Olympus XZ1 Sucks...

[Jun Lao]

Yes, suck ... I would like to take this camera back from my daughter
I bought the XZ-1 for my daughter, 11 years old - and these few what she get during our trip to Tulamben and Menjangan end of May.
resized and crop only.

awesome photos!, immensely enjoyed both ur daughters blog posts too have an 11 yr old too, sadly living with the mom in Redondo, ..... made my day, youre lucky to get to dive with your kids, and ur daughters are so lucky to have a generous pop

 

[ScubaSam]

Hi, All,

So happy I found this thread. The pics posted are beautiful and inspiring.

I just picked up a XZ-1 with the Olympus housing so I can take a load of pics when I hit Bonaire in four days!!!!!

I hope I can take, at the very least, one good shot to post here when I return. Thanks to everyone who shared their pics here!

 

[hairy_frogfish]

hi Martin, you can click on this link YouTube - ‪Pulau Sipadan 2011‬‏ , did some spring cleaning on my youtube

have a dive trip scheduled June 2-5, will try to share if I find the time to edit, (currently swamped at work) but hope what I shared/steps.. really does improve quality down below

Hello Jun Lao,
Did you post your newer video somewhere? I love your photos and like to see how the XZ-1 behaves with your new settings

 

[hairy_frogfish]

just subscribing to thread

 

[Jun Lao]

Hello Jun Lao,
Did you post your newer video somewhere? I love your photos and like to see how the XZ-1 behaves with your new settings

hi Hairy Frogfish, heres a hairy frogfish vid for you


unfortunately, wasn't religiously following settings as I was flipping from photos and videos and back. I think the peeps I see bringing down two dslr's makes sense (wa & macro), but for me, its for photo and video, point and shoots

on metering, photos-spot, for video- centerweighted, hard to change settings on one dive, but at the end of the day, I'm resigned to say, this is not a camera for video.

what I realized it shoots better video with moderate light sources, when bright, it automatically cuts out the light, automatically dimming brightness, maybe an nd filter may work, havnt used the internal nd filter though. heres another vid, just to show what I mean... the mid portion , ribbon eels, when diver going down, the triggerfish, and last portion jacks and turtle had wonderful light and fairly good viZ, cam automatically blocks out brightness,oly shld fix this, as epl1's I think dont have this problem, my previous zs3 wld hav done superb on the last portion shots

 

[HenrikBP]

Thanks for those videos Jun Lao. I see what you mean in the second video; looks like the camera irises down when it registers bright light. Odd since the light really wasn't bright enough to "burn out" the video.

I realize I can't cairly compare the frogfish video to the Anilao video, but in HD the frogfish video looks fantastic - I'd be happy with that video quality from a compact UW camera. The Anilao video looks a bit grainy at times, especially in lower light with lots of movement such as the schools of fish. Is that just a factor of how you uploaded the videos?

Henrik

 

[Jun Lao]

The Anilao video looks a bit grainy at times, especially in lower light with lots of movement such as the schools of fish. Is that just a factor of how you uploaded the videos?

Hi Henri, the anilao vid from morays till turtle were 2pm-4pm Sunlight, and yes, you are right- irises down is the perfect term , on edit, used windows movie maker with no adjustment on brightness nor whitebalance (so you can say its the real output, my macbook died during that period),
while the frogfish vid, I got to use again imovie for edit, did a lot of increased brightness especially during hopping portions of the frogfish. (why some grainy edged portions)

A good video light with lots of lumens sure to improve video (was using a usd50 fantasea focus light), but shooting ambient 3-4pm sunlight + automatically irises down is a downer, solution is to set to P and centerweighted, but just a tad cumbersome switching all the time, plus you loose manual white balance function in this mode so its bright, but too blue or green.

irises down on slight shift/increase of lightsorce intensity + consistent focusing are the main problems of xz1 video

looking also to learn from others, I may be doing something wrong, any other experiences, samples? looking at getting a lumix tz20 just for vid, will keep oly for the pics (still cheaper than a dslr)

 

[HenrikBP]

Thanks again for the details.

It seems like it is a few strange software choices that are messing up the video function, which based on the lens as well as still quality should be excellent.

- it shouldn't be too much trouble to adjust how the camera iris responds to various/varying light levels. Just don't iris down that early.

- why no manual white balance in P mode? Easily fixable, and even my cheap little Canon pocket cam can do that.

I wonder how responsive Olympus is to requests for changes?

Henrik

 

[ScubaSam]

My new XZ-1 and I are back from Bonaire. The pics are not touched-up or cropped, mainly because I'm Photoshop and any photo application challenged, so pics are as they appear on the SD card.

 

[hairy_frogfish]

hi Hairy Frogfish, heres a hairy frogfish vid for you

Hello Junlao,
Many thanks for your sample videos. I love your photos, and would like to see what you can get out of the LX-5, but sadly not that many people with your photo skills are posting (or maybe I did not search correctly). I'll go for the LX-5 for the video, hope I made the good choice.