Best Settings for E-PM1 + 60mm macro

[fmerkel]

In your photo edit program you should be able to find the [properties/info] about your shots and see what the camera tried to do in modes other than manual. If you got dark in manual then it tweaked some settings to get enough light in to take pictures in other mode....at some expense somewhere.

Like I told you, you need a LOT of light for that lens. My wife was trying out a snoot and needed to borrow my Sea & Sea YS-D1 to clamp it on to. On one dive a large wolf eel was out so she popped off the snoot and shot just with the 60mm + that strobe. $800 later she now has a YS-D2 as she found it worked a lot better than the YS-01 with that lens. Frankly I'm a bit surprised, but that's her story.
She also has an 800 lumen focus light. Much less than that and she has trouble with focus.

Expect a learning curve. The lens is very good but it's also a hard taskmaster. Sometimes I do better than her with the stock lens with +5 diopter just because it's easier. OTOH, when she nails it the pictures are remarkable and she can stuff her smaller package into tighter spaces than I can. There are always trade offs.

 

[Divealpha]

About black /dark exposures: I had these problems on some dives, even with a strobe, in the beginning. Lights/strobes has to be in the right angle, and when you have little experience, this can happen. Just a few cm off is enough sometimes. Or maybe the lights just isn't strong enough.. Usually I shoot with ISO 200 or 250 with strobes in manual or auto, F9-F22 and 1/100-1/160. With higher ISO on a PM1, I personally think there is too much noise(escpesially on 400 and up). Very curious how the OMD EM-10 will behave under the same circumstances. I also use a focus light. I also shoot RAW, and fix the WB in PP with Lightroom afterwords.

 

[stuartv]

Its almost as if the camera was compensating for low light in every mode but manual.

Isn't that exactly what it's supposed to do?

 

[merxlin]

Isn't that exactly what it's supposed to do?

I'm not sure how it is doing that though. If I take a photo with any of the priority settings and it is viable, then set the manual settings exactly the same, the manual photo comes out extremely dark despite having the same ISO, aperture and shutter speed.

 

[stuartv]

I'm not sure how it is doing that though. If I take a photo with any of the priority settings and it is viable, then set the manual settings exactly the same, the manual photo comes out extremely dark despite having the same ISO, aperture and shutter speed.

If all that is true, then I would guess your flash isn't firing the same way as in one of the automated modes. Or maybe not firing at all. You know those other modes will fire the flash when needed and Manual requires you to manually set the flash, too, right? I know you said you were using a video light and no strobe. Does the camera have a built-in flash? Was it firing in the automated modes?

With same ISO, aperture, and shutter, the only two possibilities are: Camera is defective, or, light is different.

When you eliminate the impossible, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

 

[fmerkel]

Yep, what stuart said. The different modes can have different settings for flash. I don't have THAT model but the PEN 1 and 3 I have utilize different setting options in different modes. It's complicated.

 

[merxlin]

Flash was turned off in both manual and mode settings. I'm going to do a dry land test with ambient light/video light/strobe, using the various settings. Hopefully eliminating the variables will let me see what is happening.

Thank you all for your input.

 

[tursiops]

Another way to eliminate a variable is to just set the lens on F/11; any smaller aperture than that will give more DOF but at the expense of sharpness. Use a low ISO, for max sharpness and quality. Then get lots of light (thus a strobe), shoot in manual to get the right exposure on the subject (for whatever distance you are) by adjusting the strobe power, and raise the shutter speed until the background is the blue that you want. The beauty of the strobe is that it does not see the shutter speed changes (so long as the shutter is not so fast that the strobe doesn't fire) so you can actually change the background color.

 

[jmartel]

At F22, you are running into diffraction. You're losing a lot of sharpness. Drop it down to F11 or so and try it. Also, try bumping up the ISO a bit. If you can expose it a bit brighter than optimal and bring it back in editing, you'll get rid of the extra noise easily. I wouldn't worry about losing sharpness from bumping up the ISO until you get above ISO800 or so.