Flat on my back, speculating..

The ePM2 has impressed me quite a bit, and though my budget is in contraction mode my mind is free to wander. It is under the influence of both a nasty illness and big medicine, so its wanderings may be a bit more free than usual!

So anyway: if I wanted more than the PM2 provides, where would I go? The em5 adds tip screen and weather seals, two very nice features.. but uses a different battery.  (The P5 also uses the em5 battery, and I really don't want to play that game!) The em10 has more features and the same PM2 battery but no seals! Apparently the pl5/6 also has the same imaging feature-set (sensor + processor) so that could be a small but worthy step up. And the mark-II em bodies upgrades many features too - likely to ensure the entry model em10 wouldn't the best-featured body of the bunch!

So there.  Time for another nap!  And now I can read my own 'blog to remind myself that it's the em10 not em5 that uses my current batteries!

kit evolution / devolution

My wife went into the hospital for two nights with double pneumonia, and soon after arriving home one of my teeth broke into pieces.  Needless to say the budget for other items just contracted big time!

So much for the conversion to Lumix lenses when I am already covered by M.Zuiko.

In fact my shots with the 35-100 were not showing its best side.  That could well be a conflict of IS protocols or a firmware issue (what an odd thing to say about optics..) - but shots with the 40-150 Oly were just a pinch better in the same range. Since my caregiving and dental task-list is pretty full right now I'm going to send the lens back and hope the next person can make good use of it.  I really like the size when retracted - well it's nice when extended too! - and I still prefer the zoom direction of the Lumix lenses.  I shall manage with the reverse rotation while scraping up my loose change for the medical folks, and in a few months I can (hopefully?) consider my options from a better position.

Hmmm I thought that last month too, didn't I?  I do wish life could be a bit less hectic, just for a decade or so..

more gear shifting

The former owner of the ePM2 also had a few other lenses to sell, so I relieved him of those this week.  The home equity loan went through, so while things aren't fantastic financially at least they are more clear!  With that last bit of gear I'm ready to stop for a while, since the missing piece in my mind (Samyang's 12mm f/2) is not on supersale now anywhere and it's too new for owners to let go of their copies.

Left to lower right: Sigma 30 and Oly 40-150r, Oly 17/2.8, BCL9 body-cap fisheye, and 14-42rII on the ePM2.
This 18-300mme kit can fit in a lunchbox, and I can choose primes or the 14-42 for the wide range!

While I find the Samyang 7.5mm fisheye appealing (as I did with the G7) the bargain BCL9 is a 9mm f/8 fisheye that will stand in just fine for most applications. I had figured on 7.5/14/20/30 as the primal set but I've had a soft spot for the 17/2.8 for several years, so its return makes the 12mm a better fit.

On the Pentax side the kit has slipped away.  I still have the 10-17 fisheye which hopefully will find a new home soon.  The micro4:3 replacement set has taken most of the Pentax funds so taxes and medical bills still await - but some improvement has taken place with the gear swaps. I still have the 28, 50 and 135mm primes also; the 28 isn't needed for the Oly kit but fast 50 and small 135 could see some time there.  The 300mm mirror lens might be quite fun as well!

ePM tuneup

Having tried a few more things with the camera it's now rounding into shape nicely. It's definitely making me work though - reading the manual or online references are pretty much mandatory with this one!

The touch-screen AF was elusive for curious reasons. I could turn on the AF+shoot screen (handy at times) or turn off touch-AF but the middle ground was missing. Just like the control panel, I did everything right but not quite enough; once aware of the third option it popped up easily. And my first attempts were select AF then half-press shutter - now I know that one must touch the screen longer for AF to kick in on the selected point!

With touch-AF available I've now moved the Fn button to AF-lock and removed focus tasks from the shutter button. That's how my Pentax cameras have been set for some time and it's nice to have that ability in a tiny camera.

On the Pentax side, things have gone quiet. The deal was good as done on selling the K·50 but the buyer decided to seek a K-3 instead.  I have feelers out to Adorama for a possible swap but have not heard back yet. They have a used 14-150 lens with weather seals and E+ rating, perhaps I will get my wide-angle and tele in one lens and let the 40-150 go? That would be a surprise. Most days I could use 14, 30 and 60 primes (dreaming now, so might as well add the 20) and the big lens would be available for all-purpose work.
Hmm?

another fine surprise

Testing the ePM2 in very low light.

No images with flash or low ISO on a tripod, sorry - I'm not that deeply into tests, just the sort of 'why not try this?' variety. That's what I do, if you want more you're encouraged to look elsewhere.

Shot at top is iso 4000, which is my Auto-ISO range maximum.  Looks good!
The bottom is ISO 20,000.  Color is very decent, NR is quite visible - but not all that destructive except on details like fine text.  And I could do better in raw - these are jpegs! These are deep but not 100% crops, and the 'why not' result impresses me a lot. I knew the sensor was good but really now.. like this good?
I also did not feel any big-time focus lag for these; http://www.endoflow.com/exposure/ calculates this scene at EV3.

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!

 

shocking news.. well OK not much

The Pentax kit has sold.

Taxes, medical bills.. the usual. Got a decent price but I'll miss it.

Small cams rule!

(taken by my little phone)

NX300, ePM-2

hm. er.. wow?

The proverbial blind spot strikes again.
Funny how I had ignored Olympus for so long, as it's the micro4:3 product with in-cam stabilization like Pentax. They beat Pentax to the 5-axis and multi-shot resolution SR tricks, though only because their cameras came to market a half-generation sooner (and the multi-shot enhancement methods are quite different). I really liked the E500 camera in 2008 but took the Sony A200 instead, preferring internal stabilization; my E510 tests showed a sensor was so limiting in its dynamic range that I stopped watching Olympus, even when 4:3 became Micro.

Therefore my previous forays into micro 4:3 have been all Panasonic:

• First G1 and GH1, during the Samsung-partnership era at Pentax; the K-7 was a great body but used an indifferent sensor for the images I was trying to create
• then the GF2 dropped in, albeit briefly
• and most recently the G7 with its too-many-amazing features and customization options for this old dog.

With Panasonic bodies it was lens-stabilizing or nothing.  And now I have the NX300, and the same result: currently I'm using the untabilized 20-50 kit zoom so no SR.

Dynamic range has been an issue in the past with the m4:3 sensors (as noted in my e510 comment above) but Sony has recently stepped into this sensor segment, and Panasonic sensors have improved to keep up. When Olympus was reeling from a large financial scandal, Sony stepped up with some investment capital..and quietly handed Olympus a 4:3 sensor. While they had not made this type before many of us know that Sony's 16Mpic history is a good one! That sensor appeared in the EM5, PL5.. and the supposedly-entry-level PM2.  Reviews show its interface is unusual (to keep size to a minimum) but images impress.

http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/reviews

So I have picked up a used ePM2 (yes, a red one!) and will give it a test drive. The size advantage to m4:3 sensor size is for telephoto lenses. The NX and Pentax 50-200mm lenses are almost the same size (both for APSc, one mirrorless w/OIS and one dSLR with SR inside the body) while the Oly 40-150 is quite a bit smaller and lighter! All three lenses are 300mme so the size is quite relevant.

Among the new features to test now I have Live Bulb, which looks like a great way to integrate light for astronomy images .. especially if I had a telescope adapter.  Well I have one now, and look at that: it was assembled using a C-mount thread, and i just happen to own a C lens already from my time with the Q!  Bizarre how things connect some times..if you swap enough gear, that is.

 No doubt other cool features await my inspection/ discovery, and it will compete with the nx300 for my small-body affections.  For now it will use the still-unsold 30mm Sigma and the 40-150mm Oly telephoto.  If a 14-42 deal comes along I'll add that - then stop.  Honest!

If the Pen wins out it causes a new wrinkle in that I bought my wife an nx300 also. I'd have to steal her camera away and swap it.. Risky! She'd lose the tilt screen but gain an optional viewfinder. I'm getting ahead of myself though: tests first!