Shaf

I’ve got an Olympus TG-5 which I rate highly as a bikepacking camera. The Sweary Divide was shot using it, probably not the best advert, but it’s like new and has survived countless trips and drops. I would think you could get one quite cheap second hand. If not I’ve got a Canon S90 somewhere you can have for buttons.

I got a TG6 after reading this thread previously - it's a bit of a lump but idiot proof (dropped it loads of times) and you can shove it in a pocket, haul it out and point and press. I keep it in idiot mode (I'm an idiot after all) but it takes very good pics. Spendy though, not sure what SH prices are like!

Yeah looking at ebay TG5/6 prices are harsh

Dave Barter wrote: ↑Fri Jul 19, 2024 7:22 pm Shaf

I’ve got an Olympus TG-5 which I rate highly as a bikepacking camera. The Sweary Divide was shot using it, probably not the best advert, but it’s like new and has survived countless trips and drops. I would think you could get one quite cheap second hand. If not I’ve got a Canon S90 somewhere you can have for buttons.

How much pls Dave. Might be interested. Still reading into the options too.

Sony RX-100 Shaf, great small, simple and great sensor for a compact.

redefined_cycles wrote: ↑Fri Jul 19, 2024 10:51 pm

Dave Barter wrote: ↑Fri Jul 19, 2024 7:22 pm Shaf

I’ve got an Olympus TG-5 which I rate highly as a bikepacking camera. The Sweary Divide was shot using it, probably not the best advert, but it’s like new and has survived countless trips and drops. I would think you could get one quite cheap second hand. If not I’ve got a Canon S90 somewhere you can have for buttons.

How much pls Dave. Might be interested. Still reading into the options too.

I’m back home on the 29th I’ll dig it out then and see if it still works

I keep thinking about a bikepacking camera and then realise my phone has that covered.
I have a Panasonic TZ70 (iirc) tbh I'm not even sure where it is... probably in the motorhome...
I just find it's something else to think about, charge, pack (somewhere it's easily accessible) ... then it's not instant to turn on, then it's in the wrong setting for what I want to photograph, then I press the wrong button and turn it off again , then turn it back on try to find the buzzard... oh, it's flown away.
If you're genuinely interested in photography you'll likely already have the kit.
If you, like me, have an occasional interest in photography, you also already have the right (for you) kit..... your phone. Maybe look into upgrading the phone to the latest greatest as camera's are pretty much the only thing they can improve, the rest is just bog standard 'phone'. My partners iphone 15 camera is much better than my iphone 12's and mine's pretty good especially in low light. Her's has a better zoom and image quality.

https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/buyi ... mera-phone

Well it arrived on Saturday...just reading the manual and getting used to using it so far. But it's nice to hold and take photos with, and manual focus seems good compared to the older Fuji EVF i tried before. A lot of features to get my head round and understand how to access/use. But it's nice there's room to grow into the camera. Now just need to get out with it lots, which i'm looking forward to!

godivatrailrider wrote: ↑Mon Jul 22, 2024 10:43 am I keep thinking about a bikepacking camera and then realise my phone has that covered.
I have a Panasonic TZ70 (iirc) tbh I'm not even sure where it is... probably in the motorhome...
I just find it's something else to think about, charge, pack (somewhere it's easily accessible) ... then it's not instant to turn on, then it's in the wrong setting for what I want to photograph, then I press the wrong button and turn it off again , then turn it back on try to find the buzzard... oh, it's flown away.
If you're genuinely interested in photography you'll likely already have the kit.
If you, like me, have an occasional interest in photography, you also already have the right (for you) kit..... your phone. Maybe look into upgrading the phone to the latest greatest as camera's are pretty much the only thing they can improve, the rest is just bog standard 'phone'. My partners iphone 15 camera is much better than my iphone 12's and mine's pretty good especially in low light. Her's has a better zoom and image quality.

https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/buyi ... mera-phone

This is kinda the conclusion I came to. Pity they don't include Carl Ziess lens' on phone cameras these days. My Sony with that lens used to be fantastic at pics. I think it had the inbuilt zoom too but it was long ago. Thanks for that too..

Should add that the camera I got wasn't primarily for use on a bike - It's more just for getting back into taking photos again as an enjoyable hobby for me, though I will take it sometimes. Nothing wrong with just using your phone as they take such good photos, and it's a multi-use object. Useful upgrade from previous cameras, is that I can get pictures on to my phone easily via bluetooth, and use my phone as a remote control for the shutter on long exposures, and also see the 'Live view' (image from the sensor/screen) on my phone too. That's a decent feature i've not had access to before.

Update on this topic for those few who may be interested! Not gone well so far at all. I've not found enjoyment in the relatively few times i've used it to so far. Been trying to understand why, and a few things that I keep coming back to:
- The EVF resolution isn't confidence inspiring when you're used to using a phone with a decent screen, likewise viewing photos on the back LCD. The images look better once put on the phone to view/edit.
- I've clearly got used to the phone camera doing a lot of the editing legwork when it produces an image, so that what comes out of the camera mostly looks disappointing, and one of my aims from the beginning was to not spend much time fiddling with images.
- It's fiddly getting the setting I want/need, which is partly down to me just getting used to it over time, but it means it can't be used to capture quick moments for the time being, even when i'm carrying it around my neck.
- it is infuriating to use in aperture priority mode, which is my default for general use. There's some internal setup which means it defaults to stupid slow shutter speed rather than changing ISO, and I found the reason online, and changed an obscure setting, but it's not helped much - it seems to be programmed in.
- focussing and sharpness seem average, despite tweaking the settings correctly. Maybe the kit lenses aren't great?
- it does have positive features like live bulb view, which i've tried out and will be worth more experimentation.
I'm going to make a concerted effort to try and overcome some of the foibles and learn my way out of camera phone habits to a degree, but I also like some of the advantages of the camera phone too. I've probably only taken 100-200 shots i'm that disheartened with it (never been one to blast away, and I still delete plenty). But i'll persevere for now. It might just be that that i'm working through what is and isn't possible with this camera type, and the images I desire to take. Dunno.

I suspect the M10 to be fairly similar to the M5 (1. and 3. gen user for about 1/4 of my life) and to me it seems you need to get ontop of the settings. Most of the issues you mention seem resolvable. Shame otherwise and I'd be sorry to hear you didn't manage, so fair play on giving it another effort. My thoughts:

- EVF / display - stop chimping trust in yourself and the camera to be blown away once you seem the on a large print/monitor.

- play around with the 1000 of options to set up how the camera should process your photos. I can't fathom how you couldn't be happy. Also be realistic. Eg my phone's (a good one from beginning of 2023) raw photos are very poor and it's only with the huge amount of processing (esp. sharpening and HDR) that they become okay. The sharpening and HDR can be adjusted in steps too in your Oly if that's what you want. HDR 2 is more extreme than HDR 1. Blow the colours up with eg. Vivid mode to get the smart phone like flavour. Have you set the correct colour space?

- set the buttons for quick access of your most used parameters. My Olympus and Nikon, whilst totally different cameras, are set up equally, even the orientation of the dial wheels and behaviour when going out of frame. This can be fully customised as you'll know. Despite many years of SLR and DSLR experience and knowing what I want where, it took me about half an evening for a full 5 days to get it setup. Once it's done right, you can forget about it.
I too mostly work with mode "A" but no auto ISO. Don't be afraid to push the ISO. I'm happy to shoot eg concerts or dawn/dusk at ISO 3200 and can get very decent sized quality images from it.

The extremely automated and hardcore post processing of todays smart phones take away some of what you seem to be struggling with. To deal with what you want to shoot. To think ahead and get the settings right before the deer jumps into the evening light.

I don't have any experience with the mountes lens, but yes, the body relies on a decent lens. Test different ones and see what it does.
From what I take you'd probably be happiest with something like the Panasonic 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 ASPH. Power O.I.S.
If you want to be constantly blown away by your photos, get the Olympus ED 40-150mm f/2.8 PRO and the 2x converter...

I'd echo what's been said about the OM-D series being quite a challenge to master. There are a lot of menus, settings and customisation features and it's not always intuitively laid out. It can be overwhelming.

Having said that, I've used an EM5ii and an EM1ii for the past decade, used them to produce three photo-heavy guidebooks and had photos reproduced in newspapers and magazines. Technically, camera is up to the job. Whether it provides a straightforward/joyful experience to the photographer is another question.

- it is infuriating to use in aperture priority mode, which is my default for general use. There's some internal setup which means it defaults to stupid slow shutter speed rather than changing ISO, and I found the reason online, and changed an obscure setting, but it's not helped much - it seems to be programmed in.

This is solvable by raising the ISO limit. However, I tend not to use auto ISO, but will change it manually depending on the situation. I generally have three settings: 200 for Daylight. 800 for low light at the beginning and end of the day. 1600 for interiors (though the EM1ii seems to be OK with 3200). The auto ISO menu is found in Menu: Gear cog: E1.

Phone cameras tend to apply heavy HDR to images which can help with scenes where there is a lot of contrast. I think it can look a bit fake but some people like it. There is an HDR setting in the camera menu, though probably more subtle than what you get from a phone. As with for all the adjustments you make in camera, it will apply to JPGs only, not RAW files. If you don't have Lightroom you can play about with files in the OM-System's own free image editing software.

There are lots of focus settings too. For landscapes / static scenes I use single point AF and select the smallest possible square in the centre of the frame. Half shutter press and recompose if needed. For action shots you may want to use a larger block of focus points, or the eye-detect AF for human subjects.

I don't know what lenses you have but lenses do make M43 has a great range of lightweight, relatively cheap lenses, in fact the lenses are the main reason for choosing this system.

Your camera has a far larger sensor and far better optics than a camera phone. It doesn't do the computational image enhancement like a phone does. But that's just the way it is.

I hope you can stick with it, feel free to ask any questions if you get stuck on other settings. There's a lot to configure, it can be daunting.

Some good points raised, I’ve been looking into cameras recently and this one gained my interest from the original thread, but thinking I may be better with something else

Had a Canon DSLR about 12/14 years ago but when mini-voodoo came along, it was just too much to carry and use properly, so invested in a mini 4 thirds/mirrorless Panasonic and it was jut disappointing (it was shocking at motorsport).

Anyways, the canon long time ago just died, so thinking now mini-voodoo is older, going back to a DSLR may be the way to go (landscape and motorsport), also have a couple of canon lenses sitting here

Cheers

Thank you - appreciate the replies JackT and alpinium. I'm definitely going to stick at it, and i'd kind of forgotten that it takes me a while to learn - and crucially remember - the combinations of settings I need for different shooting scenarios. I think it's partly down to a cameraphone doing so much of the legwork, that i'd lost the skill and the ability to remember functions and settings, and crucially - why. A bit like the camera equivalent of how using gps navigation can undermine your map skills. Also, I've not been viewing photos on a bigger screen than my phone as yet, so I think that would make a appreciable difference.

Anyway, I played around with and tweaked settings further yesterday, and i'm seeing improvements already - especially the auto-iso range - I think that was a key one. I'd kept it on auto for now to try and make things easier for me while I got used to everything else, but it turned out to be the problem! But yes, the menus and how they interact are not intuitive but i'm getting there slowly. It's good to hear and know that the Olympus has the capability; i'm familiar with many of your photos from the lost lanes books Jack, so that's definitely a marker of potential image quality!

I agree with the smartphone HDR thing, I try to tone down my one, and it's still too much sometimes, though fine for family snaps and general memories. I'm not looking to replicate that to be honest, I really like the tones on the 'natural' shooting mode so far, I was just getting frustrated with the camera settings and not being able to replicate what I wanted to see.

Lens options will be coming down the line, as they are reasonably priced, and a nice little prime would be good. I dug out my old original OM10 35mm slr, which is what I learned on 25 years ago - and that had a classic 50mm prime on it and I loved using that.

simon - if you have some canon stuff already then sounds like a good idea to stay in that ecosystem - although there would be an Olympus that would do a good job for your needs though - my camera model uses a simpler form of auto-focus that apparently isn't suited to fast sports photography, but I think the better models do use one that is (contrast detect vs. phase detect)

I took my 40D with 24mm prime lens to fountains abbey last weekend but missed lots of shots because I didn't know how to do HDR on it. Luckily my wife used her phone and managed to get them. I really struggled with getting the exposure right, i was constantly having to change (and mostly it was wrong) as I walked under the ruins, to bright sunlight to under the trees. I think ideally I'd like a point and shoot camera that processes images like a phone but they dont seem to exist.

I've also struggled with auto focus, the 40d only has 9 points. Been looking into the Sony A series (or E mount), although its rare for me to do motorsport photography now. The newer models have ISO that goes up to 102400 whereas mine is grainy over 800. I dont know if its HDR on phones but they just seem to manage low light miles better, my 40d is either blurry or wants to use a flash.

Hi all,

I am in a very similar position to @faustus right down to my original camera 40 years ago was an om-10 .

Been looking for a while and nearly bought the om-5 when they had a cash back offer. That offer is on again £999 for an om-5 and a 12-45 lens
https://www.lcegroup.co.uk/New/OM-SYSTE ... 26086.html

Got a few days to make my mind up (again) .

Question to those that do PC processing. What options are there beyond lightroom that you reccomend as that appears to be pretty pricey

RobLyon wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 12:20 pm I took my 40D with 24mm prime lens to fountains abbey last weekend but missed lots of shots because I didn't know how to do HDR on it. Luckily my wife used her phone and managed to get them. I really struggled with getting the exposure right, i was constantly having to change (and mostly it was wrong) as I walked under the ruins, to bright sunlight to under the trees. I think ideally I'd like a point and shoot camera that processes images like a phone but they dont seem to exist.

I've also struggled with auto focus, the 40d only has 9 points. Been looking into the Sony A series (or E mount), although its rare for me to do motorsport photography now. The newer models have ISO that goes up to 102400 whereas mine is grainy over 800. I dont know if its HDR on phones but they just seem to manage low light miles better, my 40d is either blurry or wants to use a flash.

Reads like a joke. If not, sorry for misunderstanding. In both cases just stick with your smartphone.

Alpinum wrote: ↑Wed Oct 30, 2024 5:58 pm

RobLyon wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 12:20 pm I took my 40D with 24mm prime lens to fountains abbey last weekend but missed lots of shots because I didn't know how to do HDR on it. Luckily my wife used her phone and managed to get them. I really struggled with getting the exposure right, i was constantly having to change (and mostly it was wrong) as I walked under the ruins, to bright sunlight to under the trees. I think ideally I'd like a point and shoot camera that processes images like a phone but they dont seem to exist.

I've also struggled with auto focus, the 40d only has 9 points. Been looking into the Sony A series (or E mount), although its rare for me to do motorsport photography now. The newer models have ISO that goes up to 102400 whereas mine is grainy over 800. I dont know if its HDR on phones but they just seem to manage low light miles better, my 40d is either blurry or wants to use a flash.

Reads like a joke. If not, sorry for misunderstanding. In both cases just stick with your smartphone.

No, not a joke and you make a good point. I probably missed the part about trying to take pictures of my 4 year old so didn't have much time to play with settings, but then time is always a factor and something like an rx100 p+s is probably a better fit for me.

RobLyon wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 12:20 pm I took my 40D with 24mm prime lens to fountains abbey last weekend but missed lots of shots because I didn't know how to do HDR on it. Luckily my wife used her phone and managed to get them. I really struggled with getting the exposure right, i was constantly having to change (and mostly it was wrong) as I walked under the ruins, to bright sunlight to under the trees. I think ideally I'd like a point and shoot camera that processes images like a phone but they dont seem to exist.

I've also struggled with auto focus, the 40d only has 9 points. Been looking into the Sony A series (or E mount), although its rare for me to do motorsport photography now. The newer models have ISO that goes up to 102400 whereas mine is grainy over 800. I dont know if its HDR on phones but they just seem to manage low light miles better, my 40d is either blurry or wants to use a flash.

You can do HDR in older SLR cameras, I’ve been doing it for years. You just need to set up exposure bracketing in the settings. This will configure the camera to take 3 pictures, 1 at the metered exposure, one below one above (How many ‘stops’ above/below is configurable)

You then need software that will blend the three images together - I use photomatix but there are lots of other options.

This process gives you complete control over the final image whereas a phone camera will just automatically do this.

It’s much more of a faff than using a phone camera but the results will be better and lots of people enjoy the process.

rudedog wrote: ↑Thu Oct 31, 2024 11:49 am You can do HDR in older SLR cameras, I’ve been doing it for years

Rob mentioned motorsports. I never tried it, but figure bracketing for HDR with moving objects - even playing kids in bright daylight - will not render usable images. Happy to learn from other experiences though.

Side note; Modern cameras use different principles for HDR the 40D doesn't support. Landscape will work just fine of course.

fatbikerbill wrote: ↑Wed Oct 30, 2024 5:15 pm Question to those that do PC processing. What options are there beyond lightroom that you reccomend as that appears to be pretty pricey

I gave up on Lightroom as part of giving up on Adobe. Lightroom [Classic, as I think the non-subscription version became known] was the last app I was hanging on to. I use Capture One now, paying I think ~£120 for it as they often have discounted rates to encourage you to buy. I've never found it as second-nature to use as I did Lightroom, perhaps as I don't shoot so much these days but I'm getting there with it, with fair results.

I dabbled with the open source Darktable a while back and that's worth a look. It was clunky as owt, but looks to have moved on a fair bit since.

fatbikerbill wrote: ↑Wed Oct 30, 2024 5:15 pm Hi all,

I am in a very similar position to @faustus right down to my original camera 40 years ago was an om-10 .

Been looking for a while and nearly bought the om-5 when they had a cash back offer. That offer is on again £999 for an om-5 and a 12-45 lens
https://www.lcegroup.co.uk/New/OM-SYSTE ... 26086.html

Got a few days to make my mind up (again) .

Question to those that do PC processing. What options are there beyond lightroom that you reccomend as that appears to be pretty pricey

If you go with OM-System / Olympus they have a free RAW processing software called OM Workspace that's pretty good. Many say it yields better results than Lightroom, though it lacks Lightroom's powerful library / cataloguing functions, which is the reason a lot of people (including me) still use LR, in spite of the the costs.

I've been a Darktable user for many years. Largely for it's cataloguing functions - I try and keep post-processing to a minimum, but of course, it's a slippery slope.

Since I've owned my E-M10 though, I've grown increasingly frustrated with the post process. Specifically, I can't get anything to look as good as the straight-out-of-camera JPGs. I can't quite put my finger on what's going on (I'm not the most knowledgeable about post) but I've looked all over the internet, and even asked more experienced friends to process RAWs for me, and tracked down colour profiles for the specific sensor. It's actually putting me off taking photos (the obvious answer is just use the JPGs then but that's very limiting as I can't do anything as simple as tweaking the exposure).

I think most of it is just that the in-camera post-processing is just really good - of course, the people who built it have direct access to the sensor, so it should be. I think the same applies to Olympus' proprietary software. I used it once when I only had access to a Windows laptop and wanted to process some shots, and got great results. But I don't really want to move my whole catalogue to another package, let alone change OS just for photo software (and virtual boxes, etc. are an ugly solution).