Losing weight...Olympus OMD with Panasonic 12-35 2.8 zoom

[RDMcG]

The accompanying pics are truly terrible quality as the only thing I had on hand was an ancient Nikon Coolpix point-and-shoot. This all came about because a boat I was in capsized in a creek in Arizona, dunking me and my EOS 5D2 in ten feet of spring flood. It is in for repair and interestingly may survive. The 24-70 2.8 may not. In any case, a trip to the camera store is a dangerous thing. I travel a lot and had a look at some smaller options, but still good quality.

The fairly recent Olympus OM-D EM5 body mated with a Panasonic Lumix G 12-35 zoom makes for an excellent general purpose travel camera with full user control. Simple menu, image stabilized ,full aperture,speed and auto control. Additionally its a full HD video camera with a rear screen that can be tilted flat.

I will keep my Canons of course as I have a full lens set, but for something to throw in the car for a trip this is hugley convenient and superb quality for its type. The little square jobbie between the cameras is a digital projector..very handy little fella that is HDMI and handy if you want to do a quick slide review.









Here is a good little review I found:

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/tag/olympus-om-d-...

[marctwo]

You might find yourself using it more than the Canon!

I ditched all my Canon kit for a GF1 back in 2009 and now have an OM-D as well. I love the compact unobtrusive nature of the m43 kit and won't be going back to SLR.

[RDMcG]

marctwo said:

You might find yourself using it more than the Canon!

I ditched all my Canon kit for a GF1 back in 2009 and now have an OM-D as well. I love the compact unobtrusive nature of the m43 kit and won't be going back to SLR.

I have a feeling you might be right. The thing is amazingly usable. Had a bit of trouble understanding the menu structure as the instruction booklet ( and even the PDF) is a bit sketchy, but I will do some local photography to get used to it before taking it out on the road to Route 66 in a few weeks.

[marctwo]

The camera is very configurable and the manual and very terrible.

Luckily, once you have it set up, you don't have to dive into the menus too much.

Make sure you read this:

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/9115179666/user-g...