China Portrait of a People by Tom Carter

taken with Fuji x100s

I'm not normally the kind of person that purchases what I'd call travel photography books. Too often they just bore me with their panoramic shots of trees and mountains and disengaged photos of the locals in whatever country they feature.

After hearing Tom Carter interviewed on the Candid Frame podcast however I was intrigued. Here is a guy that didn't just show up with a bag full of DSLR's and lenses and hit the tourist spots.  He immersed himself in the culture taking over what he calls 10,000 snapshots with a camera that most of us would disregard.

And it all wasn't done in two weeks of shooting the highlights. Tom spends years travelling to every corner of the country, living and breathing the experience and getting to know the people he points his camera at and it shows in his work.

When I saw the book sitting in the store I couldn't resist and I was rewarded with intimate and amazing photos that really showed off not only a great eye, but a fascinating culture.  Tom gets right in there in a familiar sense with his subjects and shies away from distant or highly polished images.

If you ever wonder just how unimportant gear is (this whole book was shot with an Olympus superzoom point and shoot, I can't recall the model) or if you have even a passing interest in China this book should really live on your bookshelf.

Still Photos Still Grab Me

It wasn't long ago (around the time of the huge success of the Canon 5D Mark ii) that the fusion of video an still image capture turned into a debate on the future relevance of still images. A move to the creation of video was viewed as mandatory for the survival of photography professionals. Those words still resonate through the ranks and hold some truth to them as we re-define ourselves as multimedia professionals. But have still image really become any less important?

During the recent tragedy in Boston we were all wrapped up in viewing grainy video of the explosions. It brought immediacy and involvement to the situation. Like the plane crashing into the World Trade Towers video played a huge roll. But after the urgency of the moment passed it was in still image that I sought to reflect on the happenings of the day.

I recall looking at some amazing photos of the marathon bombings last week that captured those decisive raw moments Ina way that video jus couldn't. Policemen helping up the lone male runner that was blown over by the blast. Victims being carried to help. A woman kneeling in prayer. These images, at least for me captured this event in ways the video missed.

I love movies. I'm a big fan of a well done video for information consumption. But the motion picture rarely for me captures that emotionally connected human experience in a way that compares to a still photograph.

And I don't think it's just me that feels this way. The popularity of sharing stills still dominates social sharing through Instagram, Facebook, Flickr and Twitter. Rarely do we feel inclined to invest the time to click play and digest a videos content. My recent download of Vine, a social video sharing app hardly gets dusted off on my iPhone despite its appealing quirkiness. Instagram though gets daily visits.

During my run yesterday at the Vancouver Sun Run it didn't occur to me to slide my iPhone function over to video to share with the world the power of the event. Rather I captured snapshots that resonated with me, and others.

Do I think that photographers can ignore video? No, not really. But a career based on still images is still viable. Actually it's in my opinion still the essential core of what makes us relevant.

As an aside it was a pleasure taking part in the Sun Run. Seeing so many people thinking of and being supportive of the people of Boston.

I've loaded the Blogger App back on my iPhone to try and make it easier to blog random photography thoughts as they occur to me. The app itself is fairly clunky so let me know if you have a favourite App to recommend. Thanks a always for dropping by.

Olympus OM-D E-M5 Review

All photos of the OMD taken with an Olympus E3

The Olympus OM-D E-M5 (I'm just going to call it the OMD from now on) has been a big hit for Olympus since its release.  While I don't have sales figures, judging from the amount of reviews on the internet and traction it gets in photo discussions my guess is that it is selling very well.  It's also the first Olympus camera I've seen other photographers purchase in my local area making me, for the first time I can recall, not the only 'Oly guy' in town.  And this is a good thing for a camera company that has been on the ropes for a long time.  They likely haven't seen this kind of popularity since they had a film version of the OM out in the early 90's.

And given what a pretty camera the OMD is, it's not really a surprise that it has garnered some attention.  In a world where Fuji has convinced us that retro is cool and cameras can look good again, Olympus has cashed in with a camera that is just as sexy as my OM-4t and nearly as well built.  Long gone are the days when we had small professional cameras which seemed to die right along with film.  Can the OMD and other cameras like it bring back the good old days where you didn't need a hulking D4 to look professional?  Well.....maybe.

Your ability to throw old film lenses on this camera will thrill you if you have a drawer full of them like I do.  Manual focus is a snap as well with the zoom feature and your image stabilization works just fine with any lens, here an old Yashica 50mm f1.8 a friend found in a wall while renovating.

First let's talk a little housekeeping.  When I review camera gear I'm just talking about my feelings and thoughts on the equipment.  I don't photograph certain subjects (wildlife, birds, landscapes, objects/products, macro) so if that's what your need to hear about in terms of your equipment I'm probably the wrong guy.  I also see no sense in getting too technical because other bloggers and websites have more time and resources to dig into those matters.  What I can, and do talk about are how I feel the equipment works, it's useful and annoying features, it's image quality and it's use in photographing people, food and fashion.  If that's your bag of tea, read on.

To round out the discussion I sought out some input from two photographer friends, which I'll include in this post as well.

General Use

First up, how does the OMD handle?  This is a small camera.  Slightly smaller than the OM film cameras even.  I like that for the weight savings and the corresponding small lenses are kind of nice too.  They remind me of the good old days with small 50mm f1.8 lenses.  Olympus being Olympus they build this thing like a brick too with weatherproof construction and a very high quality feel in your hands.  If feels just like a camera should feel, for the most part.

The useful handling things about this camera are:

• Big dials on top that are easy to reach and use (and there's two of them)
• a great super menu on the back reached by pressing OK where you can pretty much change any function quickly
• A nice big bright touch sensitive LCD screen on the back that pulls out, and rotates up and down for use below and above eye level.
• An ability to focus and take photos by tapping the screen.
• Amazingly fast autofocus.
• The electronic viewfinder gives a WYSIWYG preview of your image.
• Light weight and small size save your back and neck
• Customizable function buttons to make the camera operate as you see fit.
• the seamless switching between LCD and viewfinder use and the convenience of actually using live view
• The camera balances beautifully with the small Olympus and Panasonic lenses. 
• The ability to use an endless variety of lens adaptors on the camera is so appealing to photographers with drawers full of old film lenses.
• The image stabilization is simply the best I've used.  The steady hand feeling you get, even with old lenses is really confidence inspiring.
• The zoom function when manual focusing is amazingly helpful for tack sharp focussing. 
• Nice built in electronic level on screen.  
• Wireless flash control with the included little external flash is handy and works well. It is controlled right from your LCD screen and compatible with any Olympus flash ending in "R"

The annoying handling things are:

• the play and Fn1 buttons on the top/back of the camera are squishy and sit on a ridge that make them annoying to use even for me with smaller fingers.  
• The viewfinder can take some time to get used to, especially in bright or backlit situations
• Some photographers might find the camera too small (the battery grip, or part of it, fixes this for most)
• There is only one SD card slot
• Battery life is tragically poor.  About 350 shots per charge and with the battery grip, changing batteries is a bit of a chore. 
• The continuous autofocus is vintage Olympus, meaning it's really bad. Given that the camera's autofocus is so darn fast (meaning it's instant) you're better off just leaving it on single autofocus and tracking, focusing/shooting as you go.  You'll likely get better results.  
• No ISO 100, the camera bottoms out at ISO 200 which isn't great for trying to control flash/ambient light balance. 
• The meter lies a little. Olympus isn't giving a true ISO. Something they must have learned from some other manufacturers. You need to keep this in mind if you are using a light meter and adjust accordingly. 

If you are going to be buying an OMD make sure you order the second battery right away.  You'll want at least two fully charged batteries all the time.  If you plan to try and photograph weddings or events, you'd better make that four or five batteries. While talking about batteries, it's about time Olympus ditched the chargers with the long external cord.  A nice compact cordless unit like Canon uses would be nice.  

The battery grip is going to be a 'must buy' for most photographers.  If not to add the second battery then for one, or both parts of the grip which add useful hand grips.  I tried the first part of the grip exclusively for a recent trip to Hawaii and found it super comfortable. If I take off the bottom of the grip in the future (which is useful for portrait sessions) I think I'll just leave on the small hand grip portion.  It improves the feel of the camera with little gain in bulk.  The dual dials on the front may seem confusing, but you can use either and you get used to it instantly. 

Speaking of Hawaii, it was the first time that I lived and breathed the OMD for an extended period of time.  Not that I haven't used the camera a lot, but given all the choices I have it normally gets put aside in favour of other gear depending on my mood.  I must say that the image quality, ease of use and most importantly small size really encouraged me to use the camera, take it with me when leaving my hotel for the day and it was, in my mind, the near perfect vacation camera. 

Before I carry on I thought I'd add some thoughts from a local photographer I leant the camera to for a long weekend.  Joanna Bach had this to say:

The good :

Size - I really don't have the room or the extra hands to carry around a heavy, huge dslr on family outings so the size of this camera was perfect. I can fit it in the diaper bag no problem.

IQ - I thought the image quality was outstanding. Really rivalled my 5d classic, even surpassed it maybe. The colours sooc were quite good. As long as I had my exposure correct, I had to do very little tweaking in post. I would not hesitate to use this camera for both family snaps and a boudoir shoot.

dof - I was really impressed by this. I honestly don't see that much difference between the 45 mm and the canon 85 mm that I have on my dslr. I shoot wide open most of the time, so how this lens handled that was really important to me.

button layout - pretty good. I figured out where all the functions were quickly. The only thing I would have changed is the playback button {adam and I agreed on this one}. It's in an awkward spot if you want to look back at an image while holding the camera.

autofocus - really quite quick for this type of camera. I have read that other mirrorless cameras are slow to focus and this one was not. I tried the x100s fuji in the store and that thing is SLOW. I have kids, so a fast autofocus is key for me.

range of lenses and the fact that you can interchange lenses - a win here. There's a ton of lenses you can choose from and swap out.

handling of highlights / bright sun - pretty good if you ask me. I shot in back lit, side lit, front lit, and hazy in the lens evening sun and I think this camera really held it's own. In fact, I thought the images were great in these situations.

The bad:

autofocus - yes, it has its good and bad points. While fast, i could not freeze motion on a running kid no matter the shutter speed and settings. Mind you, there may be some other functions and settings that I have not tapped into to get this kind of motion, but I didn't look into it. You definitely cannot track / pan with the af on moving objects and expect to get a sharp image in my opinion.

battery life - it's not great. Definitely needed the 2 batteries.

Image Quality

The OMD really made a splash on the basis of it's image quality when released.  For the first time in a four thirds sensor we saw Olympus break the 12 megapixel barrier and they pulled off some magic by improving ISO performance at the same time.  It had long been thought that the smaller sensor had sort of peaked in performance, but that just wasn't the case.  We now know of course that Olympus used a Sony sensor the the first time, not a Panasonic one.  Panasonic (whether right or wrong) had often kept the newest and best four thirds sensors for itself leaving Olympus to pick of the used shelf for it's cameras.  Now with Sony owning part of Olympus I can only guess that in the future we'll be seeing more use of Sony sensors in Olympus cameras.  

OMD with Panasonic 20mm f1.7 lens at f2.5 ISO 200 1/200th of a second. The police cars are way nicer in Waikiki than in my hometown. 

As for what the sensor can deliver in terms of image quality, well it's very impressive.  The OMD far surpasses the E5 DSLR in quality in almost every measurable way with the possible exception of dynamic range in the jpgs.  I find the jpg's in the OMD excellent except in high contrast situations where the blacks tend to get blocky really quick giving an unpleasant texture.  This isn't seen in the RAW images and I never saw it in my E5.  You also tend to get unpleasant artifacts when using some of the art filters in your jpg files.  This happens more often in high contrast situations as well.  When I play with art filters or jpg shooting on the OMD I like to shoot jpg plus raw to make sure I get a good clean file if I need one.

At high ISO I find the OMD to be comparable to what my old Canon 5D Mark ii delivered.  That's saying a lot.  It puts a mirrorless camera on part for noise performance for the last generation of a very good full frame camera.  My newer 5D Mark iii is better than the OMD for sure in every way as far as image quality goes, but still I'm impressed.  If you consider just how amazing it is that a crop sensor is only lagging a generation behind full frame sensors, that should tell you just how capable these cameras are.

The raw files from the OMD fare very well in delivering good detail and an editable file.  I do find that dynamic range isn't the strong suit of the sensor, but it never has been for the four thirds cameras.  You want to make sure you're the kind of photographer that hits their desired exposure fairly closely or you'll be sad when your files fall apart with post processing exposure changes.

Video quality is also highly impressive with crisp sharp video.  The image stabilization and tilting LCD screen help a lot with video recording.  The in camera sound isn't spectacular, but I have the hot shoe microphone attachment which helps a lot.

For my uses, the OMD puts out professional quality image files that exceed those from any camera I own except my Canon 5D Mark iii.  Detail, colour and noise performance are excellent.  You do see grain at higher ISO's but nothing objectionable.  I do occasionally see moire in high contrast images.  This is annoying, but a 5 second fix in Lightroom.

Waikiki Beach at Sunset OMD with 45mm f1.8 lens at f14 ISO 200 1/3200 of a second

I also asked Vic Kirby for some thoughts on his OMD.  He has the 75mm lens which is on my bucket list.  Here is what he wrote for me:

Ok! Best things ... There are so many. The weight and size, obviously - especially the prime lenses. It means you can carry a set and still not have a hernia, and you look unobtrusive (good for events especially).

I would add the sharpness of the lenses, the general look of the files when not pushed too hard.

I also love the electronic viewfinder and the ability to judge, real time, what exposure compensation is needed. When you are moving around a subject in variable light, that helps a lot.

The bad - wish it had iso100 ... Very hard to use the big aperture of the great lenses in bright light. The files are not as resilient to pushing processing as Very good FF .... Hardly surprising! The handling is MUCH better when couped with the grip ... It can be awkward with some lenses without. Really, though, there isn't much not to love about it.

Sweet Onions at Roy's Waikiki with the 60mm macro lens ISO 3200 f2.8 1/50th of a second

Grilled Tofu at Roy's Waikiki with 60mm macro lens ISO 3200 f2.8 1/50th of a second

Conclusions and Thoughts

As you can see in the food images above the OMD is a bit of a fearless camera.  It wouldn't have been that long ago that I would have never busted out a "point and shoot" in a dark restaurant with no flash and even tried to get an image.  Now with really good image stabilization, and wonderful noise performance coupled with a great lens it's no problem to grab a quick snapshot that looks fantastic all before your food gets cold.  And all this without looking like a crazy man with a giant DSLR.  Nobody pays attention to the guy with the little silver camera.  

The OMD is a bit of a marvel.  It's really the first shot across the bow by a mirrorless camera at professional still image DSLR's (with the exception of the Fuji X-Pro 1).  What the GH2 did to professional video is what Olympus has done to the big pro still cameras.  Neither is a full fledged professional piece of equipment, but they are darn close.  Close enough to make us wonder just how long it will be before we are all carrying lighter equipment.  

At the very least, the segment has crushed sales of point and shoots (along with the squeeze from the bottom of the market with smartphone cameras) and it's doing the same to low end DLSR sales like the Rebel crowd.  Despite Canon's efforts with the SL1, if Japan is any indicator (and I think it is) mirrorless camera sales are going to be eating into DSLR sales for the next few years.  With the lead in the market that Sony, Fuji, Olympus and Panasonic have it may tip the world of popular brands upside down.  

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  The OMD was a triumph, but it isn't there yet.

ISO 250 f13 with Panasonic 20mm lens.  USS Missouri in Pearl Harbour

Steps away from where the surrender of the Japanese was signed ending World War II

Navy Photographer Manual on USS Missouri ISO 800 f1.7 with 20mm lens

There are a couple of things keeping the OMD out of the ranks of what I'd call a professional camera.  The lack of two memory card slots is one, but that's a fairly individual preference I'm aware some people don't care about.  Battery life is a huge shortcoming though that Olympus will need to deal with. To use this camera at a wedding for example I'd expect battery life to at least double.  It currently is about a third as good as the one in the 5D Mark iii largely I'm sure due to the full time electronic screen or viewfinder.  There are also no external flash sync ports and continuous autofocus is poor.  

Where the Olympus excels is in build quality, image quality, super fast autofocus, wonderful and useful live view use, the best image stabilization in the business (half press the shutter and see your world become amazingly steady) and a mature lens system that just keeps growing and getting better.  The lead that Panasonic and Olympus have in lens choices in this segment really set them apart from competitors.  And it's not like the lenses are all cheap zooms either.  The selection of fast constant aperture zooms and wonderful small, light, sharp primes is tempting beyond belief.  And lastly, all this gear can fit in a tiny shoulder bag without breaking a sweat.  

Frankly, if this all doesn't appeal to you, even if you're married to a Nikon D4 or whatever, then I think you have a strange attraction for punishment.  Who wouldn't want pro quality gear in a small light package???  Even if you hate Olympus, Sony or Fuji or Panasonic must have something for you.  

Who is this OMD for then right now?  Advanced amateurs looking for everything they need in a camera (complete control, good build quality and assortment of lenses) and pros looking for a small camera for their personal lives that won't leave them disappointed with image quality.  People that want to photograph people, objects, food, macro, landscapes, street photography, or have great quality images for travel, this camera is perfect for you.  Wanting to photograph sports, weddings/events or fast moving objects?  This camera isn't ready for you yet.  

One thing is for certain.  At least to me.  The segment is worth jumping into.  Starting to collect lenses now isn't a bad idea given that the next OMD is likely to improve on this already amazing little camera. One that I view in most ways to exceed the quality of a 5D Mark ii.  The GH3 also appears to be a stellar camera as do the offerings from Fuji and Sony.  You're no longer an early adopter.  This ship has sailed, it's just time to pick your poison.  I'm not trying to suggest that full frame DSLR cameras are going anywhere.  For that matter, crop sensors aren't either.  But mirrorless growth for both average consumers and professionals is happening.  Come back in a year, leave me a comment and tell me I was wrong.

Air Tower in Pearl Harbour ISO 200 f11 20mm Panasonic lens

Photograph my 11 year old daughter took of me at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu with 45mm f2 lens.  The face recognition in the camera plus LCD screen shooting make it a snap for anyone to use the camera and get good focus.  

ISO 3200 f3.2 1/500th of a second with 45mm f1.8 lens.  My strategy here was to use single point focus and just rely on the speed of the autofocus to grab the dancer.  It worked brilliantly even in dim lighting with strong spotlights everywhere.  This is an image I would have struggled with not so long ago with a proper DSLR.

ISO 200 f11 with 45mm f1.8 lens

f2.0 at ISO 400 with strong backlight the camera was still able to grab focus (though it did occasionally hunt).  This is the in camera jpg art filter called grainy black and white.