Monday, September 17, 2018

Welcoming the Olympus, for macro!

My own Olympus kit arrived mid-week. Thanks to Gaurav (kunwar.g) and Vimal for the wide angle 14-42. Sagar, Ravindra and Sateesh for managing shipping, co-ordination and getting it to Bangalore.

I was hooked onto the Olympus system ever since I tried it during the Agumbe trip, thanks to a very generous friend. The level of customizability, the light weight, Focus peaking, no dim-VF, etc. ensured it didn't take too long before I had my own setup, atleast for macro!

Picked the Olympus OMD EM-10 mark2 to get started with the mirrorless micro-four thirds system. Had all the features from higher bodies, barring the additional button layout, weather sealing and scaling of megapixels available in EM5 and EM1.

Edit: Adding some reasoning for the switch
To me, the added apparent focal length and DoF (almost 1.5x compared to the APSC sensor) was helpful, more so for high magnification macro. The light(er) system, bright EVF (allowing me to shoot fully manual lenses stepped down) plus the in-camera focus stacking, coupled with focus peaking tilted the favor towards the OMD

The lens of choice for macro was the Zuiko 60mm macro, there really was no confusion since I'd seen it's capability during earlier trip(s). The last gear I'd picked was more than 4 years ago. With this switch the mind started racing with several combinations of lenses to help replace the second body (40D)
Picked the 14-42mm to kind of replace the kit lens. Planning for a 40-150mm to replace the Canon 55-250mm focal length. Intend to use the Olympus setup for travel, given how light this is. This has sort of rekindled shooting other genres.

The menu controls are a treat! Almost every button is customizable, the bright EVF and focus peaking makes it a breeze to operate. The option to manually set focal length of the manual lens being mounted (for Stabilization) is brilliant, every lens you mount is automatically stabilized now. The IBIS rocks, very apparent during video shooting!

Tested it out over the weekend. Beginning with the macro lens

Flowers for ID

Mimosa pudica, flower

Coromandel marsh dart

Scorpion-tailed spider, Arachnura  sp

Aphids being tended to by ants

Grasshopper

Ricaniidae planthopper nymph

Crab spider on a flower

Untitled

Common pierrot

Ashok was kind to pass on the Canon-MFT adapter. This helped me mount the Canon tele on the Olympus, increases reach by a factor of 1.5x (almost like shooting with a TC on). The setup is highly unbalanced though, huge lens - tiny body!
The bright EVF and focus peaking helped with the adapted Canon 400mm f5.6, a few bird images

Purple moorhen

Purple moorhen

Pelican amongst Cormorants

The video mode was refreshing to use, the IBIS sure did help

A Purple moorhen looking for food in Lily roots


Spot billed pelican glide and landing


It's fun having something pocket sized with versatility, almost feels like a small toy in my rather large hands. Being used to the gripped 7D, handling this is taking some getting used to. Will add on a grip for better handling very soon.

Battery life is nowhere close to that of a DSLR, guess who is going to be lugging around half  dozen batteries!

Any questions or inputs - please leave a comment :)

Cheers!
Hayath

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