M.Zuiko Digital ED 60mm 1:2.8, Low-Key Edits

Vintage Lens Test: Image making with an Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 60mm F2.8, trying to get the better of low-key edits.

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On one of the days that I had the Olympus M.60mm F2.8 Macro lens mounted on the E-P5, tried out my skills with spot-metering and ended up with these few shots. The result of this outing is a definite 'yes' that I still have a long way in this area of concern, and equal to the task is a long and sharp learning curve to address my post-processing skills and ability.

Olympus E-P5, Olympus M.60mm F2.8 Macro

RAW images were shot with Olympus M.60mm F2.8 Macro on Olympus PEN E-P5, post-processed (looks half-baked and overdone) on Olympus Viewer 3 (OV3) with Pinhole Art Filter effect, with final print sharpening done on Google NIK Sharpener Pro 3.

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Mobile Photography, A Nokia Lumia 720, Blackout

Nokia Lumia 720

Image making with a Nokia Lumia 720, quiet moments when the electricity is out.

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It was a hot and humid evening when we were hit with an electricity blackout that threw the interior of the house into semi-darkness. This, of course, calls for the candles to be taken out from their corner hidden crannies, dusted, and lit for the evening house activities.

Managed these few shots in auto mode on the old and trustworthy mobile, straight off, without any adjustments to the camera setting. Images were post-processed on the desktop which includes adjustments with Auto Tone Correction, Tone Curve, Brightness & Contrast, and Gamma on Olympus Viewer 3 (OV3), and Sharpness enhancement on Google NIK Sharpener Pro.

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Mobile Photography, Nokia Lumia 720, Square Sights

Nokia Lumia 720

Image making with the Nokia Lumia 720, square cuts, from a walk around the block.

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You might have noticed that the square (1:1 aspect ratio) is the format I used more often than others in my postings. This is another one of those. The originals of these images, however, were taken with the smartphone, in 16:9 format, converted to black-and-white, and post-processed on Olympus Viewer 3 (OV3) with print sharpening done on Google NIK Sharpener Pro.

The simplicity of the square format is that it can be used to crop the image to give more emphasis to the subject, encompass negative space, lay out a composition, catch lines, and all.

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Canon nFD 50mm 1:1.8, Tagging On RawTherapee 5.4

Vintage Lens Test: Image making with a Canon nFD 50mm 1:1.8, with images post-processed on RawTherapee 5.4.

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My first batch of images was post-processed on RawTherapee 5.4, a free RAW image processor that can develop RAW formats from most digital cameras and DSLRs. I was introduced to the software through a post on Petapixel.com about a week ago and decided to download and install it, to see what the glam is all about.

First introduced in 2010, RawTherapee is a cross-platform raw image processing program with a subset of image editing operations specifically aimed at non-destructive raw photo post-production. The mention is that it has features comparable to what Photoshop or Lightroom is capable of.

What I find unique about RawTherapee is its ability to support RAW format almost across the board, including Olympus *.ORF RAW files which are my norm. I have been using Olympus Viewer 3 (OV3) for my post-processing needs all this while and have also been using, of late, Google NIK Sharpener Pro 3 for final print sharpening.

Compared to OV3, which I feel is rather straightforward and simple to use, RawTherapee 5.4 presents itself as a real heavyweight with a myriad of editing options and advanced controls for handling exposure and color adjustments, sharpening, denoising, color management, white balance, color channels, and more.

For a novice who hardly went beyond Auto Tone Correction, Tone Curve, Brightness and Contrast, and the occasional Gamma correction on the OV3, looking over the interface of RawTherapee 5.4 itself is already intimidating enough, let alone the very steep learning curve which you have to really get into to master the software.

Images were from the Olympus E-P5 mounted with a Canon FD 50mm 1:1.8 manual focus lens.

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