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Lynn Scott's
Lepidoptera Index |
Hands-On Experience: Olympus E-20Our second digital SLR camera, the Olympus E-20, arrived in early 2003. A significant upgrade from the Olympus D620L, this camera incorporated all of the essential functionalities previously identified for our moth-photography application, but added the higher resolution and improved storage that we were looking for. This camera's important features were:
The Olympus E-20 digital camera allowed us to photograph smaller moths than we could with the D620L, not only giving a slightly larger image of the small moth within a photo, but also giving four times as many pixels for greatly improved detail within the image.  The Olympus E-20 digital SLR, an amazing camera for macro photography. Note that the built-in flash is places relatively far forward and high on the camera body, avoiding shadows on the subject from the lens when taking macro-photographs. Overall, the photos were of much better quality than with our previous camera, thanks to a more sophisticated camera design and a better image sensor. The E-20 allowed reasonable photography of moths with wingspans from about 12 to 150 mm, a significant enhancement given that about 50% of known moth species are close to the small end of that range. With some experimentation, a setting was achieved that optimized depth of field without losing the flexibility of use in a considerable range of macro situations, including rapid sequences tracking a specimen through a flutter up a wall. An added bonus was that the ergonomic design of the E-20 makes it the most comfortable camera in the hand that we have ever used, a particular benefit when taking shot after shot (one-handed) for an extended period of time. The CompactFlash cards had sufficient capacity to minimize the need to change "film" in mid-shoot, and a spare battery-pack meant taking only seconds to change batteries in the middle of an exciting moth night. But then, in 2006, disaster struck — shutter failure, after some 20,000 to 30,000 shots, occurring right at the beginning of the busiest moth month of the year. Struggling with a borrowed 6 megapixel Nikon D70 camera, the process of recording moths observed continued while the faithful E-20 was in the shop for repair, but the quality of images didn't begin to approach the output from the E-20. The best solution for the moment was to purchase a second Olympus E-20, and that's exactly what we did.   These two photos, both illustrating the small tortricid moth Sparganothis niveana under similar conditions, show how the MCON-35 macro lens used for the righthand photo gives the moth subject a noticeably larger share of the field of view. With two E-20 cameras on the go, it also became feasible to purchase an Olympus MCON-35 macro extension lens or close-up lens (focal length 35 cm (+3 diopters)), which screws onto the front of the regular camera lens, allowing an object 4.9 cm wide to fill the image, an extra 50% magnification (it also allows for closer focusing). Unlike inexpensive "close-up lenses", the Olympus MCON-35 is a multi-element, multi-coated unit; its 75-mm diameter is great enough that it does not reduce the light arriving at the photo-sensor by any meaningful amount.  The E-20 has been on a number of trips, convenient for vacation photos like this shot of Vancouver's harbor. And like the prior D620L camera, the E-20s did wonderful pictures of people, buildings and scenery, but with better definition and color. Spring 2007, however, brought another shutter failure, this time with the newer E-20, followed by more signs of trouble with the previously repaired camera while the other one was with Olympus for repair. A highly respected magazine recommended not repairing a four-year-old camera because of cost and technological advancements. And then, of course, there were still the ultra-micro moths, less than the size of a small grain of rice at 1/4 the thickness, crying out to have their pictures taken — back to camera-shopping again, this time with a host of newer, affordable, higher-resolution cameras to consider. |
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