Olympus XZ-1 tips
Contents
1. Gradation is applied that best suits a bright subject such as silhouettes on a foggy day It processes images so they are bright with slightly higher contrast in the brightest areas LOW KEY Gradation is applied that best suits a dark subject that NORMAL gradation would tend to process lighter It can be used to make images that have a somewhat somber mood The best way to see the effects produced by gradation is to take the same shot with each of the options and in the camera s Playback Mode display them on the LCD in the four shot display option to compare the differences Remember to change the option back to AUTO or NORMAL after you have finished with a HIGH KEY or LOW KEY subject You can also use HIGH KEY and LOW KEY creatively for unique subjects or scenarios such as a high key or low key portrait to create a mood Separate focus and exposure lock post on Dpreview by lensblade Try this for a simple and usable way to get separate focus and exposure lock on your Olympus XZ 1 XZ 1 Tips page 21 of 29 Go into the AF setting select AF and press OK to confirm it This is to make sure pressing OK next time will bring up the AF menu Now suppose you need to focus on a point to your left take the exposure from a scene to your right and then take a picture of the view straight in front of you First focus on the point to your left and get the focus confirmation signal then lift off the shutter button and press OK The2. I wouldn t recommend NR off as that leaves a bit of the natural noise in the picture but rather set it to LOW which should have been the default and it is much nicer Photoshop Unsharp Mask 80 Radius 0 7 Threshold 0 Sharp prints For a sharp print viewed from 1 away 300 ppi x width amp length 8x10 2400 x 3000 11 x 14 3300 x 4200 Gallery sharp But the XZ 1 image size is 3748 x 2736 and after cropping you may not have enough image left at 300 dpi to go to say 11 x 14 But try a print anyway many XZ 1 owners XZ 1 Tips page 15 of 29 print at only 240 or 250 ppi with great results Because for a normal print on a wall very few viewers will be inspecting it at close range and for 18 or 2 away 240 ppi looks just as razor sharp as 300 ppi at 1 or less the ultimate extension of this perceived sharpness is a billboard by the highway where an image silkscreened at only 5 or 6 ppi looks perfectly sharp to a passerby 100 away Slow Auto Focus from posts on Dpreview by Vernatropius and Paul T Turn Off the Rec View in the Camera menu See page 50 XZ 1 user manual The image being recorded is not displayed This allows the user to prepare the for the next shot while following the subject in the monitor after shooting This is opposed to the default Rec View On setting The image being recorded is displayed This allows the user to make a brief check of the image that was j
3. If you love black and white but maybe held off because in the past you couldn t also get the color image your time has come Shoot all the B W pictures you want and the color will still be there if needed But in the meantime you ll enjoy the indescribable luxury of seeing that B W image in all its glorious grays as you compose it and you ll never have to worry about visualizing the B W image ever again XZ 1 Tips page 25 of 29 of course you ll want to develop the B W image on the PC in whatever program you have that can work with the RAW data and output the B W image Of course But what I m trying to get across is how exciting it is to see that B W image on the LCD screen as you compose it and then later have the luxury of really post processing it to either B W or color in your Adobe Lightroom or my Olympus Viewer software And when I say see that B W image on the LCD screen yes I know it s just a camera simulation But it sure is a great help Because I know that later when I open the RAW file in Olympus Viewer that s where I ll be starting from Neat Now if there s a fun argument here it might go something like this should photographers shoot all their images using the monochrome LCD mode and then convert to color later Would this result in better pictures with more interesting contrast structure and form RAW Monochrome is color too Experimented this morning hoping that if I shot a RAW image
4. e Resist the urge to open up the shadows too much Without rich shadows images simply look flat XZ 1 Auto Gradation XZ 1 Gradation Well in a way it is HDR Sort of The differences are subtle see my pic below interior low light Vivid color mode But key thing to remember if you use Gradation on Auto you cannot use the Spot meter setting Using Normal gradation Off High Key and Low Key the Spot meter still works From the Olympus web site XZ 1 Tips page 20 of 29 Gradation allows the camera to process images in various fashions suited to subject scenarios It applies tools that affect the brightness and contrast of the processed image The value of gradation is that the photographer can select the look of the image in camera when shooting or change the gradation of a RAW image after the fact using the RAW EDIT function Changes are saved as separate JPEG images The Gradation options are found in the camera s Picture Mode submenu There are four options AUTO This option divides the image into detailed regions and adjusts the brightness separately for each region This is effective for images with areas of large contrast in which the whites appear too bright or the blacks appear too dark It is a form of Shadow Adjustment Technology Photos with a greater range of light like landscapes and night scenes would benefit from this option NORMAL No gradation algorithms are applied to the images HIGH KEY
5. AF setting menu will appear Select MF just go left from AF this will disable any further automatic focusing Now point the camera at the scene you want to take the exposure from depress the shutter half way and hold it This will lock in temporarily the exposure you want Finally compose the shot and press the shutter fully Press OK again to select AF just go right from MF and re enable normal focusing Accessories Getting the optional RM UC1 remote cable is a good idea if you plan on using the Bulb mode on a regular basis Remote Cable Release RM UC1 57 Lithium Ion Rechargeable Battery LI 50B 45 Lithium Ion Battery Charger F 2AC 30 External Microphone Adapter Set SEMA 1 90 Macro Arm Light MAL 1 60 Electronic Viewfinder VF 2 Black 250 Electronic Viewfinder VF 1 100 XZ 1 Tips page 22 of 29 filters 52mm conversion http www lensmateonline com store olympusXZ1 php Lensmate XZ 1 Adapter 52mm 25 Richard Franiec s Custom XZ 1 Grip 1 32 95 flash speedlight yongnuo http www amazon com Yongnuo Flash Speedlite Yn 46011 Pentax dp BO03IZ9XTI Rosco colored gel pack Miscellaneous notes from posts on Dpreview When viewing your photos on the XZ 1 you can rotate the images by rotating the lens collar for setting the aperture If getting a reddish tone in your jpegs use the following settings Muted color picture mode sharpness 1 contrast 1 saturation 1 NR off Gradiation normal
6. In most instances the JPG will be great but the RAW backup lets you rescue any image where the JPG isn t good XZ 1 Tips page 2 of 29 5 Further down select Spot metering instead of ESP or Ctr Weighted After selecting Spot go out of the menu The camera will now always meter light from the little circle area in the center of the screen 6 Next comes Focus Point selection Press the left arrow key and make sure the green focus square is in the center of the screen Leave it there The XZ 1 will now start behaving normally The XZ 1 will always try to focus in the green square area in the dead center of the screen which is where you naturally point the camera thanks to echelon2004 for helping me get this straight Imagine that you are taking a picture of a sunset Point the XZ 1 at the sky to the left of the sun Press the shutter button lightly it will lock focus and exposure with a beep If you don t like the preview image on the LCD move the camera up or down and try another preview The screen lets you see right away what you will get 7 Lastly further down select AF instead of Macro or Super Macro At the camera s startup wide angle lens setting everything s sharp from about 2 to infinity like for almost every photo you will take But play around with Super Macro fantastic closeups Just don t forget to put it back on AF That s about it Now after you set the camera write these settings down on a pi
7. To prevent the focus hunting while taking video in low light set the focus point to only the center or where you want to focus If that still won t work snap a picture to set the focus then switch to manual focus The XZ 1 doesn t have an external ISO button However if you re using aperture A or shutter speed S mode simply turn the mode dial to P program adjust the ISO using the front lens ring and then turn the mode dial back After practicing a couple times it s hardly slower than having a dedicated external ISO button I leave the AF setting in Macro flower icon all the time This allows me to focus closer when necessary 10cm 3 9 inches at wide setting and 30cm 11 8 inches at telephoto setting The main difference is that it may take longer to focus on subjects at normal distances It has a longer set of focusing points to search through and close up XZ 1 Tips page 23 of 29 focusing requires fine adjustments To achieve AFL try one of the followings 1 Set the camera in AF half press to lock focus press OK and L and switch to MF You focus is now locked To switch back to AF press OK and R 2 Set the Scene mode to underwater and press Down for Focus Lock The camera will even show you a square where the focus is locked But you will likely want to edit your photo in RAW because you cannot use Natural Color mode Hold INFO down for a few seconds to get a temporary LCD brightness boost only while
8. doing snapshot press photography Quick Here comes Charlize Theron An afterthought might be interesting for street photographers to see if shooting with the lens at 112mm is better than at 28mm or better than mid range 50mm normal vision setting That mild 112mm tele might just be better what do you think Slight error With it set to SCN gt Underwater Macro with the lens opening at startup to 112mm and the aperture locked at f 4 and the camera speed set by the XZ 1 using Auto ISO the ISO will go over 200 but it has to be REALLY DARK to get the camera to do that In near total darkness it goes to ISO 400 In absolutely total darkness it stops at ISO 800 In practice in this mode Auto ISO works really well in combination with the XZ 1 s choice of shutter speed to get you a good picture at low ISO almost always below ISO 200 XZ 1 Tips page 9 of 29 XZ 1 a448mm lens Discovered today that my Olympus XZ 1 with its 28mm 112mm lens actually has a 28mm 448mm lens Well sort of As you know the glass lens the optical lens enlarges an image 4 times when it zooms from 28mm to 112mm But then the camera s computer can enlarge it 4 more times from 112mm to 448mm what s called digital zoom Now your little camera probably can do this too But nobody likes digital zoom because the image quality isn t as good as optical zoom Pro photographers and advanced amateurs actually SNEER at digital
9. in the Monochrome picture mode that later the Olympus Viewer XZ 1 software would let me pick a regular picture mode like Natural or Vivid which would restore the color but only if I wanted to Well guess what It worked Bear with me I m very excited about this Because years ago I loved working with black and white film B W reduces the image to form to tone and shade My favorite film was something called Kodak Panatomic ASA ISO 32 which was so slow so fine grain that it made the most beautiful sharp prints The only problem was that it was hard to see to visualize in black and white you had to imagine how it would come out But now it s a new century And thanks to RAW images I can run around today and SEE ON THE LCD SCREEN IN MONOCHROME Try THAT on your old Speed Graphic groundglass WITHOUT LOSING THE COLOR if I want it back later This is a wonderful feature We all have strong opinions about photography and mine XZ 1 Tips page 26 of 29 goes something like this if an image looks good in black and white if it has form and structure it will look good in color Too simplistic What do YOU think XZ 1 a Leica Monochrom for the rest of us After a year with my XZ 1 discovered the Monotone settings today Decided to make Monotone my C Custom mode to easily take B W pictures You sure get one smooth image when you turn your B W image from a 12 bit RAW file into an 8 bit JPG The Leica Monoc
10. lake the natural oil on human skin clear cellulose and wax on plant leaves and flowers lacquer on a car or a guitar or glass on a building there are reflections The reflections are white light they fill in the color and reduce saturation They reduce the detail visible under the clear substance The blue of the sky is also polarized and a polarizer can deepen the blue and keep it from blowing out and rendering your sky a cloudless white or a drab gray You can fight this with post processing but you won t win When you boost saturation you fix the things that were robbed of contrast but you also oversaturate the things that weren t suffering from contrast robbing reflections And you can t replace the lost detail The 80A Color Balancing Filter Most cameras have sensors that are daylight balanced They have nice balanced red green and blue channel responses in neutral colored scenes lit by daylight They achieve their incandescent white balance by amplifying the blue channel over two full stops relative to the red channel That adds a great deal of noise to the blue channel so you see XZ 1 Tips page 17 of 29 some pretty ugly shadows It also makes it very easy to blow the red channel especially when shooting red dominated subjects human skin cosmetics and fall colors near dusk and dawn when the light is warm Using an 80A will often let you get an interior architecture image in a single shot that wou
11. without changing the aperture or shutter speed of course There are lots of threads about this new paradigm here on dpreview Hopefully camera makers will start to give us firmware and camera designs that take advantage of the iso less nature of the modern sensors For example the camera could meter and raise the iso while shooting so that the view in the Icd is equal to what the cameras jpg engine will be capturing but the raw file itself will not have any iso change done to it and instead will just have the amount of steps recorded as metadeta so if we want we can set our raw converter to go ahead and automatically recover that brightness on import without clipping any highlights Why shoot RAW Monochrome If your DSLR or smaller digital camera works like my Olympus XZ 1 you can have the best of both worlds color and B W by shooting RAW images with your camera set to Monochrome mode You can see the actual B W image on the LCD screen as you compose it making it very easy to work with contrast tone and structure Pure form Later you can save that RAW file image as either a B W or full color JPG or TIFF and edit it any way you please Unless I m wrong this is a tremendous technical breakthrough One that most photographers don t yet comprehend at least not in recent photo magazine articles about B W photography where they are still advising people to take the image in color and convert it to B W later Backwards
12. AW mode to give yourself much greater latitude later to change the image without losing image quality Flowers Flowers while beautiful can be a pain to photograph They dance they wiggle in the slightest breeze which always comes along just when you push the shutter button But The sneakiest wiggling flower can t escape 1 1000 shutter speed No way So you could use S mode and set it at 1 1000 or faster In low light you might have to go down to 1 500 In either case the XZ 1 s small lens should give you enough depth of field to easily keep the whole flower in sharp focus You can also in S mode pop up the flash and add a LITTLE light like 1 16 or 1 64 power No formula you have to just try it and it might not work but when it does that extra bit of fill light can be very special Resources Three photo books that really helped me Understanding Exposure Bryan Peterson Understanding Flash Photography Bryan Peterson Black amp White Photography in a Digital Age Tony Worobiec 2012 by Jonathon M Donahue www jon404 com Copyright waived this document is open source
13. We all have different tastes and the joy of an XZ 1 or Leica Monochrom is that you have choices wonderfully traditional choices And the amazing ability to see that black and white image on the LCD screen Why RAW condensed from an essay by Barry Thornton Normally the human eye will see an image of 300 pixels per inch ppi in its final reproduction size as smooth continuous tone Having more pixels per inch isn t necessary because we won t be able to see any difference But below 300 ppi we increasingly begin to detect those separate tiles pixels so that the quality of the image begins literally to break up In monochrome each of those pixels needs another piece of information what shade of gray each one is its brightness value This can shade between absolute black and absolute white Monochrome needs only a brightness value color needs the hue saturation of each co ordinate as well An 8 bit number lets us describe 256 brightness values normally shown as 0 255 Because of JNDs 256 is a critical number What s a JND and why is it important A JND is a just noticeable difference If we have a 256 step brightness value scale from black to white with evenly spaced adjoining steps of gray running from the darkest just off black gray to the lightest just off white gray in sequence the average human being can just perceive barely the difference between any two adjacent shades But if we c
14. XZ 1 Tips page 1 of 29 Olympus XZ 1 tips from Jonathon Donahue http jon404 com Here s a grab bag of XZ 1 information from my posts and others on www Dpreview com and from other places No charge but if you want to show your appreciation check out my website and get a great book Setting the camera Start with Program mode instead of I Auto Aperture Shutter or Manual On the screen menu that you see after pressing the back OK button 1 Select Auto ISO The XZ 1 will try really really hard not to go over ISO 200 and that extra stop from say ISO 100 to 200 will give you super low light pictures with a camera set shutter speed fast enough to handhold 2 Next going down the menu select 1 Vivid Then press the little Menu button on the back Go to Picture Mode select Vivid Press the right arrow key and set Contrast to 1 Sharpness 0 Saturation 1 Gradation Normal Important do NOT set Gradation to Auto or some other stuff will stop working 3 Next select white balance Underwater the fish icon On the back button Menu go to WB press the OK button to select the fish icon then press the right arrow Leave A amber at 0 in the middle but set G green to 1 Between this and the Vivid setting above you ll get beautiful pictures indoor and out daytime twilight and in the dark 4 Further down select LF Raw as your picture type This will make both a JPG and a RAW image
15. arget This works for almost every situation But here s a little known feature locking focus WITHOUT locking exposure Both SCN gt Underwater settings also let you lock focus point the center of the screen XZ 1 Tips page 11 of 29 at the subject and press the Down arrow It will beep and say AF Lock under the green rectangle Now you can move the camera around and point it at something else and the exposure will change with the new subject while the focus lock stays at the distance to the first subject Interesting In practice on vacation forget this one Too tricky Just keep it on Program and you ll come back with wonderful pictures Manual focus Question is a way to have the XZ 1 pre set at a given distance like 100 away and then just take pictures without having to focus again Try auto focusing 15ft in front of the lens then switch over to manual focus and the camera stays in focus while zooming the full range Sort of a hyperfocal distance setting I went around and around with this hoping that there would be a way to set the XZ 1 at a usable hyperfocal distance so that each time it powered up it would be set to that Couldn t do it Closest in M Manual mode press the OK button and change the focus mode to MF It shows a magnifier Use the dial up or down to focus on whatever point you want Now it will hold that focus point until you use MF to change it or go back to AF or turn
16. ch is fully adjustable for intensity It works perfectly indoors XZ 1 Tips page 7 of 29 as long as the camera and flash are NOT in daylight coming in from a window To photograph a room with daylight coming in from a window use M Manual mode with the shutter at say 1 250 Get a correct exposure from the window the rest of the room will go black Then with the XZ 1 flash on 1 4 power have it set off the slave flash with the slave flash bouncing light off the ceiling or hidden behind a chair On the LCD screen if the room now looks too bright or too dark adjust the Aperture NOT the Shutter speed Because since the flash fires at faster than 1 2000 of a second your shutter speed setting is only meaningful for that window daylight exposure setting The interior room part of the exposure is controlled by the flash and changing the aperture is the only way to add or take away light from the room Get an inexpensive set of Rosco color gels http www amazon com Strobist Collection Cinegel Filter Strobes dp BOO2SWIOOM and a gel holder http www gelholder com gelholder works great with the YN460N and you are instantly at super low cost starting to light like a pro Great resource Strobist website see their Lighting 101 http strobist blogspot com Radio controlled Wireless Slave Flash post on Dpreview by Echelon 2004 Using the XZ 1 with a Cactus V4 radio transmitter to set off Nikon SB 900 speedlig
17. daylight is long like 5 seconds so you ll want to put the camera on a beanbag or on a tripod Exposure 5 secs at f 1 8 XZ 1 in Natural Underwater color modes or Monochrome 720nm IR filter over lens False IR color image into Photoshop dupe layer Channel mixer mono 100 red 200 green 200 blue and constant 20 to start Filter http www amazon com Opteka 720nm Infrared X Ray XZ 1 Tips page 18 of 29 Filter dp BOOOMCWWL6 ref pd_cp_p_pw_l XZ 1 to FF conversion camera wide angle 6mm to 28mm 35mm equiv divided by 6mm XZ 1 4 67 16 divided by 4 67 f 3 5 Sunny 16 rule becomes Sunny f 3 5 reciprocal of ISO 100 used to be film speed ASA At ISO 100 f 5 6 8421 Beach snow sky 1 1600 to 2000 or 1 400 at 5 6 with ND3 Bright sun real shadows 1 800 Weak sun soft shadows 1 400 Cloudy bright no shadows 1 200 Overcast open shade 1 100 or lower DOF depth of field post on Dpreview by sderdiarian At the long end of its zoom the XZ 1 has an aperture with a diameter of 9 6mm at 112mm equivalent which compares favorably to the 9 3mm maximum aperture at the 83mm equivalent of a typical APS C 18 55 F3 5 5 6 kit lens It means the XZ 1 should give at least as blurred a background and do so at something much closer to the traditional portrait focal length Furthermore it means the XZ 1 should give greater control over depth of field than a Micro Four Thirds k
18. ece of paper in case something gets unset and forget all about it time to start taking pictures From here on out trust your eye and your camera Think pictures not camera settings Before you go get two SD cards and three spare batteries You will get about 200 250 pictures per battery charge so three charged batteries should be all you need who knows what kind of electricity they have over there You can carry the XZ 1 in a shirt pocket with a spare battery in your other shirt pocket Night photography if you re on the move forget the tripod or monopod Learn to balance the camera on a fence a railing or braced against a pole Or carry a small beanbag in your pants pocket Use the camera s 12 sec self timer to take a good sharp icture of anything that isn t moving too much p g g XZ 1 Tips page 3 of 29 Sunset point the spot focus to the sky at the left or right of the setting sun watch the LCD screen til you see the effect you like Water reflections spot focus off the reflection in the water not the sky Portraits here s an exception to Program mode Go to A Aperture instead Turn the lens ring til it says 1 8 Put the lens at full telephoto Stand about 6 feet away from the subject The background behind the person should be nicely blurred Now if you are doing this in bright daylight there may be too much light for the XZ 1 to handle So go into the OK button menu and change ND Off to on The built i
19. hrom doesn t take color pix either So we re in good company here except that unlike the Leica you can use Olympus Viewer RAW Picture Mode to turn the image back into color Anyway setting Monotone as your Custom Mode to start from your normal color Program mode I leave mine in RAW change the color setting from Vivid or Natural or Portrait to Monotone Then from the Menu button on the Camera Menu go to Picture Mode gt Monotone and set Contrast to 2 Sharpness 0 B amp W Filter Orange Picture tone Neutral and Gradation Auto if you like ESP exposure averaging or Gradation Normal if you want to have the choice of Spot metering Then go back to the Main menu and go to the Setup Menu the wrench icon To Custom Mode Setup click OK then Set click OK Lastly go back to P Program mode and change the color setting from Monotone back to Vivid or whatever you normally use The next time you use C Custom the XZ 1 will be in Monotone with your settings retained and ready to use Like the Leica Monochrom the XZ 1 warms the hearts of photographers who loved black and white film Notice the Orange filter setting above Oh boy Or Red to really darken blue skies or Green to lighten faces I just leave mine on Orange And you can change the Contrast I leave mine on 2 with Sharpness at 0 since increasing contrast adds a sharpening effect anyway XZ 1 Tips page 27 of 29 But there are no formulas here
20. hts It s very easy Use a transmitter of some kind Or use a camera mounted flash in manual Or use the built in flash in manual at lowest power to trigger the slaves Have everything on the camera in manual Have the flashes in manual If using Cactus receivers flashes should not be set as slaves but just as normal camera mounted flashes Otherwise the slaves need to know that they are to react on the master flash But manual settings are the key and never add a light that isn t needed Autofocus lock AF lock Press down arrow in Underwater mode But only in underwater mode XZ 1 Tips page 8 of 29 In SCN gt Underwater wide or macro modes press the down button for focus lock it even labels the focus confirmation box A half press on the shutter then gives exposure lock You can overide the white balance and some other settings from the scene mode defaults You appear to be stuck with Vivid But all these settings can be overriden or ignored if shooting RAW If nothing else it shows what capability is hidden in the firmware SCN gt Underwater Macro mode If you set the XZ 1 to SCN gt Underwater Macro mode it will always start up with the lens extended to full 112mm tele with the aperture fixed at f 4 and the shutter at the fastest possible setting ISO remains at whatever you set I use Auto ISO since on the XZ 1 it won t ever go up over 200 All flash power options are available This might be helpful to anyone
21. it lens since they tend to offer 7 5mm at 84mm equivalent XZ 1 Tips page 19 of 29 HDR High Dynamic Range Imaging The XZ 1 does not have in camera HDR It does have automatic bracketing where it takes three pictures at different EV levels that you can later put on different layers in Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro to create the HDR effect High dynamic range In some situations you can increase your dynamic range by double processing the same RAW file First process the original capture to bring out the shadows Then go back to the original RAW file and process it a second time to control the highlight values Blend the two files into one image and you ll end up with a dramatically higher dynamic range While in the field it s better to expose for the highlights in one capture and the shadows in the next and process those together but a great deal of contrast problems can be solved even if bracketing isn t done during capture HDR tips from Rick Sammon No matter what type of HDR images you are looking to create here are some basic guidelines that can ensure the best possible results e Keep your aperture constant and instead bracket by adjusting shutter speed e Use a tripod whenever possible for best all around results e If you must shoot handheld position yourself so you can hold the camera as steady as possible e Use the onscreen histogram to make sure you have captured the entire tonal range of the scene
22. ld have taken multiple shots and HDR to do otherwise It also makes it much easier to shoot incandescent or candlelit scenes without blowing the red channel r The soft focus filter Using a Gaussian blur can only make a good looking soft focus effect on things that are not overexposed For my own soft focus work and the majority that I see from other photographers the prettiest soft focusing is the glow surrounding blown highlights candle flames sparkling dew on flowers the catch lights in a woman s eyes the glint of jewelry You can t get that right in PhotoShop A soft focus filter in front of the lens gives you a glow with size and density that are proportional to how blown the blown area really is So the glow around candles specular reflections water drops etc varies with the brightness and the size of the blown area And the transition from blown to not blown on skin is much more natural with a filter or lens than with a PS blur You can get this same effect with the soft focus lenses offered by Nikon Canon and Sony but that s an expensive route taken only by serious soft focus aficionados The Tiffen soft focus or center spot a personal favorite or Zeiss Softar are much less expensive than a soft focus lens and you can use them at a variety of focal lengths Infrared The XZ 1 s sensor can see infrared light Not very well but it can and so you can take real infrared pictures Exposure time in
23. n Neutral Density filter lets you take pictures at wide open lens settings in bright daylight Filters Don t bother You can do any special effects later in Photoshop almost anything except a true polarizing effect and the Vivid settings above will help you avoid the need for polarizing color saturation Street scenes if you have time think ahead about what kind of picture may present itself in the minutes ahead Or what kind of picture you missed may repeat itself and when and be there This is hard to do More about settings I leave my XZ 1 set on Underwater color balance little fish icon A 0 G 1 and Vivid color mode EV at 0 3 or 0 7 digital s like old slide film you want to underexpose a bit to get rich saturated color I keep my Custom mode set to Program with Monotone color mode Black and white sometimes I like to see in B amp W If using Aperture mode I like f 5 6 as a place where the lens is very sharp with tremendous depth of field And f 2 5 at full 112mm tele if you want to blur the background Really bright day Use the ND filter to stop overexposure Shutter speed at least 1 125 sec to stop motion Or 1 25 sec if you want to get a controlled blur like XZ 1 Tips page 4 of 29 when panning with a moving car or runner Confused about all this Use Program mode with the ISO at 100 Pictures in the dark without flash You can go up to ISO 640 maybe ISO 800 but not more
24. od But every now and then like in some weird flourescent light or mixed light situation switch it from LF best JPGs to LF RAW You can learn about RAW in your Olympus software or in After Shot Pro Secret focus lock normally you hold the shutter button halfway down and wait til you see the little green box and then take the picture The green box means that the XZ 1 has XZ 1 Tips page 5 of 29 locked both focus and exposure on that spot But what if you want to lock the focus on the spot but get the exposure somewhere else Here s how Use the back wheel left arrow to put the focus box in the center of the screen always best with spot focus Then you can put the XZ 1 on SCN gt Underwater Wide and then press the down arrow on the back wheel and it will lock the focus on whatever s in the center of the screen With the focus locked you can move the camera and get an exposure from somewhere else in the scene The focus lock will hold until you turn off the camera or until you press the down arrow again to release the focus lock Flash in Shutter Aperture or Manual mode you can adjust the flash power Try 1 64 power to add a flick of light of sparkle to your portraits or closeups Image quality for almost all pictures your XZ 1 takes images as good as any other camera There are a very few situations where much more expensive DSLRs are better But not often and not worth the bother of carting one around H
25. or you will get blotchy pictures chroma noise With the lens at f 2 and ISO 640 you ll be amazed at how you can get almost any nighttime image Use spot exposure Meter for the highlights or close to them like the sky to the left or right of the sun at sunset Spot exposure note opinion from Ken Sills Dpreview I set my XZ 1 per your set up guidelines and then went on a vacation trip The spot exposure caused me lots of problems with landscape photos that had uneven lighting I was constantly under or over exposed I went back to center weighted and the problem went away So maybe for fast moving action where you don t have time to meter carefully leave it on Program Ctr Weight instead of Spot Convenience keep the XZ 1 in your left shirt pocket Keep a charged spare battery and 52mm polarizing filter in your right shirt pocket you can hold it over the lens to knock out reflections For bright days when its hard to see the screen you also carry a small older Pen VF 1 optical viewfinder that works OK with the lens at the startup 28mm setting And carry a beanbag in a pants pocket to put the camera on at night and use the self timer at 12 sec to take the picture like for a nightscape without too much subject movement Post processing developing Corel After Shot Pro is a very good inexpensive program with enough features to keep you busy for a long time RAW vs JPG the XZ 1 JPGs are very go
26. ough shutter speed The ISO level automatically goes up or down depending on the lighting FAQs xz 1 FAQs http www olympusamerica com cpg_section cpg support faqs asp id 1530 xz 1 image stabilization comes on at 1 40 28mm and at 1 125 112mm xz 1 auto gradation like vivid gt auto gradation knocks out spot metering If want auto grad shoot RAW normal then change in post processing developing the RAW file as a JPG XZ 1 1 1 63 7 9 x 5 8 mm 2 14 pixel pitch 4 6 crop factor XZ 1 Tips page 13 of 29 Depth Of Field DOF xz 1 5 6 full tele 40 to infinity At wide angle you don t even have to think about it 6 focus distance will put EVERYTHING in focus XZ 1 DOF circle of confusion 00686 Camera sensor sizes 1 2 3 6 16mm x4 62mm 1 1 6 8x6 4 3 18x13 5 APS C 24x16 35mm 36x24 Prints 8 x 10 inch 203 x 254 mm or 32x enlargement from XZ 1 compared to 10 6x from APS C Sensor bokeh blured background the XZ 1 s 24mm 112mm equiv lens delivers the same bokeh that you get from a full frame camera with a 24mm 112mm lens at f 8 5 f 11 Some but not much Best for normal images at f 1 8 in full tele 112 equiv to focus on something nearby with some separation from the background SuperMacro is even better where your subject is from 1 2 to 1 away and the background will be quite blurry but remember you can t use flash in SuperMacro mode Panning Here
27. ouuld put an extra step in between any two of the steps the human eye would be unable to detect the difference in brightness between that injected step and the steps on either side If each pixel is assigned a brightness value using 8 bit numbers the human eye will perceive the overall image to be a continuous tone image just like a conventional monochrome photograph If we put any more brightness values in by using say 12 14 or 16 bit numbers we human beings just wouldn t be able to see a difference What s more XZ 1 Tips page 28 of 29 the size of the file goes up dramatically using far more storage space and working memory and making image processing software work much harder and therefore take longer for any image change we make when using it Indeed when we get to 16 bit numbers each pixel can be described as any one of 65 536 brightness values and that seems like total overkill doesn t it So why is 16 bit or anything above 8 bit an absolute necessity for a fine monochrome image If we didn t alter brightness values in Photoshop or other software it wouldn t matter as long as we had a perfectly exposed 8 bit image in the first place But we DO alter brightness values by stretching them hither and thither in Photoshop Increasing or decreasing brightness And contrast That is precisely why we use Photoshop If we manipulate an 8 bit file in Photoshop we often squash some parts of that 256 step scale
28. ow to improve a picture The old Life magazine adage crop then crop it again Your XZ 1 s 10 megapixels gives you plenty of room to crop to the most visually strong image possible Flash settings Very first thing use the Menu button Camera Menu gt Flash settings gt Sync gt Sync 2 The Sync 2 shoots off the flash at the end of an exposure rather than at the start So on a longish exposure if your kid moves a bit that movement will be overwritten by the bright sharp end of exposure flash image Leave it on Sync 2 all the time saves a lot of pictures But since the XZ 1 has a very bright lens you also have the luxury of choosing a nice fast shutter speed Put the XZ 1 in S Shutter mode with the top dial On the right side screen menu press the back OK button to see it make sure the ISO is on Auto ISO In the dark the XZ 1 will go from ISO 100 to ISO 200 more light for your picture allowing an even faster shutter speed XZ 1 Tips page 6 of 29 So turn the lens ring until you get to a faster shutter speed like 1 250 This speed will freeze anyone moving towards you or away from you 1 500 will freeze side to side motion but might let in too little light in a dark room Go the the Flash menu right arrow on the back dial and pick the little lightning bolt for auto intensity Fill In flash Just the lightning bolt NOT the icon with a bolt and a little eye The XZ 1 will send out an almost in
29. s my formula for small sensor camera owners 1 Get away from wide angle Instead use the most telephoto your camera has like my XZ 1 s 112mm equivalent tele zoom 2 Try to position yourself so that the panning subject like a moving car fills as much of the zoomed frame the field of view as possible 3 Think ahead Pre focus on a spot at about the same distance as the subject will be before it gets there 4 Shutter speed use S shutter priority mode Experiment to find the slowest possible shutter speed that still gives you a sharp subject as you swing the camera to follow the subject like 1 30 XZ 1 Tips page 14 of 29 Sharpest images post on Dpreview by keydog Set your camera to take Raw Jpeg Take some pics Open Olympus Viewer 2 if you don t have it download for free from Oly just enter any number for serial Click on the RAW button at the top to go into Raw editing mode Set the noise reduction from Normal to Low on all the pics I haven t found a way to batch do this yet but haven t tried much either Hit Save In the Save Dialog box click the file naming rule and select optional string for the base and put in RAW Then save the pictures Compare them with the OOC Jpegs You ll notice the detail is crisper If Oly by default set the noise reduction lower or at least allowed you to in the camera there would be a ton less complaining about smeared details xz 1 sharpness
30. shooting doesn t work in menus You can only return the LCD to normal brightness by either toggling into and out of Playback mode or turning the camera off ISO less RAW from a post on Dpreview by rsbones According to testing data of DxO or as compiled at http sensorgen info you can see that the sensor in the XZ 1 has a very flat read noise profile In other words it s basically an ISO less camera like the Nikon D7000 This means one can choose to shoot in raw and basically ignore the iso setting all together and keep it at say 100 or 200 and forget about it The only penalty might be that it is hard to use the Icd but the benefit is that you don t run the risk of clipping highlights the way the camera does when you set a higher ISO number Then you use your raw converter to brighten the image a few steps so that it ll appear exactly as it would have had you shot it with a higher iso setting but since you can use highlight protection in the software as you do this you won t lose the highlights as you would have had you let the camera clip them in the raw file I guess the way to use the camera with this strategy would be to choose your aperture for the DOF that you want Choose the slowest shutter speed you can handle without blurring so that you get the brightest exposure you can Let the iso setting go up while XZ 1 Tips page 24 of 29 composing focusing if you want but before shooting dial it back down to 100 or 200
31. the XZ 1 off which unfortunately cancels your MF setting When the camera turns back on you have to do it over again In practice say photographing sports you could use MF to set a sort of hyperfocal distance then just leave the camera turned on as you take your shots I m not sure if there is a real world advantage to this The XZ 1 s auto focus is fast and accurate Exception sometimes picking up an airplane against the sky if at an airshow I d do the MF to focus on a far off hangar or treeline and then blast away as the planes come by and try to remember NOT to turn off the camera until the show is over Manual focus post from Dpreview In M mode pressing the Info button enlarges the center of the image for accurate focusing which is performed with the rear control wheel or the Up Down buttons XZ 1 Tips page 12 of 29 XZ 1 battery It seems the Olympus LI 50B battery 3 7V 925mAh 3 5Wh is manufactured by Sony and identical to the Pentax D LI92 and Ricoh DB 100 batteries This means you could get an original charger also from Pentax or Ricoh to charge the original battery for your Olympus XZ 1 Check the third party replacement batteries from Energizer http www energizerbatteries com productList asp device DIGCAM M and Auto ISO Sometimes I like setting my camera on M mode with auto ISO That way I keep my aperture fixed so I get the depth of field I want at the focal lengths I choose plus a fast en
32. together so that gray brightness values that were different are now the same and we stretch others apart Now between each of the just noticeable difference steps spaces open up These get filled by the same gray as one of the adjoining pixels Our eye can tell it should be a different gray though The smooth transition from one gray to another has just become an abrupt step A visible step When it becomes obvious enough to show this effect is known as posterisation It is unpleasant to see and it is very easy to provoke in monochrome In an 8 bit image with only minor manipulation it is almost inevitable There are real limitations to how much you can alter the brightness levels of an 8 bit JPG But if you start with a 16 bit RAW file and adjust it in RAW software like Olympus Viewer BEFORE saving it as an 8 bit JPG the outcome will be much much better Why adjust the 16 bit RAW file Well here you are working with 65 536 brightness values not 256 If you now save this 16 bit RAW file to 8 bit JPG the reduction from thousands of brightness values even if some of the 65 536 were missing fills up the 256 JPG brightness levels nicely No matter how drastically you altered the brightness and contrast of the RAW file After 8 bit output you get a continuous range of grays no white spikes of doom on the histogram So the lesson for fine monochrome digital XZ 1 Tips page 29 of 29 images is shoot that original in R
33. ust taken User Manual http www olympusamerica com files oima_cckb XZ 1 Instruction Manual EN pdf XZ 1 shutter count post on Dpreview by BluAlloy Basically the process goes 1 Hold the Menu button while turning the camera On 2 Hit Menu and enter the display brightness setup Located under the Wrench It looks like a TV You should now see the brightness adjustment bar on the right 3 Hold the Info button while pressing Ok You should now see a black Olympus Screen XZ 1 Tips page 16 of 29 3 Hit in order Up Down Left Right Shutter Up 4 Hit Right to see your shutter count R is the shutter count S is the flash count There s different info on each of the directions although I don t know if they mean anything useful for the XZ 1 Just turn the camera off when you re done Filters I carry a circular Polarizer in my right shirt pocket along with a spare battery and an older Pen VF 1 optical viewfinder But lets go further Following are quotes from an article by Joseph Wisniewski about why we still need to use film days glass filters in the snew digital age Interesting The Polarizer This is so obvious I shouldn t need to get into why you need it but I m me and that means I m going to talk about it anyway Any time light moves from air to a transparent substance some of the light doesn t penetrate into the transparent substance and is reflected away Whether the light hits water on a
34. visible pre flash measure the light bouncing back from it and then fire off the main flash at just the right strength This of course will cause your child to go blind for a few moments if not longer You can put a piece of Kleenex over the flash to diffuse the light and try again If the picture is too dark move the Flash menu setting from Fill In to Full or 1 4 or 1 16 or just move closer with the tissue over the flash Or you can tape a little angled piece of cardboard in front of the flash to bounce the light up at the ceiling and then down onto the child All these flash units put out daylight bluish light Which is sort of stupid because we mostly use them indoors under warmer room light lightbulb light tungsten light If you get a little piece of light orange plastic gel from a camera store ask for a CTO gel and then tape it over the flash amazing Suddenly the light from the flash matches the color tone of the room light and those candles on your kid s birthday cake Last thought take a few minutes to experiment with the Flash menu low power settings Outdoors in daylight try 1 16 and 1 64 to add just a flick of fill flash to your subject very nice no orange flash filter needed unless you want a late afternoon sunlit look Optical Infrared Wireless Slave flash The XZ 1 s popup flash can set off other flashes infrared or slave flashes I use a cheap Yong Nuo YN 460N whi
35. ybe a tripod in the car trunk And a small beanbag with lead shot to put the XZ 1 on when I don t have the tripod out But thanks to digital post processing we just don t have to lug all that stuff around anymore isn t it wonderful Underwater Mode Noticed that the XZ 1 s Underwater Mode does a great job white balancing the nightime mixture of tungsten sodium vapor neon and fluorescent light And For all you purists complaining about a missing XZ 1 Focus Lock button guess what In Underwater Mode just press the down arrow on the back ring to lock the exposure Besides the two Underwater Modes wide angle and macro you can also set the white balance to Underwater I m using Cloudy for all my daylight and twilight images and then Underwater usually with aperture priority later at night This camera is so amazingly shirt pocket portable Am becoming an expert finding places to brace it against for low light shots keep a tripod in the car but somehow never use it can put the camera on anything stationary car roof mailbox and use the self timer to take a very sharp shot Fun SCN gt Underwater Macro More XZ 1 there are two SCN gt Underwater settings Underwater Wide and Underwater Macro If you have it set to Underwater Macro the camera will start up with the lens at full 112mm telephoto Now you know that you can press the shutter button halfway down to do a focus AND exposure lock on the spot t
36. zoom How bad is it Well my Olympus manual flatly states Avoid using digital zoom to take pictures p 75 That s bad But is it really You tell me Here are three XZ 1 pictures taken from the same camera position handheld at 28mm optical wide angle 112mm optical telephoto and 448mm digital telephoto jon404 gt digi tele test Original Dec 31 1969 16 00 00 My take The digital one isn t that bad worth trying another tomorrow with the camera on self timer and a beanbag We ll see But as of tonight looks like my little XZ 1 just went super zoom VF 1 Optical Viewfinder The Olympus Optical Viewfinder VF 1 which was an accessory for the Pen cameras works just fine on my XZ 1 It is much simpler and a LOT less expensive than the newer VF 2 electronic viewfinder It slides into the hotshoe On a bright day when the LCD screen is hard to see it s a Godsend The field of view is close enough to the XZ 1 s 28mm wide angle startup lens setting great if you re snapping pictures of fast moving people or objects There s something else Like many of you I treasure the XZ 1 s form factor it fits in a shirt pocket always there always ready My shirt has two pockets and I keep the VF 1 viewfinder a polarizer and a spare battery in the other And that s all I need DSLR folks That s it No lens adapter no other filters no teleconverter adapter no teleconverters XZ 1 Tips page 10 of 29 Nothing else Well ma
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