#mostfungym

The photography world is buzzing around this newly released camera from Olympus, the OMD-EM1X I must admit it’s gorgeous.  

Olympus Malaysia did a good job to do their touch and try sessions at Most Fun Gym to really show the capabilities of this new camera. They were not only showing but letting us test it. I think Motocross sport itself really is a challenging sport to shoot and if your camera is not capable enough, the accuracy of your shots will suffer.  

Olympus is confident enough that this camera will not disappoint us. 

There were two touch & try sessions on that Saturday. One in the morning and another one in the afternoon. Luckily I signed up in the morning as the field is so hot. The conditions are really right to test the new camera. I can feel the camera and lens getting warmer as I shoot. I think that was because I was shooting under the heat of the sun. It didn’t affect the performance though as I was able to nail more in focused shots than I would normally do with my OMD-EM1.

Olympus staff facilitated the event together with my friend Olympus Malaysia visionary Robin Wong. 

The camera has AI Autofocus that identifies subject as they are seen from the viewfinder and keeps tracking it for better result. In this case, once the camera detects the motorbike, it will show a white box then tracks the face of the rider. I find it still needing a bit of improvement because when your are 90% straight from the motorbike where the front wheel and the rider can be seen first, it tends to have difficulty in identifying the subject. But once it identifies it, it tracks and focuses correctly. This is just about AI Autofocus. I haven’t tested the normal single point and AF area autofocus for this event as we have limited time. I just enjoyed holding the shutter and hearing the clicks as it goes through.

I did notice that the shutter tends to be a little bit quieter even without using the silent shutter modes. The shutter sound just feels more robust and compact if that makes sense.

Also tested to do panning shots. Good thing Robin was there to give us tips on how to shoot panning shots correctly. we had to shoot on a pre-configured settings because using the camera for the first time will definitely need a lot of getting used to. Although I am used to the Olympus UI from my OMD EM1, they look the same but  there are just a lot of other settings and buttons  to deal with. I could easily learn to use them in time but not definitely for just few hours of shooting.

The camera is really aimed towards professionals who are mainly into action sports. Me upgrading to this camera might be an overkill just because even though I shoot sports once in a while, i don’t do it all the time. Plus it is very expensive rocking at RM13K.

I do believe that this camera can really bring great performance and accuracy to photographers most specially to the pros who are already invested in micro 4/3 lenses.  There are a lot of online comments asking why Olympus made the battery grip built in and would defeat the purpose of having a small micro 4/3. I think it’s because as I mentioned, earlier, it is geared towards professionals who are invested in the ecosystem that are looking for more serious professional camera that keeps up with time and set new standards in the photography world, most specially in the micro four thirds area.

Do check out the video I made during the event that sums up the event.