Back in November 2017, the kind folks over at Olympus sent me a test kit for the EM-1, Mark 2, which is the OMD Mark ii. I was excited to see what it could do particularly because of it’s weather proofing body specs.
Well, like it can many times, life and career got busy. This little micro four thirds camera sat in my office for over a year. The people over at Olympus were more than patient and just urged me to give it a try when I found the time to do so.
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Fast forward to the end of 2018 when the mirrorless marketplace was changed by Nikon, Canon, and Panasonic entering the full frame mirrorless sector.
These new cameras ushered in a renewed sense in me to try out some different mirrorless cameras. As someone who believes in the future of mirrorless I had devoted the past 5 years to Sony, the leader in the mirrorless game.
But, with these new cameras coming out, it made me think, why not try all of them? First I tried the new Nikon Z7, and then when preparing for a number of shoots in Los Angeles, I saw the Olympus bag sitting in the corner of my showroom.
I immediately felt bad for the gear feeling like I had neglected it for nearly a year and a half. So, on a whim, I picked it up and decided to give it a go at my studio shoots in lieu of my Sony gear. I still took my Sony gear in case I was unhappy with the Olympus, but I felt it was high time to see what this camera could do.
So my model Emily and I went down to FD Photo Studio in Los Angeles to do a number of shoots. We first planned on doing just 1 shoot with the Olympus, but it turned into a complete week of shooting with that little guy as I really put it through it’s paces.
This blog post isn’t a complete review on the camera but rather a post on just the creative lighting shoot I did with it. Why? Well, because most people (myself included) don’t usually associated micro four thirds cameras with shooting in lower lighting conditions.
Using the Rotolight Lighting system I set up the Anova Pro 2 as my key light, another Anova Pro 2 as my rim and accent light on the back wall, and a Neo 2 as a rim/accent light on my model Emily, placed directly behind her.
If you watch the video you’ll see the progression of the shoot as I share production shots showing how things were set up and how we ended up with the final results that you can see in the shots below:
All of these images were taken with the Olympus 25mm f/1.2 lens shot wide open at f/1.2. The lens actually performed really well and as always, the LED lighting by Rotolight was a perfect fit for the mirrorless system.
I fired all 3 lights using the strobe mode instead of continuous LED so I could get double the power output out of the lights.
To see the complete set up and shoot please make sure to click on the video to see how it all went down. I had a great time shooting with the camera and can’t wait to share more shoots with all of you.
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Thanks!
Jason