The Olympus Pen F and that little dial on the front

[emraphoto]

I certainly knew the Pen F existed however I never paid it much attention. The interest in cameras has waned over the years and I really focus on purchasing tools these days.

There certainly was much discussion regarding that dial in the front over the years and myself, I really was ‘meh’ about the whole thing. Recently though, I was leafing through some prints of a friend and was captivated by the colour. I asked what he shot them in and he mentioned the Pen F. He then began to tell me all about that little dial in the front and how one can customize the JPEG output to your liking. THEN he showed me!!! Wow! Why did you Pen F owners not share this little tidbit of information?

So, to jump ahead a little... I purchased one. I have shot a lot of film in the past and my favourite, go to emulsion was always 120 portra 800 shot at 400 and souped at 800. I must have shot 500 rolls of it this way. The question is, as I try and match this output on the Pen F does anybody have a secret JPEG colour profile they would like to share? I used to do all the processing and scanning for a member of VII and he shot Fuji NPH 400 in 120. Anybody manage to cook up a profile for that?

Share those secret recipes Pen F owners 😉

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Very nice and brave decision.

Try to enjoy Olympus colors rendering as they are. They are best digital colors I ever seen. No need to emulate film, which is going to be fake anyway.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I didn't share it because I think the feature is worthless. I have a Pen-F, and I love it. I've done some incredible work with it, but I do not waste my time shooting JPEGs. Ever. The quality difference between JPEG and RAW is so overwhelming that I cannot even imagine any reason to shoot JPEG.

 

[arseniii]

Ohhh yes I almost forgot it has a dial there. Never used it. As master Chris said, just shooting raw and then C1 to process. Always is/was happy with the results. Olympus Pen F (pretty much all Olympuses) is my favourite camera (and Leica M9). Paired with a nice Panasonic lens produces the nicest images on Earth. None of that Fuji crap 😉

 

[emraphoto]

Very nice and brave decision.

Try to enjoy Olympus colors rendering as they are. They are best digital colors I ever seen. No need to emulate film, which is going to be fake anyway.

Whether it’s ‘fake’ or ‘real’ is of no interest to me. What is of interest is being able to achieve a particular outcome with as little post as possible.

 

[emraphoto]

Ohhh yes I almost forgot it has a dial there. Never used it. As master Chris said, just shooting raw and then C1 to process. Always is/was happy with the results. Olympus Pen F (pretty much all Olympuses) is my favourite camera (and Leica M9). Paired with a nice Panasonic lens produces the nicest images on Earth. None of that Fuji crap 😉

The problem here is that I don’t want to shoot raw. I spend so much time tagging and captioning work material as it is, the less time I can spend in post the better. I realize this may seem odd to most folks but I have been shooting JPEGS for a living for the better part of 15 years now and it works peachy for me.

 

[emraphoto]

I didn't share it because I think the feature is worthless. I have a Pen-F, and I love it. I've done some incredible work with it, but I do not waste my time shooting JPEGs. Ever. The quality difference between JPEG and RAW is so overwhelming that I cannot even imagine any reason to shoot JPEG.

Well, I can imagine a reason or two 😉

 

[vagab0nd]

The best resource on how to create Pen-F color profiles that I've found is here. The same author has a full series on the Pen-F dial starting here - this was updated recently.

In this thread on mu-43.com, "kodakchrome/classic chrome settings" are discussed on page 1.

It's mind boggling that when the Pen-F came out, there was no way to actually share color / monochrome profiles :bang:. In a share everything culture, you would've thought that Olympus would have made this feature available from day one #PenFColor. But they didn't. It took nearly 2 years after release, before Olympus finally updated to allow users to download photos and pull color profile data from the image, and then apply them to a setting on the camera via Olympus Workspace. Not the most elegant solution, but it's better than nothing. Website here and more images to pull here. This should work with any other uploaded Olympus Pen F files that still have exif data included.

 

[Huss]

I love the jpegs I get from my PenF. Never use RAW. If you're really happy with the output, what's the point? Because you can?
I initially manipulated the RAW files, but just got back to the point where they matched my jpeg profiles! So, if the jpegs results are what you want, there you go. If you prefer RAW, there you go.

FYI I have never had someone look at my images before they bought, and said - is this raw or jpeg?
😉

 

[arseniii]

I love the jpegs I get from my PenF. Never use RAW. If you're really happy with the output, what's the point? Because you can?
I initially manipulated the RAW files, but just got back to the point where they matched my jpeg profiles! So, if the jpegs results are what you want, there you go. If you prefer RAW, there you go.

FYI I have never had someone look at my images before they bought, and said - is this raw or jpeg?
😉

To me not keeping RAW files is like going to a film lab to develop and scan a film. And after the scan is done to ask the lab to throw away the negatives. I mean if you're okay with that then cool...
Anyhow, flash cards are pretty cheap these days, so is the storage. I like to pretend that my work matters and keep all the RAW files in the archive and use JPGs for internet.

 

[emraphoto]

To me not keeping RAW files is like going to a film lab to develop and scan a film. And after the scan is done to ask the lab to throw away the negatives. I mean if you're okay with that then cool...
Anyhow, flash cards are pretty cheap these days, so is the storage. I like to pretend that my work matters and keep all the RAW files in the archive and use JPGs for internet.

I’d also like to think my work mattered/matters and I have NEVER shot RAW in a professional capacity nor personal really. I’m not sure if I agree with the analogy and mostly view it like shooting positives. Shooting a days worth of RAW files, processing and then transmitting is not a workflow I could ever stomach. But as they say, horses for courses.

 

[emraphoto]

I love the jpegs I get from my PenF. Never use RAW. If you're really happy with the output, what's the point? Because you can?
I initially manipulated the RAW files, but just got back to the point where they matched my jpeg profiles! So, if the jpegs results are what you want, there you go. If you prefer RAW, there you go.

FYI I have never had someone look at my images before they bought, and said - is this raw or jpeg?
😉

I have never, in my entire career, been asked if I shot something RAW vs JPEG, full frame vs ? or anything of that nature.