E-5 images from the NC Museum of Art; Dramatic Tone art filter used

<p >Needing photographic inspiration but lacking good colorful subject matter here in the cold gloom of winter, I recently took the E-5 and 12-60mm to the superb North Carolina Museum of Art, close to home. I attempted to make my amateurish photo "art" from the real art on display by composing or cropping a smaller part of my E-5's image within the actual classical and modern art paintings and sculptures there, and generally not including the actual frame or overall dimension. I used available light, no flash or tripod, ISO 400-500, shot in RAW and processed all images with Capture One Express 6. The museum has no restrictions on photography in this manner, except for a "no flash" rule, and I could not photograph any special showing requiring a paid ticket (such as the current Norman Rockwell display). The museum's security people never hassled me at all.<br>

As I like to use the E-5's Dramatic Tone art filter to see what kind of result, and sometimes a surprise that comes from it, I shot one image first in the Normal mode, followed by a second, identical composition in the Dramatic Tone setting. It was very interesting to see how the Dramatic Tone filter renders certain colors, and how it can give a completely different impression from the original painting or sculpture. (It is also easy to just use Viewer 2 to add an art filter effect after the fact).<br>

If anyone is interested in seeing some of the museum's artwork I photographed, and especially in the interesting impact the Dramatic Tone setting gave, please feel free to take a look, comment, criticize, etc. The 80-some images are presented with the "Normal" mode shot shown first, followed by the same image under the Dramatic Tone setting. And at the very end of the presentation, I went ahead and included 5 or 6 misc. photos (but without the Dramatic Tone example) that I nevertheless liked and added to round out the compilation. Perhaps some of you will find the images of interest, certainly colorful, and perhaps like to see a different approach to using the Dramatic Tone to produce interesting variations. Museum art lovers may or may not approve of my style, however! Regards.<br>

<a rel="nofollow" href="http://triumph.smugmug.com/Art/E-5-in-the-art-museum/15419836_CNyXE#1154307378_kkZdj" target="_blank">http://triumph.smugmug.com/...-the-art-museum/15419836_CNyXE#1154307378_kkZdj</a><br>

Other image folders are here:<br /><a href="http://triumph.smugmug.com/">http://triumph.smugmug.com</a></p>

<p>Interesting, Steve, especially to me, since I am the Manager of Ticket Operations at the NC Museum of Art. That's my day job; I have a small photography business as well (shooting for exhibition in galleries). I'm glad you enjoyed your visit. </p>

<p>I have (among my many cameras) an Olympus EPL-1. Is there any art filter on that camera that's similar to the Dramatic Tone setting you used?</p>

<p>The E-PL1 has the pop-art filter that'll do some funky stuff, just not quite as over-the-top contrast-wise as the dramatic tone filter.</p>

<p>I tried the dramatic tone filter on my E5 and didn't like the added noise in the resulting images, but I do not think I was really using it on the right type subjects. Scenes with flat contrast or back-lit subjects benefit the most from the dramatic tone filter. I also like Steve's use of it in his art work shots here as well.</p>

<p>Ted, your PEN E-PL1 should have an interesting Pin Hole art filter that gives some interesting results. But if you want to replicate the Dramatic Tone feature, you'd need either the new Olympus E-5 DSLR, or the new PEN E-PL2 that sould be available for sale in a few week, for $600. In addition, you may be able to get the Dramatic Tone art filter after the fact, when using the new version of Olympus' Viewer 2 software, and shoooting in RAW (and JPEG?). That way, I think you can gain the Dramatic Tone art filter via the Viewer 2 software, evem though your E-PL1 does not have the feature. But I 'm not 100% sure. Open up one of your E-PL1 images in Viewer 2 and see it its available.</p>

Viewer relegates you to features available in the camera, so I am pretty sure the dramatic tone filter would not be

available for any earlier camera models. I've tried adding filter features with earlier cameras and new features are always locked out and unavailable when I try to use them.