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<p>When taking movies, is there any way to find out what combination of aperture/shutter speed/ISO the camera is using? I mean, when they are not set by the user in M mode, of course. I don't see the information in the camera display/EVF, and also Olympus Viewer 2 and Adobe LR4 don't report it.</p>

<p>I have done some un-scientific, subjective testing of the stabilizer of a recently acquired OM-D,as well as stabilizers of two Panasonic lenses, and got disappointing results, based on expectations set by Olympus and Panasonic marketing.</p>

<p>I have taken series of pictures of banknotes, bar codes and street signs, with the camera hand held. I used a Panasonic LUMIX G X VARIO 12-35mm f/2.8 lens and a G VARIO 45-200mm f/4.0-5.6.</p>

<p>With the in-camera stabilizer on and the lens stabilizer off, on the long end of the focal length of each lens, I roughly got a 2 stops advantage. That is compared to the usual reciprocal rule for shutter speed (e.g., with 200mm focal length, one should use a 1/400th of a second exposure time, taking into account the 2x factor of micro four-third). No way I can claim a solid 3 stops advantage.</p>

<p>With the in-camera stabilizer turned off and the lens stabilizer on, I got slightly worse results, but I would still say in the range of 2 stops advantage.</p>

<p>I don't claim to have a very steady hand, but still, with a Canon EOS 24-105mm f/4 L mounted on my DSLR, I am getting a 3 stops advantage.</p>

<p>I got even worse results with other Panasonic lenses on the same OM-D body, but I won't discuss those because they don't have a manual switch to turn their IS on and off, and it is not clear what happens when you use them on an Olympus body. I asked both Panasonic and Olympus customer supports about that, and they gave inconclusive and contrasting answers, eventually asking me to check with the other maker.</p>

<p>I could not find any feedback on the camera or lenses stabilizers on review web sites like DPReview. I understand that rigorous testing of IS is difficult, may be impossible, but some subjective feedback is better than none at all.</p>

<p>The makers use marketing words like "5 axes stabilization" and "MEGA O.I.S.", but what I am actually getting is a far cry from what they claim. E.g. the OM-D specs claim "Effective Compensation Range Up to 5 EV steps", whatever it means.</p>

<p>May be I am getting something wrong? Has anybody out there done some testing, would like to share his/her experience?</p>

<p>Thanks Leslie!</p>

<p>When everything else fails, read the fine manual :)</p>

<p>So I did it, and the Panasonic lens manual reads:</p>

<p>"When using this lens [H-PS45175E] with another make of digital<br />cameras, the Optical Image Stabilizer function will<br />not work. (As of August 2011)<br />For details, contact the respective company."</p>

<p>I have mounted the lens on my Olympus OM-D, and from what I see in the display/viewfinder, if I switch off the in-camera stabilization, there is no image stabilization while I am composing the picture. Which would be consistent with what reported by the lens manual.</p>

<p>When does the stabilizer for Panasonic Lumix G X VARIO 45-175mm kick in? When you press the shutter release button half the way down? Or the moment you actually take the picture. That is, are you supposed to see the image stabilized in your display/viewfinder while you are composing your picture? Thanks!</p>

 

<p>Hello. Any tool that can read the description of an IT8 target (e.g. Kodak Q-60) and save the corresponding image (e.g. as a TIFF file)? There used to be such a tool on the AIM web site, but the whole web site is not available anymore.</p>

<p>Thanks Harvey.<br>

I still plan to buy the Lumix G X Vario PZ 45-175mm, as I am looking for a zoom that makes it at least to 150mm, very preferably moisture/dust sealed, and not so big and heavy it will require a neck strap. I hope to get a lens for "enthusiast amateur" (is it called a "prosumer"?), rendering an image quality above entry-level lenses.</p>

<p>I have checked with Olympus customer support, their answer was that the EM-5 will not disable the lens stabilizer, therefore I am left with the option to disable in-camera stabilization.</p>

<p>Thank you for your answers. The switch on the lens is for Wide-Tele, not for OIS. Pity that Olympus doesn't mention the matter in the camera user manual.</p>

<p>I am considering to buy a Panasonic 45-175mm lens (the H-PS45175E) with O.I.S. for an Olympus E-M5. The lens does not have a switch to disable its stabilizer. Would the camera allow me to disable the lens stabilizer, and use the in-camera stabilization instead?<br>

I have found contrasting information in different forums, and couldn't find an answer in the camera manual.<br>

<br />Thank you in advance!</p>

I meant: I would adivise starting with PS *Elements* pr PWP...

A big advantage of PS CS and PS Elements is that there is a LOT of instructional material out there (mostly not really worth much, and some really outstanding). I believe Adobe allows to download a free evaluation, may be also to eventually upgrade from PS Elements to PS CS. In my view PS CS doesn't really qualify as affordable, so I would advise starting with PS CS or, a very cost effective in my opinion, Picture Window Pro.

Here the link to Epson profiles for R800, more updated compared to those shipping with the printer. Anyway, they are just in the Download section of Epson USA:

http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/EditorialAnnouncement.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=51716719

 

Actually I never used the above, but used the canned profiles years ago, and they were quite decent with my printer.

 

I remember I had your same problem time ago because was checking the prints under a too dim light, a bright desk lamp (with approx. 5000K temperature) fixed the issue and also helped in colour matching.

Not completely sure I understood your problem... but you need to click on the Result swatch to set the colour you want to obtain.

I am very happy with DTP94 + ColorEyes Display, see http://www.integrated-color.com/

 

Frankly it is not cheap, but it also allows to calibrate multiple displays in a consistent way, which may interest you. The same software supports different sensors including Spyder2.

Then you may also need custom profiles made for your printer/ink/paper combination :) unless you are lucky and the canned ones give you satisfactory results.

Jerry, as others already advised, you can probably download a profile for your brand and model of camera from NeatImage web site. Even better, make your own profile of your camera at 1600 ISO. You can use the target downloadable from Neat Image web site. To work best, the picture of the target should be taken at a similar light temperature than the pictures you want to fix, however even at a different light temperature it should give worthwhile results. If you can calibrate on a featureless area of the picture to be fixed so much better, otherwise, when your picture doesn't have it, you can do without it.

 

For the future, consider to bring with you a small print of NeatImage target (like 4x16in, or 10x15 cm), and when you use the camera at high ISO, also take a picture of the target (putting it out of focus) in the same light conditions.

As per the book recommendation request, I suggest with no hesitation "Professional Photoshop" by Dan Margulis, 5th edition. It is not an easy reading, it tries more to teach an understanding of different techniques than to provide instant recipes, but it is by far the most comprehensive book on the subject I have seen. It assumes a basic knowledge of PS, given the book is about color and tone correction, including B&W conversion, not a PS manual. Tutorials on Lynda.com instead have the advantage of being much easier to follow and comprehend than reading a book, as they have video+audio. They include introductory material on PS and classes specific to PS for photography.

6 may be has been obtained steepening the "a" and "b" curves in Lab color space. Or may be not...

Look at the Actions palette. From the left you should see a column of tickmarks (toggle item on/off), then a column of boxes (toggle dialog on/off). You should make sure steps in your action do not have the box "filled". If it is "filled", click on it. With the box empty and using "Save As", PS did not ask me about the JPeg options when running the action.

For a real turn off, look through the viewfinder. Since the Rebel XT/350D, it went up from 0.8x to 0.87x, basically from awful to slightly less awful (for a camera with 1.6x crop factor). When the subject is near enough I quite often use my Rebel XT with both eyes open to compose. I don't plan to upgrade the camera until I can get a decent viewfinder for my money.

I used to scan slides. Week-end after week-end, night after night... man, if I hated it! I would go for either a scanner with IR channel to remove dust and scratches and a tray to load and batch scan at least a few tens of slides at a time, or have somebody do the work for me. I found it convenient to scan to RAW files, such that I can return to them without need to scan the slides again. I used to use Vuescan for that. If you buy a film scanner that does 1 or 4 frames at a time, make sure you have plenty of spare time :) I would look into Nikon and Pacific Image products, http://www.scanace.com/en/index.php

Just run the nozzle check, with a bit of luck... if it turns out bad, and you have cartidges that are almost out of ink, replacing them may help (I doubt the printer will do a cleaning cycle when low on ink anyway).

I have scanned 35mm slides for a few years before moving to a DSLR, when Canon introduced the RebelXT/350D. The scanner was a 10 megapixel Minolta. I must say the main difference was the nights and week-ends scanning slides. Moreover, I find it easier and faster to color correct RAW pictures taken with the digital camera; as much as I like the color palette of Fuji Provia 100F, scanned slides provided me with more challenging issues in correcting colors. As per picture quality alone I couldn't see a clear winner. I found scanned slides to be somewhat sharper in the centre, and RebelXT pictures to be sharper at the edges (probably because of the slight curvature of slides, not always within the scanner depth of field).

You can use the self-timer instead of a cable release, if the 10 sec delay is OK.

 

Notes of any currency make a good target for sharpness.