Nikon followed the market by launching its own mirror-less camera, the Nikon 1 series. The mirror-less or should one say the "system compact camera" has been dominated by Olympus, Panasonic and Sony to a lesser degree. Olympus and Panasonic opted for the so called Micro Four-Thirds sensor and Sony decided to use the same APS-C sized sensor or "standard" seen in small sensor DSLR cameras. Another mirror-less camera that was announced just prior to the Nikon 1 range was the Pentax Q series with an even smaller camera sensor than that used in the Nikon 1 camera. The sensor size in the Pentax Q is nearly the same as that in the typical high end compact camera. What is its IQ like? I went and had a look in the forums and were pleasantly surprised at what the Q has to offer…..

While back an old friend of the Photography is Fun website wrote to me a short mail. I cannot recall when Hans bought his E5 but when he did he wrote a few short articles about this interesting camera. You can see those articles under the category, "Hans E5 Reports". Well, Hans wrote to tell me just how happy he still is using his E5. Must say I can fully appreciate this “well being”, reaction from an E5 user. Not long ago my son was kind enough to give me a 7D as a gift. Me being a strong Olympus supporter were already in the stage of selling my Olympus SLR gear and to only keep my Micro Four-Thirds gear. The 7D changed that a little and I then decided to keep the 7D plus a few good lenses which I can use for specific disciplines like landscapes and macro work. The Canon is a wonderful camera and I have no doubt that once I really master it that its pictures will be awesome. The point is getting to that point of mastering it, that does not seem that easy. Today I can basically take an E5 and within one or two hours I will get stunning results from it because I know Olympus really well. With Canon it is just not the case for me. That raises the question, should one just go about and change brands, does one really get the benefit from doing so?

To get back to Hans, below one of Hans images are the mail he wrote to me:-

Hi Siegfried.

Some time since I wrote to You about my E-5. I must admit, that when I read what the really experienced guys in the forums write about I can see, that I am only scratching the surface. Still I would like to tell just a little about how I am getting along with my E-5:

In a way it is so easy that it might nearly get boring! When I have some sensible customizations dialed into the camera I just press the bottom and get home with technically amazing photos! Often and again the results surprise me when I see them on the monitor - they surpass what I expected when I pressed the shutter.

But then it gets hard: There is no excuse: Now it is up to the photographer to take advantage and be creative! I have changed my custom settings:- To begin with I found the saturation too much, but then I learned that more experienced Oly-shooters set magenta -1 and green + 1. Then red is no more over saturated and results are very satisfactory. I set sharpness 0 and contrast -1. Noise filter weak.

On our summer cruise with our sailing-boat we were at the northern most point of the Danish Island Funen. It is called Fynshoved (head of Funen) and is a very special and very beautiful landscape. The weather was wonderful, the light perfect - a few hazy clouds to add texture and perspective to the sky - so I had the photo opportunity of the summer:

Click on the above image to see more pictures from Hans……

To be honest the little guy above was not really polite. He kept on moving while I was getting ready to take the shot, so I decided to drop in the water drop with Photoshop. For the rest it is all true. As a hardened Olympus user I am still getting use to my 7D, and it is not easy. If it was not for the fact that I knew the 7D is an excellent camera I would have went back to my E3. I always said that it is so easy to say I will change until it happens. It is only then that one realize just how good the previous one was.

I received my dream Macro lens this week and were really happy to have it in my hand. The lens is completely different to the average macro adapter or 50mm macro lens most of us know. From the little time I spend with this lens I quickly saw that I know very little about macro photography and the learning curve is going to be steep and interesting.

The first few macro images I took were not sharp and I went into the typical negative post buying behavior so many brands fear. Then I realized that it could be the mirror flap that resulted in the slight blur. I then did a few more pictures today controlling the mirror separate to the shutter operation. Took me a while to find the function because it is not called mirror lock-up as are the case with Olympus cameras. Another interesting aspect was the shutter mechanism between the Olympus and the Canon. More about that in my next article on macro photography.

I honestly have not made up my mind on should I only use my PEN in the future or does one really need an old style SLR camera. From what I see from the new E-P3 I have no second thoughts at all that the new PEN will do most photo shoots as good as most SLR's. It is also true that customers do not only look at your work, they also very aware of the equipment in your bag. Somebody with a 5D in his hand is just the better photographer than somebody with a older 30D in his hand. That is how many customers view the world today.

Siegfried