Capturing the moment by a smartphone camera

Low light photography was always a big challenge for the photographers, it was for years the territory of expensive cameras with large sensors and fast lenses.

But then smartphones had an impressive technological evolution and offered an portable alternative for any type of photography.

I ussually prefere my Olympus camera because I get a very good image quality and flexibility by mounting different lenses. Then is the IS which offers phenomenal performance.

During mai travels, I found very often special moments to be captured. When I did not had the Olympus camera with me, I was happy to find that my mobile can do the job - to capture the moment. I also love the idea of being able to share any moment quickly with my friends.

A phone handles well in day-light. Is it performing well in low light too ? In my opinion yes. 

I will start with a few pictures made by Samsung A5 - an modest smart phone , but still good enough to capture some moments.

Then some photos made by Samsung S6 Edge Plus - a phone with a very good sensor and output:

And finnally a picture made by Samsung S10 - a phone considered top of the class.

For me the phone is not just an emergency photo camera, it became a photo tool which can create nice photos in some conditions.

How to improve the speed of Olympus Viewer editing software

Since Olympus started to release 16..20 Mp cameras, many users complained about Olympus Viewer speed.
I had the same experience on my old computer - converting 20Mp RAW files into JPEGs was 2 times slower than converting 12Mp RAW files into JPEGs.

Of course, upgrading the computer helps to speed up. But which components to upgrade first?

I made some tests trying to figure it out which kind of upgrades will have the best impact on the performance & speed.

According to my tests I can draw the following conclusions:
1. A better processor will increase the speed dramatically. The new processor (Rysen-5) was benchmarked as being 4 times faster than the old processor (X3), but Olympus Viewer speed was improved only 2.5 times (30s vs 12s).
2. The GPU from the video card was a nice suprise because it nearly doubled the speed for Olympus Viewer 3 (from 12s to 7s).
3.  I do not think RAM memory has a massive influence on the processing speed but ideal is to have at least 8Gb to be able to run multiple editing programs in paralel. Once you have 8Gb, adding more memory will not increase the speed of your processing programs while faster CPU or GPU will always increase the processing speed.

If you have an GPU in your computer do not forget to set-up it in Olympus Viewer editing software.
You have to go in Tools / Options and check "Use GPU (Graphic Processing Unit)".

With the new processor & GPU i found dramatic speed improvments also in other editing programs like : DXO Optics Pro, Photoshop, Capture One. The GPU nearly doubled the processing speed of DXO Optics Pro.
So the upgrade will help also with other software. 

But the most important thing is - Olympus Viewer is 4 times faster now on my new PC. I saved a lot of time and I am more productive.