training videos?

[Vish]

All:

Has anyone tried Olympus EVOLT E300 tutorials they are selling at ebay?
How are they? Are they worth the money?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Olympus-Evolt-E-...QQcmdZViewItem

Thanks in advance
--Vish

[Bill Huber]

I have not looked at them, but have you looked at the ones on the Olympus site. They are geared around the E1 but the information is good for any camera.

http://olympusdigitalschool.com/e-sy...e-1/index.html

[hartcons]

More at:
http://www.webphotoschool.com/
(a lot about lighting and using reflectors, diffusers, etc.)

I found this book about exposure very helpful:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/081...books&v=glance

One thing you can do with the e-300 is set the OK button on the back to be a shortcut into the menus (like to the drive menu where you can do remote timer, which I do for tripod shots, or burst mode) or to be the DOF preview button (normally the viewfinder shows you a wide open, lowest F, view but if you are stopped down, higher F, then the DOF preview will show you a more accurate depth of field, albeit a bit darkly).

Play with the different AF sensor settings (little button with three dots on the back). You can have all of them on (and then I think it will do nearest subject) or just one at a time.

Watch out for camera shake and motion blur. One rule says the shutter speed should be (1/(focal length x 2)). You may need to raise ISO at times. Leaning against something for support can help.

Supposedly the lens hoods are always a good thing. If you use a UV filter do some shots with and without (especially into the light where you might expect to see flare/ghosting) to see if you notice a difference (I have started to notice some differences with mine, especially with ghosting on the less expensive filters).

Try shooting RAW (you can even do RAW + SHQ JPEG which gives you the best of both worlds). Master can process your .ORF with nice colors but a bit sluggishly (and can also upload your photos from the camera or card reader). You can do trials of other raw converters like silkypix, phaseone, raw shooter essentials (which is free) and elements 4 (3 on the mac) with adobe camera raw (a separate but free download). Master can also make sure you're running the latest firmware. Articles about RAW at:
http://ronbigelow.com/articles/articles.htm

If you are on windows, check this out:
http://www.dpmagic.com/products.html