Autumn morning, Llyn y Fan Fawr, Brecon Beacons National Park, Wales, 21st September, 2019.
Olympus OMD EM1 Mk2, 12-40mm f2.8 lens @12mm, 1/20s @ f5.6, ISO 200, with 2 stop ND Grad. Four shots on panoramic head stitched in Lightroom.
Saturday, 28th September, 2019
There is definitely a PhD thesis waiting to be written on the attachment that photographers demonstrate to their particular brand of camera gear and the scorn and vitriol that they can exhibit for brands that are not their own. Olympus and the Micro43 system seem to come in for more than their fair share of this type of criticism. I should know, I have been on the receiving end of some of it over the years. One of the most memorable, from a man I had overtaken earlier as he sweated and toiled up one of my local hills in the Brecon Beacons with his full frame system on his back, was “How can you call yourself a serious photographer when you don’t shoot with a real camera system?”
A few years ago, despite all of the clear benefits for me of the Olympus M43 system, that had reached genuine maturity with the EM1, and the quality of the images that I was producing from it, I could never quite shake off the nagging doubt that my acquaintance that morning on Pen y Fan might have been right and that to be a serious landscape photographer I needed to shoot full frame. As a result of this insecurity I spent a couple of years shooting with a Nikon D810 and some top end Nikon glass alongside my Olympus cameras. It was, as you would imagine, a superb camera and the results that I got from it were very good, but five things struck me:
1) When printed large, up to A2 or even beyond, the results from the D810 and EM1 were virtually indistinguishable.
2) It is obvious, but worth repeating nonetheless, that if you are shooting primarily to publish on the web, full frame confers absolutely no advantage whatsoever. I could shoot with my original 5MP Olympus E1 and still have pixels to spare if my only interest was publishing my images online.
3) The cost of Nikon compatible glass to obtain image quality approaching that from Olympus Zukio Pro lenses was at least double and increased almost exponentially as the focal length increased – compare the cost (and weight!) of the Olympus 300mm f4 with the equivalent magnification Nikon 600mm f4.
4) Despite initial reservations when first introduced, I missed the Electronic View Finder and all of the information that could be shown in it, particularly the Live View histogram.
5) The system was heavy - very heavy! A full frame camera system was not something that I could easily move around the mountains with, particularly if camping out overnight or in winter and on skis.
Was mirrorless full frame the answer then? The Nikon gear went on eBay and was replaced with a Sony A7iii. Sony make very good cameras, but the lenses are still big and heavy and even more expensive than Nikon lenses, and I never had the same confidence in Sony’s weather sealing as I do with that of Olympus which is without equal.
Trying to run two systems in parallel, never quite sure which to take out with me and so never mastering either, left me increasingly dissatisfied with photography. In hindsight, this was all symptomatic of a deeper dissatisfaction with photography and the manner in which we are bombarded with over-saturated, over-sharpened images during our every waking moment (definitely the subject for a future blog entry!) but also with feeling pressurised to be constantly producing images and maintaining a presence on social media, but why? Who was I trying to please? Increasing problems with my back following a bicycle accident that began to limit my mobility in the mountains forced me to leave my heavy full frame gear at home and to carry my lighter M43 cameras and lenses, but also to reassess why I was taking photographs.
In a world which is exhibiting a disturbing degree of social and political ugliness and intolerance and with so much of modern art obsessed with the cynical and destructive need to shock and offend, I realise that one of the principal reasons I take photographs is to remind myself of the extraordinary beauty of the fragile world that we are privileged to call home. I have also rediscovered the joy of making prints which has always been my preferred method of displaying the photographs that I take. For me, there is something immensely rewarding and pleasurable about the time and skill that it takes to produce a print that you can physically hold in your hands and frame on the wall which completely eclipses exporting and uploading images to the internet.
With the 20 MP available from the current generation of Olympus cameras, never mind the 80MP available in Hi-Res mode, I can produce sharp, detailed A2 prints with ease. The panoramas that I frequently shoot can be printed much larger. If I can produce large, high quality prints from a system that is kilograms lighter than full frame; has an exceptional range of stellar lenses available to suit my every need that cost significantly less than their full frame equivalents; has incredible image stabilisation that permits hand held shooting at ridiculously slow shutter speeds and with weather proofing that is without equal, why would I want to shoot with anything else? The theoretical disadvantages of the smaller M43 sensor, the subject of so much heated debate in photography forums, are simply not an issue for me in the real world and when making high quality prints.
Over the last year, having sold the A7iii and taking pictures once more for myself and my own pleasure to make prints, using my Olympus M43 equipment, I have rediscovered my love of photography and I think that this is showing once again in the pictures that I am taking. Ultimately each person has to find the system that suits them and the demands of their style of photography. I know which system suits me.
