Olympus XZ-1 Instructions de montage

XZ-1 Tips page 1 of 29

Olympus XZ-1 tips

from Jonathon Donahue

http://jon404.com

Here's a grab bag of XZ-1 information... from my posts, and others, on

www.Dpreview.com ... and from other places. No charge but if you want to show your

appreciation, check out my website and get a great book!

--------------

Setting the camera

Start with Program mode instead of I- Auto, Aperture, Shutter, or Manual.

On the screen menu that you see after pressing the back OK button --

1. Select Auto-ISO. The XZ-1 will try really, really hard not to go over ISO 200 -- and

that extra stop, from, say ISO 100 to 200, will give you super low-light pictures, with a

camera-set shutter speed fast enough to handhold.

2. Next, going down the menu, select 1 Vivid. Then press the little Menu button on the

back. Go to Picture Mode, select Vivid. Press the right arrow key, and set Contrast to +1,

Sharpness 0, Saturation +1, Gradation - Normal. Important: do NOT set Gradation to

Auto, or some other stuff will stop working.

3. Next, select white balance - Underwater (the fish icon). On the back-button Menu, go

to WB, press the OK button to select the fish icon, then press the right-arrow. Leave A

(amber) at 0, in the middle... but set G (green) to -1.

Between this and the Vivid setting above, you'll get beautiful pictures, indoor and out,

daytime, twilight, and in the dark.

4. Further down, select 'LF + Raw' as your picture type. This will make both a JPG and a

RAW image. In most instances, the JPG will be great... but the RAW backup lets you

rescue any image where the JPG isn't good.

XZ-1 Tips page 2 of 29

5. Further down, select Spot metering, instead of ESP or Ctr-Weighted. After selecting

Spot, go out of the menu. The camera will now always meter light from the little circle-

area in the center of the screen.

6. Next comes Focus Point selection. Press the left-arrow key and make sure the green

focus square is in the center of the screen. Leave it there! The XZ-1 will now start

behaving normally. The XZ-1 will always try to focus in the green-square area in the

dead center of the screen, which is where you naturally point the camera.

(thanks to echelon2004 for helping me get this straight!)

Imagine that you are taking a picture of a sunset. Point the XZ-1 at the sky, to the left of

the sun. Press the shutter button lightly -- it will lock focus and exposure with a beep. If

you don't like the preview image on the LCD, move the camera up or down, and try

another preview. The screen lets you see right away what you will get!

7. Lastly, further down, select AF instead of Macro or Super-Macro. At the camera's

startup wide-angle lens setting, everything's sharp from about 2' to infinity -- like for

almost every photo you will take. But play around with Super-Macro... fantastic closeups.

Just don't forget to put it back on AF!

That's about it. Now after you set the camera, write these settings down on a piece of

paper in case something gets unset, and forget all about it -- time to start taking pictures!

From here on out, trust your eye and your camera. Think pictures, not camera settings.

Before you go, get two SD cards, and three spare batteries. You will get about 200 -250

pictures per battery charge... so three charged batteries should be all you need, who

knows what kind of electricity they have over there. You can carry the XZ-1 in a shirt

pocket, with a spare battery in your other shirt pocket.

Night photography -- if you're on the move, forget the tripod or monopod. Learn to

balance the camera on a fence, a railing, or braced against a pole. Or, carry a small

beanbag in your pants pocket. Use the camera's 12-sec self-timer to take a good sharp

picture of anything that isn't moving too much.

XZ-1 Tips page 3 of 29

Sunset -- point the spot focus to the sky at the left or right of the setting sun; watch the

LCD screen til you see the effect you like.

Water reflections -- spot focus off the reflection in the water, not the sky.

Portraits -- here's an exception to Program mode. Go to A Aperture instead. Turn the lens

ring til it says 1.8 Put the lens at full telephoto. Stand about 6 feet away from the subject.

The background behind the person should be nicely blurred. Now, if you are doing this in

bright daylight, there may be too much light for the XZ-1 to handle. So go into the OK

button menu, and change ND Off to on. The built-in Neutral Density filter lets you take

pictures at wide open lens settings in bright daylight.

Filters -- Don't bother. You can do any special effects later in Photoshop -- almost

anything except a true polarizing effect, and the Vivid settings above will help you avoid

the need for polarizing color saturation.

Street scenes -- if you have time, think ahead, about what kind of picture may present

itself in the minutes ahead. Or what kind of picture you missed may repeat itself... and

when... and be there. This is hard to do!

More about settings

I leave my XZ-1 set on Underwater color balance (little fish icon) -- A=0, G=-1, and

Vivid color mode. EV at -0.3 or 0.7... digital's like old slide film, you want to

underexpose a bit to get rich saturated color.

I keep my Custom mode set to Program, with Monotone color mode (Black-and-white)...

sometimes I like to 'see' in B&W.

If using Aperture mode, I like f/5.6 as a place where the lens is very sharp with

tremendous depth-of-field. And f/2.5, at full 112mm tele, if you want to blur the

background. Really bright day? Use the ND filter to stop overexposure. Shutter speed --

at least 1/125 sec to stop motion. Or, 1/25 sec if you want to get a controlled blur, like

XZ-1 Tips page 4 of 29

when panning with a moving car or runner.

Confused about all this? Use Program mode, with the ISO at 100. Pictures in the dark,

without flash? You can go up to ISO 640, maybe ISO 800, but not more, or you will get

blotchy pictures (chroma noise). With the lens at f/2 and ISO 640, you'll be amazed at

how you can get almost any nighttime image.

Use spot exposure. Meter for the highlights, or close to them... like the sky to the left or

right of the sun at sunset.

Spot exposure note -- opinion from Ken Sills, Dpreview -- "I set my XZ-1 per your set-up

guidelines and then went on a vacation trip. The spot exposure caused me lots of

problems with landscape photos that had uneven lighting. I was constantly under or over-

exposed. I went back to center-weighted and the problem went away."

So -- maybe, for fast-moving action where you don't have time to meter carefully, leave it

on Program... Ctr-Weight instead of Spot.

Convenience -- keep the XZ-1 in your left shirt pocket. Keep a charged spare battery and

52mm polarizing filter in your right shirt pocket (you can hold it over the lens to knock

out reflections. For bright days, when its hard to see the screen, you also carry a small

older Pen VF-1 optical viewfinder that works OK with the lens at the startup 28mm

setting. And carry a beanbag in a pants pocket to put the camera on at night, and use the

self timer at 12 sec to take the picture, like for a nightscape without too much subject

movement.

Post-processing ('developing') -- Corel After Shot Pro is a very good inexpensive

program with enough features to keep you busy for a long time.

RAW vs JPG -- the XZ-1 JPGs are very good. But every now and then, like in some

weird flourescent light or mixed-light situation, switch it from LF (best JPGs) to LF +

RAW. You can learn about RAW in your Olympus software, or in After Shot Pro.

Secret -- focus lock: normally, you hold the shutter button halfway down and wait til you

see the little green box and then take the picture. The green box means that the XZ-1 has

XZ-1 Tips page 5 of 29

locked both focus and exposure on that spot. But what if you want to lock the focus on

the spot, but get the exposure somewhere else?

Here's how. Use the back-wheel left arrow to put the focus box in the center of the screen

(always best with spot focus). Then - you can put the XZ-1 on SCN > Underwater-Wide

and then press the down arrow on the back wheel, and it will lock the focus on whatever's

in the center of the screen. With the focus locked, you can move the camera and get an

exposure from somewhere else in the scene. The focus lock will hold until you turn off

the camera... or until you press the down arrow again to release the focus lock.

Flash -- in Shutter, Aperture, or Manual mode, you can adjust the flash power. Try 1/64

power to add a flick of light, of sparkle, to your portraits or closeups.

Image quality -- for almost all pictures, your XZ-1 takes images as good as any other

camera. There are a very few situations where much more expensive DSLRs are better.

But not often, and not worth the bother of carting one around. How to 'improve' a

picture? The old Life magazine adage -- crop, then crop it again. Your XZ-1's 10

megapixels gives you plenty of room to crop to the most visually strong image possible.

Flash settings

Very first thing: use the Menu button - Camera Menu > Flash settings > Sync > Sync 2.

The 'Sync 2' shoots off the flash at the end of an exposure, rather than at the start. So, on

a longish exposure, if your kid moves a bit, that movement will be 'overwritten' by the

bright sharp end-of-exposure flash image. Leave it on Sync 2 all the time; saves a lot of

pictures.

But, since the XZ-1 has a very 'bright' lens, you also have the luxury of choosing a nice

fast shutter speed. Put the XZ-1 in S Shutter mode, with the top dial.

On the right-side screen menu (press the back OK button to see it), make sure the ISO is

on 'Auto-ISO'. In the dark, the XZ-1 will go from ISO-100 to ISO-200... more light for

your picture, allowing an even faster shutter speed.

XZ-1 Tips page 6 of 29

So -- turn the lens ring until you get to a faster shutter speed, like 1/250. This speed will

freeze anyone moving towards you or away from you. 1/500 will freeze side-to-side

motion, but might let in too little light in a dark room.

Go the the Flash menu (right-arrow on the back dial), and pick the little lightning bolt --

for auto-intensity Fill In flash (just the lightning bolt, NOT the icon with a bolt and a little

eye). The XZ-1 will send out an almost invisible pre-flash, measure the light bouncing

back from it, and then fire off the main flash at just the right strength.

This, of course, will cause your child to go blind for a few moments, if not longer. You

can put a piece of Kleenex over the flash, to diffuse the light... and try again. If the

picture is too dark, move the Flash menu setting from Fill In to Full, or 1/4, or 1/16... or

just move closer with the tissue over the flash.

Or, you can tape a little angled piece of cardboard in front of the flash, to bounce the light

up at the ceiling, and then down onto the child.

All these flash units put out 'daylight' bluish light. Which is sort of stupid, because we

mostly use them indoors, under warmer room light -- lightbulb light -- tungsten light. If

you get a little piece of light orange plastic gel from a camera store -- ask for a CTO gel

-- and then tape it over the flash, amazing! Suddenly, the light from the flash matches the

color tone of the room light -- and those candles on your kid's birthday cake.

Last thought -- take a few minutes to experiment with the Flash menu low-power

settings. Outdoors in daylight, try 1/16 and 1/64 to add just a flick of fill flash to your

subject. .. very nice (no orange flash filter needed, unless you want a 'late-afternoon'

sunlit look).

Optical Infrared Wireless Slave flash

The XZ-1's popup flash can set off other flashes... infrared or 'slave' flashes. I use a cheap

Yong-Nuo YN-460N, which is fully adjustable for intensity. It works perfectly indoors --

XZ-1 Tips page 7 of 29

as long as the camera and flash are NOT in daylight coming in from a window. To

photograph a room with daylight coming in from a window, use M Manual mode with the

shutter at, say, 1/250. Get a correct exposure from the window (the rest of the room will

go black). Then, with the XZ-1 flash on 1/4 power, have it set off the slave flash -- with

the slave flash bouncing light off the ceiling, or hidden behind a chair.

On the LCD screen, if the room now looks too bright or too dark, adjust the Aperture...

NOT the Shutter speed. Because since the flash fires at faster than 1/2000 of a second,

your shutter speed setting is only meaningful for that window-daylight exposure setting.

The interior room part of the exposure is controlled by the flash, and changing the

aperture is the only way to add or take away light from the room.

Get an inexpensive set of Rosco color gels... http://www.amazon.com/Strobist-

Collection-Cinegel-Filter-Strobes/dp/B002SWIOOM ... and a gel holder

--http://www.gelholder.com/gelholder/ (works great with the YN460N) and you are,

instantly at super-low cost ... starting to light like a pro!

Great resource -- Strobist website, see their 'Lighting 101'. http://strobist.blogspot.com/

Radio-controlled Wireless Slave Flash

-- post on Dpreview by Echelon 2004

Using the XZ-1 with a Cactus V4 radio transmitter to set off Nikon SB-900 speedlights...

It's very easy. Use a transmitter of some kind Or use a camera-mounted flash in manual,

Or use the built in flash in manual at lowest power to trigger the slaves. Have everything

on the camera in manual. Have the flashes in manual. If using Cactus receivers, flashes

should not be set as slaves but just as normal camera mounted flashes. Otherwise the

slaves need to know that they are to react on the master flash. But manual settings are the

key, and never add a light that isn't needed.

Autofocus lock (AF lock

Press down-arrow in Underwater mode

But only in underwater mode!

XZ-1 Tips page 8 of 29

In SCN > Underwater-wide or -macro modes, press the down button for focus lock (it

even labels the focus confirmation 'box')

A half-press on the shutter then gives exposure lock.

You can overide the white balance and some other settings from the scene mode defaults.

You appear to be stuck with Vivid.

But all these settings can be overriden or ignored if shooting RAW.

If nothing else, it shows what capability is hidden in the firmware.

SCN > Underwater Macro mode

If you set the XZ-1 to SCN > Underwater Macro mode, it will always start up with the

lens extended to full 112mm tele, with the aperture fixed at f/4, and the shutter at the

fastest-possible setting.

ISO remains at whatever you set; I use Auto ISO, since on the XZ-1 it won't ever go up

over 200. All flash power options are available.

This might be helpful to anyone doing snapshot press photography... "Quick! Here comes

Charlize Theron!"

An afterthought -- might be interesting for street photographers to see if shooting with the

lens at 112mm is better than at 28mm... or better than mid-range 50mm 'normal vision'

setting. That mild 112mm tele might just be better, what do you think?

Slight error! With it set to SCN > Underwater Macro, with the lens opening at startup to

112mm and the aperture locked at f/4, and the camera speed set by the XZ-1... using

Auto-ISO, the ISO will go over 200 but it has to be REALLY DARK to get the camera to

do that. In near-total darkness, it goes to ISO 400. In absolutely total darkness, it stops at

ISO 800.

In practice, in this mode, Auto-ISO works really well in combination with the XZ-1's

choice of shutter speed to get you a good picture... at low ISO, almost always below ISO

200.

XZ-1 Tips page 9 of 29

XZ-1 … a 448mm lens?

Discovered today that my Olympus XZ-1, with its 28mm - 112mm lens, actually has a

28mm - 448mm lens!

Well, sort of. As you know, the glass lens, the 'optical lens', enlarges an image 4 times,

when it zooms from 28mm to 112mm. But then, the camera's computer can enlarge it 4

more times, from 112mm to 448mm... what's called 'digital zoom.'

Now, your little camera probably can do this too. But nobody likes digital zoom, because

the image quality isn't as good as optical zoom. Pro photographers and advanced

amateurs actually SNEER at digital zoom. How bad is it? Well, my Olympus manual

flatly states "Avoid using digital zoom to take pictures (p.75)" That's bad!

But is it really? You tell me. Here are three XZ-1 pictures, taken from the same camera

position, handheld, at 28mm optical wide angle, 112mm optical telephoto, and 448mm

digital telephoto --

jon404 > digi-tele-test (Original)

Dec 31, 1969 16:00:00

My take? The digital one isn't that bad... worth trying another tomorrow with the camera

on self-timer and a beanbag. We'll see. But as of tonight, looks like my little XZ-1 just

went super-zoom!

VF-1 Optical Viewfinder

The Olympus Optical Viewfinder VF-1, which was an accessory for the Pen cameras,

works just fine on my XZ-1. It is much simpler (and a LOT less expensive) than the

newer VF-2 electronic viewfinder. It slides into the hotshoe. On a bright day, when the

LCD screen is hard to see, it's a Godsend. The field-of-view is close enough to the XZ-1's

28mm wide-angle startup lens setting... great if you're snapping pictures of fast-moving

people or objects.

There's something else. Like many of you, I treasure the XZ-1's form factor... it fits in a

shirt pocket... always there, always ready. My shirt has two pockets, and I keep the VF-1

viewfinder a polarizer, and a spare battery in the other. And that's all I need, DSLR folks!

That's it! No lens adapter, no other filters, no teleconverter adapter, no teleconverters.

XZ-1 Tips page 10 of 29

Nothing else! Well, maybe a tripod in the car trunk. And , a small beanbag with lead shot

to put the XZ-1 on when I don't have the tripod out. But thanks to digital post-processing,

we just don't have to lug all that stuff around anymore... isn't it wonderful!

Underwater Mode

Noticed that the XZ-1's Underwater Mode does a great job white-balancing the nightime

mixture of tungsten, sodium vapor, neon and fluorescent light. And! For all you purists

complaining about a missing XZ-1 Focus Lock button, guess what! In Underwater Mode,

just press the down arrow on the back ring to lock the exposure.

Besides the two Underwater Modes (wide-angle and macro), you can also set the white-

balance to 'Underwater'. I'm using Cloudy for all my daylight and twilight images, and

then Underwater, usually with aperture priority, later at night.

This camera is so amazingly shirt-pocket portable. Am becoming an expert finding places

to brace it against for low-light shots... keep a tripod in the car but somehow never use

it... can put the camera on anything stationary (car roof, mailbox) and use the self-timer

to take a very sharp shot. Fun!

SCN > Underwater Macro

More XZ-1 -- there are two SCN > Underwater settings -- Underwater Wide and

Underwater Macro. If you have it set to Underwater Macro, the camera will start up with

the lens at full 112mm telephoto.

Now, you know that you can press the shutter button halfway-down to do a focus-AND-

exposure lock on the spot target. This works for almost every situation.

But here's a little-known feature: locking focus WITHOUT locking exposure.

Both SCN > Underwater settings also let you lock focus... point the center of the screen

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