Photographer Alex Majoli

I have known that Alex Majoli has been shooting Olympus p&s digital for some

time now, but I was blown away by his work on www.magnuminmotion.com

 

So my question is, Alex has mentioned that he has found the olympus digital

series (namely the c-5050 & 8080) to be the closest digital equivalent to leicas.

 

Anyone with experience with such digital p&s? I'm curious to see what

you guys think of it.

 

k

I have the 8080. It's great and it sucks. Shutter Lag is bad. Image File write time is bad.

The LCD Finder is bad.

 

Shooting in B&W mode in moody lighting looks surprisingly excellent.

If you shoot it at it's widest you could use an external 21mm Finder.

 

jmp<div></div>

It's color rendition is generally good as well. Batteries last a long time. The Lens is f 2.5

at it's widest focal length<div></div>

An artifact of having a small sensor is that you have too much depth of field sometimes.

Majoli uses this to his advantage.<div></div>

If it was an f2, less shutter lag, optical Finder and went up to ASA 1600 it would be GREAT.

I call the Oly C-5050 my "digital" Leica.

 

I just sent it in for a total overhaul, and a lens replacement due to some damage. The cost is about $200 for a factory spec overhaul, but the camera IS "that good" and worth the cost.

 

These cameras are compact, have good grips, are solidly built with magnesium bodies, water resistant, black finish, F/1.8 super sharp lenses, and much more. Wonderful.

I've owned and used the 5050, 5060 and the 7070 and find them to be pretty good cameras as far as digital point and shoots go. As usual, you have shutter lag, digital artifacts and lots of noise at anything above about 100 ISO. In good light or with fill-flash outdoors they are really quite good and if you need lots of depth of field, you can't beat a digital P&S. For some crazy reason Olympus has quit making this series of cameras. As far as ergonomics go they are really hard to beat, especially with the vertical grip. A PJ friend of mind uses two 7070's with vertical grips for all his work because he has been unhappy with the size, weight and cost of all DSLR's. If you turn down the saturation and sharpness you can get some pretty good looking photos with them. By the way, if Olympus is listening, how about a 6 to 8 mp version of the 7070 with a fixed 28 to 40mm range lens with rangefinder focusing?<div></div>

Nice photos Johm and Dayton, I am as impressed with the quality of the photos, as much as the camera.

If you understand the limitations of small sensor digicams (huge DOF, noise above usually the lowest ISO, shutter lag, poor shot-to-shot performance, EVF lag and visibility in low light), and know their sweet spots (huge DOF, quiet shutter, ability to shoot at waist level, light-weight, portability), you may be able to get the most out of them in the right situations by complementing them with DSLRs.

 

After seeing the results from a good DSLR, I'm less and less inclined to pick up a digicam unless portability and quiet shutter were my overriding requirements.

There is an article on the net somewhere about "how to use your Olympus 5050/5060 like a Leica" which involves presetting exposure, manual focus distance, etc and turns it in a very fast responding street camera with three frames per second burst.<div></div>

Three weeks ago I bought a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX1 and have been totally blown away by

it. (poor M2 just sits) I would prefer that it had a rangefinder, but I'm starting to learn how to

hold it just under my eye for street shooting sans LCD. If someone came up with a flip out

prism for shooting alla Rolli...w0w...skip

Skip - I find that using the fold out finder of the 5060 is my preferred way of shooting now. A waist level finder and totally silent shutter is a street phographer's dream. HCB would have loved it!

The 8080: The zoom is so awkward that it is useless in fast moving situations. Have a

sandwich and a beer, while it writes files from a burst. The bokeh @ f/2.4 is really nice,

although you need very close focus distances to exploit it. ISO below 80 is to plastic

looking, and above ISO 100 it's too noisey. Uncompressed jpeg is the best as far as bite

and crispness goes. The color is Nice if you expose for the highlights. The Best Features

are the QUIET SHUTTER, and Flipout Screen. The lens is nice, But definately in the class

with Leica's signatures and pop. It's a nitch camera for those bright days when you need a

supper quiet shutter, or just want to chase butterflies. It's in no-way equivilent to a M

with a Fast prime!<p><a href="

152875909/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/45/

152875909_0d94d623a8_o.jpg" width="750" height="500" alt="" /></a>C 8080<p><a

href=" 149695750/" title="Photo

Sharing"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/50/149695750_cbf06f1d16_o.jpg"

width="750" height="500" alt="" /></a>C 8080

Excuse me, but what are you taking pictures of?<p>Why you Sir, Officer Obie.<p><a

href=" title="Photo

Sharing"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/55/149695747_155bf9d12c_o.jpg"

width="441" height="650" alt="" /></a>

<I>... I was blown away by his work ...</I><P>

 

That's because Majoli is a talented <I>photographer</I>. The C8080 is is just as capable as

a leica in capturing boring photographs when in the hands of someone who thinks it's more

about equipment choice.

All very excellent work.

 

John...you gotta love that Midway of Fun!!

hey, my F10 rocks!

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i first heard about majoli when he beat nachtway to the magazine photog prize a couple of

years back. I was really inspired by his shots and tried to emulate him equipment wise on a

trip to venice. Gave up after day 2 of the trip and went back to my M2... :) The noise is not as

bad as many put out to be (try a similar generation fuji s602z for noise) and looks decent

converted to b/w which is what i do. The 1.8 lens on the 5050 is great...the shutter lag just

means u need to be able to pre-am what is going to happen and prepare yourself.

Some of the Brazil stuff on the Magnum website dates back to 1995, which I'm guessing is

shot on film.

There is a good article here that discusses his choice of equipment:<p><a href="http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-6468-7844">http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-6468-7844</a><p>

 

Martin

The discussion of equipment is interesting - particularly what he would like to see developed in the future - it sounds pretty much like a digital M, or at least a small digital camera with fast interchangeable lenses.

 

I know the camera does not make the photographer - thanks for telling us that Brad, great insight! But clearly for the sort of photography that he (Majoli)and many others want to do - discreet, quiet photography with a simple interface and a lot of control - the DSLR direction of development leaves a lot to be desired. Three things they do have in their favour though - flip up LCD screens, noise reduced high ISO's and of course fast, interchangeable lenses.

 

All we need now is a much more compact unit AND lenses, silent shutters and more intuitive, easy to use manual control- a la Leica (and other) rangefinders. A great viewfinder for accurate manual focus when you want to take more time would also be a boon.

Sanford:

 

When and where was the picture of George Rodrigue taken?

 

Dennis

As an extra thought, it seems like Pentax is going in the right direction with their K100D and their pancake lenses. The diminutive body even has shake reduction. Whether the cheapened pentaprism viewfinder is up to their usual standard remains to be seen. It'll also be interesting to see if Majoli picks one of these up.

 

If anyone thinks that the Canon 350D is comparable a) look at the lenses and b) look through the viewfinder.

Has someone checked the Sony R1? I feel that it could be a "digital leica" and combine the

pros of digicams with the image quality of a dslr. Lens is a bit on the slow side, however..

"Has someone checked the Sony R1?"

 

Yes, it's enormous and it has a terrible electronic viewfinder. Exactly what I wouldn't want.