suppressed fear of these eight legged wonders of the insect world. It's funny how the more you learn the less you fear. There is a lesson in that I am sure, but that does not help when you feel something tickling your leg (usually a spike of grass, but not always!). Some of these Orb spiders are about the size of a 10 cent coin. The odd green speckled web is a Russian Tent spider and the skinny guy is the male of the species shown centre bottom and centre left. John managed to bag a few shots of some spiders even he had not seen in the wild before. All this was in one large back garden and there was a lot more! Getting there was a bit over an hour, but our trip home ended up being well over two hours due to some amazing torrential rain, road accidents and detours. Quite a day.

My technique is nothing special for this type of work as I deliberately turned my back on true macro work awhile ago, but I managed to cobble together a workable system. The camera was the EM5 as usual, the lens, the 12-40 standard zoom at about f9.5-13 without any other augmentation except some cropping and the standard clip on flash set at about -1 exposure comp. Ok for record shots, but not very creative. John has a very clever set up involving home made ring flashes.

Enlightenment

I spent the morning sitting in on a my first familiarisation day with Darren. We may be going to start a school for photography and today was with our first customer.

Two tutors and one student can get a little intense, so I wandered. The day was held in a park just down the road from where I used to live and I must admit that I never really gave the place any real effort when it was close. The fountain in the middle of the square is well populated with water lilies and although I find them alluring I have also found them frustrating. Photographing things on water often comes down to the quality of the reflections that they cast and the reflections that surround them. Glare, poor quality reflections, and distracting backgrounds tend to lower the value of water images and that was often the case here. This day, the large fountain in the middle of the pond created a deep shadow with just a shaft of light hitting this lily. Some mild post processing was done to remove the odd stray point of light, and whole image was darkened to reveal the detail in the flower, other than that it's much as shot. When you are used to how your cameras' sensor and your post processing will respond to different lighting situations, you can usually depend on the results to be consistently as you expect. The only way to know though is to shoot, look at the results and shoot again. This is why it's important to develop your post processing workflow to be clean, short (less is better) and consistent and to get to know your cameras' patterns of response to different lighting situations* (Ansel Adams would call this "pre visualisation"). Once you get to know what your camera can and can't do, but especially what it does well, your photography can become more deliberately expressive.  When I cut out Canon, Fuji and Sony from my kit, I knew I had sacrificed some looks and capabilities, but I also hoped my awareness of the looks available to me from the Olympus cameras would be sharper. So far I am happy.

* The OMD EM5 mk1 cameras that I use generally take a slightly dark and contrasty image as set. Many users brighten their images a little, but I don't as I prefer the look as it reminds me of very clean, responsive colour slide film (part Kodak, part Fuji). When comparing Olympus to the Fuji rendering, my frustration came from the Olympus cameras inability to get the brilliant "Glassy" look of the Fuji's. After a while I found the look (mostly a product of their jpeg engine) to be a bit fickle and sometimes artificial. I would be known to call the olympus images "dull" or lacking in sparkle. That was a bit unfair as their only crime was accuracy, no Hollywood here, just true to life documentary colour. After some fiddling I found I could also get that brilliant look, within the limits of reasonable accuracy, with my Olympus files.