More fun with Fungi - Olympus OM-D E-M1

Last weekend I went out with a Sony a-99 and 50mm macro lens and took some fungi photos at a local forest (see last post). I had a lot of fun, and was very happy with the photos once I got the hang of the macro lens. But I also said I didn't enjoy the weight of the kit, and would like to try taking similar photos with my lighter Olympus OM-D E-M1. I was also keen to try out the 'macro' function on my 12-50mm f3.5/6.3 EZ lens.

This weekend I got the chance to go out again for a couple of hours on Saturday morning, so I headed to the same spot, expecting to be able to take the same photos. What a difference a week makes to fungi in the forest!

First setup with OM-D E-M1 & Lumix 45-150mm f4/5.6 lens

Overnight on the Friday we had some very wet and wild weather conditions, but I knew the area I wanted to shoot in was fairly sheltered from the elements. Even so, when I got there I found that practically all of the fungi I had seen the previous weekend were totally destroyed! Bummer.

Luckily, there were one or two in the area remaining, so I choose my first subject and set up the first composition.

Because the E-M1 is a lighter rig than the full-frame a-99, I was able to bring my smaller, lighter tripod and still have a very stable support for the camera. In fact, I brought two tripods along with me on the shoot. My Manfrotto travel tripod (seen in the first setup image) as well as my Manfrotto 'Pixi' tripod that I normally use for vlogging. It's a very small, yet stable table-top style tripod, with a solid ball head and slightly extendable legs, that I hoped I could use to set the camera up closer to the fungi. As it turned out, for my first image I decided to use my longer telephoto lens, the Panasonic Lumix 45-150 f4/5.6, and shoot from a distance using the long telephoto end of the range.

Yellow fungi. Olympus OM-D E-M1 with Lumix 45-150mm lens. 1/13th sec @ f/11, ISO 1600

I had tried to set up the 12-50mm EZ lens in macro mode, on the steep bank that the fungi was growing out of, but I just couldn't get the balance right with the camera attached to the small 'Pixi' tripod. So I opted to pull back instead and use the larger tripod on the track, with the longer lens. The image still has the effect I was after, with the fungi filling the frame and placed in context with its surroundings. 

Second setup with E-M1 & 12-50mm EZ 

For the second fungi, growing out of a drainage ditch on the side of the track, I knew I could get down low and use the macro function on the 12-50mm EZ lens. It also meant that I could use the 'Pixi' tripod, since it fit perfectly into the width of the ditch.

As you can see from the second setup image on the right, the articulating flip-up screen of the E-M1 came in very handy. With the camera on a small tripod, placed into a ditch, getting down to see through a normal viewfinder to take a photo would have meant lying down on the forest floor and getting very dirty. Not to mention extremely uncomfortable.

But with the screen articulation found on most modern cameras, shooting from these crazy low-angles is actually a breeze. When cameras first started appearing with flippy-out screens I honestly thought they were a fad. Now I wouldn't have a camera that didn't have one. Times, they are a changing...

Macro mode on the M Zuiko 12-50mm f3.5/6.3 EZ lens is available only at the 50mm end of the lens (which makes sense) and is accessed by holding down the 'macro' button on the lens and moving the lens barrel forwards to engage macro mode. This then allows a close-focusing distance of 20cms, with a maximum magnification of 4.2X. I'm not a big macro guy, so all the facts and figures start to sound all a bit Greek to me.

OM-D E-M1 on the Pixi-pod, in the drainage ditch

What I care about are results. And the results with the 12-50mm f3.5/6.3 in macro mode are (to me at least) fantastic. For the fungi images I wanted to capture, the M Zuiko lens in macro mode gave me just as good an image as the dedicated 50mm macro gave me using the Sony a-99. I do stress, again, that I'm not a macro shooter, so take all this with a grain of salt. 

But with the lens engaged in macro mode, and placed around 20 cms from the small fungi I was using as my subject, it was easily able to fill the frame and give me a sharp, close-up, fungi photo.

And speaking of sharpness, there were a few settings I changed on the camera from my normal shooting style to help facilitate a nice macro image.

Cute as a button. Olympus OM-D E-M1 with M Zuiko 12-50mm EZ. 1/200th @ f/8, ISO 1600

First, because the camera was on a tripod, I turned image stabilisation off. Not needed when on a tripod. However, since macro requires reasonably small apertures, which in turn gives somewhat slower shutter speeds, I also set the 2 second self-timer on the camera, to give it time to settle before taking the shot. Even though it balanced ok, the Pixi-pod isn't the sturdiest tripod (nor is it meant to be), so I gave it a helping hand with the 2 second timer.

I also switched the camera into manual focus, and turned 'peaking' on - just like I had when using the a-99 the week prior. This made it super easy to see the in-focus areas when manually focusing. It was also a very helpful visual aid to see how deep the depth of field was when changing the aperture. You can see at f8 above, that the in-focus area just covers the fungi. The moss it clings to is sharp just before it, and falls away quickly directly behind it. Stopping down to f/16 or f/22 would have increased the area of sharpness, but by using the peaking function I could choose the exact aperture necessary to just cover the fungi, giving me the result I was after. The fungi head 'pops' as the background blurs out.

Puffball. OM-D E-M1 and Lumix 45-150mm lens. 1/25th @ f/10. ISO 1600

I used the peaking technique on this top-down image of the fungi as well, to ensure that the ball itself was in sharp focus. f/10 did the trick, this time with the Panasonic Lumix 45-150mm lens, zoomed all the way out to 150mm.

I quickly got used to the macro 'manual focusing using peaking' technique. Setting up different shots was quick and easy, and the hour flew by. I did, however, make one rookie mistake - which the observant among you may have already picked up on. I shot everything at ISO 1600!

I only realised this as I was packing up to head home, and was re-setting my camera back to its normal (for me) settings. I kicked myself for making such a stupid mistake. But, then again, have a look at the images in this post, and tell me you would have picked that they were shot at ISO 1600 on micro four thirds if I hadn't 'fessed-up' and told you? Photographers who say that you can't go past ISO 400 with micro four thirds are talking through the proverbial hole in their heads. Yes, of course, I would have preferred to have shot these at ISO 200. But ISO 1600 is far from un-useable as some would have you believe. I certainly wouldn't hesitate to crank the ISO up to 1600 on the E-M1 if I needed to for the lighting conditions. 

 

Stand tall. OM-D E-M1 with Lumix 45-150mm lens. 1/6th sec @ f/16. ISO 1600

I've said at several stages in this post that I'm not a macro photographer. And I'm not. I appreciate that these aren't 'true' macro images, and that a 'real' macro photographer would have made a lot more of these subjects than I have.

But, having said that, for someone who just wants to have the occasional 'play' with some close-focusing, and who has no intention of owning a dedicated macro lens, then the M Zuiko 12-50mm f3.5/6.3 EZ with macro function is the bees knees 😃

Olympus OM-D E-M1 fun continues

The fun of shooting my 'new' Olympus E-M1 system continues and I am trying to take very opportunity I can to get out and use it. My kit is now also complete, with the inclusion of a speedlight (more on that in a future post).

I recently had to take a trip for work, and knew that I would have a chance to stop along the way to take a few quick pictures. So I took the E-M1 with me to see what I could find to photograph as I traveled.

Old Bedford. Olympus OM-D E-M1 with M.Zuiko 12-50mm EZ. f5.6 @ 1/200th, ISO 200

I'm a sucker for rusty old cars as subjects (what photographer isn't?), so I couldn't pass up the chance to stop and take a few photos of this beauty. The reddy-oranges and browns, greens and yellows all compliment each other and create a vibrant portrait of this old vehicle ending it days on the side of the road. Not a particularly dignified way to end your days perhaps, but it certainly makes for a great photo.

The theme of 'old and abandoned' was going to be a re-occurring theme throughout the images taken on this outing. The West Coast has a lot of 'rusty relics' and old buildings that make for great images. Although I have to say that my excitement at finding another dilapidated building or abandoned classic truck to photograph is always tinged with a sense of sadness. Whenever I look at them, I can't help but think about the lives they touched when they were brand new and full of potential. Such is progress I guess?

Abandoned House, Ikamatua. Olympus E-M1 with M.Zuiko 12-50mm EZ. f6.3 @ 1/500th, ISO 200

I had photographed this house quite recently, with the Fujifilm X-E2. But it was on a different day, with very different lighting conditions. The X-E2 image (in this blogpost here) was taken on a very blue-sky day, with a large cloud floating above the house - which I really liked. The above photo has a lot less contrast, since it was shot on a very overcast day. It softens the mood, but brings out heaps of detail in the old wood - which I also really like.

The E-M1 may 'only' have a 16MP micro four thirds sensor, but it is still capable of extracting a lot of extra fine detail. One of the major benefits of micro four thirds are the lenses sharpness and clarity, since the sensors smaller size allows for light to reach the entire sensor more symmetrically, hence avoiding corner distortion. It may sound like marketing hype, but in my 'real-world' experiences, all the lenses I've used on the Olympus cameras have been extremely sharp, edge-to-edge. Even the kit lenses and the very cheap and plastic telephotos produce sharper images than they have a right to, considering their price.

St Patrick's Catholic Church, Ikamatua. E-M1 with M.Zuiko 12-50mm EZ. f10 @ 1/200th, ISO 200

Case-in-point is the above photo of St. Patrick's Church. Shot at f10, focused on the front gate, and set to the widest zoom (12mm to fit everything in), the resulting image is bitingly sharp all over the frame. Some of that has to do with the f10 aperture - which on a smaller micro four thirds sensor is f20 full-frame equivalent - but even stopping down the aperture won't make an inherently soft lens sharp.

I'm not going to continually try to defend the micro four thirds sensor, since its detractors will rubbish the system no matter what you say. However, for those who are open to a different point of view, and who might be generally interested in micro four thirds but only ever hear negative comments, I think it's worth showing how good the images really can be from the system.

As mentioned, it was a very dull and overcast day when I shot these photos, which meant that the sky was really just one large expanse of white cloud. Even my naked eye couldn't perceive any detail in the sky, and the ORFs (Olympus Raw Files) were certainly a bright, bland white when first imported into Lightroom. I was careful not to 'clip' the highlights when shooting, so I knew there was probably some detail there, but didn't hold out much hope of getting anything interesting in the way of clouds.

Grabbing the 'Highlight' slider and moving it all the way to the left to increase highlight definition made a huge difference, and brought back sky detail that I wasn't even aware was there. These smaller sensors are derided for their 'poor' dynamic range - usually by photographers who have invested a lot of money in larger sensors for 'superior' dynamic range. 

And yet the truth is that the E-M1 holds up remarkably well in terms of its ability to capture dynamic range. DXO Mark rate the E-M1's sensor as capturing almost 13 stops of dynamic range (12.7 Evs to be exact). In comparison, the APS-C sized sensor in the Canon 80D can handle just over 13 stops (13.2 Evs) - probably only around half a stop more than the Olympus. The E-M1 sensor actually has better dynamic range capabilities than the APS-C Nikon D300 and Canon 7D. That's hardly a terrible result for the micro four thirds sensor. And yet the notion that their sensors exhibit poor dynamic range still persists! 

I'm not trying to argue that the sensor is 'best in class' - of course not. There are many sensors - both APS-C and full-frame, that beat it for high dynamic range. But if your exposure is there, or there abouts, then you should easily be able to recover two to three stops of information easily. If you've blown the exposure by four to five stops (or more), then you probably need to question photography as a hobby and should maybe consider taking up painting instead? Just saying...

End of the Road. Olympus OM-D E-M1 with Lumix 45-150mm. f/6.3 @ 1/200th, ISO 200

I started with an old car, so I thought I would up the ante and end with a couple of them 😉

The Olympus OM-D E-M1 is an impressive bit of kit, no matter how you look at it. Yes, it might be coming up 8 years old now, but so what? That just means it's a bargain on the used market - especially for a pro-spec'd body (weather-sealing, rugged construction and 150,000 rated shutter).

I'm constantly amazed by the plethora of 'is it still good enough' videos that talk about the 'old' cameras as if they came out with Noah on the Ark! Of course it's 'good enough' - certainly for 99% of what most photographers would want to use it for. If you're a pro sports shooter then this camera probably isn't for you. But if you are a pro sports shooter, then you probably knew that already. If, however, you just want to photograph the kids playing soccer on the weekend, then have at it! The E-M1 will be plenty fast enough.

It's also not a video-centric camera, so serious video shooters should look elsewhere. But don't dismiss the micro four thirds platform for video. Check out the GH Panasonic Lumix line if video is important but you also like to shoot stills with the same camera body.

About a year ago, sensationalist Youtubers' who make their money producing 'click-bait' videos claimed that "micro four thirds was dead." So of course they all went into prophetic rapture when Olympus announced it was selling its camera division to JIP a few months ago. "Olympus is dead. Micro four thirds is no more. See, we were right!" they collectively cried.

Yeah? Well hang on a minute there Bucky. The Olympus camera division may be no more, but JIP (Japan Industrial Partners) fully intend to continue the Olympus micro four thirds line under a new name: OM Digital Solutions. Products that were already in development will be released, and warranties for all new products will be honored. So if you purchased an OM-D E-M3 at the beginning of the year, the warranty for the product is still valid.

Old Church, Totara Flat. Olympus OM-D E-M1 with M.Zuiko 12-50mm EZ. f8 @ 1/400th, ISO 200

Of course no company is bullet proof. Not even Canon or Sony. Kodak proved that twenty years ago. But micro four thirds is far from 'dead'. And neither is the DLSR, which is the new doomsday prophecy. JIP may not be able to sustain and grow OM Digital Solutions in the long-term. Who knows? But that's at least what they are setting out to do. Better that than Olympus simply shutting down their camera division altogether (they retain a 5% share in OM Digital).

Maybe they will limp along like Ricoh has with Pentax - releasing a new camera every few years, but not really setting the world on fire with new products? Maybe keeping the Olympus faithful happy will be all that is required to sustain their business model? But whatever happens, the Olympus camera you have now, and the lenses you have - and can still get for it - will work for a very long time to come if taken care of properly. In all honesty, I could probably quite happily use the E-M1 that I have now until the day I retire from this hobby. And I'm hoping that's at least another twenty to thirty years!

Merry Christmas 2017 - & Happy New 2018!

Christmas has been and gone for another year, and a new year is just around the corner. But it's not here quite yet, so I figure I can sneak in a Christmas post just before 2017 ticks over to 2018!?

Christmas Angel. Olympus OM-D E-M1 with 12-50mm EZ lens. f5.4 @ 1/3rd sec, ISO 200.

Every year, a week out from Christmas, Greymouth holds a Christmas Tree Festival. Local businesses sponsor a tree and decorate it, and then the public give a gold coin donation to come and have a look at all the trees decorated - and to vote on their favourite. It's a local fundraiser and a very popular event. It's also an excuse every year to get the camera out and have a 'play'.

Christmas Light Painting. OM-D E-M1 with 12-50mm EZ lens. f10 @ 1sec, ISO 200.

A very dark room, with very brightly lit trees, is just crying out for some long exposure experimentation. Last year I concentrated on shooting out-of-focus lights (see the post here), whereas this year I decided to go for long(ish) exposures and camera/lens movement. With the Christmas Angel I zoomed the lens out while taking the exposure. For Christmas Light Painting I simply used a 1 second exposure and moved the camera while taking the shot. Both simple, yet effective techniques that I don't do all that often.

Blue Icicle. Olympus OM-D E-M1 with 12-50mm EZ lens in 'macro'. f6 @1/100th, ISO 640

I don't just experiment with long exposures. I also try to shoot some of the lights and decorations as they appear. The macro function on the 12-50mm EZ Zuiko lens is great for this. It allows me to get some very detailed shots - hand-held - with the aid of the amazing IBIS (in built image stabilization) that Olympus is famous for. Even at f6, ISO 640 was giving me a hand-holdable 100th of a second exposure time. Even so, the RAW file was quite dark when I opened it in Light Room. But a quick move to the left of the shadow slider and a fantastic amount of detail appeared in the shadows. And ISO 640 is pretty clean on the E-M1, so no noise reduction was necessary.

Christmas Bell. Olympus OM-D E-M1 with 12-50mm EZ in 'macro'. f6 @ 1/20th sec, ISO 3200 

This ornate Christmas bell also caught my eye, but it was in a very dark corner of the display. I had to go to ISO 3200 to get this image, and even then it was only giving me 1/20th of a second shutter speed! But it's pin sharp (where it should be at the front edge of the bell), thanks again to Olympus's incredible IBIS technology. Image stabilization isn't a cure-all for everything, and is certainly not an excuse for sloppy camera technique. But when you need it, in situations like this bell in low-light, it can be a miracle worker! Hand-holding a camera in low-light, with a 100mm equivalent focal length lens, and shooting pin-sharp images at 1/20th of a second was practically impossible in the film days. IBIS technology not only makes it possible - it almost makes it easy!

Christmas Town. OM-D E-M1 with 12-50mm EZ. f7.1 @ 1/10th sec, ISO 3200

In every town and city up and down the country (and indeed in any country where Christmas is celebrated), decorating your home with Christmas lights is a much loved tradition. And some people go all-out! As well as going to the Christmas Tree Festival, we also drove around to check out some of the more spectacular home displays.

Christmas House. OM-D E-M1 with 12-50mm EZ. f5.9 @ 1/4 sec, ISO 3200 

Here's another great example of Olympus's superior image stabilization in action. At 1/4 of a second, hand-held, everything is still nice and sharp. The E-M1 has 5 axis image stabilisation, while the new E-M1 Mk2 has an even better IBIS system. Apparently people are hand-holding for anywhere up to 10 seconds and still getting sharp images! That's just plain crazy talk!!!

Christmas House ultimate winner. OM-D E-M1 with 12-50mm EZ lens. f5.6 @ 1/15th sec. ISO 3200 

Our final stop for the night was the truly impressive 2017 Christmas House winner. There was a lot of light to shoot by, but even so I was still at ISO 3200. The RAW file needed to be opened up in the shadows to bring out some of the light, and in doing so, there was definitely some noise at ISO 3200. But dialing in some noise reduction in Light Room cleaned everything up very nicely, and I'm very happy with the final images at high ISO's from the E-M1.

Ho Ho Ho! OM-D E-M1 with 12-50mm EZ lens. f5.6 @ 1/15th sec. ISO 3200

Boosting shadows and lowering highlights has given a slight HDR quality to some of the images - especially after adding a little noise reduction and sharpening. I like the effect, since it looks very similar to what my eyes were seeing at the time. Our eyes can take all the detail in, our sensors can't (without a little help later on in software). It's a balancing act to get enough detail in the highlight so that they aren't too burnt out, but still look like points of light - and enough detail in the shadows so you can see what's there, but it still gives a sense of depth and darkness. As much as people worry about dynamic range and noise in the smaller micro four third sensors, I think the E-M1 pretty much nails it!

Santa Clause. OM-D E-M1 with 12-50mm EZ lens. f5.6 @ 1/15th sec. ISO 3200

Would a full frame camera like the Canon 5D Mk3 give a 'cleaner' file at ISO 3200? Of course it would. But so what? It would have also been a lot heavier to lug around for the evening - and I may not even have bothered? Am I unhappy with the files from the E-M1? Absolutely not! In fact, I'm thrilled with them. I've owned a lot of DSLR's in my time, both full frame and cropped sensor (admittedly from a few years ago), and I wouldn't have been comfortable going past ISO 800 with any of them. The E-M1 (and E-M5 MkII I had previously) is the first camera I'd happily shoot at ISO 3200 if I needed to. The results above show why.

I hope that Christmas 2017 was good to you, and I pray that 2018 will be even better! Father Christmas was good to me this year and I managed to get quite a few photographic goodies that I will be testing, using, and blogging about very soon! I also turned 50 at the end of 2017, and my family surprised me with a new monitor for my computer! So I will also be writing about my new office space and using a dual monitor set-up at home. Looks like 2018 is getting off to a good start already! :-)

Second landscape shoot with the OM-D E-M1

It's winter here in NZ at the moment, and what a wild and wet winter it's been. The West Coast of the South Island normally bares the brunt of any storm that passes through, although this winter we've been left relatively unscathed (fingers crossed). The weather man predicted a fine weekend (after a fairly wet week) and I didn't need any further convincing to head out with the E-M1 again.

My favorite area to shoot landscapes is around Hokitika - a half an hour drive from where I live in Greymouth. Not only is it the location of my favorite lake (Mahinapua), but it also has several other 'must visit' attractions (Lake Kaniere, Dorothy Falls, Hokitika Gorge and Sunset Point - to name a few). So that's where I headed this morning - first stop Lake Mahinapua.

Lake Mahinapua Sunrise 2017. Olympus E-M1 with Zuiko 12-50mm f3.5/6.3 EZ. 1/4s @ f8, ISO 200

Sunrise was 7.50am, and I arrived at 7.30 to a frosty, but perfectly clear morning (with not a cloud in the sky, unfortunately). The jetty at the lake is a perfect focal point for leading the eye into an image. I usually shoot it from further back, since it's built in an 'L' shape jutting out into the lake. But this time I decided to concentrate on capturing just the end of the jetty. I composed the photo to highlight the jetty itself and not the sky, since the day was cloudless, and I set the E-M1 on a tripod. The morning was perfectly still, so a shutter speed of 1/4s was enough to give me smooth water with perfect reflections. I used an ND grad to darken the sky a little, and also tried some with a polarizer and ND filter to slow the shutter speed to around 2 seconds. Job done. Next stop, Lake Kaniere.

Hans Bay, Lake Kaniere. Olympus E-M1 with Zuiko 12-50mm f3.5/6.3 EZ. 1/640th @ f7.1 - ISO 200

It's been a few years since I shot at Lake Kaniere, so I was looking forward to getting some new images of the area with the OM-D E-M1. Overall I'm pleased with the calm, clean images I was able to take, although I would still have preferred some clouds in the sky. The final result is nothing spectacular - just a 'nice' image. I will need to go back and capture some more moody, atmospheric light. It could also be a better sunset rather than sunrise location? It has potential, I just haven't visited it at its best.... yet.

Canoe Creek Walk. Olympus OM-D E-M1 with Zuiko 12-50mm f3.5/6.3 EZ. 1/40th @ f5.4 - ISO 800. 30mm

Just before the turn-off to get to Hans Bay at Lake Kaniere, there is a small (15min) walking track that follows Canoe Creek to the lake. The track winds through lush native forest and is well maintained with wooden walkways that cross over the creek in several places. These paths curve through the bush and form fantastic leading lines through any composition. They also remind me a little of the jetty's that jut out into the lakes themselves. I'm a sucker for a jetty in an image. I can't go past a jetty without photographing it! Just look at the images that accompany this post!

Deadwood - Lake Kaniere. Olympus OM-D E-M1 with Zuiko 12-50mm f3.5/6.3 EZ. 1/60th @ f6.3 - ISO 800. 36mm

At the end of the Canoe Creek walk you come out the the shore of the lake and can walk around to a sheltered inlet that has an otherworldly feel to it. Very spooky and Jurassic Park-like. The carcasses of fallen trees litter the bank and cast these amazing reflections into the water. It's dark, it's cold and it's eerie - and you could easily imagine a dinosaur (or an orc) emerging from the forest. I took several images I liked at this location - all hand-held with an ISO of 800 to keep the shutter speed reasonably high. Yes, I could have set the camera up on the tripod - and maybe I should have? But with the ibis (in body image stabilisation) of the E-M1 and no real need for a long shutter speed, you can get away with hand-holding most of the images as long as you're ok with shooting at ISO 800 (and I am). I may go back soon and shoot at the same location with my medium format Bronica on ISO 100 film, in which case I definitely will need a tripod.

Sunny Bight, Lake Kaniere. Olympus OM-D E-M1 with Zuiko 12-50mm f3.5/6.3 EZ. 1/1600th @ f5 - ISO 200. 23mm

My final destination for the morning was a picnic spot at the other end of the lake from Hans Bay - Sunny Bight. More clear blue skies, more still calm water, more beautiful reflections - and more jetty images! :-)

I found a small jetty that I was able to access from the car park, and this time decided to place it dead-centre in the lower third of the frame - for the classic jetty-leading-into-the-frame shot. I think it works compositionally by 'grounding' the viewer in the scene and leading the eye into the symmetrical view of the reflected mountains in the upper third. The jetty itself could maybe do with being a touch lighter - although i also like the way it almost 'emerges' from the bottom of the frame?

All-in-all I had an amazing morning shooting around two incredible lakes. I started out on a tripod in the very early morning light at Lake Mahinapua, and ended up hand-holding for the rest of the morning at Lake Kaniere since I was shooting with decent shutter speeds, filter-free. The compact, yet solid form factor of the OM-D E-M1, with its incredible ibis, encourages photography that is unencumbered by a tripod, although you obviously have to be careful when light levels drop or you're purposely wanting long exposures.

Some may look at micro-four-thirds as something of a 'lesser' format compared to full frame, or even APS-C? Yet for landscapes, I think they actually have more benefits that negatives. They are smaller and lighter, which if you are tramping distances is definitely a positive. They have increased depth of field at all apertures - great for landscape photography. And image quality from the 16 to 20MP image sensors is perfect for an A3+ sized print. What more do you want? Seriously....?    

Charming Creek Walkway, Ngakawau Gorge

Over the Christmas/New Year break we had planned as a family to do a few local walks (weather permitting). So we jumped at the chance to join some friends who were going on the Charming Creek Walk, half an hour north of Westport, in the Ngakawau Gorge (pronounced 'Nock-a-war').

Fortunately we chose the right day to go as the day dawned beautiful and clear (we've had a lot of rain this summer). It was, in fact, too clear, with harsh light that followed us around all day.

Charming Creek Daisy: Celmisia Morganii. OM-D E-M5 MkII

The track is an easy walk, with only a very gradual incline following old rail lines to a stunning waterfall about an hour in. Along the way, and depending on the time of year that you visit (December/January is ideal) you will come across the Charming Creek Daisy (celmisia morganii) growing along the side of the track. This highly localised species of daisy is found only in the Ngakawau Gorge - and grows abundantly along the Charming Creek walkway.

The Olympus Zuiko 12-50mm EZ f3.5/6.3 has a 'macro' setting on the lens that I find myself using quite a lot. It's obviously not 'true' 1:1 macro, but it allows for decent close-focusing at the 50mm end of the range, where the f6.3 aperture allows for a decent depth of field. The lenses 'bokeh' (out of focus background) is quite smooth and natural, making for some very pleasant 'macro' flower shots. My son Josh doesn't have this functionality with his 14-42mm kits lens and he really missed this on the walk. He seems naturally drawn to macro-type photo opportunities, so a dedicated macro lens (the 60mm f2.8 or 30mm f3.5) is the top of his lens wish list.

Tunnel exit. Charming Creek, Ngakawau Gorge

The Charming Creek Railway was a privately owned line built in 1912 by brothers George and Bob Watson, sawmillers from Granity. The original line was wooden and was worked by horses. It ran as far as Watson's Mill in the Charming Creek Valley. In the 1920s the line was upgraded to steel and rail tractors were introduced. Bob Watson established the Charming Creek Westport Coal Company in 1926, and from 1929 up to six coal trains used the line daily. By 1942, at the height of its operation, the Coal Company employed 69 men and produced 43,385 tonnes of coal. The line closed in 1958, after which wood and coal was trucked by road to Seddonville.

This sense of early New Zealand pioneering history is evident all along the Charming Creek walk. Old rusting train parts and the ever-present steel tracks that cut through the forest and tunnels, remind you of the walks historical significance every step of the way. Yet, as impressive as the history is, the crowning jewel of the Ngakawau Gorge has to be the impressive Mangatini Falls.

Mangatini Falls, Charming Creek Walkway, Ngakawau Gorge. Olympus OM-D E-M5 MkII with 9mm fisheye bodycap lens

On the other side of a suspension bridge, about an hour's walk in, Mangatini Falls can be heard long before it is seen. The rumble and roar of hundreds of tonnes of water makes for an impressive sound as you approach the falls - and the view does not disappoint. There are tracks that lead down for a more up-close-and-personal view of the falls, or you can take in the full vista from a lookout along the track.

Above is the view from the track, taken with the 9mm fisheye bodycap lens. Again, the conditions were quite harsh, with very bright highlights and deep shadows. I exposed for the highlights as much as possible, letting the shadows go black. Later, using ACDSee's Ultimate 9 software, I pulled out as much detail from the shadows as I could while still making it look natural.

I could have maximized the dynamic range by using the HDR function on the OM-D E-M5 MkII, or set up on a tripod and taken five exposures that covered a complete range of exposures. But to be honest, I didn't even think of using the in-built HDR function, and didn't have a tripod for bracketing exposures. Shooting in RAW, and knowing I could pull detail out of the shadows later on as long as the highlights were ok, was my best option. And it worked fine - although at ISO 800 the shadows are a little noisy.  

Fern frond. OM-D E-M5 MkII with Olympus 40-150mm f4/5.6.  F6.3 @ 1/60th sec, ISO 400

Because a lot of the day was spent shooting macro in the shade - hand-held - my ISO hovered around 800. I will take the E-M5 MkII up to 1600 without too much concern for noise, although it is definitely there at the higher ISO's. The great feature of the OM-D's is their incredible IBIS (In Body Image Stabilisation) that can give you two or even three stops to play with, so you can wait longer before having to increase the ISO.

The fern frond above was taken at 1/60th of a second with the 40-150mm lens zoomed all the way out to 150mm. This makes it the equivalent of a 300mm focal length on a full-frame system. Conventional wisdom would claim that the shutter speed should be at least equal to the focal length if you want a sharp image - which would have meant shooting at 1/500th sec on a film camera.  Shooting at 1/60th instead has given me three extra stops (1/125th, 1/250th, 1/500th) to play with, allowing me to lower the ISO to 400. The resulting shot therefore has less noise, and is plenty sharp enough.

A family of Photographers. Charming Creek Walkway

Despite the overall harsh lighting conditions, we had a fantastic time, and took some great photos along the Charming Creek Walkway. It's one of the most spectacular (and easy) walks on the West Coast, and well worth doing if you are ever lucky enough to be in this part of New Zealand.

I'm certainly going to do the walk again soon - hopefully on a slightly more overcast day. I've got an 8-stop ND filter which I think would be perfect to play with in places along the track, and at the waterfall itself. Nicky, a friend and fellow photographer who came with us on the walk, used her 10-stop ND for some water images and got some beautiful results. Can't wait to give it a go myself.   

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.