how much to clean oly lens?

[btfiend]

Its like that lah, nowadays electronics manufacturer cut costs on everything, does not provide sufficient training for service technicians, so what do you expect? It happens everywhere, not just Olympus Service Centre.

Well Canon seem to be doing pretty well servicing the pro segment. One phone call and I was offered a new replacement lense. Impressive. Also was offered a no-obligation 1-week test drive when they launched their 5D (they knew I jumped ship to E1). They really value their customers and they got their tongues REAL deep up their customers rear end.

Are you sure they are ok with cleaning body? I beg to differ

I send my E500 for sensor cleaning, had to visit the service centre 3 times before the spot was cleaned off. I was surprised when the technician told me they check sensor dirt by shooting without a lens fitted to the body, so when they inspect my camera, the sensor is always 'clean'. It took me three visits to convince them that a lens is needed on the camera body so that when the shutter release is pressed, they will see spots on the picture taken:sweat:

Geez, another one. The proper way to test for dirt on sensor is to shoot (with a lense) at a uniformly lit surface (or the clear blue sky if you ever see it here) at the smallest aperture possible.

I had some sticky dirt on my E1's sensor before but I managed to remove them using a SpeckGrabber from Cathay. Be sure to clean the tip thoroughly prior to 'lifting' the specks from the CCD!

 

[cjtune]

I think Oly SG service centre is OK for stuff like cleaning bodies and minor repair work that do not involve the optical elements or anything critical or only shows up under difficult conditions. In cjtune's case, interference patterns on his e330 was unresolved despite lots of exchanges and tests.

I'm starting to get that impression that are not trained/prepared enough to handle the SLR user segment.

Anyhow for my case, it is probably not fair to expect the service centre to fully resolve my high ISO 'banding' problem because I think it is both a inherent design and production quality issue that comes from upstream and has been reported worldwide. But what really cheezed me off is the initial non-response and nonchalant attitude shown towards my problem. As part of the 'solution' after my first visit, I even got a printed-out note explaining what is 'ISO' in digital photography to accompany the assurance from the technician the weird high ISO patterns are "normal"... :bsmilie: My response (still unanswered) was for them to show me the same patterns on ISO 1600 from any one of their point-and-shoot models to assure me it's normal.

I also kept getting the annoying reminder that "I'm the only one complaining about this" the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th times I went over to see them to resolve this issue.

 

[btfiend]

I'm starting to get that impression that are not trained/prepared enough to handle the SLR user segment....

But what really cheezed me off is the initial non-response and nonchalant attitude shown towards my problem. As part of the 'solution' after my first visit, I even got a printed-out note explaining what is 'ISO' in digital photography to accompany the assurance from the technician the weird high ISO patterns are "normal"... :bsmilie:

I also kept getting the annoying reminder that "I'm the only one complaining about this" the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th times I went over to see them to resolve this issue.

I'm beginning to notice a pattern here. Instead of solving YOUR problem, they'll try to brush you off as some kind of lunatic and to pacify you with some condescending excuse or reason trying to prove you wrong, hoping you'll accept it and live with the defect. Having to repair anything seem like terrible work. Only when you get persistent with them or light a match under their ass will they know you're serious.

(Lesson #2 for Olympus SG: never treat your DSLR customers like RETARDED FOOLS)

Having read in dpreview of some intelligently helpful responses from Olympus service centres elsewhere in the world, I was under the impression SG's would be at least be competent enough to handle the DSLR segment. I couldn't be more wrong.

Olympus SG service centre's mediocre service very much negates any benefit the 4/3 system offers me. Just 1 incident was enough to convince me to dump my E-system. We may not have much choice in many aspects of our lives in SG but when it comes to cameras, I can still vote with my WALLET.

 

[sunfish]

(Lesson #2 for Olympus SG: never treat your DSLR customers like RETARDED FOOLS).

I would like to distance myself from this statement .
I attribute this to the lack of training. I have heard similar horror stories about other camera brands too.
I believe it is a generic problem of the service standard in Singapore, businesses do not see customer service or interface as a very important segment of their operation, hence the lack of training. I am sure a lot of us have experience asking for sizes in departmental stores and received the standard reply, "Its all there, have have lor, don't have means don't have lor":bsmilie:

Olympus SG service centre's mediocre service very much negates any benefit the 4/3 system offers me. Just 1 incident was enough to convince me to dump my E-system. We may not have much choice in many aspects of our lives in SG but when it comes to cameras, I can still vote with my WALLET.

Again I beg to differ:bsmilie: , may I borrow your statement? Olympus 4/3 system's benefit very much negates the service centre's mediocre service offered to me. Migrating to other system does not solve the problem, give up your hobby may help a bit. Then again, unless you want to do away with all electronics and live like a caveman, you still have to face this once in a while.

This problem is generic

 

[Blu-By-U]

...., give up your hobby may help a bit....

kakakaka...like this. Don't lah ask a photographer to give up photographing...hehehehehe...Faced the same thing at Olympus Malaysia. Same problem as cjtune, banding, Oly M'sia said I am the only joker complaining.:dunno:

So unless one is a well known professional photographer, we can rest assured that these camera companies will not jump when we complain.

 

[wind30]

Frankly at ISO1600, it is hard to get a good image from the sensor. ESPECIALLY when you guys are complaining about the shadows which is around 1-2 stops underexposed, meaning you are actually shooting at ISO3200-6400 :bigeyes:

but I should not be saying so much, later my new E330 have the same problem :sweat:

 

[Blu-By-U]

If it's there, it's there...it won't come later or earlier. Why don't you try shooting a plain surface at -EV the area must be plain with minute pattern like a wall or carpet...the out of focus area...say a macro shot of a cup...then examine the background.

 

[wind30]

If it's there, it's there...it won't come later or earlier. Why don't you try shooting a plain surface at -EV the area must be plain with minute pattern like a wall or carpet...the out of focus area...say a macro shot of a cup...then examine the background.

haven't arrive yet. Should arrive on Monday I think. The first shot I will take will be my ceiling at ISO1600 -1ev :bsmilie:

 

[drakon09]

Frankly at ISO1600, it is hard to get a good image from the sensor. ESPECIALLY when you guys are complaining about the shadows which is around 1-2 stops underexposed, meaning you are actually shooting at ISO3200-6400 :bigeyes:

but I should not be saying so much, later my new E330 have the same problem :sweat:

Surely you don't expect a ISO1600 shot to turn out like an ISO100 one?

Any sensor would have produce a degraded image at ISO1600.

In any case, shadows clean up well in post processing; noise does not make a good image a bad one.

 

[Blu-By-U]

haven't arrive yet. Should arrive on Monday I think. The first shot I will take will be my ceiling at ISO1600 -1ev :bsmilie:

Make sure it's the ceiling fan or hanging light. It's the blurred out background that create the banding.

Who in the right mind would expect ISO1600 to be the same as ISO100?? ISO1600 same like 35mm film ISO400 already consider very good.

 

[drakon09]

And regarding service standards, I'd tend to agree with sunfish.

Singaporeans in general seem lacking in social graces, even more in serving someone else.

It is not my intention to say the above as a sweeping statement; but certain things do irk me. To the core.

We hear young people state that it is the job of the cleaners to clean after them; even more galling when some have the cheek to say that they are doing the cleaners a favour by providing them a job.

Lift doors open and people rush in disregarding those exiting the lifts.

Parents telling children not the go near people of darker skin colour because they think they are "dirty".

People who instantly fall asleep on the bus or the MRT when senior citizens and pregnant women board.

People who say it is okay for themselves to speed because they claim they have "fantastic driving skills".

I could go on, but I'm sure my point is pretty clear.

 

[drakon09]

Make sure it's the ceiling fan or hanging light. It's the blurred out background that create the banding.

Who in the right mind would expect ISO1600 to be the same as ISO100?? ISO1600 same like 35mm film ISO400 already consider very good.

Actually digital ISO1600 is pretty much like film ISO400, so you're spot on there.

 

[microcosm]

Actually digital ISO1600 is pretty much like film ISO400, so you're spot on there.

Sigh... the stupid topic about noise again... can we ever ever ever EVER talk about photography here? Sorry, I am so irritated by Canon's bullsh*t marketing... if the focus is about photography, I think that is the only way to learn how to take better pictures...

 

[wind30]

ya lar. But I think people who buy into olympus is not that concerned about noise, else will get Canon already.

But to be fair the ability to shoot high ISO is VERY useful. To get the extra stop of light by using a wider aperture has a LOT of disadvantage, like more expensive lens, heavier lens, smaller DOF, etc.

Even stabilization is not as useful as high ISO capability as sometimes you cannot lower the shutter speed anymore.


But of course, olympus has other advantages to me else I will not sell my s3pro to get the E330. Last time, I sell my E1 for the s3pro was due to 2 reasons,

1) E1's limited DR
2) lack of a cheap ultra wide angle.

After playing with the 12-24mm for a year, I no longer find ultra wide so interesting as it is hard to control the distortion. I believe I can be happy with an oly 11-22. As for the DR, what to do, I don't think there is any other DSLR that can capture the range of tones s3pro can. I just need to be MUCH more accurate on my exposure lor. Last time with the s3pro, over expose never mind as the DR was so wide. I hope that the live view will do more for my pictures than the 2 extra stops of DR provided by the s3pro.

More creative angles, less back ache, etc.

A bit OT liao

 

[drakon09]

Sigh... the stupid topic about noise again... can we ever ever ever EVER talk about photography here? Sorry, I am so irritated by Canon's bullsh*t marketing... if the focus is about photography, I think that is the only way to learn how to take better pictures...

:bsmilie: :bsmilie: :bsmilie:

 

[btfiend]

Took the lemon 50-200mm from Oly SG service centre out for some test shots this afternoon.

Here's a particularly good example to show the ghosting problem with this copy:

Image taken at ISO100, 1/1000, f4.0 with an E-500 + 50-200@200mm, lense firmly seated on a hard surface.

Here's the bottom left 100% crop:

bottom right 100% crop:

center 100%:

top left 100% crop

top right 100% crop

For peeping toms: The full size image

Oh yeah... the image did "look pretty sharp on the E-500 LCD" too. Dunno why its turning out like this on my computer display.

 

[btfiend]

Probably unrelated to the blurring but here's the scratch under the (front most) top glass element:

Closeup:

And this is supposed to be a 'new, unopened' box delivered to CP.

 

[wind30]

The center crop looks pretty ok to me. My old 50-200mm is around this quality too.

The fence looks wierd though but it is at the corner and maybe out of focus? but the ghosting is weird....

 

[drakon09]

I'd imagine this to represent some kind of lens alignment problem.

Mine is way sharper than this, even if it's wide open.

If you do own a laptop you might want to hook the cam up, take a sample shot, and smack the results in the Oly technician's face? :devil:

 

[hammer_400]

woah! that is definitely a problem! u should have taken it back immediately man!
how can a $1.6K lens perform liddat!

borrow a 50-200 from them, take with yours and thier copy and show them! see whether the tech still dare say "sharp what"