Getting Started

​I’ve been taking photographs for years and bounced around various cameras, with many a point-and-shoot, super-zooms and interchangeable lens cameras. I started the foray into more serious photography with a Canon 7D, then after a few years of breaking my neck, ‘downgraded’ to an Olympus Micro-Four-Thirds EM5 Mark II. After years of studying, learning and writing about all topics other than photography, I figured I should probably start. And if I can help others avoid the same pitfalls I’ve made, then all the better!

What I love about the Olympus In changing down a camera, I lost a two mega-pixels. However, I gained lightness, portability and the use of neck back. The second in that list, portability, is the real boon – I travelled a great deal before COVID, and having a small camera I could whip out and use, making all the usual changes any of my SLR brethren could make, was so good it was indecent. As a friend commented whilst photographing orcas in Argentina, ‘so you can do all the things I can with my Nikon D4, with that? Then why the hell am I carrying around all this weight?’

​EM5 Mark II But there is a Mark III, available, right? Yes, but the list of upgrades from one to the next, for me at least didn’t sanction the upgrade. The Mark II does perfectly well, and has a few features I adore which I’ll detail in future posts. The four-thirds sensor to which they have become wedded is not as good as a full-frame camera (offered on the D4, Sony etc), but neither does it come with the same price-tag or weight. The body of the Sony Alpha A7’s themselves aren’t that dissimilar in size, yet the lenses add considerable weight. You avoid that with a micro-four-thirds, as even the lenses are smaller. 

Why Olympus ending matters The Japanese company are, first and foremost, innovators. Their existence is being first-to-market. They didn’t get it right first time, but they tended to nudge the market along a little. They were building touchscreen, full articulating LCD screens for cameras whilst Canon were still half-asleep. The four-thirds sensor to which they have become wedded was perhaps part of their downfall, yet it offered all the things I enjoy about photography.
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Topics for the coming months: the lenses I have, why I bought those as opposed to others; the benefits of Olympus EM5 Mark II; my favourite shots; key learnings from lectures and books; and general photographs. Let me know if you’re keen for another topic!

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Some leafy shots below with my new LAOWA MFT 50mm 2X Lens. Loving a bit of macro photography!