Better portrait / fashion / glamour photograpy with an E-510

[seanbreadsell]

I have started a weekend business doing portraits and some glamour work, it has been a hobby of mine for sometime

but I would like to take it much further when I get more experienced.

 

My equipment is an E-510 with the kit lenses, sure I know they are not the "ultimate" in photographic equipment but

they still take very nice photographs. I am considering purchasing a new lense and have been looking on the

Olympus website at the "Pro Range" of lenses and come across this as new to the range.

 

14-54mm f2.8-3.5II Standard Wide Zoom

 

Firtstly, will this fit on the E-510....and secondly what are your thoughts?

 

Cheers for your help

[davidlong]

Sure, it'll fit. I'm sure it's perfectly nice, but probably not much different optically than the original version of the same lens. But for portrait/fashion/glamour, I suspect lighting is probably more your limiting factor than your lenses.

[robwilson]

Go with the 12-60mm with the Sonic Wave Drive. I think it has replaced the 14-54, although don't quote me on that. It is a kick ar2e lense and gets rave reviews everywhere.

It isn't overly expensive either - about $800 I think.

 

All the best,

 

Rob

[hermanvdc]

I have the same combo for the moment E510 and kit lenses!

The light is indeed more important for picture quality. Before buying more expensive lenses for the Oly

I'm considering buying the Nikon D90 and a good lens instead The Nikon is so much faster I did mis

lots of pictures with the Oly indoors, to catch a nice face you have to be fast they don't wait and they

will descover you are only an amatuer! (joke). If you want to improve picture quality you will at least

need the E30 also!

Herman

[analox]

14-54mm f2.8-3.5II Standard Wide Zoom seem to be a very good lens by far, and quite less expensive than 12-60mm.

However, as you're working on portrait & glamor work, you may want to look at some prime lens at longer focal

length & wide aperture, e.g. 50mm F2.0 Olym or 35mm F1.4 Sigma. This would help you to achieve a thinner DoF in

your work, if you need it...

 

I guess the problem of E510 & its kit lenses with indoors lies in these factors: (1) not fast enough lens

(14-42mm f3.5-f4 and 40-150mm f4-f5.6), (2) noise at high ISO (usable ISO400) and (3) you don't use flash. So you

may want to invest to light equipments or some faster lens before switching to other systems.

 

Hope it helps :)

[seineriver]

Hi all,

 

I'm not quite agree with Herman to say "the Nikon is so much faster". Faster in which sense, talking about kit lense, Nikon D90 goes with 18-105 f/3.5-5.6 if I'm not wrong. At 18mm, some how the range is equivalent to 14mm at Oly and both at f/3.5. While at the other end, Oly has 150 f/5.6 while Nikon is at only 105mm. So which one is faster.

 

Talking about high grade lens, I also believe the award winning 12-60mm f/2.8 - 4.0 perform no worse than others Nikkor lens at the same grade/price. Thanks to the SWD motor, it should even be faster in term of focusing.

 

Back to the main topic of portrait / fashion / glamour photography, then I'm totally agree that Oly system is not quite a suitable system for that, due to 1. lack of some ranges in prime lens (and they're exp also), 2. high crop ratio, 3. quite a bad ISO performance.

 

Just my opinions, awaiting for others' view.

[mrraz]

The 14-54mm 2.8-3.5II is a pro quality lens the same as the 12-60. It's a matter of price as to which one is

better. For portraits and glamour you really don't need super fast focusing lenses. The subjects are rather

stationary after all. Both are 4/3 lenses so they fit any 4/3 camera. Unless your going to be printing 16x20 or

larger your 510 should be fine.

 

Invest in a good set of strobes for your lighting if you plan to work indoors. You can get away with a two light

setup with a little ingenuity. I got an Interfit 2 light set and an infrared trigger for under $200. They will

allow you to use low ISOs, so the noise will never be a factor.

 

If you plan to shoot outside, always use open shade. You don't have to play with fill light and your results will

satisfy both your customers and yourself.

[laurentbaig]

I don't know anything about the 14-54 but I've read it is a nice lens. The 12-60 is funtastic! It's a great range to work with and I haven't seen an image I've taken with it where I'm disappointed in the image quality. Autofocus is ok, I think my old Canon EOS-3 was much faster, but I doubt the D90 is seriously that much better, I'd think you'd need a D300 or D700 to get Nikon's really good fast focusing algorithms. You would be able to get some fast primes, though, which _would_ give you faster focus and is a distinct advantage over Olympus.

 

Try adding some strobes, a couple Vivitar 285 HVs will only cost you a couple hundred. That will do more for you than a new camera/lens system.

[ambers-photos]

I agree with the lighting a few hundred dollars with get you a decent main strobe and 2 slaves i think i paid $399 for my first small kit.I would also recommend staying with the zoom lenses they are just more practical in a studio but if your mainly using available light i would say go with one of the 2 sigma primes i believe they 30mm f1.4 and 24mm f1.8 here is a link to lens choices http://www.four-thirds.org/en/products/lense.html

 

 

 

Amber

[seanbreadsell]

Thanks for the comments all, grealy appreciated. I do already have 3 continuous softboxs and have a strobe flash n brolly on the way so lighting shouldn't be a problem once I have worked it all out the first time.

 

I also considered the D90 Laurent, but I have only had my E-510 6 months or so and I am already getting paid portrait work, well 2 paid jobs at the moment but its a start. I have 2 model shoots in the pipeline as well, just working out the finer details.

 

I was a guest at a wedding tonight, a very low light indoor wedding (I didn't know te details til I got there) so I din't bring any external flash and had to make do with what I had...I seriosuly had problems auto focussing, the flash was continously flashing and trying to focus and in the end I lost the shots not that it mattered i was a guest standing up back behind everbody but it was very frustrating....in the end I turned it to manual focusing, only way i could get a shot off intime.

[rick_dreher1]

I would get either the 12-60 or the 50/2.0. If money were no object, I'd also consider the 35-100/2.0, but that's in a whole other price league.

 

I have the 510 and the 12-60, and it's by far my most used among several lenses. It's the fastest, most accurate focusing, and the 60mm length is quite useful for working with busy backgrounds, particularly outdoors.

 

--Rick

[hermanvdc]

When I was talking about a faster nikon I talked about fast focusing. I did use once on a wedding the

Oly E510 and a Nikon D60 (I did lend it) with kitlens and I was symply surprised and felt ridiculous with

my Oly. It was like nothing did stop me taking pictures with the Nikon. I did miss so many pictures due

to the slow focussing of the E510. So I think I can test quiet soon the D90 and in my head It will be my

next camera. I did like the Oly and I will keep it also but indoors it is not a winner.

 

Herman

[jstarks]

Sean as mentioned the 14-54 will be a decent choice to start with, but a few primes in your arsenal would help too. I've never tried the DZ 50 f/2 or Sigma's 30 f/1.4, but I use the 35 f/3.5 on a wide variety of shots. I think it's a great steal selling under $200.00 with most vendors. With glamor and beauty shooting fast focusing is not always a necessity. Jesse

[laurentbaig]

<p>Sean, low light is always problematic. The autofocus algorithms require light to perform properly and the lower the light, the worse they _all_ work and so you are left to focus-ing manually. I'd almost be tempted to say you're better off with a full frame camera so you don't have such a small viewing area through the prism. Rangefinders were probably a little better in this regard as well as you'd have a brighter image through the range finder screens than through the pentaprism.<br>

Anywy, you need to ask yourself what your main subject will be. If you're going to earn bread doing portraits and fashion, you have control of light. Add more which will allow any camera to work well. If you're going to concentrate on weddings and candids, the Oly may not be the right choice. Hope that helps.</p>