Olympus OM-D E-M5 II

I remember as a young lad walking past a photography shop in the early sixties and seeing a camera on a prominent display in the centre of their window, it was heavily promoted and had a huge price tag. I was 13 or 14 and what struck me the most was how this camera looked so nice, it was silver looking, the lens that was attached looked as though it belonged in a fairy tale where the main front glass just appeared to look at you and said pick me up, you won't regret it. The camera confused my young mind, I was used to seeing cameras that had a lens and a viewfinder that you used to frame your photograph, this camera didn't have a viewfinder, for a couple of years I often wondered how using this camera would let you photograph the view you were looking at, I wondered and wondered about how it worked, I was too shy at the time to go into the store and ask to see the camera, I mean, a little 13 years old going into a high-class photography outlet just to see what the camera was all about, yeah, right. I often wondered about it for a few years, I don't know why.

Later on in life, well, about 2 years later (1966), I started reading photography magazines, I was on the way to Wales to stay with my grandmother for the summer and happened to pick up a copy of "Amateur Photographer" from a newstand at Victoria Station to read on the train, this was the beginning of my photographic journey, I learnt that the camera I was most perplexed about was the Pentax Spotmatic with a Super Takumar 50mm f1.4 and you did actually view what you were aiming the camera at, it was an SLR and I learnt all about how these little cameras worked. I never lusted after one though, my 12'6d paper round wages would never have covered the cost of owning such a beautiful camera. 

The strangest thing is that in all my 60 years or more of taking photographs I never actually owned a Pentax camera.

The Olympus OM-D E-M5 II became my pride of place camera that I have ever owned, it feels great in my hands, I can re-configure the way it works to suit the moment, I can save individual "My Set" configurations that I can recall with the press of a button. The camera is weatherproof, it will still function in very cold temperatures and doesn't care if it gets a bit wet, it has more dials and buttons that can be configured to do anything you want them to do, within limits. I can use lenses from way back when with suitable adapters, and the 5 stops of stabilisation is absolutely stunning as long as you remember to enter the lens focal length which isn't hard to do but you can forget.  When using manual zoom lenses I tend to just add the shortest and longest focal lengths together and divided the result by 2, it seems to work most of the time but I will dial the correct focal length if I know I will be using that zoom position for a while.

I have stuck mainly with only using the basic kit lenses, the reason I have Panasonic Lumix lenses is that I started off my Micro Four Thirds journey using a Panasonic Lumix G5, it offered no in-body image stabilisation and relied on the lenses having it to prevent camera shake. I must admit though it is very good, I was used to in-lens stabilisation as that is what the Canon EOS 600D relied on.  With the superb in-body stabilisation offered by the OM-D E-M5 II there is no reason to use the lens stabilisation, even the 3 axis stabilisation available on the OM-D E-M10 does a fantastic job at preventing camera shake. The image below is of the only Micro Four Thirds cameras I currently own and use.

What's in my rucksack is shown below, with spare batteries, rocket blower, lens brushes, various cables, chargers, micro fibre cloths, a rain guard, and my OM-D E-M5 II user manual stored in the various zipped pockets on the inside and outside.  I've had this bag a few years now and it has served me well considering it cost me less than £15.00 at the time.

Descriptions:

A : Olympus OM-D E-M5 II with Olympus 14-150mm f4-5.6 Zoom Lens
B : HLD-8G Grip and HLD-6P Battery and Portrait Grip
C : FL-LM3 Electronic Flash
D : Adaptall 2 to Canon FD Lens Mount Adapter
E : Tamron 500mm f8 BBR 55BB with Adaptall 2  Mount
F : Olympus OM-D E-M5 with Lumix G Vario 45-150mm  ASPH Zoom Lens
G : Lumix G Vario 14-140mm f4-5.8 ASPH Zoom Lens
H : Spare Batteries for E-M5, E-M5 II and OM-10
I : Pixco FD-m 4/3  x 0.7 Speed booster
J : Super Paragon  28mm f2.8 Lens in Canon FD Mount
K : Olympus OM-D E-M10 with Lumix G Vario 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 ASPH Kit Lens, second version

If I'm feeling adventurous I will take the whole lot with me on an outing but more often than not some of the gear is left behind in another camera bag.  I will sometimes add the Nikon Coolpix P600 if the weather is reasonable, just in case I need to get really close to whatever catches my eye at the time. 

Update: Most of the items I no longer have after getting an OM-D E-M1 II in January 2024.

I still have the E-M5 II but it's secondary now to my E-M1 II and the E-M5 is still here somewhere and never gets used. My great grandson has decided that the E-M1 II is one of the best cameras he has ever seen, he always want's to use it when he comes around as long as the lens is "Auto Focus" and I have set the camera to "i Auto".

Over time my bag contents change weekly sometime even daily and as I get older I tend to pack less equipment into it. After having surgery for a collapsed lung in September 2023 I decided to make some drastic changes to the amount of gear I carried around.