Media, Technology, Photography, and Fine Arts: Getting the most from the Olympus C740 Ultrazoom

Introduction

Sometime back in 2003 I was fortunate enough to be able to purchase an Olympus C740 Ultrazoom camera. At the time I was attracted by the long 10x optical zoom lens and the overall impression of the camera. I also owned an Olympus mju2 film camera which had delivered very pleasing results so this gave me some extra confidence in outlaying a substantial sum. Being fairly ignorant of how cameras work I spent a number of years using the camera with its automatic settings. It wasn't until more recently that I discovered just what the camera is capable of, results that in my aesthetic (but not technical) opinion outshine many a modern DSLR, hence this blog post.

Optimising the C740

My journey of discovery started with the realisation that aperture settings really make a difference to the true sharpness of the final image. Using the optimal aperture for the lens, in this case f/5.6 across the entire zoom range, provides a natural sharpness that no software sharpening can come close to achieving. It's a bit like using a better microphone for an audio recording, no amount of post processing is going make up the difference.

The next stage was to understand that high ISO shots have more grain and generally less good colour, even on the best modern cameras. No noise reduction I've ever used or seen is able to counterbalance this despite some bold claims from software manufacturers. Using an ISO setting of 100 or 200 (100 being preferable for this camera) and switching off any active noise reduction is essential to getting a really smooth, and rich colour.

The final stage was a long one... it tooks years of fiddling around with some pretty sophisticated software to realise that the quality of the colour in a image is universally wrecked by software sharpening processes, either within the camera or on a computer, and that turning the in camera sharpening off (or to its lowest setting), and using optimal lens sharpness instead, yields far better results.

Summary

Thankfully the Olympus C740 allows fully control over all these parameters, with ISO and noise reduction adjustment, aperture priority mode, and sharpening level settings. I now have our C740 setup with a custom 'My' setting which automatically sets the camera to use ISO 100 at f/5.6 with the lowest sharpening level. Most, probably all, prosumer and SLR cameras will allow you to do this easily. My Olympus E420 responds to the approach very well, albeit with the 17.5-45 kit lens having an optimal aperture setting of f/11 rather than f/5.6 which can be a little limiting in low light if you can't use a tripod or flash. Usefully, with this more modern camera, I can use higher ISO levels without incurring unacceptable levels of grain which helps to offset the problem of a small aperture.

As the proof of the pudding is in the eating, here are some sample shots which I took with the C740. In my view the macro shots in particular put many DLR's to shame with a richness of colour that almost bursts out of the screen whilst at the same time appearing, to my eye at least, to be very natural.