Help with my evolt e500

[wolfsoul]

Hi everyone,

I recently purchased an Olympus Evolt E500. I am starting up my own little dog show/trial candid photography business (I am a dog breeder so I'm at shows and trials often enough). A professional photographer told me for an entry level SLR I should skip the Olympus and go for the Nikon D70 or D75 -- apparently the kit lenses for the Olympus are not very good, and other Olympus lenses are expensive to buy. However, my friend has the evolt e300, and I've always LOVED her pictures. I looked at some shots out of the Nikon and was not as impressed with the action shots (which I will mostly be taking). So I went for the evolt e500 anyways.

I've read the book over and over and fiddled with the settings like crazy. And so far, my little Canon Powershot A95 takes better shots than this camera. The action shots are always blurry. I'm becoming very frustrated and worried that I made a mistake. My friend's action shots with her evolt e300 are AMAZING, she gets pictures of her dogs catching frisbees and they are perfect.

So I'm hoping someone can tell me the very best settings to keep the camera on to get good action shots? I have fiddled around with the settings so much but I just seem to figureout which ones are best.

Thanks so much in advance!

Jordan & the Belgians

 

[TBaraki]

The Minolta, Nikon, Canon, Pentax, etc.. are all capable of taking great action shots. It comes down to shutter speed if you want to freeze action. Do you have any examples of shots you are disappointed with to post?

Your camera is not at fault. Most likely, from your use of the word blurry, there just isn't enough light where you are shooting, or you are not allowing enough light in to stop motion. Try opening the aperture wide open and raise the ISO to 800.

Would you be able to post an example with a list of the setting you were using?

 

[wolfsoul]

Thank you for your reply, here is one of my action shots --- see how terrible it is?

For this picture, it was on "sport" setting for lots of motion, the ISO was on Auto, flash was on Auto, WB was Auto, Noise Reduction is Off (should that be on?), C-AF mode, Gradation is Normal, pictures are SHQ...I don't know what most of these settings mean. There is also WB BKT, AE BKT, FL BKT, MF BKT -- all are off, not sure what they do. Alot of the stuff in the instruction book went way over my head. ISO Step is 1/3EV, ISO Boost is Off, ISO Limit is Off, EV Step is 1/3EV. Anything here that stands out to anyone, that needs to be changed?

The highest my ISO goes is 400, atleast from what I can tell -- It can go on "auto" as well, is that any better? I read that the higher it is, the more "gritty" the picture will be -- is that true? How do you make the aperture wider?

 

[TBaraki]

That looks like the shutter speed was simply too slow to freeze the motion.

I'm not familiar with the Olympus control layout, but from the reading I have done it is possible to raise the ISO above 400 but it requires going through the menu. I think that is the "ISO Boost" thing you've listed. Try turning that on. I'd check into that and raise it to 800 or 1600. With increased ISO does come more digital noise.

If you check in your manual how to raise the ISO and how to change the aperture on that camera then I think you'll be right on track. Forget about all those other options for now.

Aim for a shutter speed of 1/60 or faster. This is easier to do at a wide aperture and high ISO because more light enters the camera and the sensor is more sensitive to incoming light.

 

[Tyson]

To me it seems that none of your photo is in focus, are you sure its just not focusing too slow? I shoot with a E500, if I was you I would use A mode with the f/ as low as you can get it 5.6 or so ISO 400 nothing higher that 400. Watch your light meter and set the shutter speed to under expose it just a tiny bit. I shoot on manual mode all the time. Try that too.

 

[wolfsoul]

Thanks guys -- I took your advice and still I can't get it not to blur.

This is the camera with ISO 800 with 1/40 shutter speed.

This is it ISO 400 on A mode with the F at 5.6 -- not sure what the shutter speed was, on this mode it changes itself depending on where the camera is positioned..

On manual mode, my pictures come out like this..

I can't find anything in the book that says how to change the aperture -- I don't even know what that is. How do I check my light meter?

I'm so frustrated, I just don't understand why I can't do this. Are you guys sure these ae the best settings for action shots? My friend takes such crisp, clear pictures without a teeny bit of blurriness...

 

[JIP]

You need a faster shutter speed 1/40 will not do it and if you are using manual mode you still need to use the meter. I am not familiar with Olympus but Nikon has several vertical dashes with numbers across the bottom of the viewfinder and a bar that will go one way or another depending on your exposure you need to center this to be properly exposed.

 

[Jeremy Z]

Well, I think you need to read the manual more carefully. I get the feeling you just skimmed it.

figure out how to:

1) Manually set the ISO to 800 or 1600, so that it stays there
2) Use a shutter speed of at least 1/250s. Try Aperture Priority, with the aperture number set as small as it will go. I believe this is f/5.6 when you have the zoom all the way out.
3) When you press the shutter release, press it gently & gradually; don't stab at it.
4) Try it on a bright day.

As for the rest, I have good news and bad news, all in one sentence:

The camera isn't the problem.

 

[wolfsoul]

Well, after much frustraion, I took the camera back and asked them to help me -- turned out something was wrong with it, so they replaced it with another evolt e500. No more problems as far as blurriness goes, just annoyance at how I constantly have to set the f/ when the camera is in a different position (in order to get a brighter or darker picture). That's definatly something I can't do at an agility trial...Read the book 10,0000 times and I still don't know the EXACT right settings that I need for this type of work.

 

[DallasTT]

Just read your last post gald you got that fixed. I love taking pics of GSDs with my E500 this is my baby Ola.

 

[Peniole]

If this is your first DSLR it is a bit of a steep learning curve. I've not had any problems with the freeze action shots. I would set the ISO boost to ON or ON+NF (if you don't need to take successive frames). Here's a quick guide to the basic modes you should be shooting in. In A (aperture priority), the dial on the top right of the camera (unmarked) changes the aperture, the camera automatically chooses the shutter speed, in S (shutter priority) it now changes the shutter speed and the camera chooses the aperture automatically. In either of the modes if you press the EV button (right behind the shutter release button) and move the dial you can change the exposure compensation +/-. In Manual mode there is no exposure compensation, you control both the shutter speed and aperture (using the dial alone or EV+dial respectively), and either in the info screen or viewfinder there will be a display (sliding ruler scale) showing you your exposure if it's right + biased or - biased.

Now for action shots here's your best bet, set the camera to S, try different speeds as a trial and see where you're comfortable at as a minimum setting, increase as the action gets faster paced. Now in this mode and with ISO on Auto, the camera will adjust the aperature primarily till it is forced to increase the ISO. This will be your primary setting for action shots in the beginning. Now for other secondary settings, if lighting is exceptionally poor use ISO800 (be warned of more noise above 400), always use continuous AF. Also to control focus (but you might lose some shots initially) set release priority C to OFF (that's in the fourth menu down), now after you've got the hang of it put it back to ON, what this setting does (when set to OFF) is that it will not release the shutter unless the camera gets focus. I suspect this is where you're having the main issue - because in C-AF with release priority set to ON - if you full press it will release the shutter focused or not. Half press - continuous AF (the camera will track the subject trying to predict it's movement closer or further away from you) - Full press =capture. When you put the release priority back to ON, listen for the beep (focus lock), the reason they have that setting, most people would rather not lose a moment even if soft focused/blurred than not get the shot at all.

Finally most people set the shooting mode to drive rather than single (for action) to get successive shots (small round button top right side of the LCD), don't use ISO boost ON+NF in this case as it will get frustrating while the camera applies noise reduction to every shot, use the ISO boost ON only setting. I think it clicks away at about 3fps, and if you're shooting JPG with a high speed card it won't stop till the card is full. Stops at 4 frames if shooting RAW to clear buffer.

Now as for the kit lenses they actually got good reviews compared to other kit lenses. The faster of the two kit lenses is the 40-150mm (f/3.5-4.5), you might try using that one.

Hope that helps.

 

[blatalllic]

Hope you have figured out what was wrong...I've taken many pics with my E-500.....The lenses are good in my opinion, but then again this is my first camera LOL....Actually used my 150mm lense yesterday for the first time....Taking soccer shots > me....its very difficult....

This is last night

This is some of my better stuff....Im still a Noob...have had this hobby only for 3 months or so...