My most fun camera purchase of the year. The Olympus EM5.2. There

I made most of my income last year shooting with Nikon cameras. One in particular; the D810. But it was not the camera that made me smile most and pushed me to do fun pictures most often. That honor goes to the Olympus OMD EM-5.2. And I'll try to tell you why. 

There is a reason people pay crazy amounts of money for really cool watches. Most of the really cool watches are mechanical. Automatics. Self-winders. We collectively like the idea of precision machining. Of distilling down mechanical engineering to its quintessence. And, apparently we like the same feeling and design aesthetic in our cameras; at least I do. 

The Olympus OMD line of cameras is an interesting milestone in camera development because these cameras, along with cameras like the Nikon 7X00 series, the Pentax K-3s and the Panasonic GH4, represent the point at which most of us will agree cameras became transparently good. To echo a word used by blogger, Ming Thein, all of these cameras have reached and surpassed the point of sufficiency. They are more than adequate for the imaging needs of almost everyone. 

The desire for more megapixels and bigger sensors may have its place in practice for professionals who must, on occasion, be ready to deliver enormous files (while most of the time they will also find 16 megapixels more than adequate....) and for ardent amateurs and artists who have a need to print their images at very, very large sizes. But clearly, for most of us, the sensor and image pipeline development of cameras hit their Honda Accord or Toyota Camry level of sufficiency with the introduction of Sony's low noise 16 and 16+ megapixel sensors, nearly three years ago. The need for the "Bentley" version of a standard camera is largely fiction. 

The one thing my Olympus cameras don't do with my current m4:3 lenses that would make them a match for my full frame cameras is to have an exciting ramp from in focus to out of focus with the lenses I currently own. Friend Frank has consistently shown me that I can get the same effect with faster, higher quality glass on the smaller cameras. I have used his Leica/Panasonic 42.5mm f1.2 lens wide open and I've seen the light (and a wonderfully shallow depth of field portrait rendering).  There are more and more very fast lenses coming onto the market for the smaller cameras which help mitigate this difference between formats. 

But cameras are more than just the sum of their sensors and their lenses. I like the Olympus cameras for several other reasons. I love the tactile feel of the EM5.2 control knobs, as well as their prominence on the top panel of the camera. The size and dimensions of the camera, with the added battery grip are absolutely perfectly sized for my hands. The EVF is great. The image stabilization is one of the wonders of the photographic world. And, counterintuitively, the file size of the raw files is just right for my workflow, and the workflows of nearly everyone I know who is seriously interested in photography. 

Add to all this a sophisticated color rendering, that seems to be a consistent Olympus hallmark, and you've got a great shooting system. Good handling, good color, good viewing, great imaging and metering. It's a powerful system and the camera, currently, brand new, is $899. The EM5.2 ticks every box for me. It's why even though I may stray to other camera systems from time to time, I always come back to the Olympus OMD series for the sheer, exuberant fun of taking photographs. 

I upgraded from the original EM5 cameras to the EM5 version 2 cameras this year. I have two of them. One is black and one is silver. Both are equipped with grips because we shoot video with them and the grips add an input for microphones. I have a fun collection of lenses for these cameras and I'm only sitting on the fence about getting one more lens. I want a serious 70-200mm equivalent and I'm torn between the Panasonic 35-100mm f2.8 (which I have owned and found to be more or less flawless) and the newer, bigger, very well reviewed Olympus 40-150mm f2.8 lens. The Panasonic is smaller and lighter but the Olympus has 50mm of extra reach, which can come in hand. It also has a tripod mount --- desirable for shooting vertical portraits while on a tripod. I'm sure I'll go back and forth until the next project and then make a choice. The only other thing I need to buy is more batteries. Always more batteries. 

But I am comfortable with the cameras and I don't consider the rush to higher megapixel counts in these cameras to be necessary for me. Most client uses for image files haven't changed much since the days of six and twelve megapixel cameras. Yes, used at the bleeding edge of commercial applications, the bigger files are great. But most of us can go through a year or so, professionally, before a project with such stringent and lofty requirements come up.

I'm a bit chicken. Burned by the devastation of the last economic meltdown. I'll use the Nikon D810 not out of necessity but as extra layers of insurance, when I shoot for clients. But when I go out for the joy of taking images and I have no one else that I have to please, except for myself, my choices are much different. It's an important distinction. Work - Play. All the emotion in these kinds of discussions is mostly wrapped up in the artificially binary nature of thinking. Lots of people believe that you MUST make a choice. You must select one system and give it your allegiance at all times. 

I've said time and again that Texans often own a big pick-up truck for hauling crap around and doing work but also own a nice sedan; Honda, BMW or Mercedes --- maybe a Ford Fusion, for those times when parking a dually truck in a downtown parking space just doesn't make sense. 

For my fun camera system of the year I am highly recommending the Olympus OMD cameras. They fill a great niche, are fun to use, and very affordable. 

After almost a year of using them for business and pleasure I am 90% able to navigate their one, non-fatal flaw: the menus. 

Curious to know if you have a dual camera inventory. One for business, another for pleasure. Or am I the outlier here?

A small image gallery of stuff shot commercially last year

with Olympus EM5.2 cameras and M4:3 lenses

(plus an adapted Nikon or two).

Three Distinct Ways to Build Your Olympus Micro Four-Thirds Len Inventory. (but you can always mix and match).

 

Leica 25mm f1.4 Summilux on the black EM5.2

Shot with the Sigma 50mm Art lens at 1.4

If you bounce into and out of systems, never plan ahead and then waste money like a drunken camera rep then you've just about gotten into the flow of how I plan my equipment acquisitions; and especially lens buying. But if I, for once, walked into system absolutely cold and could buy all the lenses and accessories in any fashion I chose I would follow one of these three plans I'm going to outline below. Each is predicated on looking the camera system differently. One potential buyer wants the system because it can be small and light. Another buyer wants it because it can produce great images in a smaller package that the big, full frame cameras and this buyer wants to maximize quality while covering every possible focal length.  The third buyer is looking to use the system with primes to squeeze, potentially, the last picoliter of quality out of the system. Everyone else is some sort of elastic collage of the first three types. 

Give me complete focal length coverage and range...

The easiest way to buy into the Olympus M4:3 system just changed. With the introduction of the 7-14mm f2.8 Pro zoom lens the user can make the same choice so many professionals and advanced enthusiasts do when buying a bigger Canon or Nikon system. You buy the holy trinity of super high quality zoom lenses. In M4:3 you can go two ways and not get burned in either direction. 

You can buy the über-cool three Olympus lenses and get the reach of optical systems that go from 7mm all the way to 150mm and have the luxury of all of them opening up to f2.8. The people I know who have the Olympus 12-40mm f2.8 and the 40-150mm f2.8 are deliriously happy with the performance of both. The 7-14mm will be available next month and should be just as good. In fact, looking at the specs and construction details, it may be the best of the three. No small praise as Olympus can be one of the best lens designers in the world when they aim for it.  Three lenses, two EM5.2 bodies and you are ready to go. That would be the logical path for people who shoot lots of different stuff and want to be covered with high quality focal lengths at either end of the spectrum and everywhere in between. 

Staying with the same basic considerations (coverage) you could alternatively go for the Panasonic trio and the benefit you would accrue is the ability to use the lenses on either the Panasonic or Olympus system but the bonus is that when using the two longer Panasonic lenses (the 12-35mm f2.8 and the 35-100mm) on a non-Olympus body like the GH4 you'll be able to take advantage of the in-lens image stabilization. If you are solely a Panasonic shooter this is probably the better choice. If you're sporting the OMD cameras you'll get more on the telephoto end of each of the longer Olympus lenses than you will with the Panasonics and you'll be taking advantage of the in-body I.S.

I can speak directly to the quality of the Panasonic lenses having own the all three and used them extensively in video and stills. The 7-14mm f4 is one stop slower than the upcoming Olympus version but is smaller. I found it to be sharp wide open but with a bunch of vignetting at max aperture. That goes away mostly by f4.0 and completely by f5.6. People can grouse about "equivalence" till the coffee gets cold but if you are using a wide angle lens like this you probably are smart enough not to expect to drop the background too far out of focus. You're probably using the lens to, A: Get everything in without backing up. and, B: You need to emphasize near/far relationships and, C: You'd like to get pretty much everything in the frame, from front to back, in acceptable focus.  I like the Panasonic lenses a lot. Even after the last big purge I just couldn't let go of the 12-35mm, it's really, really good. All three are well designed, well behaved and as sharp as you'd want them to be. 

Give me a minimal footprint...

At this point you could just stop, say, "That was easy as pie." and go about the business of making cool images. Unless..... you fall into the minimalist category. If I wanted to go super stealthy and ultra-pared down I would be using one body and two lenses. You couldn't go far wrong with the Olympus 17mm f1.8 and the Olympus 45mm 1.8 lenses. Both are small, light, well designed, sharp and relatively cheap. When I want the maximum flexibility with the minimum fuss I drop those two lenses into a bag along with an EM-5.2 and one of the new, little Olympus flashes that comes packaged with the new OMD camera and I'm pretty well set for artsy/photojournalistic style shooting. 

And this brings us to the third discrete shooter style: GIVE ME THE ULTIMATE IN IMAGE QUALITY....

In this arena I'm also going to go for the ultimate snob choices because I secretly believe that the zooms are so good that most (98%?) of users are never going to see a real difference in overall quality. Where they will see the difference is in maximum apertures and depth of focus control. This is the part of the market that will want prime lenses. Single focal lengths. Fast glass. A little more stabilizing heft in the hand.

While the zooms are good at wider settings the single focal length Olympus 12mm opens up to f2.0 and is pretty sharp all the way through the aperture range until you hit f8 where diffraction kicks in, as it does with just about every lens in this sensor format and size. The maximum aperture is quite usable and it low light it gets you one full shutter speed stop faster than the zooms. 

Next up you could pretty much take your pick between the Leica 15mm f1.8 and the Olympus 17mm 1.8. I'd go with the Leica as it sits in the middle between the typical 28mm equivalent (for full frame) and the most popular medium wide lens which is a 35mm equivalent (for full frame). Since me next choice will always be the 25mm Leica f1.4 Summilux the 15mm makes more sense for me as I think the 17mm and the 25mm are pretty close to each other and I either want to go long (the 25) or I want to go obviously wider (15mm). 

Both are good lenses. The 17mm seems to be optimized for a flatter field and more uniform sharpness all the way across (better if you like to photograph brick walls) while the Leica seems optimized to have higher sharpness in the center and shrugs away the lack of sharpness in the corner as being endemic to the overall design. In other words, a compromise. 

I've owned the Leica 25mm Summilux f1.4 since it hit the market three or four years ago and I like it very much. It would be hard to persuade me to go in another direction. Fast, sharp, small and contrasty. It's everything I want in a normal focal length!

Next up is the short telephoto. While Olympus has their very good and very small and relatively cheap 45mm f1.8 in this range and Panasonic has just introduced their version of the lens, if you are going to set up a whole system rationale based around optimum quality you can't duck out on this one. It's got to be the Leica Nocticron 42.5mm f1.2. If this lens ever sits on your camera mount, even for a moment, and you pick it up and shoot with it wide open there's no way to resist it's gravitational pull. Sharp at f1.2. Sharp at f8.0 and sharp everywhere in between. It feels great and the images it generates are breathtaking. Add to this the fact that the lens comes with image stabilization for those GH4 sometimes video shooters and you'll be forgiven for starting to think that $1400 might just be a bargain for everything you are getting. 

But don't stop there. There are two other lenses to snag before we stop putting together the super-image-quality-prime-lens option. 

While the 45mm gets you into a nice, short telephoto that's good for most casual portrait work you'll want to pick up the cheapest great lens in the system for tighter headshot and anything that needs a bit more compression along with freakishly good image quality. That would be the Sigma DN 60mm f2.8. It's a gem. I find mine to be sharp, wide open. It's a nice, longer medium telephoto length and you'll only be out about $200. It's an amazing bargain. And it fits beautifully on an EM-5.2.

We round out the system with the almost obligatory Olympus 75mm f1.8. Long, sharp, fast, elegant... I'd get mine in silver.  Don't know why but I would. And I would use it in the middle of the Summer with my chrome EM-5.2 body and it might even stay cooler....but I wouldn't count on it. 

Those are my takes on approaching the Olympus system when it comes to lens buying. But you can always go a totally different way if you are a contrarian. For example, one weekend I was shooting downtown and a friend walked up and loaned me his Sigma 60mm dn lens, telling me I just had to try it. I did. I shot with it on the older EP-3 for a couple of hours. I post processed the files the next day and I was surprised at the overall quality of the files. At f4.0 there wasn't a single criticism I could level. I cruised to Amazon.com at the end of my editing session and bought all three of the focal lengths, the 19mm, 30mm and the 60mm. I had owned the earlier versions of these lenses in the Sony E mount and I had chalked up their good performance to the 24 megapixel sensor on the Nex7. Now I understood that they were just really good lenses regardless of the camera. 

I bought mine in black. I wish I'd bought the silver ones just because they look so different and so much like pieces of modern, minimalist sculpture. 

Once you have your system put together you'll be ready to head out and shoot just about anything that comes along and still know that you've got great tools in hand. Next time I'll do some comparisons with the ancient Olympus Pen FT half frame lenses. You don't need to rush out and buy them but they do have  completely different look to them and sometimes the aesthetic differentiation is just as important for a project.  

One last thing: If you've decided on buying an EM-5.2 you might consider two extra batteries. If you shoot a lot of video then make that four extra batteries. If you think the Oly batteries are too expensive you'll be happy to hear that I've been using the Wasabi Power batteries (less than half the price) for several years, across a bunch of Olympus cameras and have never had issues. 

thanks. Kirk