A quick test of possibly the best bird/wildlife action photography combo

Ever since OM systems (erstwhile Olympus) launched the OM-1 and the Olympus 150-400mm f4.5 lens, it has been garnering a lot of interest. And me being a nature lover and photographer, wanted to give it a try! Some calls to the ever helpful Mr. Ravindra from OlympusPro India got that combo in my hands for some tests. Wanted to see what the setup was capable of. A quick dash to a nearby biodiverse location on a winter morning to set the ball rolling. The OM systems OM-1 is a true flagship camera

• AF modes and zones with varying sensitivity to cater to various styles of wildlife shooting
• Customizable burst rates
• Top of the line AF AI-based tracking. It blew my socks off!
• Extremely customizable and priceless ProCapture mode for people who enjoy action photography
• Ergonomic and thoughtful button placement across the body and lens

The lens at 400mm stays open at f4.5, using the built-in 1.25x TC at the telephoto end makes it a very impressive 500mm f5.6 - this being the FF equivalent of 1000mm f5.6 Right off the bat, the reach easily outweighs the weight of the setup. Compared to anything else in it's class, the lack of weight is phenomenal.

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Trying this on birds, the AF lock was precise with a ton of detail to show!

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Shooting birds in-flight was a breeze, Continuous AF coupled with Bird AI tracking ensured the keeper rate was through the roof. A shot I had struggled with so far, not perfect, but I'll gladly take this

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A lot of non-MFT photographers often talk about the Bokeh being not so smooth, this lens design has taken that into consideration and the Bokeh quality has gotten better. Putting distance between the subject and the background is always key, making it work right brings out the best isolation.

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Isolation isn't the end-all for wildlife, using the environs does make frames a lot more appealing.

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A shot of the full moon, handheld @ 1/4th of a second!:O

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With a pretty close minimum focusing distance of 1.3m it doubles up as a lovely close-up lens too.

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Some of the third party applications such as Fastone aren't equipped to handle the brand new .orf files, they'll catch up soon. Used IrfanView with the latest set of plugins to cull and manage the huge buckets of burst images.
Thoroughly impressed by the capabilities of this setup, arguably one of the best money can buy. Should pick this up again with a visit to another location!
Cheers!
Hayath

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





















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







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