Lessons

Lesson Info

Class Introduction

So I broke this class up into several different parts. We're gonna start with just a little bit of overview for anyone who's nude Olympus or doesn't know a little bit about their history. We're gonna cover a few photo basics. It's always good to, you know, cover some of those basics from time to time. But most of the care most of the class is going to be in the camera controls and the menu functions, and this is where we go through each of the features. Each of the options e to the menu settings, and then we'll end up the whole class with the camera operation, which is my recommendations on how to set the camera up for a variety of purposes. Now, for those of you who are going to be going through this class, one thing that there is that is my pdf, and this is what I call my recommended settings on the camera. And what I've done here is I've taken the entire menu system. I'm a very visual person, so I like to see everything in a glance if possible. So I've taken the entire menu system a...

nd laid it out on one simple page, and I've put all the features in here as well as all my recommended settings for different types of purposes. And so this is a quick way to scan and find out what is in the camera, cause I gotta be honest with you. Even though I know this camera forwards and backwards, I sometimes forget exactly where certain features are in the camera. And so that's totally natural for anyone to do, I think. And so this helps me scan through and find it out. I have a second page in here, which is blank as far as my recommendation, so you can put in your own stuff because I know you are going to customize your own camera to your own needs. And then the final two pages in here are my recommended settings for a variety of types of photographic situations, like landscape photography or portrait photography or just basic photography. How what I set the camera up for those sorts of situations, and so you might want to download that as we get going in the camera. That will be more important in the second half of the class where we're going through the menu functions. So let's go ahead and get started with this class, we got a lot of ground to cover. First off, you do get a fairly large instruction manual with this camera, and this class is not intended to cover everything that is in that instruction manual. They're still going to be some important information in there that we do not have in this class. We're gonna be concentrating on the features that are most important to getting the highest quality images and how to manually operate the camera. There's a lot of other fun things that we will investigate and play with, but we're not going to cover every nook and cranny of every little feature in the camera. We're gonna be concentrating on things that I think most kind of serious photographers are most interested in. Now, as we go through this class, if you're wondering Well, John isn't composition and lighting and all these other things important in photography. They absolutely are, and they're covered in other classes. I have a basic class. I have an in depth class, depending on how much you want to learn about photography. But there are plenty of more classes like that available that creative lives so you could go in. You can just do a search on my last name, Gringo G, R E and G O to find out other of my classes. But there's lots of other classes. Today's class, though, is solely on the Olympus pen F. So Olympus has been around for quite some time making cameras, and they're kind of their thing in. Photography is often making very small cameras that are very capable, and so they have very much liked and based a lot of their business on making very small cameras. Now the Olympus pen came out about 1959 and it was a very small camera at the time. That was 1/2 frame camera, which means you got double the number of exposures on a roll of 35 millimeter film, and Olympus has gone on to make many other. They had many other cameras, had had a great Siris of 35 millimeter sl ours, and then they were one of the first ones to get back into the digital game, and they then came out with interchangeable lens digital cameras using a 4/3 format. We're going to talk more about this 4/3 format, and then they refined it into the micro 4/3 format, making the cameras even smaller. And that is the part of the generation that this pen F is now a part of. So a big part of this camera is the sensor size and the lens mount in this whole 4/3 system. So let me talk for a moment about what this really means. So 4/3 indicates a couple of things. It's the size of the sensor. It is a sensor that is smaller than the traditional 35 millimeter film, or what is known as a full frame sensor by current standards and digital cameras. It also deals with the aspect ratio. It is a 3 to 4 aspect ratio, which means it's a little bit more boxy than the full frame unit. Now, as a personal opinion, I don't like the boxing nous of it for horizontal shooting as much, but I do like it for vertical, So I think 35 millimeter format is a little too thin for shooting verticals. A lot of people crop it down to something like an eight by 10 aspect ratio, in which case the 4/3 is very, very close to that. So if you like eight by tens, you'll like the 4/3 system. It also refers to the lens Mount system, and so the 4/3 lens mount is a lens mount that is shared by Panasonic and Olympus cameras, their lenses and many other people who make lenses for the 4/3 lens mount. And so there's a number of different things that we're talking about when we talk about the 4/3 system. Now Olympus is original. 4/3 cameras proved not to be too popular in general. They were single lens reflex style cameras that tended to be about the same. Size is everything else, but they had smaller size sensors. And so you will find a Siris of legacy 4/3 lenses out on the market. And you have to be very careful about choosing your lenses because in this case we have a 14 by 42. That is for the 4/3 system and another one that is for the micro 4/3 system. And the pen F is part of the micro 4/3 system. It's a very similar system, but it doesn't use the single lens reflex system. So the original 4/3 cameras from Olympus these are the ones from like the early two thousands. They used a mere system, so a very traditional system in their cameras for viewing their subject. The problem was, was the mere the prism. Although that other accessories in the viewfinders made the cameras fairly large. The lens mount distance from the image sensor with was rather large, so they decided, well, we don't really need the mere in the prison system and the focusing screen. Let's get rid of that, reduce the size of the camera and bring the image sensor closer to the mounting of the lands. And this is where we started with muralist cameras, and it was able to reduce the size of the cameras by quite a bit. And so when you've taken that mere out of it, this is what we talk about. This is what we mean when we say micro 4/3 and so just be aware there is 3 4/3 versus the micro 4/3. They have the exact same size sensor in them. They have the same lens mount, but they have different lenses. The 4/3 lenses air designed for cameras with mirrors. The micro 4/3 are designed for cameras without mere systems in there, So be aware of that now. If you do have some of those older lenses or you find him on Craigslist or eBay or at a garage sale, you can still use them on this camera with an adapter. The Olympus Mmf three, which will allow you to mount this on to the camera and then the lens onto the adapter, and you can work with that. That's going to sell for a little under $200 thes days. So there are a lot of adapters that you can get from a variety of manufacturers. These cameras can be used with virtually any lens ever made. It's just a matter of if you confined an adapter. Now there are a variety of doctors at a variety of prices, and we're not gonna go into the details and specifics of them. But if you wanted to use almost any old lens you can on this camera, there is also something called a speed booster, and this helps regain the wide angle capability of many cameras, and these were going to be a little bit more money because they have optics in him where many of the other adapters do not. And you actually are focusing that image circle into the smaller size area of this sensor, which actually makes the image brighter. And so the lenses actually gained in brightness because you're now using a smaller size sensor than the lenses were originally designed for. So some interesting options with this micro 4/3 system now the Olympus Micro 4/3 family as it sits today has two different families or two different groupings of cameras. There's the pen series, which of this camera is obviously a part of the other pen cameras. Notably Do not have Elektronik viewfinders, and one of the things I like about a camera is when it has an electronic viewfinder. I could hold it up to my eye. I could view under very bright light situations much more easily when I can hold it up to my eye. And so this is clearly the leader, the most advanced camera in the pen series. It also resides along sized the OMG Siri's The OMG Siris are usually ones that typically have a little bit more weather resistance to them. The other big difference is the location of the viewfinder. This is considered a range finder style simply because the viewfinder is very far off to the left hand side as we look at the back of the camera. And so what that means is that you will often hold the camera up to your right eye, the ones in the middle. You could use either your left or right I, but this one really kind of demands that you hold it up to your right eye. Now I will just mention for a moment that I am left eye dominant, which I think is goofy eyed on. Most people are right. I'd so this is very normal for most I. But I'm trying to become an MP dextrous with my eyes, and so I'm getting a little bit better. And so using the right eye does have some advantages because as you have this camera to get this off tripod here real quickly, and so this becomes a very natural position, especially if you can leave your left eye open to kind of scan. What else is going on, or then you can close it and just concentrate on what's in the camera. Another area that I have found this helpful for is I'm always trying to get into the right position. And while the camera does have ah, flip out screen for high and low angles, I am often wanting to use the electronic viewfinder. And if I'm shooting verticals, I then kind of have to switch back and forth because I normally like holding the camera like this, which means I switch it over to my left eye. But this allows the lens to be a little bit lower. So if I'm trying to get as low as possible, I'll hold the camera like this. In some cases where I want to get as high as possible, I'll hold it like this. That way the lens is a little bit above my eye, and so it does offer you some interesting advantages just to help out when you're out shooting in the field and I do like that and I think we'll see more and more cameras with this viewfinder over on the left hand side. All right, so if you dig through the instruction manual you'll probably hit upon a bunch of pages on the care and handling of your camera. There's a lot of ridiculous things in there, and most of it's pretty obvious. Just don't be stupid with the camera. Uh, the Olympus manual does say, Never leave in a sandy, dusty or wet place. This camera is not weather resistant, so you do need to take pretty reasonable precautions when it comes to rain and other sorts of moisture. Does not have the weather seals that a lot of the other cameras. If you need a camera that is more weathered sealed, you might want to look a look at the E M one, Siri's or the E M five Siri's from Olympus because they offer better weather Sealing. The other thing is warning use of non Olympus brand accessories. They say it may damage or harm the camera, and I just really don't see that happening very often. Having said that, Olympus does make some very good lenses, but because it matches up with the Panasonic lenses as well, perfectly an auto focus, you can use all of the Panasonic Micro 4/3 lenses, absolutely no problem. And there's a lot of those lenses that I really like, and so there's some good choices there. I would probably stick with the Olympus batteries. They tend to be a bit more money than the generics, but that's where things can go. If they go bad, that's where things can go really bad. And so I'd probably stick with them. And then when it comes to flash units, I think the integration. As far as the communication and the operation of the Olympics, flash units are just better than the off brand ones. Unless you're hooking it up into a studio situation where you have very simplistic needs, you just need a manual flash If you want to do automatic flash, I would stick with the Olympus Flashes and I'll talk more about those flashes in particular as we get into the class itself. So let's make sure that your camera is ready for today's class. You need to charge the battery should take you about four hours. You want a lens on your camera and a memory card in it, cause we're gonna take some practice photos. Go ahead, turn your camera on. I will do this to mine, and we're gonna start with the simplest mode, the I auto mode. So I'm gonna flip my camera to the eye auto mode right now. Let me go ahead and take a picture with my camera just to make sure that I'm working. So yep, I'm ready to go for the class. Hopefully, you are as well because it's time to get into it now.