This last weekend I put together a party for Michelle’s birthday. I invited all of her friends, hired Mama’s Meatballs to cater, asked Christine from Christine’s Cake Creations to make her incredible carrot cake and made sure to have plenty of vino on hand. Around 5pm I gave a toast and brought in Michelle’s birthday present. Two days later and she still has the biggest smile. The family birthday video below was shot using the little Olympus OMD EM-5 I will be talking about below. The next day Michelle, PJ and I rode our bikes over to the botanical gardens at Cal Poly where we hiked around until closing time.
Last week I picked up the new Olympus OMD EM-5 and the Summilux Leica 25 1.4 lens. The 25 1.4 lens on this camera gives it a full frame equivalent focal length of 50mm, making it a very comfortable camera/lens combo for everyday shooting. When I’m testing out different cameras I always look at a few specific things that are important to me: auto focus speed and accuracy, high ISO performance and a fast prime lens selection.
The lens I chose is a 25mm 1.4 (50mm full frame equivalent) prime lens. Shooting primes at 1.4 can be difficult for some cameras as the focal plane is incredibly shallow. The OMD and 1.4 prime lens was superb at locking on a point quickly and firing off a shot. I rarely missed a shot because of focus issues.
I’m very used to my professional gear which can shoot under candlelight and gives great images in almost any situation. With this said, the high ISO performance of the OMD and 1.4 lens combo is OK. The noise is most notable in the darker areas and looks blocky and not pretty. The camera is very usable up to ISO 3200 before the images really start to deteriorate.
One thing that has drawn me to this Olympus camera is the JPG images. Straight out of the camera the OMD EM-5 produces gorgeous, colorful images that really pop. For a personal camera this is great! I rarely spend time editing or re-touching my personal pictures as I would my professional work.
I’m very impressed with the Olympus OMD EM-5 when matched with the fast Summilux Leica 25mm 1.4 lens.
Sample images and Michelle’s birthday video (shot with the OMD EM-5) below.
