I started a gear retrospective the other day, you know a “what works and what doesn’t” look at the last half year, for me and others to learn from.

Before that though, some new stuff has entered the stables.

EM1x. The second EM1 mk2 was to be the specialised sports camera, freeing up the older one (hardly broken in yet) to be my work horse for low light and fast shooting day to day. An EM1 and a lesser camera (EM5 mk1 or EM10 mk2) are fine for most things, but I felt thin in the top end for sports or major events.

Buying the EM1x effectively doubles the life of my kit and adds further useful features such as hand held high res (including very good noise control) and learning AF. Hopefully there will be a slight step up in JPEG quality for high volume work*. It also represents a commitment to Olympus and M43.

So far I am semi impressed by the JPEG’s, but very impressed by the camera on the whole.

The thing is a beast!

Faster in all ways (menu and button navigation, as well as shooting), slightly bigger and definitely more solid feeling, it weighs surprisingly little in the hand.

*

The 300 f4 (with 1.4 teleconverter).

This is a handful in more ways than one.

So far I have had mixed success with it, for which I will take the lions share of responsibility, but also the lens I bought was the demo one from where I worked, so the firmware is out of date. It looks like there have been at least two more updates, both mentioning AF speed and accuracy.

At first I thought I had a dud (only looking in front of the camera, not behind!). Fast shutter speeds, but not fast enough and poor placement gave me a patchy return from a short stint at the Cricket. The files were soft and “blotchy”. Part of this may be the lens-focus, but part the camera’s settings (new camera in JPEG).

The EM1x and 300 are meant to be my ace team, but nothing much good came from it first time out.

Testing time. I won’t bore you with all of the files, but I am satisfied it is as sharp as any lens I have and noticeably sharper than the excellent 75-300 at 300 (where it is needed). For the files below I used the tried and true EM5 mk1 in Lightroom because I just know what to expect.

The next day, I repeated the same process at the cricket with the same results (definition of stupid comes to mind). Then I changed my shooting angle. No longer was I chasing a fast front on image, but following a wider target side on. Success! Lots of keepers (some I can show below as there are no student faces).

Every bowler, batsman and the keeper were well represented, including a catch (bottom), a bowled (top set) 2 stumpings (1 in the second set below) and a run out. I cannot show the bowling images due to faces showing, but they are sharp and crisp with a gorgeous flattened, but layered look.

What I do know though, is it is hard to use well. AF is going to have to be top tier as well as technique. The depth of field at 300 f4 (600 f8 equiv) or 420 f5.6 (840 f11) is very shallow especially at small bird distances.

Bokeh is a little busy and even acting as a 600mm it is still only a 300mm in FF terms so background separation is not going to be as buttery as a full frame combo (which I cannot justify and do not need), but it is clearly better than the 300 f6.7 I have been using.

So far the files are very good on the eye, crisp and brilliant, especially after a light touch with the clarity brush. To be honest they are more than is needed for school reproduction work. I would like them better still and more consistent, but that is going to needed some firmware updates and fine tuning. I would have no issue cropping the JPEG files heavily or blowing them up big.

The teleconverter at the moment is only exaggerating my issues with the big lens, especially AF (and makes it too long for most applications), but it sits well with the 40-150, which I am beginning to really love as a pairing. This gives me a genuine 400 f4 equiv, filling the gap between the two lenses.

All of the left hand files below are the 40-150 with TC vs the 300mm on the right showing the difference in reach, contrast and sharpness (nearly identical). The final shot is to show it is not just good up close (the trampoline is in our next door neighbour’s yard).

Notice how quickly the DoF falls away in the top image from the 300mm.

First up, I am not a birder.

The images below were from a walk this morning with the EM1x (JPEG) and 300 with converter (840mm eq). Hard combo to use, surprisingly quite often too long, but comfortable to carry. I had about a 10% success rate, often missing shots I felt I had due to very shallow depth.

On close inspection, I do not like the JPEG harshness and crunchy noise reduction except at high ISO’s where it is much the same and better than RAW’s, so it looks like RAW still for the very best quality, although for many applications, that will only bother me.

Something I have to get used to is the different dynamic. My 75-300 would sometimes pull off some real Hail Mary shots, but the shallower depth of this lens gives me little room for error, even with all the help it gives.

*

The Panasonic-Leica 8-18.

This one is my one ringer. Had to happen eventually.

It is such a practical choice compared to the Olympus 7-14, that it just had to be. It takes 67mm filters, not a “rig” of expensive square ones, it is about the same size as the 12-40 (with metal hood) and it covers both super wide (rarely used, but occasionally mandatory), but also a decent standard wide 18mm (36mm FF). I felt a little thin in both these areas with only the 12-40, so some overlap is comforting.

This lens was not bought because I wanted it, but because I felt I should round off my options, but I can already feel it will be a favourite. It also does not hurt that it offers a slightly different colour palette and contrast.

Wouldn’t you know it, the first day I had it, I needed “as wide as you can go”, so my rarely listened to little voice saved me. It is sharp and pleasant to use, as long as you remember to zoom the right (wrong) way.

*Turns out I shot the bulk of the big end of year event in L/SF JPEG by mistake on the newer EM1 mk2 with 3.0 firmware. They are good enough that no one, including myself noticed at first.