Long zoom lens for Olympus E510?

[jack the ripper]

Ok, i'll have a look at the prism. Do I just take off the lens and turn the camera upside down to see the prism?

[chris-p]

Basically yes.

Take the lens off the camera you should see the focussing screen above the mirror, underneath the viewfinder housing. Thats normally where viewfinder dust hides.

Looks like this...

[jack the ripper]

Thanks. I just blew into the compartment and then very gently wiped it and the mirror with a cotton bud and a lot of the dust is gone, so anyway, its better than it was, thanks guys. By the way, do you use the expodisc? I'm having problems with it because i'm getting bad-average results. It says in the manual to point the camera towards the light source in order to get an accurate reading but that gives me a horrible green tinted result. It did today, and the sky is fully cloud covered with no breaks what so ever.

[chris-p]

Never used an expodisc. Do you shoot RAW? If so fix your white balance in your RAW editor. It's much easier.

[jack the ripper]

I had quite bad trouble with white balance for ages and i've tried white card, white photo printer paper etc..and nothing got it quite right. The expodisc I am having a bit of trouble with, but it does get me in the ballpark of what it should be. Its very inconsistent though, some places getting excellent results and others always getting a very horrible green tint. I use Adobe Photoshop Elements 8.0 and yeah I shoot Raw because I like to be able to have control over exposure etc...Its just that the expodisc has such amazing reviews and i'm not seeing why.

[chris-p]

Can you correct the white balance in ACR? What WB settings do you use?

I never had this sort of problem with my E-510. If it's correctable in ACR and you shoot in RAW then ignore it and carry on. If it can't be fixed in ACR then you've got more of a problem

[jack the ripper]

Yeah it can be fixed in Adobe but its supposed to be spot on everytime with just using the expodisc.

[ianpinion]

Hello Jack,

I've just had another thought about the green tint you've mentioned. Does the green tinit only show up when you print your images or is it visible on screen whilst you're editing them?

You see, if only your printed hardcopies are coming out with a green tint and they look fine on screen then this would sound as though your monitor needs colour calibrating. This will ensure that the colours and tones you see on your screen are replicated in your prints. Sadly, most monitors are not set up to replicate the printer tones and the biggest reason for this difference is down to the different light used to view the image. On a screen, light is project from the back to luminate the image, whilst a print is only using reflected light. The former therefore, looks much brighter than the print so to balance the two you will need to lower the luminence settings of your monitor and the gamma setting too. So you get it balanced just right, you will need to purchase some colour calibration software. This basically has a sensor you stick to your monitor screen and when you run the software it will assess the screen settings against your printer settings and suggest the values your monitor needs to be set at to match the colour reproductions of your printer.

Now I'm sure Chris may have his own ideas on what maybe causing this green tint, but you cannot remove it in ACR if your monitor is not producing the correct colour tones in the first place.

[chris-p]

Originally Posted by ianpinion

Now I'm sure Chris may have his own ideas on what maybe causing this green tint, but you cannot remove it in ACR if your monitor is not producing the correct colour tones in the first place.

Ian is right about the difference between print and screen (even the primary colours are different - it's RGB on screen and RBY in the real world). But I doubt that this is the problem as it's fixable in ACR.

As I said above we need some more information on how you shoot. What WB settings do you use? How are you metering?

If you're using a grey or white card system and setting a custom white balance every time then something must be going wrong.

Try this...
Use a sheet of white paper and set a custom white balance (it's called One Touch WB on the E-510 IIRC). Once you've set your custom WB take a photo of the sheet of paper you used to set the WB. Is it white?

[jack the ripper]

When I change the metering I dont see any difference so i'm not sure how to use that. I've changed it from spot metering to cnetre weighted etc..and cant see any difference even though i've tried with manual, aperture priority and program. I've tried with a piece of hewlett packard bright white inkjet paper and I didn't get the green tint, but the colour after white balance setting wasn't brilliant by any standards. I always use the custom white balance, which on my camera is the 'One Touch' mode.