Next step of the Olympus era: The OM-D EM-5 Mark II

As you know I am quite happy with my Olympus OM-D EM-5. I used it for about one and a half year. But in February this year Olympus presented its successor the OM-D EM-5 Mark II. At a first glance it looks just similar, but reading the reviews everyone was very enthusiastic about it. So I couldn’t resist it and bought the EM-5 Mark II. It feels more solid and autofocus is even faster than the original EM-5. I loved the silver version. So for me this the next step of the Olympus era. And I kept my EM-5 as a second body.

My lenses

In this post I will tell you something about my lenses. One of the advantages of Olympus cameras is they use the Micro Four Thirds (MFT) system. MFT is used by Panasonic also, so you can choose lenses from Olympus and Panasonic either.

The lenses I own today:

I now own these lenses:

Olympus 17mm f/1.8

This is my absolute favorite lens, compact and lightweight. Ideal for street photography and a quick autofocus. I really love this lens.

Olympus 12-40mm f2.8 Pro

Recently I bought this lens together with my new EM5 Mark II. This is one of the best lenses on the market for Olympus. The only disadvantage is that it is heavier than most other lenses.

Olympus 9-18mm f/4.0-5.6

With the crop factor of 2 for micro four third camera's this is the equivalent of a 18-36 mm lens. I love this lens, especially for taking pictures in cities. Last year I used it a lot in London and New York.

Panasonic 14-140mm f3.5-5.6

On holidays I found out that changing lenses can be complicated. So I searched for a good travel zoom. When I bought it, this Panasonic lens had the best reviews (the new Olympus f/4.0-5.6 14-150 II was not on the market at that time). I am quite happy with the Panasonic and it is a very useful lens when I am travelling with a good picture quality. The only disadvantage is that focusing is sometimes a bit slow on an Olympus camera.

Olympus 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 II R

When I bought my first Olympus E-PL5 I could only buy it with kit lenses. So I bought it with this lens. Although it is nog a bad lens, I don’t use it anymore, because my other lenses are better.

Lenses I owned before:

I also had some other lenses that I sold already:

The Olympus 40-150mm f/4-5.6. It came also as a kit with my first E-PL5. I traded it in when buying the Panasonic 14-140mm.

The Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 lens. It had a very good quality and I have shot some great pictures in the dark also. In fact I loved using this lens! As I found out later, for me, it only has one disadvantage when using it on my Olympus OM-D EM-5: focus speed is a bit (too) slow for street photography. So that’s why I bought the Olympus 17 mm.

The Olympus 45mm f/1.8. It makes excellent and sharp pictures, but to be honest I didn't use this lens very often. Somehow 45 mm is not my lens. So I traded it in when buying the Olympus 12-40mm.

The Olympus era

As explained in my previous post I was highly interested in an mirrorless interchangeable lens camera. So the next question was: which one to choose? Well I started searching the internet and reading magazines and the first camera that came across was (at that time in October 2012) the brand new Sony NEX-6. It received very positive reviews and I actually went to a store to ask if I could try one with the intention to buy it. They guy in the shop told me that they only had one of them and that it was for sale and not there was no possibility to try it (even not in the store!). So, sorry, no Sony at that time.

A few days later while I was still searching te internet I came across a blog written by a guy named Shawn Blanc. In his blog he explained his search for a compact mirrorless interchangeable lens camera and after a comparison of several cameras such as the Panasonic GX1, Sony NEX-6, and Olympus OM-D EM-5 he choose the Olympus E-PL5. For him it was the perfect combination of photo quality, possibilities and a compact camera. His story seemed logical to me, so I became interested in the E-PL5 and searched for tests and reviews, which were all very positive. Besides the camera itself, the micro four thirds system had a large range of lenses. So I became convinced that this would be my next camera. I went to a store (not the one mentioned before), tried it myself and bought the E-PL5. This was in November 2012. I bought it as a kit with a 14-42mm and a 40-150mm lens and a separate flash.

From the moment I used this camera I loved taking photos. Picture quality was very good and sharp and the system itself was compact and light as I wanted. Off course it was not as compact as a point and shoot camera, but compared to a digital SLR it was almost half the size and weight. I shot amazing pictures with this camera.

After using it for a year I decided that I wanted to learn more about my camera and become a better photographer. So I listed up for a photo course at André Nijenhuis, a Dutch photographer who runs a photo school. It was a 4 day course in November 2013 and he explained everything about exposure and the interaction between aperture, shutter speed and iso and also about the possibilities of my camera and the modes to choose, i.e. the Program mode, Shutter release mode, Aperture mode and Manual mode. In fact I never used the Manual mode before, but soon I learned that it was very easy to use to get the best results. A that time all the pieces of the puzzle came together. I also realized that using the M modus on my Olympus was in fact the modern way of using my first Praktica SLR camera (see previous post).

I started using the M mode more often, but this lead me to a difficult decision te be made. Using the M mode was possible with my E-PL5, but the way it worked was little complicated by using several menu steps to change aperture and shutter speed. So in November 2013 I made a decision to exchange my Olympus E-PL5 (with pain in my heart) for an Olympus OM-D EM-5. The big advantage of the EM-5 is that is has to separate dials for controlling aperture and shutter speed to work with in de M mode. I own my EM-5 for about a year now and I love taking photos with it.

My previous digital cameras

In this post I will describe my previous digital cameras.

I bought my first digital camera in 2003. It was a 4 MP Canon Powershot S40 compact camera. 

Canon S40

It was the start of the digital camera era and digital amateur SLR or interchangeable lens cameras as we know them now a days didn’t exist. Digital photography was new and many people held on to analog cameras, which they considered to have a better image quality. Imagine that this is only about 10 years ago!

A few years later the first digital SLR cameras for amateur were introduced. So I bought a 8 MP Canon 350d digital SLR. I shot quite a few photos with my 350d, but in one way or another I never liked this camera very much.

Canon 350d

I wanted to have a more compact camera, which I could carry in my pocket always, so in 2008 I bought a 10 MP Casio Exlim EZ Z-1080, one of the smallest point and shoot compact cameras at that time. I could take it with me all te time and as long as the light wasn’t too bad, the pictures were of a reasonable quality. 

Casio EZ Z-1080

I must admit that judging quality in those days was compared to a previous camera and with development of cameras going very fast at that time any new camera was better than your previous model a few years old.

In 2010 I went on a vacation to South Africa and I wanted something more than just a simple point and shoot camera. So I bought a 12 MP Panasonic FZ38 camera. 

Panasonic FZ38

This was what they call a bridge camera which had a lot of more possibilities. You couldn’t change lenses, but it had an 18 times optical zoom and you could choose an fully automatic program, but also aperture or shutter speed control. So a lot of features in a compact system and to be honest I made great pictures with it.

My next step in 2011 was a 18 MP Panasonic TZ40. This was a compact camera, with almost the same features as the FZ38 and some even better, but only half the size. 

Panasonic TZ40

You know what they say: size matters, but for me on a camera this means as small as possible. I used it for about a year and shot a lot of pictures, but after a while it had dust on the sensor. So brought it back to the shop to repair, but after two or three repairs it always had different problems.

It was in October 2012 when I was in a camera store for returning my TZ40 problem camera that I saw a book about mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras. I figured out that this was the solution to my needs, a relative compact system with good photo quality and the possibility to change lenses. I bought the book and began reading and became more and more enthusiast about this concept.

Read more in my next post about how I came to my current camera.

My Previous analog cameras

In this post I’ll describe my previous analog cameras. I bought my first SLR in 1981 at the age of 18. So now you can figure out my age too!  It was a Praktica MTL 3. I’m not sure anymore whether it was a MTL 3 or a MTL 5. A I remember it, it was a MTL 5, but when I look at the pictures on the internet and the production dates it must have been a MTL 3. Anyhow there is not difference between the two models. It was made in the former eastern Germany (DDR) and everything was manual. Focus was done by turning the lens and looking into  the viewfinder if the micro prism was clear and exposure was really light metering done by a meter which had to be exact in the middle of a circle. Shutter speed and aperture could be adjusted manual also. So in fact this was the ultimate basic way to make photographs.

I bought this together with a friend of mine and we started taking pictures in our hometown Dordrecht. Unfortunately I don’t have them anymore.

Praktica MTL3

My next camera was a Minolta XG-1N. I think this must have been around 1985. This was a (little) step forward in automatic camera control. While focus was still manual in the same way with a micro prism, exposure could be done semi automatically, by turning the shutter speed on automatic (A). In that case you could choose the aperture and the light metering system of the camera would choose the correct shutter speed.

Minolta XG-1N

In 1990 I took the next steps, a Minolta Maxxum 5000i. I bought this camera (tax-free) while on a vacation on the island of Saint-Martin in the Netherlands Antilles. In Europe they were sold under the name Dynax 5000i and the American model was named Maxxum 5000i. Now this camera was really a big step forward because it had an autofocus system and also a fully auto exposure, with the now well-known P, S and A modus.  It also had a build in flash. So compared to my old XG-1N this was a huge step forward.

Minolta 5000i

Unfortunately my 5000i broke down during a vacation. If I remember well it was in 2007 when I was in Dallas it didn’t work anymore. So I had to buy a new one and I bought a Minolta Maxxum 500si. Since I was in the USA when it happened I had an American model again. It was more or less identical to my old 5000i, only this one had also some pre-defined scene modes for sports, landscape, macro, etc.

Minolta 500si

This was my last analog camera. I still own it, but since 2003 I didn’t use it anymore by entering the digital camera era!

Something about me

I started this blog in september 2014 to share some of my photos with the rest of the world. So this is not a blog with a lot of text posts, but mainly with photos.

My first name is Wino and I live in the Netherlands in a city called Dordrecht, which is located about 30 kilometres south of Rotterdam. Sometimes people ask me how I got my name. I am a Dutch guy, so it is not Italian or Spanish or whatever people may think. I am as Dutch as windmills, tulips, wooden shoes, cheese, sirup waffles, or whatever you think about when you speak of The Netherlands. My official names are Willem Nicolaas and when I was born my parents decided to name me Wino. So now you know how I got my name! 

First post

Hi, this is my first post, so welcome to my photo blog. 

I am a Dutch amateur photographer and my idea is to post some of my pictures here on this blog. 

So this is where it all starts.