Guest photographer Dennis Edson has had good success building dramatic and endearing pictures from images captured with his E-10. Two of his primary photo finishing tools are PhotoShop and Genuine Fractals.

Dennis is a retired Electronic Engineer, who has been involved in amateur and professional photography for many years. He does his own color printing, and taught color printing seminars for about 20 years. He and his wife, Sylvia, are members of the Boise Camera Club. Dennis' primary medium is 6X7 color negative, and Sylvia shoots 35mm. They report that based on the results they have seen from the Olympus E-10, they will be shooting more and more digital format. His narratives are included with the images below.

Copyright 2001, Dennis Edson - all rights reserved   View Reduced Size (243K) or Full Size (1,640K)

The day I went to the Dunes was the first good day we had after getting the camera. I wanted to go to the dunes, because I thought that they would provide some opportunity for close and near shots that would have nice tones and fine detail. The Dune was shot in SHQ mode with the E-10 and then placed in PhotoShop. Because the picture was shot at midday (not good for dune photos), I used PhotoShop "Levels" to improve the tones and contrast. The bald sky was then dropped out, and a new, cloudy sky, with bird was added. The new sky was from a shot I took in Montana a couple of years ago. A close look at the sky will show some streaks, these are due to a poor scanning of the negative into a file. This was done by a pro lab before I had my own film scanner.

Copyright 2001, Dennis Edson - all rights reserved   View Reduced Size (248K) or Full Size (1,535K)

The dune twig is a straight shot by the E-10 in SHQ mode. Again, in PhotoShop, I improved the tonal range and contrast with the "Levels" controls in PhotoShop. It caught my attention because of the nice curved shadow that was cast. It was taken at a distance of about two feet. The twig is perhaps about 8 inches high. Also this shot would show how well the camera could resolve the grains of sand. I thought that it did very well. Both photos have had slight sharpening as is required in all digital imaging. The E-10 tended to render the dunes in cooler tones than was correct. I think that this was due to the "automatic" white balance being fooled by the warm tones of the sand. As a result I had to "warm up" the colors a bit by using "Levels" in PhotoShop. In the future I will try a fixed 5500 white balance when in the dune area. Both shots were at ISO 80, SHQ mode, F:11, 1/125 second. I liked the vantage of the Dune shot because it shows the frozen lake in the front. I thought that it gave a good mixture of feelings. What, dunes with a lake, and the lake is frozen? A rather unique situation, but a real one for this location.

Copyright 2001, Dennis Edson - all rights reserved   View Reduced Size (307K) or Full Size (1,876K)

The culvert with ice was shot at the Dunes. As I was making my way to the large dune, I passed over the culvert. The flowing water caught the edge of my vision and I turned and saw the ice. The photo was taken from about 4-5 feet, ISO 80, F:11, HQ mode (4:1 compression), aperture priority, center weighted metering. I do not recall the shutter speed, but I imagine that it was somewhat slow (1/25 ?), since it was not too bright at that spot. I was very pleased with the way the E-10 captured the ice. It really looks real with clear areas, frosted areas, and translucent areas. This shot has very little manipulation, just a slight bump up of the shadow densities using "curves" in PhotoShop to increase their detail. Also a bit of sharpening.

Copyright 2001, Dennis Edson - all rights reserved   View Reduced Size (330K) or Full Size (1,317K)

The Lambs were taken at a sheep ranch just outside of the Bruneau Dunes. This is a private ranch and I got access through a friend of mine. The lambs are only about four days old, and it was just past the peak of the lamming season. At that time only 120 lambs were being born in a 24 hour period. The week before there were 250 being born in a 24 hour period. Taking care of them is a horrendous job that runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for about a month. These lambs were frolicking in a field, with their mothers. They were very active, but tended to stay together. I waited until a nice group formed with the light to their backs. The photo was shot at F:11, 1/125 second, ISO 80, center weighted metering, SQH mode. The original image was brought into PhotoShop, and stored back out in Genuine Fractals 2.0 .STN format. As I opened up the fractals file, I did some cropping to get the lambs I wanted, and scaled the photo up to it's present size. As you have guessed, this only a portion of the original photo (about 2/3). I really like Genuine Fractals, it works well, allows me to scale the photos up to 12.5 X 16 inches at 300DPI, and produces great prints. Slight sharpening was applied, and some slight "levels" control in PhotoShop.

Contact Dennis Edson