Lessons
Class Introduction
13:22 2Photo Basics
07:14 3Top Deck: Overview
05:31 4Top Deck: Mode Dial
26:46 5Top Deck: Exposure Dial
07:39 6Top Deck: Flash & Mic
02:10 7Back Side: Electronic View Finder
09:00 8Back Side: Info Options & Play Back
12:02Back Side: ISO
06:35 10Back Side: Shutters
11:29 11Back Side: Focus Area
06:21 12Back Side: Super Control Panel
13:19 13Left, Right & Bottom of Camera
05:57 14Front Side: Creative Dial
19:51 15Olympus Lenses Overview
06:23 16Shooting Menu 1
08:16 17Shooting Menu 2
15:38 18Playback Menu
03:19 19Wi-Fi Set Up
04:54 20Custom Menu Overview & AF/MF Menu
11:25 21Button/Dial/Level Menu
03:02 22Release Menu
05:22 23Display Menu
14:48 24Exposure & ISO Menu
11:00 25Flash/Color/WB Menus
06:17 26Record & Erase Menu
04:27 27Movie Menu
05:09 28Built-In EVF Menu
03:08 29Utility Menu
05:03 30Setup Menu
04:01 31Camera Operation Overview
12:32Lesson Info
Back Side: ISO
So the back control wheeler the camera are direct button functions for controlling various features of the camera. The top part of that dial is for controlling both e isso and the white balance. So if you press up, you'll be able to adjust Theis. So by turning the top or the front dial on the camera and we go from 200 to 25,600 this is the sensitivity of the sensor. You're gonna get the best image quality at I s 0 200 you're gonna raise it up for that usually in low light situations, so that you can get faster shutter speeds. But the reason for keeping the I s so lows, that's where you get the cleanest information. And so I always like to do a little test with the cameras to see how good they are. And so let me run through a little test here. And so my standard test. I want to go in and magnify and see how clean the information is And where do we start seeing noise? And so two and 400 is really good. 800 is still fantastic, and you start to see a noticeable noise at I s 0 but it's sti...
ll very clean. It starts getting a little bit heavy at 32 6400 And you probably don't want to be shooting at 837,600 because the noise is really heavy there. And so the fall off point in my mind is it becomes noticeable. Or, I would say, fairly noticeable at I s 0 1600 becomes pretty heavy handed at eso 6400 and so 800 pelo very, very clean and it's not too much of a stretch to shoot it. I so 1600. But your taste may vary. So I welcome you to do your own test with your camera to see where it is that you want things to be set in various situations. And so once you press the I s o button, you could also press the back of the button to go up and down to control the I S O. But it's kind of a dual function. It controls the white balance as well. And so if you go side to side with the back button. After pressing up to kind of activate that particular feature, you will control the white balance, or you could use the back dial of the camera. Now, White Balance has a number of different settings, and this is controlling the color of the image, depending on the light source that you're working under so light ranges anywhere from red to blue in color and under normal daylight situations. It's a very clean, white light source, but probably the most common unusual light that you will encounter is tungsten or incandescent lights. And these air very orange lights and Avery comment in most people's homes. And so if you want to correct for that, you need to set your white balance to the incandescent setting on your camera. Additionally, we have some other more manual settings on the camera. One is a custom white balance setting where you can choose the specific Kelvin temperature that you are working under Now. Most of us don't know this, but you can experiment. You can play around with different numbers and see what's correct. If you want to do it in a fully manual manner, there is the option of doing capture white balance information by photographing a white sheet of paper and then letting the camera figure out what color of the light sources that is bouncing off of that white sheet of paper. And finally, there is auto white balance where the camera looks at the entire exposure, looking more closely at the highlight information area and trying to determine what the color of the light sources and then automatically correcting for. And I have found that auto white balance in this camera works quite well most of the time. So it's my default position in most situations. And if I find that it's not doing a good job, I'll then adjusted to cloudy sunlight, tongues, dinner whatever the case may be. The other thing to note is for those of you who are shooting raw as opposed to J pig, and we will get more into the file types a little bit later. But if you are shooting raw, this is something that you don't need to worry about quite as much, because if you shoot raw, you can adjust white balance later without any damage to your photographs. If you are shooting J pegs, you need to be a little bit more up on keeping white balance exactly where it is supposed to be. And so I think, for most people, the recommendation of auto white balance. Keep an eye on on the viewfinder in the playback of the images. If they look like they're not quite the right color and you're in a consistent lighting situation, that's a good time to flip that white balance over to the appropriate setting. And so that's isso and white balance, which are kind of all, both in the in the same spot, which is the upper position on that dial on the back of the camera. Next up is the flash. Now, once again, the camera doesn't have a built in flash, so it this is not doing a lot of good until you have a flash added on to the camera. So there are a number of modes that you can dio you could do a red eye reduction Fillion flash, which fires the flash. No matter how much brightness there is, you can use this with slow shutter speeds. You can do a slow to, which is a second curtain sink, where it synchronizes the flash with the second curtain. There is the option of using multiple flashes to do wireless off camera multi strobe techniques, and that could be a lot of fun. It could be a little bit complicated, and it's probably worthy of a class on its own. It could be a rather in depth process. Now, just as a side note, we do have a top shutter speed of 1 2/ of a second, which in camera terms is considered quite good. But we do have shutter speeds that go beyond it. It's just that we can't use flash with those. And so if you have flash on there and you can't get your shutter speed about 2 50 that is the top synchronization speed of this particular camera. Now, using flash can be helpful in many different situations Where I think it is often most helpful is in fill flash photography, where you have a person in front of you and you want to add a little bit of glimmer to their eyes, a little light you want to fill in those shadows, and so just a little bit of fill. Flash can really improve a lot of portrait's, especially on bright sunny days where people's faces can often be in the shade and so adding flash filling in those shadows can really help out a lot of portrait's. And so if you do a lot of portrait photography, I would experiment using the flash that came supplied with the camera. And if you do a lot of it, you may need to get a more powerful flash. And so, by pressing this button, you can dive into the day various flash modes off the camera.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Jay Linsenbigler
Awesome course and thorough description of the PEN-F capabilities and functions. HOWEVER, John's "big boy camera" bias comes through when he describes some of the creative functions as "just fun". I highly disagree- because like other tools and features- it depends on HOW the photographer uses the tool or feature. Like HDR, the creative features can be used tastefully or look "overcooked". Film photographers who use a variety of different films in film cameras- is this "just fun", or do they offer creative options? I encourage John and any listeners to look up the Olympus Visionaries and many other professionals using Olympus cameras in their daily work to see the amazing results they create with them. Instead of the same old Nikon and Canon "muscle-flexing" biases- lets look at what the pros produce with the camera tools. All modern cameras are superb and capable of great results. And this PEN-F camera offers groundbreaking control over the image making IN CAMERA at the time of exposure- which can be used to adjust an accompanying RAW file if needed. Not everyone wants to sit in front of a computer for hours doing post processing.
Jay Linsenbigler
Awesome course and thorough description of the PEN-F capabilities and functions. HOWEVER, John's "big boy camera" bias comes through when he describes some of the creative functions as "just fun". I highly disagree- because like other tools and features- it depends on HOW the photographer uses the tool or feature. Like HDR, the creative features can be used tastefully or look "overcooked". Film photographers who use a variety of different films in film cameras- is this "just fun", or do they offer creative options? I encourage John and any listeners to look up the Olympus Visionaries and many other professionals using Olympus cameras in their daily work to see the amazing results they create with them. Instead of the same old Nikon and Canon "muscle-flexing" biases- lets look at what the pros produce with the camera tools. All modern cameras are superb and capable of great results. And this PEN-F camera offers groundbreaking control over the image making IN CAMERA at the time of exposure- which can be used to adjust an accompanying RAW file if needed. Not everyone wants to sit in front of a computer for hours doing post processing.
Kate Mooney
The Pen 5 is an amazing camera - however it is capable of so much that getting to know it can be somewhat overwhelming at first. John systematically and logically works through every part of the camera in really clear and easy to understand steps, quickly converting my initial apprehension into confidence and excitement for the endless possibilities of this camera.
Student Work
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