Micro 4/3 The Olympus OM-D E-M5 Experience

EM5 + PL25mm

Soft Focus filter and Camera Bag pp

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Found out the other day that the OM-D is stronger than I originally thought. While shooting background plates with my Canon 1DX, I forgot that I had left one of my OM-Ds on the floor of the front seat in our truck, opened the door and the camera fell out onto some hard dirt. Surprisingly nothing happened to the camera everything seems fine, tough little camera.
 
This thread almost persuades me to return to m4/3rd. :D
Well, I did just that after several m4/3rds bodies. I'm convinced that I can produce pretty much what I always have before on any other APS-C camera and although I have a hankering for the Pentax K30 I doubt that I would get anything much better out of it unless I used it in really low light and I try to avoid that whenever possible anyway :)
 
There are some things I like the OM-D for but I still prefer shooting with the XPro1, low light or not the files just look smoother, metering is better, the Af is slower with the XPro but accuracy is better, the main things I like better about the OM-D is the IBIS, AF speed and lenses selection and I guess now because of the ruggedness, as well
 
I find the metering on the X Pro1 quite difficult. If I set it for spot and centre weighted it seems not to make much difference. I feel as though I know what I'm going to get with the EM5.
 
I do not have mine with me but I do not think there is a center-weighted position; there is average, spot and multi (it analyzes the whole scene), if I remember correctly. I find the Multi position to be pretty accurate most of the time, and does well in backlit contrasty scenes, this is the are where my OM-DZs give me trouble, they tend to underexpose and misread backlight or hard contrast scenes. The Fuji’s only miss step in metering for me is a tendency to overexpose slightly
 
Bob, I found a similar issue with the OM-D's metering. When I brought this up on another forum, it was suggested that the OM-D meters to protect the highlights in high contrast or bright situations. Turning the LCD's brightness down a couple of clicks helps give a more accurate depictions of the final image, and I'm starting to learn to shoot with the real-time histogram, something I've never done before. In the past I've always just eyeballed the screen to see what it is probably going to look like.
 
Archiver, Did you see the DPReview article on E-M5 settings:

User Guide: Getting the most out of the Olympus E-M5: Digital Photography Review

You can set the camera to show you highlights and shadows as an alternative to the histogram. I tried that and found it mildly distracting, but I might try it again. You can adjust the sensitivity of each setting.

I actually find it incredibly useful. I always find histograms require too much thought and interpretation, but the "blinkies" that Olympus has used are really helpful to me. I like 'em more in manual focus than in auto focus because you can have them turned on while you ALSO have the smallest focus box, but when I'm using manual focus I have the blinkies turned on and I can see whether something is blown or blacked out in an area of the shot its OK in or if its gonna be a problem and a quick turn of the EV comp dial (which I have the rear dial set to) is all it takes to find the right balance or to get rid of the blinkies altogether if they're all either high or low. I never really liked or used guides like this in the past, but sometime in the past couple of Olympus cameras I stumbled onto it and found it really helpful...

-Ray
 
even though I find them distracting I prefer the "blinkies" to using histograms, but still I find I have to use this tool more with the OM-D, example I shot a simple shot of a guy sleeping on the grass with the beach behind him, the other day the camera was underexposing the shot to preserve the highlights in the beach by at least a stop, one either had to crank the exp comp or recompose to put at least 3/4 of the image in the grass, more times than naught the Xpro seems to have worked out a better compromise in that type of situation.
 
I think that both the current E-M5 and Pen cameras tend to underexpose using the ESP metering. I usually run them at either +0.7 or +1 EV, with the E-M5 having more latitude to overexpose in higher contrast situations. If you have gradation set to "Normal" you can subtract 0.3 off these two figures since the "Auto" setting automatically reduces the exposure by this amount. I always set the camera's jpeg settings to display a higher dynamic range (gradation "Auto", colour mode "Natural"). This gives a closer approximation to what I can pull out of a raw file, and I find it more useful to be able to judge a scene based on what the sensor is showing me rather than using the blinkies or the histogram.
 
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