Edward Chen: Gotten myself a new Olympus OM-D E-M1 !

Thursday, December 1, 2016

Gotten myself a new Olympus OM-D E-M1 !

Yes. As updated in my post : Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark ii Announced & My Initial Thoughts, I have gotten myself a new Olympus OM-D E-M1 camera, together with its kitlens, the Olympus 12-40 f/2.8 Pro lens.

I've gotten one since Olympus Malaysia extended its promotional offer for the E-M1. It came with 2 years warranty, and a free Olympus 45mm f1.8 lens.

With firmware v4.0, the EM1 is like a new camera anyway. It's feature rich if compared to Olympus' forgotten child, the EM5. Imagine the last firmware for EM5 was v2.2 !

The Olympus OM-D E-M1

In case you are still wondering, no, I didn't buy the newest model which was recently launched. I bought a year 2013 model, new.

While I haven't been using most of its additional firmware-updated features, the handling is much better than the E-M5. The dials and buttons seem to give me the feeling that this camera is going to last much longer than the E-M5. It's the Olympus flagship camera model after all. :)

Some of the features that I have yet to try but interested are the 1.) Live Composite, 2.) Keystone Compensation, 3.) Tethered Shooting with Olympus Capture. These were made available via firmware updates, which I feel very disappointed not having in the E-M5. :(

I have tried the Focus Stacking feature but have yet to understand how to maximize its effectiveness. Currently I cannot use this feature with flashes on somehow.

The E-M1 uses the same batteries I have been using on the E-M5, the BLN-1, which is a plus. I do not need to buy extra batteries or worry about the different chargers when I need to charge them. I can even charge two batteries at the same time with an additional charger that came with the package. :)

It's said to have an average 150,000 shutter life. That I'll have to see since my E-M5's shutter died at around 60,000 and costed me more than RM300 to replace. With the depreciating Malaysian currency, I hope the camera will last even longer. So that I don't have to spend more money maintaining them. I have just spent around a thousand Malaysian Ringgit to fix the AF-S focusing mechanism in my Nikon 70-200 VR ii lens. Things gets old and they need fixing.
A weak currency isn't helping.

I have taken photos/videos of events with this new camera, wildlife (in the residential park), and some macro photography. This camera makes photography interesting for me (again), like how the old E-M5 used to.

2016-12-17 UPDATE:
I attempted to take long exposure photos using the EM-1 with the noise reduction OFF, bad idea. It simply doesn't work well as I see grainy, noisy RAW files which I cannot edit off. So, the only thing I can do is to ENABLE LONG EXPOSURE NOISE REDUCTION when I shoot with the E-M1. The downside is there's a waiting time in between photos. Ouch ! (My old E-M5 doesn't have this issue. It has to do with the different sensor.)