Hi Steve,
I love your site, it strikes a good mix of technical geekery to inspirational art (photography in a nutshell). Your reviews of the Micro Four Thirds system certainly helped my decision to gradually move over to the mirrorless side of things. Previously being a Canon user I was used to carrying a bag full of heavy L glass which used to be fine but I felt it was sapping the fun from what I liked to do which is take pictures quickly and quietly. I was early to adopt a 5D mkI within the first few months of it coming out and still regard it’s image quality as sublime but it got to a point where it was just a fancy hoover. My second body a 40D took first place and I traded my 5D for a nice EF-S 15-85mm (which is underrated IMHO). The 40D constantly surprised me up to 1600 ISO when shooting gigs and it was only folk asking for movies and higher resolution files that led me to the 7D. Initially I loved the solid build and the thought of shooting films on it but after a year the IQ never quite wowed me and the video setup was just a bit too fussy with very poor sound.
So when the OM-D came out it caught my eye. Researching further the Panasonic G3 seemed like a poor man’s OM-D (but this was before the controversial Sony-sensor-gate revelation). I really liked the G3 a lot for my personal stuff and started to try out on more and more portraits and even live work on it. It certainly has it’s limitations but over all is good value for money. Keeping an eye out for an OM-D to come onto the secondhand scene I acquired quite a few nice lenses and used PK/M42 to MFT adaptors to great effect. Then one day a little silver OM-D kit popped up on gumtree. At £540 and MINT! Too good to be true I went up on the train with my phone, my keys and the cash stuffed into zipped pockets inside my jacket. Just the nicest guy greeted me in his brat-filled BMW, I had asked to have the battery charged and ready for me to try it out. The camera was to be a gift for his wife who he was now separating from and there was nothing wrong with it. I skipped back home and ran the battery down by the time I got home with crappy pictures of the Tube mostly.
The OM-D has now been joined by a cast of supporting lenses (inc 12-35 and the stellar 45 1.8) and a buddy in the shape of a GH2. Stills and video are now covered in a smaller better package with true HD sound and vision. A trip to Disney World this September and I think I will take the OM-D, 12-35, 45 1.8 and the 20 1.7 (oh and the only Canon things left a camcorder and 40mm 2.8 pancake on an EOS 300).
Thanks for all you’ve done so far Steve and keep snapping people!
Edward Moore – Performance Photographer specialising in Comedy
http://edshots.500px.com/ (which has quite a few m43 photos and a separate m43 section)
Laura Carr (Comedian/Actress) OM-D 14-45mm Panasonic at 29mm 6.3 1/125
Rob Deering (Musical comedian) OM-D 20mm Panasonic 8.0 1/160
Sy Thomas (Comedian/Presenter) OM-D 45mm Olympus 7.1 1/125
very well thought portraits!!!
For stills alone I would like to ask you how the quality compares to your GH2? The reason: I’m a GH1 owner who was planning an upgrade to a GH3 soon! I was hoping Steve would do his usual quality analysis too…
Your pics are lovely by the way.
Awesome shots!
Ed, these are great – love your stuff on Flickr but you’ve picked some prime examples here too.
What flash do you use with the E-M5 if you don’t mind me asking?
Best
Simon
Thanks for the kind words.
The banana was used in the first shot as Laura’s so pretty she might just look like a model in a nice dress with a colourful background so I wanted to comedy it up but not with a microphone. Rarely is having a mic in shot for promo my idea.
Lighting wise I use a cheap Yongnuo RF-602 to set off an Interfit head shooting through a brolly. And that’s it, one light 95% of the time. The RF-602s are pretty reliable and you only need to get them for the flashes Nikon/Canon/other that you have already. Get 3 as it’s not much more and handy for back-up for when batteries die on you.
I am going to be using a Bowens Gemini head as of next week and can’t wait to get a couple more modifiers in the S fit. Anyone got any tips?
Ed
Good portraits great detail and actually like the catch lights from the strobe. I always went by one light mantra is enough. I have AB800 and love it thats all I need really. Strobes put your portraiture on the other level. I use RF-602s outside lol. Until I get a portable battery pack. I shoot my bees through an octobox a 72″ or a 86″ extreme silver PLM unit.
For stills alone I would like to ask you how the quality compares to your GH2? The reason: I’m a GH1 owner who was planning an upgrade to a GH3 soon!
Your pics are lovely by the way.
The detail in the GH2 stills aren’t nearly as great as the OM-D even on RAW. Still pretty amazing and the colour balance is a lot more neutral. What is does have are great manual controls which have been improved on the GH3 from what I’ve read.
If you’re purely stills and happy with digging into menus a little to set up some customised buttons then I would seriously consider the OM-D. The amount of detail it has in the JPEGs alone from the sensor is astonishing and the sheer control you have over the image parameters is a revelation. It’s also smaller, lighter and might be quieter. But you don’t get a 360 screen or wifi and the video is only average.
Al right I’ll ask the obvious question, in the first pic what’s the banana for?
Also what lighting was used?
Masterful! thanks for sharing.
a case of lets put a banana in the glass to make the shot interesting
These are INCREDIBLE. Especially the first one, love the background and lighting.
Wonderful captures!
Great shots !