Just received my OM-1 - My initial impressions
1 month ago
19
As a disclaimer, I am an amateur photographer, a birder, and an optical imaging aficionado (aka, a pixel-peeper). Also, I am a retired physics/chemistry teacher, but not an artist in the slightest (unfortunatelty).
In 2019 I acquired a Lumix G9 and a Leica 100-400 (which I like a lot) for bird photography. In 2021 I bought Oly 40-150 and 300 mm lenses on the second-hand market, drawn by the lauded optical quality of Oly lenses.
I quickly found that the G9 has limitations for BIF photography; in addition, in my experience it is not very friendly with the Oly 300 mm (AF often hunts unless in bright light, often generating soft-focus or OOF shots), therefore I ordered a OM-1 to exploit the most from my long-FL lenses.
After testing it for a few days, I have decided to keep it and sell my G9.
On the negative side, ergonomics are not great, at least to my taste: the body is smaller than the G9 (do my hands qualify as large? I don't think so; my winter gloves are size 9), and the number of programmable function buttons is lower than on the G9; the EVF is as good - but not better - than the G9. HOWEVER, there are 3 very major reasons why it is a serious upgrade re. the G9 (again, to my taste): 1) the speed of the camera, when switching from live view to image preview, is much higher; 2) the low-light capability of the OM-1 is significantly better (very usable images taken at dusk at 20000 ISO, impossible with the G9), and 3) the AF with subject detection set to birds performs on a whole different level.
Overall, a very positive upgrade.
I really enjoyed waiting for 3 and 1/2 months to be able to post this. For an encore, I think I'll order an electric car next.
BB