Why Not Olympus Master 2?

[Dave Jenkins]

It appears that not many people in this user group use Olympus Master 2 to do their RAW conversions. I'm curious as to why that is.

I've been a faithful user of Capture One since I began shooting digitally in 2003. I currently have version 4.8 because it works well with my Canon 5D and 20D. If I get a newer Canon, I suppose I will have to update. This version of Capture One does not, of course, work with my Oly E-PL1, so for now I'm stuck with Master 2 if I want to shoot RAW. How do results from Master 2 compare with those from other conversion programs?

I'm not interested in buying any more software at this time, so is there a better program than Master 2 that is available as a free download?

Thanks, all, for your help.

Dave Jenkins

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[RT_Panther]

I'll give it a try next time I process my RAW files....

 

[Alanroseman]

Hi David,

I'm sure someone will jump in here and help you momentarily...

I'm a straight up Mac user, and even though I don't use it, they all come with iPhoto which to the best of my knowledge imports the camera RAWS...

Give it a few minutes and you'll get an answer...

Cheers, Alan

 

[Alf]

Two answer for the price of one.

1. Olympus Master 2 is not updated and scheduled to retire. Read it on Oly site when looking for my E-PL1

2. Olympus Viewer 2 is updated and does all that OM2 did before, including E-5 and E-PL2 support in Art Filters if you like them. Plus it's free.

Here: OLYMPUS Viewer 2 Download

 

[Djarum]

I've used Olympus viewer 2 and its not bad. It is a little slow though.

 

[Luckypenguin]

I only use Master 2 because it's much easier to do exact crops than my version of photoshop. It's a good browser and viewer as well. Unfortunately it does have one very annoying feature where it modifies the exif data of any image and rebrands it as an Olympus e.g. Olympus Canon EOS 50D.

 

[RT_Panther]

Two answer for the price of one.

1. Olympus Master 2 is not updated and scheduled to retire. Read it on Oly site when looking for my E-PL1

2. Olympus Viewer 2 is updated and does all that OM2 did before, including E-5 and E-PL2 support in Art Filters if you like them. Plus it's free.

Here: OLYMPUS Viewer 2 Download

Okay, I won't give it a try...

 

[Dave Jenkins]

I downloaded Viewer 2 and used it this morning. It's a bit slow, but otherwise seems to be a good program. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Dave Jenkins]

I take it back. Viewer 2 isn't just a bit slow, it's extremely slow! I think I'm going back to jpegs for now.

 

[timallenphoto]

I'm used to using Canon's DPP for raw processing and although Viewer 2 is quite full featured it is incredibly slow to do anything. I think I'll buy either Elements 9 or Aperture for my E-P1 raws.

 

[Ned]

2. Olympus Viewer 2 is updated and does all that OM2 did before

Well... everything except tethered shooting. Although there is a work-around to activate tethering on Viewer 2 that you can google, but you need to have had Olympus Master installed first.

 

[peak4]

Well... everything except tethered shooting. Although there is a work-around to activate tethering on Viewer 2 that you can google, but you need to have had Olympus Master installed first.

Ned, I hadn't realised tethered shooting was available on any of the micro 4/3s bodies.
There is another route, Studio 2 has tethered shooting.
As I'm sure you know, it was a paid for program which is now out of date and no longer for sale, Viewer being Oly's preferred program.
If you e-mail Olympus in the US they will send you a free key so that you can enable a trial version of Studio 2 to use for tethered work.

 

[Ned]

Ned, I hadn't realised tethered shooting was available on any of the micro 4/3s bodies.

D'oh, sorry... that was my lack of foresight. You're right, none of the :43: bodies tether as far as I know either. I just wasn't paying to which forum I was on, as I do shoot with both Four-Thirds and Micro Four-Thirds systems.

 

[timallenphoto]

With regards to what I said about speed of Viewer 2, actually using the program is painful, but I'm currently saving my entire shoot from yesterday again with the noise reduction increased and the batch saving speed is acceptable. Why screen updates etc are so slow when you are using it I don't know. A shame.