The Olympus Grainy Art Filter

The 'Art' filters in the Olympus cameras are a bit like oysters (bare with me). You either love them or hate them (there you go). There's plenty to choose from (14 in the OM-D EM-5 Mk2) - ranging from pop art, pinhole, sepia, cross process and tilt shift type effects. 

To be honest, I'm in the 'hate them' camp on the whole. But there is one - just one - art filter that I have a slight affection for; the Grainy B&W filter.

Art Filter '5' - Grainy Black and White

Let's be honest, who doesn't like a good grainy black and white image? And the 'Grainy' art filter does produce a great grainy black and white image - with the option of a cool grungy border. Bonus.

Fortunately, Olympus also makes using the art filters worthwhile for the more 'serious' photographer. They don't hamstring the filters by making them only work in the automatic modes. Even while you are in aperture or shutter priority, the art filters are available as an option through the picture mode function. So you get complete creative control while using them - which is exactly as it should be.

And it gets better. You can use most of them when shooting video as well. And it gets even better still! Although the file output of an art filter shot is only a jpeg, if you are shooting in RAW, the camera will take an art filter shot in jpeg as well as the unedited RAW image, for the best of both worlds. As long as you are set to RAW, you'll automatically get two files. Very cool.

Struggle Street. 1/500th @ f5.6 ISO 200 (RAW)

I recently decided to go out and take a couple of images that I'd been meaning to take for a while - that I knew would look great in grainy black and white. I shot my OM-D E-M5 Mk2 in aperture priority, in RAW, with the 12-50mm on f5.6.

Of course with its EVF, the other great thing about choosing to shoot in an art mode is that you get to see the effect immediately through the viewfinder. So you can decide there and then whether the effect you've chosen suits the subject or not.

One thing I did notice with the Grain Art filter had to do with exposure control. It was a fairly overcast day, so exposure shouldn't have been a problem. But Grain Art boosts both the shadows and highlights to increase contrast, blowing out both in the process. I ended up taking the middle ground and blew out both the shadow and highlight ends of the histogram equally.

I knew I would have the RAW files to fall back on, but in actual fact, even the jpegs had decent leeway for pulling back detail in the both the shadows and the highlights once I got them into Lightroom.

Grainy Art Filter Mode 1.

Within the Art Filter's themselves, there are also various options (this is Olympus after all). You can choose Grainy Mode 1 or Mode 2, add a border or not, add a vignette or not, and add colored filter effects (orange, yellow, red, green, blue) or not. Above is Mode 1, with the grunge border effect added. Mode 1 is the higher contrast setting which really ramps up the effect to 11!

Grainy Art Filter Mode 2

Mode 1 is a little too much for my taste. I tend to go with Mode 2, which while still punchy, is a little more reserved than Mode 1. It's also worth noting that in all the examples shown here, I have still tweaked them a bit in Lightroom, and then taken them in to Photoshop for a final round of curves adjustment and sharpening. So even with the 'out of camera' art filter effects, I'm doing some post-processing to get the effect exactly how I want it.

Front Yard Bus. 1/320th @ f5.6 ISO 200

Above is the RAW file, converted to Black and White in Lightroom, and then tweaked in Photoshop to my taste. Looking at them all, I would say that I like both two and three - with a preference for the RAW file converted to b&w in Lightroom.

DXO Film Simulation conversion - Kodak TMAX 3200

Just for a laugh, I also placed a color jpeg of the RAW file straight into DXO's Film Conversion pack and chose the 3200 Kodak TMAX preset. I then jumped on the internet and downloaded a free grunge border and plonked it over the top - flattening the image to the final jpeg. Took about 5 minutes, and looks remarkably similar to the Olympus Grainy Art Filter in Mode 2.

So what, if anything does this prove? That there's more than one way to skin a cat? That the Grainy Art Filter is great? That the Grainy Art Filter is dumb? All of the above?

I suppose for me, it reconfirmed what I kind of knew already. Yes, the Grainy B&W Art filter is fun, and yes, it can produce some good results (in Mode 2). But even so, I'm still going to end up tweaking the final result in Lightroom and Photoshop - so why don't I just do my own conversions in the first place (which ultimately I preferred anyway).

Yet having said all that - if you are someone who wants to use the results of the Grainy Art filter straight out of camera, without going anywhere near Lightroom or Photoshop, then have at it! You'll get some fantastic results. And in true Olympus style, you get heaps of various options within the filters themselves so you can tweak 'in-camera' to your hearts content.

Go ahed and try the Art Filters. They can be a lot of fun, and really suit particular subjects. Me - I think I'll stick to Lightroom for my black and white conversions. Guess I'm just too much of a control freak?

Olympus Zuiko 12-50mm kit lens for landscapes

The Olympus OM-D E-M5 MkII comes with a 'kit' lens that has a useful 12-50mm (24-100mm in traditional film terms) focal length range, with a less than useful f3.5-6.3 variable aperture. I must confess to never having owned a lens as 'slow' as f6.3. In fact, the very thought would cause me to break out in a cold sweat! But this came with the camera, it is a useful focal range, and so it will probably be on my camera 80% of the time (until I can afford the 12-40mm f2.8). So it better be good - right!?

West Coast Batches. Olympus OM-D E-M5 MkII with Zuiko 12-50mm EZ lens. 1/100th @ f5.6 ISO 200

It's an interesting lens to use on the E-M5 MkII. Some have called the design of the lens ugly, but I actually quite like it visually. It has a clutch mechanism design whereby you push the central collar of the lens towards the camera body to engage manual zooming, push it out to engage the electronic zoom, and then hold the macro button and push it out once again to engage the macro function. Fortunately a small window on the lens gives you a visual reference as to what mode you are in.

I'm a manual zoom kind of guy and prefer to use it in this mode, although while turning the lens barrel to zoom it does make a slight 'gritty' noise. I presume this is 'normal', and if you shoot video a lot, then switching to the electronic zoom makes this gritty noise go away. But then, of course, the zooming is now done electronically (and therefore silently).

Zuiko 12-50mm at 20mm. 1/100th @ f5.6 ISO 200

In everyday use, the grittyness of the manual zooming doesn't bother me, and I don't even notice it anymore. The lens balances nicely on the E-M5 MkII, and I can see why Olympus has included it as its kit lens. It's quite a bit larger than the 14-42mm pancake zoom that comes with the E-M10, and it focuses internally so there is no change to the size of the lens, whether you are shooting wide or telephoto. I like this feature, so don't mind that the lens itself is a little larger because of it.

Of course the front lens element doesn't rotate either, so using a polarising filter is straight forward. The lens has a decent heft without being heavy - and uses a metal lens mount for extra strength and rigidity. The rest of the construction is plastic, although it looks (and even feels) a lot like metal. It's dust and splash proof (another reason to match it with the E-M5 MkII), and uses 2 aspherical lenses, 1 ED lens, 1 HR lens and 1 DSA lens in its construction.

Starfish. Zuiko 12-50mm. 1/80th @ f5.6 ISO 640

That's all a bit of a mouthful. But what it means in reality is that despite its modest variable aperture, the Olympus Zuiko 12-50mm is a solid performer. All that good glass on the inside is working to produce some very contrasty, clear, sharp and distortion-free images. It's not perfectly sharp wide open, but stop it down just a little and it sharpens up very nicely. Shoot at around f5.6 to f 8 and you'll get some truly gorgeous images.

Tidal Pool. Olympus OM-D E-M5 MkII and Zuiko 12-50mm EZ lens shot at 15mm. 1/125th @ f5.6 ISO 200

I went out the other evening with the E-M5 MkII and 12-50mm EZ lens to capture some landscapes. At 12mm, this lens starts at a landscape friendly 24mm in traditional terms, something that I'm not all that used to, coming from the 1.6x crop factor of the Canon DSLR world. I like the 24mm focal length, and have always found it to be my 'sweet spot' for a landscape lens.  I'm not a huge 'ultra-wide' fan, so for me, 24mm is plenty wide enough. The above image was shot at 15mm - around 30mm in traditional film terms.

12-50mm shot at 13mm. 1/100th @ f5.6 ISO 200

I was hoping for a beautiful sunset, but it never happened. Of course there was one the day before and the day after I went out with my camera. Sigh. Murphy's Law strikes again.

When I got home and looked at the images on the computer, the muted colours lent themselves perfectly to a black and white conversion - which I tend to do in Photoshop rather than Lightroom. I do like Lightroom (having previously been an Aperture user), but have used Photoshop since version 2, and am just more 'at home' using it for most tasks.

I also tend to prefer a dark and moody black and white treatment for my landscapes, although this will depend on the image. But from my darkroom film days, I had it beaten in to me (not literally) by several teachers that a black and white image must have a full range from white whites to black blacks. Too many black and white image conversions I see on the interweb are very flat and lack any contrast. The DNG RAW files that I'm getting out of the E-M5 MkII have bucket loads of data and detail in them, and are manipulating in Photoshop beautifully. I'm very pleased with the RAW output from the E-M5 MkII, and for me, 16MP is more than enough data.

Low tide. Olympus E-M5 MkII and Zuiko 12-50mm EZ shot at 12mm. 1/125th @ f5.6 ISO 200

Anyway, I digress (a little). Back to the lens itself. Focus is very snappy and silent - as quick as any DLSR I've ever used on single shot autofocus. It did start to hunt just a little towards the end of my session, but by then the light was very low, and again it was similar to what I would expect a DLSR to handle.

Another feature I really like about the 12-50mm EZ is its extra function button placed on the lens. This can be programmed to do almost anything you want (of course it can), and I've got it set up to initiate the autofocus selection screen. I've also got the function button next to the shutter release programmed to re-set the autofocus point to the centre, so with the click of two very conveniently placed buttons I have complete finger-tip control over autofocus selection. Brilliant. And it's little touches like this that ender you to the Olympus system and make you realise that it was designed by photographers, for photographers.

Rockface. 1/13th @ f6.3 ISO 1600

One of the last images I took was actually of this terra-cotta mask set into the concrete wall of a batch (cottage). Not exactly a landscape, but it caught my eye as I was walking back to the car and it was the perfect opportunity to test out the 5 axis image stabilisation of the E-M5 MkII. Does it work? You bet you're bottom dollar it works! It's crazy, insane juju magic and really opens up new possibilities for low-light hand-held shooting.

This image (and a series of others), is perfectly sharp, but was shot at just 1/13th of a second, while I was balancing precariously on a rock, zoomed right out at 50mm, at f6.3. Generally not a recipe for successful image making. But the 5-axis stabilisation nailed it!

So am I happy with the Olympus Zuiko 12-50mm EZ f3.5/6.3 lens as my walk-around and serious landscape lens? Absolutely.

The f6.3 aperture at 50mm may have put me off initially, but when I'm shooting landscapes around the 12-15mm range, then an aperture of f5.6 (which is opened up two stops) is where I want to be anyway, and is giving me good sharpness and great files. Micro four thirds sensors have more depth-of-field due to their smaller size, so f5.6 is about f11 in DSLR terms. That's perfect landscape territory, so I'm very happy with the 12-50mm for my landscape work. Maybe if I was printing 40" prints I'd find that I was reaching the limit of the lens/sensor combination? Maybe. But I'm not. So for the blog, the web, and for 8x12" prints, I'm a happy camper and the 12-50mm will remain on my camera for 80% of what I shoot.

Of course, if you can afford the Olympus 12-40mm f2.8 Pro lens, then by all means, get that instead. It will be a 'better' (eg. sharper and faster) lens in all respects. BUT, it will also be a heavier (much heavier) lens to carry around, and then you really will have to consider the body that you pair it up with.

For the well healed/pro photographer the 12-40mm f2.8 Pro is a must. For everyone else (us mere mortals), the Olympus Zuiko 12-50mm EZ f3.5/6.3 is a perfect image making tool. Can't ask for anything more - especially in a 'kit' lens.

Olympus Zuiko 45mm focal length shoot-out

With both kit zooms and the 45mm f1.8, I've got this focal length covered with all 3 lenses. So should I have bothered with the 45mm f1.8 at all? Isn't it a bit redundant with the other two lenses in my bag? How good is it compared to the kit lens offerings? Couldn't I just use them instead when doing portraits? These are the questions I wanted answered when I nabbed my son Joshua to go out for an impromptu photo shoot to test all three lenses. What conclusions did I come too after looking at the images I took? Read on McDuff...

First up, the 12-50mm f3.5/6.3 kit zoom that I figure will be on my camera 80% of the time. The widest it can go at 45mm is f6, so not a great lens for blurry out-of-focus backgrounds (bokeh). Shooting the 45mm at f6 as well, it looks to be a little more contrasty, a lot sharper, and perhaps just a hair more blurry in the background. The 12-50mm at 45mm is ok, but the 45mm at the same f-stop is fractionally better. So even shooting at these large apertures, it might be worth swapping to the 45mm when I get to that end of the range on the kit lens? Having said that, the 12-50mm at 45mm isn't 'bad' - it's just ok.

Next up it's the turn of the 40-150mm f4/5.6 to go head-to-head with the 45mm at its widest opening of f4. Once again, the 45mm prime has a bit more contrast and 'pop', is sharper, and also has a creamier bokeh in the background even at the same f-stop. Same conclusion here as above - the 40-150mm is 'ok' wide open at the 45mm end, and sharpness is acceptable. But the 45mm prime is better (surprise, surprise).

What about the other focal lengths for the 40-150mm? Well, there's good news and bad news. The good news? If you can get decent separation between your subject and the background, then bokeh actually isn't too bad. You definitely get some 'pop' with portraits at 150mm wide open (f5.6), and the quality of the bokeh is actually quite decent and not too 'busy'. The bad news? Everything gets notably 'soft' wide open from 100mm onwards - so you probably want to stop down from wide-open to get a sharper image. Oh well, you win some you loose some :-)

Which brings us to the Olympus Zuiko 45mm f1.8 prime. Bokeh at f1.8 is gorgeous - and very nice at f2.8. Subject sharpness certainly increases when you open up to f2.8 or f4 (where it is excellent), but the great news with this lens is that wide open at f1.8 is very useable, and sharpness is very good. I wouldn't hesitate to use this lens at f1.8 if bokeh was my main concern, although f2 or f2.8 might be a decent compromise if subject sharpness and bokeh are equally important. For prints up to A3 I would shoot wide open all day. For anything bigger, stopping down to f2.8 might be advisable?

So can the kit lenses compete with the 45mm f1.8 prime lens and replace it as a portrait lens? Well, no, of course not. They are what they are - which is actually pretty decent for what you pay for them. But the 45mm f1.8 is several notches above, both in terms of sharpness and contrast, at the same apertures. And of course, it goes where the other two can not go - to wide open f1.8 bokehlichousness :-)

Luckily, the 45mm f1.8 stands out enough from the kit lenses that it's definitely worth having in my bag. Compared to the likes of the 12-40mm f2.8 though? Well, that's another story...

Olympus OM-D E-M5 MkII and E-M10 MkII

It's been a few weeks now and my OM-D E-M5 MkII kit is progressing nicely.

Olympus Zuiko 12-50mm f 3.5/6.3 EZ, Zuiko 40-150mm f4/5.6 R and OM-D E-M5 MkII with Zuiko 45mm f1.8

With the 12-50mm kit lens and the 40-150mm telephoto I've got everything from 24mm to 300mm covered (in traditional 35mm terms). This assumes I'll be taking photos in reasonably good light, since they are both fairly 'slow' lenses - which is where the 45mm f1.8 comes in to play. It does mean that I've got three lenses that covers the 45mm focal length, but they are not all created equal. I plan on putting this to the test soon, with a 45mm shoot-out, to show the differences between them all in terms of sharpness and bokeh.

This will be my kit for a while, with only the HLD-8G to add as a grip in the next few weeks.

The big news from Olympus recently was the inclusion of the OM-D E-M10 MkII to their camera line-up.

It's an incremental update to the original E-M10 rather than a complete upgrade, since the E-M10 hasn't really been around for that long.

Having said that though, the tweaks they have made mean that I see the camera as a much more viable second body to my E-M5 MkII now, since they have mimicked more of that cameras ergonomics. It will be much more seamless to move between both cameras if you have the E-M10 MkII as a backup to the E-M5 MkII - in the same way that the first E-M10 makes more sense as a backup to the original E-M5.

The new OM-D E-M10 MkII also adds 5 axis image stabilisation, uses the same 16MP sensor, and updates the evf to a 2.36 million OLED screen with 100% view. It's now a 'baby' E-M5 MkII without the 40MP feature and weather sealing. Its new party trick is touch AF tracking from the rear lcd screen, which is something that Panasonic has had for a while now, and something I would like to see released in the E-M5 MkII with a firmware update.

So while it might be a relatively minor update, I'm actually quite excited about the OM-D E-M10 MkII. I think it's the perfect back-up body for me, and with it being released at an even cheaper price than the original E-M10, is incredible value! I may have just found the next addition to my kit?

Olympus 45mm f1.8 initial thoughts

I weakened, and I bought one...

This weekend just gone, I went to Christchurch with my son to do two things; attend Promise Keepers and buy the HLD-8 grip for my OM-D EM-5 Mk2.

I did one of those things, and not the other :-)

Promise Keepers was fantastic and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The HLD-8, however, did not turn up in time. And then I had second thoughts about spending $400NZ on a battery grip when I could get just the grip itself for $175NZ and then maybe get another couple of lenses as well!

To that end, another camera store in Christchurch just happened to have an incredible deal on a new Olympus 45mm f1.8 for $385NZ (that's $180NZ off normal retail) - so yeah, I got one.

Joshua. Olympus OM-D EM-5 Mk2 with 45mm f1.8

It's small, it's light (although it does have a little heft to it) and it's largely made of plastic, albeit with a metal mount and lots of nice glass.

On the trip back home, I couldn't resist getting Josh to do a little model shoot - just to test the lens you understand. I'll be doing a much more comprehensive shoot soon, but initial impressions are obviously very good. It's known as a sharp, fast lens with decent bokeh - not to mention amazing portability. It really is a tiny lens, ideally suited to the size of the OM-D EM-5 (or EM-10 for that matter).

Olympus Zuiko 45mm @ f2.2, 1/100th ISO 320

I shot at f2.2 - opened up a little bit to increase sharpness - and kept an eye on the exposure compensation to make sure I didn't blow the highlights. These are the first portraits I've taken with the EM-5 Mk2, so it was the first time I had experienced face detection auto focus. I must admit, it felt weird watching the auto focus point move around over Joshua's face, without me controlling the point manually. But I forced myself to let the camera do its own thing, so I could gauge its accuracy afterwards. If it works as intended, then I can see it being an amazing help on a wedding shoot.

Face detection close-up. Check the bokeh as well.

Looks nice and sharp to me. Of course I intend to give it a decent work-out, but initial impressions are positive. And I'm pleased with the bokeh in the images, even opened up to f2.2. The forest behind Joshua isn't an easy background to blur nicely, but the lens did a decent job of it.

Joshua at Arthur's Pass. Olympus 45mm @ f2.2, 1/100th sec ISO 320

Many people argue that the whole reason to get a micro four thirds system is for their small, fast, sharp prime lenses. I'm not necessarily of that opinion. I like the idea of sharp, fast primes, but I would actually rather shoot with fast zooms. I really have my eye on the 12-40mm f2.8 zoom which, while heavier, will probably suit my shooting style a bit more. Having said that, the lens is about $1500NZ, which is way above my price range. So in the interim, maybe a small prime like the 45mm f1.8 will fill the gap? Yes, I have the 45mm range covered with my current 12-50mm f3.5/6.3 - but at 45mm that lens will open to f5.6 at best. That's 4 times slower than the 45mm f1.8 prime! Not to mention the difference in bokeh. I will test this soon to show the difference with the two lenses at the 45mm focal range, and I suspect that it will be like night and day!?

So yes, at the moment the 45mm f1.8 has a 'prime' (excuse the pun) place in my kit. Hopefully I will eventually get the 12-40mm f2.8 and then I might have to re-evaluate things. But for the price I paid for it, I can probably sell the 45mm in a couple of years time and not loose any money on it. That's the other upside of buying good fast glass.

Building up my Olympus MFT (Micro Four Thirds) kit

Ok - I now have the Olympus OM-D EM-5 Mk2 body with the 12-50mm WR kit lens. This will form the basis of my mirrorless micro-four-thirds system. I want to build on this basic kit now, but one restraint is always unavoidable: budget. I don't have a lot of money, and need to get the best 'bang' for my buck - without compromising (too much) on quality.

Aftermarket BLN-1 spare battery

I'll assume that the SD Memory card is a given, although this time around I did decide to buy a new card for the OMD-EM-5 Mk2 (a Sandisk 16GB Class 10). But generally speaking most photographers will have a few of these floating around. So the first additional purchase is unavoidable really - for any digital camera system. A spare battery (or batteries). I ordered a spare battery as soon as I purchased the Em-5 Mk2, and I'm probably going to purchase a few more.

BUT - I certainly didn't go out and order a second Olympus branded battery, not at $120NZ for one battery! I ordered a much cheaper aftermarket no-name rip-off, that is much cheaper ($25NZ) and actually more powerful. Go figure. It's rated at 1750mAh, whereas the Olympus battery is only 1220mAh - so in theory (at least), the aftermarket battery should last longer?

Yes, I am nervous about using cheap batteries - but this one seems fine. It does work, it does charge (in the Olympus charger), and it does seem to last as long as the Olympus battery that came with the camera, so I'll probably end up getting a couple more. With these smaller mirrorless, you can never have too many spare batteries.

Aftermarket lens hood.

Next up on the must-have accessory list; a lens hood for the 12-50mm kit lens. Again, I've already bought one - and again, I chose to get an after-market hood rather than the Olympus branded option. And, yet again, this was purely for budget constraint. The Olympus LH-55B is $90NZ!! Not quite as expensive as a spare battery, but just about! Seriously, that's just ridiculous! Apart from the fact that it really should be included with the lens in the first place, to have to spend $90NZ on it is criminal. So an after-market lens hood it is. For $35.00NZ - which I still think is pricey for a bit of plastic, but there you go.

It arrived just the other day, and the one thing I will say about the third party hoods is that they tend to be rather stiff to twist on and off. I'm always scared that the twisting is going to wrench the lens and ruin some internal electronics, so I usually get a craft knife and scrape away some of the inside plastic first so it gives a 'looser' fit. Not too loose - but looser. Helps with my piece of mind, and the hoods do come on and off better.

With SD cards, spare batteries and a lens hood sorted, which is really just the basic components to any kit, attention now turns to the big ticket items. Usually, this would be another lens. But this time my first big purchase isn't going to be another optic for the camera. This time I've got my sights set on the most important (for me) accessory for the EM-5 Mk2; the HLD-8 Grip.

Olympus OM-D EM-5 Mk2 with 2 piece HLD-8 Battery Grip. SEXY!

I'll just come straight out and say it - I'm a battery grip fanatic. I always purchase the grip for every camera I own, so the EM-5 Mk2 will be no exception. I don't have big hands (they are probably medium to small for a 48 year old male) but I still find that no matter what camera I've owned, adding a grip to it has always made the ergonomics more pleasing and the handling more comfortable. There is also always the added bonus of better portrait oriented shooting (I shoot in portrait a lot on weddings) and doubling of the battery life.

The truly great thing about the HLD-8 is that it actually comes in two different pieces; the 'grip' portion and the 'battery/portrait' portion. Cleverly, you can configure the camera to have a bigger grip just with the first section attached, or extend the battery life and include a portrait shutter button by attaching the second half. I think that's genius, and really shows the level of thought that Olympus's engineers put into these cameras. Some, if not all of them, must be serious photographers as well.

Many would argue that adding the grip defeats the purpose of switching to MFT and mirrorless to cut down on weight and size. Others question why camera manufacturers make cameras so small that they then need extra grips on them to make them useable?

In response I would say that the addition of the extra weight of the HLD-8 is 'relative'. For example, I've come from a Canon EOS 1D Mk3 which, with battery and lens attached, is about 1.7kgs (3.7 lbs), whereas the EM-5 with grip attached will weigh in at about 700gms (1.5 lbs) - less than twice the weight (and size) of the system I've moved from. I'd say that's a weight saving, wouldn't you?

And second - I don't find the EM-5 Mk2 'too' small to use without it actually. I just prefer to use a grip. In the same way that I don't find a Canon 50D or 7D too small, but still prefer to add the grip. Do I think the handling and ergonomics are improved on the OM-D EM-5 Mk2 with the addition of the accessory grip - yes I do, absolutely. As much as I think they are also improved on the 50D. I do think there are some mirrorless cameras that are too small. But the EM-5 isn't one of them.

Is there anything I don't like about the HLD-8? Yep, sure is. The price! At $400NZ it's about a third of the price of the camera itself (ouch). But even so, I still think it's worth it. Even though that's most of my budget now blown.

Finally, we get to the lens question. This is always the big question you face when looking to add to a basic one-camera, one-lens kit. Many reviewers and users say that the best lens to get after the kit lens is a fast prime - something like the 17mm f1.8 or 25mm f1.4 from Panasonic. These 'smaller' MFT camera systems are, arguably, most suited to using small primes - so it makes sense that this is what you should opt for after the kit lens, doesn't it?

Olympus Zuiko 40-150mm f4/5.6 telephoto 'kit' lens

Maybe. But for me, I think that will happen a bit further down the track. What I'm actually going to get instead of a fast prime, is the 40-150mm kit telezoom - the small, light, plastic, cheap, additional zoom that often comes bundled with Olympus MFT cameras in a two-lens configuration.

Why? For two reasons really (okay, maybe three). First, it will give me a carry-around kit that covers every focal length I could hope to use in a day of shooting - from 24 to 300mm in conventional 35mm terms, so I will have almost every scenario covered. I know from personal experience that if I have a system that contains big gaps in reach, then I get a bit frustrated. I may not use a telezoom all that often, but when I want to, then I want to (if that makes sense?). Sure, a 25mm f1.4, or an 18mm f1.8 would be lovely - but I already have them covered with the 12-50mm kit lens. What I don't have, at the moment, is extra telephoto coverage - which the 40-150mm will give me in spades.

Second, despite it 'only' being a kit lens, and 'only' being f4/5.6, and 'only' being made of plastic, by all accounts the IQ of the lens is pretty amazing. It's 'better' optically than it has any right to be for a cheap plastic lens (although the lens elements are glass, and it does use an ED lens for image correction), and as long as you isolate your subject effectively from the background, the bokeh can be very pleasing. No, it's not a low-light lens. But the OM-D EM-5 Mk2 has very good high ISO performance, and one of the best (if not the best) image stabilization systems on the planet, so even at the telephoto end of the zoom range in lowish light, good sharp images should be achievable. But it is what it is.

And third, it's cheap :-)

So that will be my 'kit' for a while. The Olympus OM-D EM-5 Mk2 with 12-50mm and 40-150mm kit lenses, HLD-8 battery/portrait grip, spare batteries and SD cards. While I'm in Christchurch next week getting the HLD-8, I may have a look at camera bags to keep it all in. The ThinkTank Mirrorless Mover 30 looks good, but I may also just keep using my Crumpler 6 Million Dollar Home for it. It does look a bit lost in there at the moment, but adding the grip and another lens might just help with that. If I get a new bag, I will definitely do a post on what I got and why.

What's missing from the above (apart from the fast primes)? Well, if I'm going to use it to shoot weddings seriously then I will need another body as back-up, a larger flash (the flash supplied is cute, but not really for serious work), and then yes - some of those fast primes. Or maybe even the Olympus 12-40mm f2.8 Pro lens? Now that would be sweet.

Using Olympus ORF files from OMD-EM5 Mk2

Last post I finished by relating my experiences using the Olympus RAW files (ORF), and how my version of Lightroom (Lr4) doesn't support the raw files from this latest MFT (micro four thirds) camera.

I also concluded that this wasn't going to change for me anytime soon, since the newest version of Lightroom (Lr6) that does support the RAW files from the Mk2, won't actually run on my (old) iMac. I'm using OS 10.7, but Adobe CC and Lightroom 6 required at least OS 10.8 to run. So that's that really. I'd consigned myself to becoming a (gasp) jpeg shooter.

I'm not the kind of guy who lives on the 'bleeding edge' of technology - my iMac is seriously at least 10 years old. And since I tend to only be able to afford second-hand cameras from around that time as well, it's never been much of an issue. Photoshop 4 does everything I need it to do - as does Lightroom 4. Heck, I'd still be using Apple's 'Aperture' if they hadn't canned it (don't get me started).

But something like this did happen to me a few years ago, when I was one of the first people to purchase the Fuji X10. Lightroom initially couldn't read the Fuji RAW files, and then when it could, it didn't play all that nicely with the newly developed X-Trans sensor. My fix at that stage was also initially to shoot jpegs on the X10, and then I came across Adobe's own DNG (Digital Negative) RAW conversion software.

I think the DNG file format from Adobe is brilliant, and I've had quite a bit to do with it over the last few years. My Pentax cameras shot the DNG format natively (brilliant), and then when I switched back to Canon, I still converted all the RAW files to Adobe DNG on import (an option from within Lightroom). Many think of this as an 'extra' step, but it really doesn't add too much to the download time, and I see it as a 'future proofing' strategy of sorts.

Do I think Canon, Nikon or Olympus will be around forever? Well, no actually, I don't. Surprisingly, I think of the three, Canon and Nikon are the most shaky of the three - even given Olympus's recent financial difficulties. Why? Simply because they are so far behind the 8 ball with the whole mirrorless movement. As much as we might want to shout and rage against it (and believe me, I've raged with the best of them), I do think that mirrorless is the undeniable future of photography. I'm not saying it's the only possible future. Perhaps something else will come along and take its place too? But that doesn't change the fact that the traditional SLR, as many of us know and love, is a thing of the past. But I digress.

My point is, I find it far more likely that Adobe, and the DNG file format, will be around longer than the camera manufacturers themselves - hence the future proofing of converting to DNG.

But of course, when you jump on to new technology, that isn't supported by your old gear, sometimes proprietary formats like DNG can also be your only option (and saving grace).

Olympus OMD EM5 Mk2 jpeg

So anyway, to cut an already probably long story short, I've downloaded the latest version of Adobe's DNG Converter (which supports the OMD EM5 Mk2's ORF files and runs on my iMac under OS10.7) and will simply take that 'extra' step of converting the ORF files from the EM5 Mk2 into DNG's. Then I can have my cake and eat it too!

Here is just a quick example of what a difference it can make shooting in RAW - and why it's worth persevering with RAW capture if you can.

This first image is as shot, from the camera, using the OMD EM5 Mk2's viewfinder with live histogram to make sure that the highlights were retained and not blown out.

Now of course, the dynamic range of the scene was such that something had to give. There was fairly bright sunshine on the white hull of the boat, and deep shade to the side and behind in the bushes. I exposed correctly for the highlights so they wouldn't blow out (as you should), and just had to let the shadows fill in to black. Shooting in jpeg would mean that this is the image you would be left with. It's ok, but the shadows are a touch on the dark side and could do with 'opening' up.

Olympus OMD EM5 Mk2 RAW 

Shoot in RAW, however, and you still expose in the same way, but you do get the chance to go in with the RAW software processing later on and 'recover' some of the detail in those shadows.

It can be quite subtle, and I don't like to overdo the post processing, but side by side the differences are obvious. That's simply the flexibility that RAW allows you, that jpeg doesn't.

So with the latest version of Adobe DNG Converter I can set the OMD EM5 Mk2 up to shoot RAW and know that it is going to fit into my workflow. Who knows, I may get another 5 years out of the old 'iMac' yet? :-)