Olympus Art Filters? Are You Interested?

E-M1 Art Filter Version 1 (click to enlarge)

Let me start off by saying, I'm a pretty basic guy.  I like to keep my photography simple and straightforward.  I really don't often do JPEGS, art filters, digital tele-converters, "scene" settings, double exposures, in-camera panoramas, etc.  I grew up in a photographic time when all I had was a fully manual camera with no automation.  Not even any automation in a flash.  Every exposure had to be calculated and manually focused.  Each time you moved closer or farther from your subject when using a flash, you had to manually change apertures.  Ah...the good old days?  Well, maybe not.

That being written, in the past year I have experimented using the JPEG format in my Fujifilm X-T1, my Olympus E-M1's digital tele-converter and now, trying some of my E-M1's art filters.  This is huge for me!  Sometimes change and careful experimentation can open creative doors that otherwise would remain closed.

What have I found so far?  I like the JPEGs from the X-T1.  In fact, I think the X-T1's JPEGS produce a better, sharper, more detailed file than Lightroom converted RAW image files. They aren't quite as versatile in that JPEGS are 8-bit and I normally photograph in 16-bit and the "look" is baked in, with a bit of leeway to make adjustments. Additionally, I kind of enjoy playing around converting the RAW X-T1 files to a variety of different JPEG looks with the in-camera JPEG converter.  Very handy.

The Olympus E-M1's digital tele-converter is excellent and I won't hesitate to use it if I see an image I don't want to miss, "need" some extra reach and don't have a lens long enough to make the image I want to make. I've written about it here, and here.  In fact, it just doesn't crop the center out of the normal sized image, it crops the center then resizes the file back to the original size and will give it to you in a RAW format!  How about that!   I've used Photoshop and specialized plug-ins for many, many years and I could not make a better image file as was made in-camera with Olympus' resizing and processing.  It really is that good.

How about the Olympus art filters?  Do they interest you at all?  They never did interest me before, but a couple of weeks ago I was over on Virginia's Eastern Shore photographing and decided, "what the heck!,"  I'll give them a try to see what they are all about.  In the end, I found there were a couple I liked.

When I was in the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge a few weeks ago for a "wildlife" weekend, I not only photograph wildlife but I also keep an eye out for anything that may be of general interest.  The image at the top of this post is something that I saw of interest.  This old tree was in the middle of what usually is a pond filled with migrating birds.  Hmm, I thought, I wonder if the art filters will make this more interesting than it initially appeared?

It was almost sunset, the sky was a sickly pink color for the most part and I thought I would give those Olympus' art filters in my E-M1 a try.  Here are a few that I liked.  The one at the top is the color version I liked best, which did not represent reality in this case.  I also like the stark black and white version.  Below are some other of the art filter versions.

Verson 2 (click to enlarge)

Version 3 (click to enlarge)

E-M1 RAW file (click to enlarge)

As you can see, the various art filters gives you a nice variation from a straight shot.  In fact, in this case, the straight RAW file is the one I like the least.

Should you use them on occasion?  That is up to you.  However, it can be fun and may pay to experiment on occasion as it can unleash some creativity or produce a result that is preferable to a standard JPEG or RAW file.

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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