I just joined the Micro Four Thirds club!

[Darthfeeble]

Here are a couple from the Pano Lumix L100. Pocketable, 24-70 equivalent lens, all around camera. If it has a flaw, it's the small size.

 

[giganova]

I just joined the Micro Four Thirds club!

Booooo ... traiter!

 

[Larry H-L]

I walked into a camera store that specializes in used photo gear yesterday, looking for an 85mm lens for Sony, and somehow walked out of the store with a mint used Oly Pen F instead. Not sure how that happened exactly? Too cute I guess.

Video was the reason for my initial interest in m4/3 years ago, so I've always gone with Panasonic previously.

The Olympus menus are not as bad as some say, but the Panasonic menu display sure seems easier.

Getting to the reason for this post, do you Pen F fans have any recommendations / suggestions for the custom function button configuration?

I find function #1 to be in an awkward position for back-button focus. And I haven’t figured out how to shoot in manual focus, yet still have back button available. (That's super easy to do on a Panasonic body).

The front custom button is interesting, what do you use it for? Anyone using it for “front-button” focus?

 

[Godfrey]

I didn't know it was a club.

I've had FourThirds format cameras of various types since 2007, both Olympus and Panasonic systems. Still have an E-1, E-M1, and E-PL7 although I haven't used them in a while. The Olympus and Panasonic-Leica lenses are terrific. I made (and sold/exhibited/etc) a lot of work with these cameras in the latter part of the '00s and early 20-teens. The E-1 remains my all time favorite DSLR.

The E-M1 and E-PL7 cameras are hugely configurable and customizable, thus the complex menu system. Once you 'get' the logic of it, it's good (and of course it doesn't make much difference once you've got the camera configured and are just shooting with it) but it's not for those who use a camera once in a great while and want to change configuration frequently as well. When I was using the E-1, E-5, then E-M1 every day, I'd developed my configuration setups in the first week or three and then it was just use the camera, a lot.

My favorite lenses for this system are the Olympus ZD 11-22mm f/2.8-3.5 ED, the Panasonic-Leica Summilux-DG 25mm f/1.4 ASPH, the Panasonic-Leica Macro-Elmarit-DG 45mm f/2.8 ASPH, the Olympus ZD 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5, and the Olympus M.Zuiko 85mm f/1.8, the Olympus ZD 35mm f/3.5 Macro, and the Olympus ZD 50mm f/2 Macro. The ZD series lenses are from the DSLR system, but add the mount adapter and they work perfectly on the E-M1 and E-PL7.

I use these cameras so infrequently now that I should sell them and clear the space in the closet, but they're still such good photographer's tools that I remain reluctant to.

G

 

[Larry H-L]

Thanks for the note Godfrey, yes you should probably sell / trade some of 4/3 and m4/3 gear and get some Leica stuff (I think you are now using the "new" CL)?

After cruising through the Oly menus a few dozen times, I finally got it figured out.

I settled on assigning the rear F1 button to switch from MF to AF, put the front function button on S-AF, and reset the mode of the AFL/AEL (to mode 2 or 3?) to allow the S-AF front button to still engage if needed while in manual focus mode.

It is now similar to my Panasonic function button setup and seems to work well.

 

[Godfrey]

You're welcome.

Happily, I already have everything in Leica gear that I need, and then some. I may well put the Oly gear up for sale: Good gear shouldn't just sit.

G

 

[Ko.Fe.]

CL has no IBIS and something like three overpriced, slow lens.

I have my Oly classic pinhole lens cap and almost matching Oly OVF.
If I ever need cute and advanced, not big camera it is going to be Pen F.

 

[Dogman]

Like Godfrey, I have a mess of standard 4/3 and micro 4/3 equipment I should get rid of. I just don't use it enough these days. Like many old timers, I've come under the spell of Fuji and its superb lenses.

I started using micro 4/3 with the Olympus E-P1 and Panasonic Lumix G1 so I was there from the beginning of the format. I actually got into the Olympus 4/3 system after using micro 4/3. The 4/3 stuff was a smaller, lightweight second DSLR system to my Canon gear. Today I still occasionally use my E-M1 but mainly I have it so I can use the Olympus 50-200 2.8-3.5 zoom with an adapter. Handy lens that's lightweight and easily handheld with a 1.4X extender. And I also love the Pana-Leica 15mm and 25mm Summicrons--excellent lenses.

 

[Godfrey]

CL has no IBIS and something like three overpriced, slow lens. ...

Yes, the CL has no IBIS.

The TL lens line designed for APS-C format Leica cameras (T, TL, TL2, and CL) includes seven lenses (three zooms, four primes) at present including the APO-Summilux-TL 35mm f/1.4 ASPH and Summicron-TL 23mm f/2 ASPH. All the SL series lenses are also native on the CL lens mount (three zooms, four primes again), and two zooms include OIS. Nearly all the lenses for M and R cameras also fit the CL using the M Adapter L, R Adapter M, and R Adapter L mount adapters and have lens profiles included in the CL to optimize their performance for the CL sensor.

That includes dozens of f/2.8, f/2, f/1.4, and faster lenses as well, without even considering the other brands like Zeiss, Voigtländer, etc.

You might try getting your facts straight before commenting.

 

[emraphoto]

Im wondering how the Pen and m4/3 system is working for you now Chris? Are you still pleased with the stills quality?

I have always shot Panasonic for video as they have spent a few generations refining the interface and software to the point that I personally find them extraordinary cameras for run and gun/doc style video.

I have always maintained a separate stills kit though... until recently. In an effort to streamline my work bag (different batteries, chargers, filters, flash etc) I recently picked up a Panasonic G9. An extraordinary camera, if you ask me, and tough as nails. There seems to be little to no compromise between the video portion of the camera and the stills (running most recent firmware).

My question would be do you have any stills workflow tips/hints? In am a big fan of the monochrome D jpeg setting but would prefer to shoot RAW and achieve same look.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I'm wondering how the Pen and m4/3 system is working for you now Chris? Are you still pleased with the stills quality?

I have always shot Panasonic for video as they have spent a few generations refining the interface and software to the point that I personally find them extraordinary cameras for run and gun/doc style video.

I have always maintained a separate stills kit though... until recently. In an effort to streamline my work bag (different batteries, chargers, filters, flash etc) I recently picked up a Panasonic G9. An extraordinary camera, if you ask me, and tough as nails. There seems to be little to no compromise between the video portion of the camera and the stills (running most recent firmware).

My question would be do you have any stills workflow tips/hints? In am a big fan of the monochrome D jpeg setting but would prefer to shoot RAW and achieve same look.

John,

It's working out well enough that a year ago I went down to Indianapolis and bought an Olympus OM-D E-M1 mark II with the vertical grip. I still have the Pen-F, which I use when I don't want to carry the heavier E-M1-II; but 95% of my color work is being done with the big pro body now.

The E-M1-II is big for Micro 4/3 but tiny compared to fullframe pro bodies, and it has full weathersealing and a much nicer, more ergonomic control layout than the Pen-F. The vertical grip makes handholding vertical shots a lot easier for me. I have trouble holding the Pen-F level when shooting vertical. The IBIS is better in the E-M1-II also, though the Pen-F's image stabilization is very good.

Right now, for lenses, I am shooting with the 7-14mm f2.8 Olympus Pro, the 12-40mm f2.8 Olympus Pro, the 45mm f1.8 Olympus, the 60mm f2.8 Olympus Macro, and the 45-150mm f4-5.6 Panasonic zoom. The only one of the lenses I don't like is the 45-150 Panasonic. It is very sharp, and tiny, and inexpensive. BUT, it vignettes badly unless stopped down to f11. Someday when I have the money, I will buy the Olympus Pro 40-150mm f2.8.

I use the two Olympus cameras for all of my color work now. Basically everything you've seen in color that I've posted in my "New Photos From Ft. Wayne" thread in the last two years has come from either the Pen-F or the OM-D E-M1 mark II, except the occasional old photo I get edited from my huge backlog of old stuff I need to finish.

My workflow is like this:

Shooting

Proper exposure is important on these small sensor cameras. They don't have quite the latitude that I had with the fullframe system I used before (Canon 5DmkII). I use a Sekonic L-758DR meter that I have calibrated for the cameras using Sekonic's profiling target and software. This has made the files easier to work with.

I always shoot raw. I have never been happy with JPEGs from any digital camera I have ever owned from any manufacturer. They just plain don't have the fine detail resolution or the tonality and color that I get shooting raw.

Processing

I process my files in Adobe Lightroom CC Classic. I have tried a lot of other RAW processors, and NONE gave me the fine detail resolution and noise reduction that Adobe provides from my RAW files. This is especially true from high-ISO files.

For color settings, the default "Adobe Color" profile gives the best results for most of my work with the E-M1 mark II. The Pen-F often gives better color for me with the "Camera Default" profile in Lightroom, but for some reason the "Camera Default" profile for the E-M1 mark II is not as good. It gives me a yellow cast to the highlights that is hard to remove by setting white balance without messing up the color of the rest of the image and it makes the highlights too flat.

After setting the color profile, I adjust the exposure, highlight, and shadow sliders as needed. I rarely need to use the exposure slider, as I am careful about exposure when I shoot. If I were a photojournalist shooting fast paced action, war zones, etc. like you I would probably not be able to be so careful and would use the exposure slider a lot more. I do often use the highlight and shadow sliders in high contrast situations and they work well with the Olympus raw files.

One thing I love about Lightroom is the controls for adjusting perspective for architectural shots. You'll notice most of my photos of buildings do not have converging vertical lines. I've had people email asking if I shot them with a 4x5 camera; quite a compliment for shots done with the tiny Micro 4/3 sensors!

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Black & White Processing

I rarely do black and white from digital; I still shoot film for that, but when I do, here's how I do it.

I still shoot RAW. I've never liked the tonality that any in-camera BW rendering gave. They always look too flat, without enough microcontrast in the midtones.

I open the RAW file in Lightroom and process it to give the best color image I can. Then I open it in Photoshop. You just can't get truly good BW conversions without specialized plugins. It can be done, and I even made a tutorial showing how, but it is not easy. My two favorite BW conversion plugins for Photoshop are Nik Silver Efex and Topaz BW Effects. The Nik plugin is a lot easier to use, but the Topaz one is more powerful. If I am having trouble getting good results with a file in Nik, Topaz will usually do it, but it is a more difficult program to use.

Here is an example of a photo converted using Nik Silver Efex.

The color image

Black & White converted from the color original using Nik Silver Efex.

Settings

The problem is I cannot just give you settings to use, because they are different for every photo I process to BW from a color image.

Here are some tutorials I made that show how I work. Both are YouTube videos.

Converting Color to BW in Lightroom (no plugins)

Converting Color to BW in Photoshop using Nik Silver Efex

I don't have a tutorial for Topaz yet, its on my 'to do list.'

 

[emraphoto]

thank Chris. I appreciate the info and will review it.

i shoot stills in raw, with viewfinder feedback including zebras, and manual mode. i love the future. i come from the school of getting exposure right when i press the button, and the raw files, through Lightroom, are very forgiving regardless.

now i'm on to figuring out the video fine-tuning pf the g9 with new firmware

the 20mp coming out of the Olympus and Panasonics, combined with the right lenses, cannot be judged on the megapickel count alone. and speaking of lenses, the Olympus 12-40 is very compact and built like a tank. my partner is a full-time photographer for a marketing firm and she rolls about with d850's. d850 and a 24-70? no thanx

i have been shooting b+w film dutifully, for many moons, but i just can't keep up in the scanning department. i gave it my best. ill keep shooting film for fun

Black & White Processing

I rarely do black and white from digital; I still shoot film for that, but when I do, here's how I do it.

I still shoot RAW. I've never liked the tonality that any in-camera BW rendering gave. They always look too flat, without enough microcontrast in the midtones.

I open the RAW file in Lightroom and process it to give the best color image I can. Then I open it in Photoshop. You just can't get truly good BW conversions without specialized plugins. It can be done, and I even made a tutorial showing how, but it is not easy. My two favorite BW conversion plugins for Photoshop are Nik Silver Efex and Topaz BW Effects. The Nik plugin is a lot easier to use, but the Topaz one is more powerful. If I am having trouble getting good results with a file in Nik, Topaz will usually do it, but it is a more difficult program to use.

Here is an example of a photo converted using Nik Silver Efex.

Settings

The problem is I cannot just give you settings to use, because they are different for every photo I process to BW from a color image.

Here are some tutorials I made that show how I work. Both are YouTube videos.

Converting Color to BW in Lightroom (no plugins)

Converting Color to BW in Photoshop using Nik Silver Efex

I don't have a tutorial for Topaz yet, its on my 'to do list.'

 

[kshapero]

A qualified Micro 4/3 camera and kinda cool looking.

 

[raid]

I like the built-in 10X focus assist and IS. Both should also be in the Leica M10. They are not.

 

[emraphoto]

i picked up the panasonic 15mm f1.7 recently and was shooting in a very dark, low contrast situation with the Pen F. i never use the focus assist light for a variety of reasons and the Pen was not able to find focus. i switched over to manual with peaking and it was very, very good. the peaking colour set to red and strong. even in almost total darkness.

 

[al1966]

i picked up the panasonic 15mm f1.7 recently and was shooting in a very dark, low contrast situation with the Pen F. i never use the focus assist light for a variety of reasons and the Pen was not able to find focus. i switched over to manual with peaking and it was very, very good. the peaking colour set to red and strong. even in almost total darkness.

That is a great little lens, not had problems with AF on a Panasonic GX80, but perhaps I have not hit the condition for it to happen. It has become my favorite m43 lens along with the little 12-32.

 

[peterm1]

While on the subject of M4/3 lenses may I ask about a lens that I had not really considered before. The Olympus zuiko 40-150mm f4-5.6 ed. I saw one in a store yesterday and it had a very good price which made it potentially attractive for those occasions when I wanted a light weight lens longer for travel etc. As I mainly use primes (or vintage lenses) on these cameras I could not conceive of using it a lot but still if the price is right..............
While I understand from reviews that at the shorter to medium focal lengths (say 40-100mm) in particular it seems to have very good IQ I do find its ultra lightness and demonstrably plasticy build a bit off putting (It even has a plastic mount not metal).
Any thoughts from owners?

 

[peterm1]

Black & White Processing

I rarely do black and white from digital; I still shoot film for that, but when I do, here's how I do it.

I still shoot RAW. I've never liked the tonality that any in-camera BW rendering gave. They always look too flat, without enough microcontrast in the midtones.

I open the RAW file in Lightroom and process it to give the best color image I can. Then I open it in Photoshop. You just can't get truly good BW conversions without specialized plugins. It can be done, and I even made a tutorial showing how, but it is not easy. My two favorite BW conversion plugins for Photoshop are Nik Silver Efex and Topaz BW Effects. The Nik plugin is a lot easier to use, but the Topaz one is more powerful. If I am having trouble getting good results with a file in Nik, Topaz will usually do it, but it is a more difficult program to use.

Here is an example of a photo converted using Nik Silver Efex.

The color image

Black & White converted from the color original using Nik Silver Efex.

Settings

The problem is I cannot just give you settings to use, because they are different for every photo I process to BW from a color image.

Here are some tutorials I made that show how I work. Both are YouTube videos.

Converting Color to BW in Lightroom (no plugins)

Converting Color to BW in Photoshop using Nik Silver Efex

I don't have a tutorial for Topaz yet, its on my 'to do list.'

Chris I do much the same. I prefer Nik Silver Efex for black and white conversion for the reasons you state though some conversions look fine using native Lightroom conversion capabilities as well. One difference in my workflow is that mainly I run Nik Silver Efex as a plugin under Lightroom and drop directly into Silver Efex from Lightroom without bothering with the need for an editor like Photoshop in most instances.

In fact instead of using Photoshop I do actually use Corel Paintshop Pro which is comparable to the old Photoshop Elements and I use it as a surrogate for Photoshop and run that program as a plugin to Lightroom also though it can be used in stand alone mode. I will occasionally use it when I need it to do something which neither Lightroom nor Nik can do - such as using Layers for some reason. As I also have set up Nik suite to run as plugins to Paintshop Pro, I can if I wish, drop from Lightroom into Paintshop Pro, use PSP to do whatever I need, and then drop from PSP directly into Nik and then save those edits back into PSP then from PSP back into Lightroom. Sounds complicated but works well as it keeps Lightroom as my main editor while leveraging the special capabilities of PSP and Nik when that is needed. Mostly though its just Lightroom and Nik.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

While on the subject of M4/3 lenses may I ask about a lens that I had not really considered before. The Olympus zuiko 40-150mm f4-5.6 ed. I saw one in a store yesterday and it had a very good price which made it potentially attractive for those occasions when I wanted a light weight lens longer for travel etc. As I mainly use primes (or vintage lenses) on these cameras I could not conceive of using it a lot but still if the price is right..............
While I understand from reviews that at the shorter to medium focal lengths (say 40-100mm) in particular it seems to have very good IQ I do find its ultra lightness and demonstrably plasticy build a bit off putting (It even has a plastic mount not metal).
Any thoughts from owners?

Look for the Panasonic 45-150mm f4-5.6 instead. Its about the same price, but has a metal mount and its sharper. Here's some work I have done with mine: