deciphering the New Red camera

New Red is a complex little camera. It's not that much different from any advanced camera, but its size dictated the absence of a mode dial - so many more items in menus, and Olympus has a reputation for menu obscurities that is well deserved. Even after reading and watching a video, I had to watch again just to enable the Super Control Panel, a screen that allows me to mimic my Pentax info screen (but with touch control!). Even then I didn't know to press OK to bring it up - so it's quite possible that I had already enabled it correctly..

Nevertheless, the camera has worked very well even in my ignorance!

With Sigma 30 and Oly 40-150 (60 and 80-300mme) I don't have any wide-angle options right now; however the NX300 only has a 24-76mme lens so they are very complementary! I also have mic4:3 extension tubes so ePM2 closeups are straightforward - though a tip screen like the NX300 would be nice (that's an ePL5 feature).

My hike to the mailbox is just under 1/2 mile, so I find plenty of chances to capture images.  The trillium are opening, the skunk-cabbage ripe, and plenty of new shoots to shoot :^) With the Σ·30mm attached the ePM2 does very nice work in a very small package!

Each set of test shots shows me something new to work on, and more menu effort follows to correct it.  My focusing efforts were not paying off (especially on complex things like the yellow-flower shot, where I pressed AF several times) but now it's set to center-square only so I'm using focus/recompose mode. It also has magnifying MF override, I need to practice that more! The ePM2 is able to set the Fn button as focus - but my attempts have not paid off yet. At one point I enabled HDR shooting because I thought it was asking what setting I'd choose if I wanted HDR but the camera felt I wanted it ASAP; once discovered & disabled I've been quite happy with the s·CPanel access. I have not found a touch-AF mode that does not immediately take a picture, so more reading to come soon!