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Olympus OM-D E-M10? (1 Viewer)

John Fleet

John Fleet

Finally reached 300!
England
I'm committed to M43 for reasons of size and weight. I presently have a Panny GX7 which is a fine camera but still too large for me to carry around all day together with bins and scope. I'm intrigued by the smaller size of the Olympus OM-D E-M10 and presently Olympus are offering £100 off the list price.

Appreciate folks' thoughts on this as possible companion with the 75-300 zoom or the Panasonic 100 - 400 - although the latter is rather dear and large....
 
I had the EM10MK11 with the 100-400, its a great little camera, although it's not best suited to things like BIF for everything else its plenty usable

Some samples
 

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The EM5mIII is supposed to be announced imminently, so you may be able to get a good deal on a new-old stock or used markII, which would get you weathersealing.
 
Consider this: how much of the total time is spent pointing the camera at birds? If the only usage is birds, How big a part of the total package is the camera body?

I use the PL100-400 with a pana G85 and it’s not the camera body that is the larger part of this package.

Niels

Niels
 
Niels, I'm not sure what point that you are making? - but to answer your question, I'm seeing this as a general purpose travel camera - small and light enough to replace my Canon SX720 and / or Panasonic GX800 without being overly large, but giving the all important viewfinder and retaining the image quality of the M43 system. And then, whilst birding allowing me to take better quality images than the SX720 and its ilk, without getting involved in the cost/weight and bulk of DSLR systems. So, I guess that I'm looking at the EM10 as potentially a bit of a jack of all trades, and it's currently available with £100 off from Olympus which makes it available with the pancake lens for about £440...
 
My point was one you seem to have shot down. IF you mainly intended to use the camera as birding camera, then I could not understand your focus on size. With you wanting to use it for other things as well, then your question makes more sense.

Niels
 
OK thanks - any thoughts on the most suitable lens from the Olympus/Panasonic stable? - any crop sensor lenses which you might suggest (via appropriate adapter). I guess that a teleconverter isn't going to be a good option with any of the zoom options? I value your considerable experience with the M43 system so your advice is particularly welcome.
(incidentally for the above cited reasons I did spend some time researching the Nikon 1 route but the 300 zoom seems impossible to source either new or secondhand...)
 
John Fleet said:
OK thanks - any thoughts on the most suitable lens from the Olympus/Panasonic stable? - any crop sensor lenses which you might suggest (via appropriate adapter). I guess that a teleconverter isn't going to be a good option with any of the zoom options? I value your considerable experience with the M43 system so your advice is particularly welcome.
(incidentally for the above cited reasons I did spend some time researching the Nikon 1 route but the 300 zoom seems impossible to source either new or secondhand...)
Click to expand...

Not suggesting you should but the new nikon 70-300 is supposed to be a good match with the V2 via an FT-1 adapter.

I have the V2 and if Nikon still supported it with new model's i would go down that road but as it is i will stick with m4/3.
 
Regarding birding lens: I had the 100-300 first edition from Pana and feel for me that the upgrade to the PL100-400 was worth it. I have never tried the 75-300 Oly lens, so have no comments in that regard, but it is supposed to be similar to the pana 100-300 is a lot of ways but lighter? I like having a zoom available and therefore have not even contemplated the Oly 300 lens.

Regarding shorter lenses, the pana 12-32 has a good reputation and is the lowest weight/size kit lens you probably can get. The pana 12-60 is not heavy at all either, but for my wife's camera we purchased the Oly 12-40 pro for being sharper and f2.8. I believe that to be an excellent lens but considerably more heavy than the kit lenses. My wife also has the pana 40-150, but we have not used it much so do not want to comment.

If you want the range and can sacrifice otherwise, then the pana 14-140 was a really good lens as a one stop travel lens - but it is not extremely light. Obviously, it cannot compete for sharpness with the pro lens, but not bad for what it is.

I am sure there are other people who have experience/preference for other lenses.

Niels
 
John Fleet said:
(incidentally for the above cited reasons I did spend some time researching the Nikon 1 route but the 300 zoom seems impossible to source either new or secondhand...)
Click to expand...

Only ~16,000 copies of the cx70-300 lens were produced. Yes, it is rare.
One was offered on Monday in a German photo forum, for 385 Euro. Sold after a few hours. ;)
 
The MK11 version of the panny 100-300 is sharper than the Olympus,i had the olympus for a while but was not impressed @ 300mm they say its better around 250mm, these were 300mm.
 

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On my MkI pana 100-300 there was a definite advantage to going back a little (275 roughly) compared to the full 300. Especially on slightly more distant objects.

In my BF gallery, I have photos with both lenses. Back to those uploaded in May 2017, it is the PanaLeica 100-400; before it was the 100-300.

Niels
 
Although I mainly use either my 300/f4 or my old 4/3rds 300/f2.8 I do have the 75-300 and it's a decent lens at its price point.
 
I have the EM5m2 and have used it with the Panny 100-400 and oly 300/4. I agree with #2, it is not for BIF. Just too slow operation and a long blackout when shooting makes tracking hard. I liked the 100-400 better than the 300/4. I think the EM10m3 would likewise not be a good BIF camera. I also used them with the EM1m2, which is all around a much better BIF camera.

For perched bird, the EM5m2 is perfectly good. I use the EM5m2 for macro and adapted onto a Nikon 800mm f/5.6 manual focus lens (1600mm equivalent), and with the IBIS I can get some pretty nice shots. The focus peaking and EVF zoom work great.

Maybe the EM5m3 will be usable for BIF, not sure. I have not used any of the panasonic lineup.

marc
 
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