When Cathy goes out to play cards with the girls, her new camera is fair game!
I was out roaming around in the village square taking some night shots with my wife's new Olympus OM-D EM-10 Mark III. I wanted to do some informal testing of the camera's in-body image-stabilization which is supposed to allow you to shoot in low light without camera shake.
I was using the very low-cost 40-150mm Olympus zoom lens we bought. It's a somewhat slow lens (f/4 - f/5.6) and for this first shot I was zoomed all the way out to the long end (300mm equivalent) and using ISO 1600. I also used manual focus with peaking. The pub window is about 20 yards away and the shutter speed was a very slow 1/13th of a second. I tried to focus on the bartender. This is a challenging shot under the circumstances, and I was not expecting much really...
1/13s f/5.6 ISO1600 150mm (35mm eq:300mm)
It's not a great shot - it isn't sharp, but one thirteenth of a second is a long time for a hand-held photo at 300mm (equivalent) and I actually can read more words on the sign behind the bar:
NO THIEVES, FAKIRS, ROGUES or TINKERS ~
NO SKULKING LOAFERS or FLEA-BITTEN TRAMPS
Right then, that counts me out, I'll keep on moving...
This next shot is a bit more reasonable - at least I didn't have to shoot through a glass window. One fifteenth of a second, hand-held, and it seems sharp to me.
1/15s f/4.0 ISO800 40mm (35mm eq:80mm)
Quite a bit later, this was a quarter second shot. This is a straight-out-of-camera jpeg by the way. I think the colour rendition in the Olympus jpegs is quite nice.
1/25s f/4.6 ISO1600 66mm (35mm eq:132mm)
Here we have panning for motion blur at 1/30th second, using manual focus with peaking. If you're not sure what that means, the EVF (electronic viewfinder) shows a red fringe around everything that is in focus. As you turn the focus ring you can see the red-fringed area move away from you or towards you. For this next shot I made sure the centre line in the road, and the wall on the far side were surrounded by red fringing. This meant that anything coming down that lane would be in focus... All I had to do next was pan at the right speed to match the car.
1/30s f/4.0 ISO1600 40mm (35mm eq:80mm)
1/30s f/5.6 ISO1600 40mm (35mm eq:80mm)
I used manual focus for pretty much all the shots last night. It's a lot of fun and I think it will be great for street photography. It means you can pre-focus and not have to bring the camera up to your eye in order to take a shot. This, plus the small size of the camera made me feel quite invisible. Nobody seemed to notice me at all, unlike what happens when I shoot with my full-frame Nikon DSLR.
The ability to shoot long exposure shots hand-held does not solve all your problems. If people are moving around you may see a lot of blur. Sometimes that can be fun as people move at different speeds. Notice this guy stepping out of the bar for a smoke is in a hurry, and he is blurred compared to the other people.
1/60s f/4.0 ISO1600 40mm (35mm eq:80mm)
Conclusion:
No scientific study here - just my impressions of night shooting with this cool little camera. I just love the focus peaking in the EVF and how stable the camera feels in my hand. Tonight I ordered an adapter that will let us put my fast Nikon primes lenses on the camera!