A nostalgic look back at one of the great, early, digital cameras. The Olympus e-10.

I was at Precision Camera several times this week doing the kind of things that drive more level headed photographers and IT professionals slightly crazy.  I was buying more micro four thirds stuff, getting rid of the little Nikon V1 System and trimming down some of the Canon inventory.  What shall we tackle first?  How about the m4/3rds?  It's no secret that I really like EVFs and I really like small and light cameras.  I'm waiting impatiently for the OM-D but in the interim I stumbled into the Panasonic G3, liked what I saw and read (I blame Michael Reichman's review from last Summer the most) and decided to pick one up.  A fun camera for less than $600 bucks and maybe the current champion for lower noise ISO among the m4:3rds camp.  I've enjoyed the way the Panasonic GH2 works and I've used it now on six paying jobs this year, to my delight and to the satisfaction of my clients.

The G3 plays well with the Panasonic/Leica 25 Summilux and the 45mm 1.8 Olympus lens but, albeit, without IS.  The files are crisp and detailed and the noise, up to 1600 ISO is very normal.  And very workable.

The Nikon is a glorious little system and I'm sure I'll regret consigning it the minute it sells.  Which will probably be the day before Nikon comes out with a gold-banded, 18mm f1.4 (50mm equiv.) prime lens. But I got tired of waiting for faster glass and more and more captivated by the fast lenses that Olympus and Panasonic already had on tap.  Waiting for me.  Taunting me.

Something had to go.  And the Nikon got the nod.  It failed the "eternal" test.  That's the test that gauges how much you carry around your system, over time.  More and more I left it at home and took faster glass.  I'm a creature of some habits even if I'm not brand loyal.  In the grand number scheme of the "eternal" test the current winner is the EP-3 which I've carried most days since purchase.  More than the Canons and more than the V1.  Even more than the GH2 (which is currently in second place for fun shooting and in first place for commercial shooting, just slightly ahead of the Canon 1DS mk2.

Before people melt down let me quickly say that I really like the Nikon system and it has its unique attributes but I finally just ran out of bandwidth.  

I had too many Canon 1D bodies so one of them got donated to an up and coming young artist who will remain anonymous.  We've winnowed it down now, in the Canon camp, from six cameras at the start of the year to three.  And we may get even tighter on the "dinosaur" camera inventory as the m4:3 becomes more compelling.  But I need to at least keep the two remaining, full frame bodies around for those moments when only the slightest sliver of Zeiss focus will sate my imperious "bokeh lust."

But, I started this whole article off intending to talk about an Olympus camera that I consider to be their Sputnik of digital cameras.  Their moon launch.  The incredibly nice piece of alloy and glass that put them on the digital map in 1999.  Yes.  I'm talking about the supernaturally incredible e-10.  

It solved so many problems.  Let me set the stage:  Digital was in it's infancy.  The only affordable, professional digital camera on the market was the Nikon D1 and just between you and me it was an unqualified piece of shit.  The files were all over the map and it made a joke out of the idea of controlled flash.  Not to mention that it had a buy-in price of over $5,000 and a noisy file that came flying off a strange 2.7 megapixel sensor.  Banding, noise and wild flash exposure inaccuracies were included at no charge.

Later in the year Olympus announced, and shortly thereafter delivered, the e10.  A four megapixel camera that featured a permanently attached 28-140 zoom lens filled with ED and Aspherical glass.  The files were beautiful and, at ISO 80, 100 and 200, stomped all over the big Nikon.  You could get a battery grip with a mondo battery that would last for hundreds and hundreds of frames.  True all day shooting.  The Nikon?  Better have been prepared with one battery for every 100 frames.

At any rate I have the fondest memories of the e10 and carted it to Europe and Miami and Hawaii on corporate shoots, most times in tandem with a Hasselblad film system.  That was the nature of the non-linear digital adaptation.  I had forgotten about the camera until I came upon an old CD with these images of Christa.  We shot them for a tony furniture store back in 2000.  Shoot with monolight flashes and careful metering.  The images were used in magazine and newspaper ads and on the web.  

While I"m happy with the color and sharpness the 4 megapixel files do show their limitations when I splash em big across the monitor and ramp it all up to 100 %.  It's not that the quality is bad by any stretch of the imagination, the files just run out of information.  But the Olympus people figured out color and good optics way back then.  

Now my little Panasonic cameras will do 16 megapixels and the new Olympus should match them.  We can shoot at higher ISOs but I would hardly need to in a shoot like this.  Remember, we're creating the light not just ramping up  random photons.  The e10 had its problems.  Biggest of which was a tiny buffer.  But this job and scores like it made this camera the most profitable digital camera I've probably owned.  In fact, we did all the executive headshots for one of the world's largest computer makers for two years solid with this camera and it never let us down.  I sold it to buy a Fuji S2.  But that's a whole other story...

So, where am I going with all these m4:3 cameras and lenses?  I'm on a journey.  I'm heading back to the fun zone of photography.  It's in a different part of the geography of photography from the earnest pixel measuring maniacs.  Far, far from the perfection seeking "professional," DXO approved tools of the serious and ponderous.  I'm hedging a bit with the Canons but the momentum.......is somewhere else.

Of Course It's Better. It's Bigger. Altogether now, "Supersize Me."

Ben.  Photographed with a Leaf 40 megapixel camera

and a wickedly cool Schneider lens.

Can you feel it as it crashes against the shore?  A wave of camera rationalization that's just amazing.  Driven by the desire to differentiate the work of photographers who want to make money from those who just want to be photographers.  A new approach that provides a new set of reasons for clients to hire photographers who'd like to make a real living doing this stuff, the lure of medium format digital cameras.  And the new crop of maxi-pixel Nikons and Canons (believe me, they're coming).

Will it work?  For some.  Will it fail?  For some.  I've played with the "big boy" cameras.  They didn't make my work better or worse.  Had I kept them they would have made more cost of doing business rise appreciably.  Here's the deal:  If you are already working for the big time clients you'd like to be working for you probably didn't need the big medium format camera you just bought, anyway.  The clients came to you because they already liked the way you do stuff.  The camera gives you a new anchor to try to hold them to you but deep down you know you're held captive by the capriciousness of styles in the advertising coliseums.   And if the clients you wish you worked for aren't already returning your calls then just showing up with new hand metal isn't going to convince them that you just became an artist.

When I look at the portrait above the first thing I notice is not the pixel count because we've downsized it for the web.  The first thing I see is the expression.  The direct connection with his eyes.  His self-assurance.  If the first thing you noticed was some expression of dynamic range (remember, we're looking at 6 or 8 bit monitors and we're looking at 8 bit compressed jpegs here....) then I haven't done the job of bringing direction or feeling to the image.  

When I hear people talk about the NEED for more pixels and more dynamic range and more bits I think of this image below:

Brio.  For Time Warner.

If you listen to the howling masses today you'd think nothing could be accomplished, photographically, with fewer than 16 or 18 megapixels.  But we did the image above with a Nikon D100.  A whopping six megapixels.  A four frame raw buffer.  Molasses slow CF cards.  But the light is good and the expression is good and the ads worked and the check cleared.  And I'm not really sure if the image would have looked better in newsprint at a higher pixel count.....

I think we tend to lose track of what we really need in the emotional flurry of the new camera announcements.  I felt excited when I first talked to the Olympus reps about the new OM-D.  I really had a desire to snap one right up.  But I shot with my little Pen EP-3 today when I looked at the files I saw a camera that was outperforming my Nikon D2sx from four years ago.  I saw detailed files with perfect color.  And I chuckled to myself when I was reminded by the client that our destination ( along with 60% of marketing work these days ) for the portrait I was shooting would be on the company's website.  Last time I checked the portraits were running about 320 by 320 pixels.  Would we be able to pull it off???  Or would we NEED the power and the glory of a Phase One?

I've used a lot of cameras.  My readers will attest to that.  And I like almost every one I've held in my hands.  But they're interchangeable.  From six megapixels to forty megapixels, none of the specs really matter if I can't make someone genuinely smile and if I can't have them engage the camera in a collaborative and self assured way.  And if I do that part of my job right then just about any camera I can clutch in my hands will probably deliver a serviceable file.

It's more fun to shoot with the latest stuff.  But it's hardly necessary.  

The portrait I shot today was fun not just because the subject was fun and knowledgeable and personable.  And it wasn't fun just because it went well and the images looked good.  It was fun because I did it on a camera that many people think isn't suited for professional work, with lights (LEDs) that people still don't get.  At the most we were using less than $2,000 worth of gear.  And it was fun because the success or failure of our undertaking didn't depend on the gear.  It depended on me doing things correctly and the sitter joining in with the spirit of the engagement.  And that's why this business is fun. Not because we can bring "the big guns to bear."

Happy Valentine's Day. Go photograph someone beautiful. Now!

Brock's Books in San Antonio.  Long gone.  Some battered, old camera with a 28mm 3.5 lens 

and a roll of ISO 100 color slide film.

Falling in love.  Being in love.  Loving what you do.  Love. I think that's why we really photograph.  Until we get sidetracked by the gear and the process.  I love beautiful faces.  I got into taking photographs because I was dating someone who I thought was so beautiful that her face should be immortalized.  Made into art.  Frozen in time so I could admire it for a lifetime.  My lifetime.  That romance didn't last but new ones came along.  And all along I recorded the things that I thought were most beautiful about my partners with my little camera.  

In the early times I didn't really care about technique or cameras at all.  I just wanted the images to be sharp where I wanted them to be sharp and well exposed in a way that worked for me and matched what I was trying to say.  I learned just enough to make a competent photograph.

"Mastering Technique" is where the downfall begins.  I'm sure it's a satanic plot to undermine the art that makes us happy.  We read a magazine or talk to other photographers and we hear stuff about how our pictures can be even sharper or less grainy or more bokeh-y and we start down a path that leads us away from our objects of beauty and into a nested doll of endless intertwined details.  And we never ask why our art has to conform to someone else's idea of better.

And the more we embrace the mechanical techniques the further we travel away from our original muse. The thing of beauty which we loved and wanted to share.  But we convince ourselves that, in the end, we'll create much "better" work because it will be sharper and less grainy and better exposed.

But in the end it's as though we took our object of inspiration and put it under layer after layer of gauze.  Each layer of technique we apply pushes the object further way from any sort of direct and emotive response on our part until it becomes merely a foil for our new infatuation with the craft.

When the devils succeed in corrupting our inner artist completely we look for subjects not because they strike a chord in our hearts but because our science brain tells us they'll make a good package on which to show off our skills at wrapping.  At covering up the real gift with a new layer.   "I don't care what might be in the box...."  We're saying, "But look at what a good job I did with the gift-wrapping!!!"

And before we know it we're far afield from our original captivation.  We're separated from what we loved by the knowledge that we can do more.  Even if we never needed to do more in the first place. Our original passion is side-tracked by the promise of "just a little more control."

At some point the sheer weight of our tools and the exhausting burden of continuing to learn new ways to show off dulls us to the joy and effervescence of our original undertaking: To celebrate the object of joy we've encountered.  To translate our love of beauty into something we can share.

And that kills photography for all of us.  I am envious of the people I know who resisted learning more about the "how to."  I am envious of the people who've found the one object of beauty in their lives that makes photography such a wonderful art.  I am envious of Harry Callahan's long photographic study of his wife, Eleanor.  I am envious of Henri Cartier Bresson's single minded love of capturing the world around him, unencumbered by "what's new in the bag."  "What's state-of-the-art." and what might make a good foil with which to show off this new technique.  

I am slow and witless and as easily led as the next photographer.  And yet, today, I can look through stacks and stacks of images I've done of buildings and food and executives and models and I don't feel the slightest spark.  But when I crack open a box of old black and white prints and look into the faces of the people whose beauty struck me to the point that I wanted to capture it,  and the faces of the people who I love and cherish I feel flush with excitement.  A thrill resonates through my heart.  And I realize that this is what I should have been doing all along.

Forget stitching shit together in Photoshop.  Forget crunching meaningless frames of shiny colored reflections of puddles into another HDR placemat.  Forget so sharply rendered that it cuts into my iris.

Remember what it was like to love and honor the subject in front of your camera because that's all that really matters.  That's where the real art lives.  It's about discovering the beauty you cherish, not imitating a weak, cultural construction of beauty manufactured from clever tricks.  And it's certainly not about the camera, the lights or the postprocessing.

The image you have in your mind, when you look at what it is you consider most beautiful,  is... everything.  Your longing to photograph was originally an attempt to preserve that precious moment of beauty and insight for yourself.  Or to be able to share it for a lifetime.

Everything that came after that, the camera bags, the lenses, the super straps and the endless stream of lights and cameras, is a wedge that pushes us further away from the original truth.

Go out today and find the thing you love.   The person.  The son or daughter who makes you smile and brings tears of happiness to your eyes.  The wife or husband who brings a feeling of warmth and belonging into your life.   The friend who stood by you when you were in the hospital or deep in debt.  Find your beauty and then share it with yourself.  That's the miracle of photography.

That should be our assignment right now.  That should be our picture of the day.  Everything else is just a job.  

In its purest form our photography is a celebration of love.  And everyone's love is different.

Happy Valentine's Day.


Edit:  Someone requested the "cookie" shot from Valentine's 2010.  Here's the link:
http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2010/02/valentines-day-fashion-special.html