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photo question 13-Sep-2005 At 4:13:38 PM dr_fil_good

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On 13/09/2005 Richard wrote:
>Also, all this talk of ISA/ASA and contrast; my digital camera (Olympus
>650) seems to naturaly produce lower contrast pictures than my previos
>RICHO mannual SLR. Is this a techncial consequence of digital photography
>and would occur with any digital camera, or is it just luck / my imagination
>that the pics seem to have less contrast than my film based days have taught
>me to expect?

This depends on a few things (that I can remember):
- lens quality or lack there-of resulting in colour abberation, light falloff, loss of contrasts, and loss of sharpness
- CCH quality or lack there-of resulting in colour abberation, loss of contrasts, and loss of sharpness

However it also depends on what film you used to shoot with - you can't expect your Olympus digicam to provide the same results as your high quality slr lens with a high quality slide film etc. etc. I own an Olympus C3030 and find the results a lot like using Fuji Sensia, so whenever I want a different film type I just play with the levels and saturation in photochop ... however I normally don't care too much for my digicam shots and still am in love with my 35mm slr.

One thing to remember when upping the contrast on your digicam though is that your levels will go out of whack and colours will shift (in a surprisingly similar way to reciprocity failure in the way that the longer the exposure the more the shift***) - also if you adjust the sharpness of images on your digicam you will get halos around your edges - etc. etc. if you can adjust the levels on your digicam good on you, you've got a good camera, just buy a lens that cost you as much as the camera and you will start to get the results you want.
Olympus Digicams are pretty damn good for low end - just remember to only view and print your photos at 80% or less of their size

Phlip

*** my own findings and not documented fact (!!!)