First Impressions of the Olympus OM-D.

It’s true. It has happened. Let the bells ring out and the doves fly.

I bought a new camera!

Huzza, hurrah, hooray, I finally made the decision to buy an Olympus OM-D from the guys at Aden Camera who were incredibly helpful and had the best deal in town.

You have put up with long months of carping and moaning about the state of my Canon cameras (possibly years).  You have sat by while I road testing the Olympus E-PL3 (photos)- a micro 4/3s provided by Olympus for my Spain trip; and the Samsung NX20 (photos) – a 4/3s from Samsung for my Mexico and #LexGoFurther trips (which did not go further than that trip, but more on that soon).   You listened as I pulled out my phone instead of my camera to shoot because it’s only camera I have that focuses properly.  Some of you have even complained when picking up my camera to snap a couple of shots.

I can hear a couple of you out there saying “it’s about time”, with or without an extra 4-letter word thrown in there for good measure. That’s certainly been the sentiment around here.

I picked the OM-D up yesterday afternoon and I immediately took it out for dim sum, which wore it out. So we headed back home and nestled the battery comfortably into it’s charger for the night.  I’ve spent most of the time since reading the manual and/or sleeping. 

What I’ve learned so far:

• camera companies are cheaping out on manuals.  The one in the box is all basics, so I had to get to a computer with a CD/DVD drive before I could read the good stuff.  Come on people! It’s unlikely a beginner is going to be buying this camera as their first one, so at least tell us about some of the funky features and what the unusual buttons are for.
• using the Macro button on the side of the M.Zuiko 12-50mm lens is NOT intuitive! You have to push the Macro button, then PUSH the zoom ring away from the camera.  (Yes, I had to google that AND look it up.)  It’s weird the first time, and second, and third.  But it does work.
• the M.Zuiko 12-50mm lens has 2 zooms – manual and multi-speed powered zooming, which is very cool and the default the camera comes set it.  You just tweet the ring left or ring and it power-zooms for you.  It works like the zoom levers on point and shoots, but you can turn it off and use it like a standard SLR zoom lens too.  (You change this back and forth by pushing/pulling the zoom lens away and towards the camera without pushing the macro button)
• Olympus has it’s own proprietary RAW format, which produces an ORL file. My version of Lightroom doesn’t work with ORL files. Though luckily Picasa does (though I’m a little nervous about how it handles RAW these days).
• touch screen for a camera sounds silly, but I love being able to touch the thing I want in focus and have that come into focus without having to adjust the composition or push a series of buttons. Just one touch on the screen. Nice! (doesn’t work with the viewfinder of course… and there’s something called the “Super Control Panel” which I’m digging into.)

My first shot (untouched of course – the JPG, not the Gerry):

My first food shot (RAW image uploaded untouched:

Messing about with the Picture Modes built in to see what silliness is available:

For those of you looking for more, I’ll be back after I’ve dug into the camera a bit more.  Today is a new camera play day!

I know a couple of you have the Olympus OM-D, do you have any tips for me or other new users?