Full Circle – My Olympus Gear

Making the right choices.
I sometimes miss the optical viewfinder from my Pentax K-3,
and the Pentax felt great in the hand, but was also a bit heavy.
Fujifilm ? after seeing the successors of the X-H1, it was clear that Fujifilm was going another way, and not maintaining and improve a proven concept. By concept I refer to the classic style with dedicated dials which has been replaced by a PASM dial on the X-H2. I also find their lens offerings too limited and expensive, Yes there is also Tamron and Viltrox but still.
Anyway, with the X-T2, X-T3 and X-H1 they made good cameras, however, I saw a lot Fuji photographers on second hand sites selling their stuff, and switching to Canon or Sony. Has Fuji made the right choices ? that remains to be seen.
Olympus on the other hand remains faithful to its concept, compact and light camera and lens system, built-in stabilization, top notch weather sealing, etc. And a huge range of affordable lenses due to the compatibility with Panasonic.
In summary it is a system that is very suitable for travel, nature and wildlife photography, and it continues to improve that concept with the OM-1 and OM-5.
So, for me, Olympus is keeper !

It has been a quest.
Many cameras and lenses I bought and tested,
but finally it came full circle. Yes, it took a while, because I really loved my Fujifilm X-H1, but slowly I was won over to Olympus.
And yes, I did tons of research on that, however, it was a second-hand E-M1 MK II that helped making the right and final decision. When the MK II turned out to be even better than the Fujifilm X-T3 in a comparison test on Camera Decision, plus the benefits the camera had best suited my purpose, I was won over by the M4/3 system.
There have been coincidences that have introduced me to lenses that I might not otherwise have purchased, the Olympus 40-150mm f2.8 Pro is such a lens that I didn’t find interesting at first, too expensive, too limited. Nothing could be further from the truth, the 40-150mm with the MC14 and MC20 is now probably the most important part of my lens kit.

Lessons learned.
I must admit I also was a bit doubtful of the smaller sensor at first, however, it is society that has forced that idea upon us – bigger is better, more expensive is better, more pixels is better – sensible people know that this is nonsense.
I’m not going to argue about the fact that a full frame sensor is better for some purposes, but otherwise there is no point for discussion.
Photo wise APSC or M4/3 doesn’t make much difference,
it’s been proven that a human eye can’t tell the difference between full frame, medium format, APSC or M4/3, as also seen in a test on FStoppers – that microscopic difference is only there for pixel peepers, and I’m a photographer 🙂
There are differences, but what you should do is try to find out what suits you best. More important, every disadvantage has it’s advantage and vice versa. And it really is in this case.

My main kit :

• De E-M1 Mark III en E-M1 Mark II
• Panasonic 7-14mm F4
• Olympus 12-40mm f2.8 Pro
• Panasonic 30mm f2.8 and Olympus 60mm f2.8 macro lenses
• Olympus 40-150mm f2.8 Pro met MC14 en MC20,
• Leica 100-400mm f4.5-5.6

My compakt and lightweight travel/hiking/biking kit :

• E-M5 Mark III (new)
• Olympus 12-200mm f3.5-6.3 (new)

Accessories:

• Zhiyun Weebill S Gimball + external screen and extra carbon handle
• Godox lighting system – Godox ML-150II Speedlite and TT560II Thinklite with wireless system

I still have a few other lens additions and casual cameras that I like using :

• TG-3, Tracker, E-M10 Original, E-M1 Original, E-M10 Mark III, E-PL7, Nikon P7000,
• Laowa 10mm, 9mm lenscap lens
• complete kit of 35mm OM Zuiko prime lenses from 21mm to 300mm
• A few 35mm Analog cameras like the Olympus OM2000, Zorki 4K, …