DSLR Camera Equipment

What is in Your Camera Bag?

• Olympus E-3
• Olympus E-PL1
• Olympus High Grade 14-54mm f2.8-3.5 MK I
• Olympus High Grade 50-200mm f2.8-3.5 MK I
• Olympus m.zuiko 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 MK I
• B+W #110 ND Filter 67mm
• B+W Kaesemann Circular Polarizer Filter 67mm
• Joby Gorilla SLR Zoom
• Joby Gorilla Ballhead

I love the Olympus E-3 to bits, really enjoy the weather sealing and general toughness. The full metal body feels like a real camera of the days past. It’s quick when focusing and shooting action. This thing came out way back in 2007, but still has features like live-view and a flip out screen, even remote flash. SWD lenses are tempting, but not enough for me to re-buy a lens. The Mark I versions of these lenses are pretty cheap and still focuses quite fast. I can comfortably shoot outside in the pouring rain and not worry about wetness protection with this combo. There’s just some shots that are cooler in the rain.

The Olympus E-PL1 goes in my jacket pocket A LOT these days when I’m out and about and don’t feel like carrying the E-3 sling. The 14-42mm is surprisingly good, still WAY ahead of any point and shoots I’ve seen. The in body image stabilization is nice and indoor portraits are great. Excellent little camera to take to restaurants for food shots.

I also carry around a couple knickknacks like extra battery pack, lens pen, lens cloth and IR remote. Clean lenses are very important and you never know when you might need that extra battery.

Why are you using that Lens?

I chose to go with the 14-54mm and 50-200mm combo, because they share the same filter size of 67mm and it gives me pretty good coverage across the 28-400mm EFL range without much overlap. Sure the 12-60mm SWD is nicer, faster and sharper, but it’s not THAT much better than the 14-54mm. Besides, the 14-54mm might actually be brighter on the long end. Plus, the 14-54mm MK I can be had used for about $300, a real bargain for this quality of lens!

What Lenses Should I Buy?

For people who want to travel light and perhaps on a budget, I would recommend two lenses. One in the “normal” focal ranges something like 24-70mm in 35mm terms and a telephoto lens in the 70-200mm range. That’s quite a lot of coverage with just two zoom lenses. I used to only shoot with primes when shooting 35mm film, but zoom lenses these days are plenty sharp enough for what I do. So just two zoom lenses will allow you to shoot basically anything minus maybe macro shots. If you can have three lenses in your arsenal, add a dedicated macro lens, zooms can get close, but not quite.

What is Best Between Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, and Sony?

Depends what you’re talking about. All the major manufacturers do make good quality camera bodies and lenses, let’s just start with that. They will all take nice photos. For non-professional photographers, any one of them will do. For people making a living from taking pictures, they’ll probably go with Canon and Nikon. There’s simply no larger support base than those two. They make tons of bodies and lenses, and have support centres throughout the world. Plus, with such a large user base, it’s really easy to find a place to rent an expensive lens to try out or buy on the new / used market. I would encourage all newcomers to start with Canon / Nikon if you don’t know if photography is for you. Their resale value remains relatively high. Their entry level bodies are very capable.

Why are you Shooting Olympus?

Completely terrible resale value which is great for me buying used. But once the price hits bottom, it doesn’t really go down much, I can probably resell all my stuff close to what I paid for it if I decide to upgrade. The quality of lenses and body you get for the money just can’t be beat. I’m not a full-time professional photographer by any means, perhaps just an enthusiastic amateur. Cost matters! I don’t get cameras and lenses for free like some of the pros do. There’s only a handful lenses in the world from any manufacturer that’s sharper and nicer than the 14-54mm and 50-200mm. All of which is more than twice what I paid for these guys used. No, it’s not a constant max aperture of f2.8, but f3.5 on the long end is still quite nice, a whole lot better than f5.6 max.

What Filters Should I Buy?

In the digital age, I would skip all the colour filters, and since I’m pretty careful with my cameras, I’ll skip all the clear filters like UV as well. The only few worth buying now include ND or Neutral Density and Circular Polarizer. Those affect photos in ways not easily reproduced in post processing. Only buy the highest quality of filter that you can afford. Stick with B+W, Heliopan, and Hoya. You don’t want nasty low quality filters in front of your nice lens.

Four Thirds 4/3 Sensor is Too Small

Maybe. For me it’s fine, you can still shoot in relatively dark areas, your Olympus body should have IS Image Stabilization. I can comfortably shoot ISO 800 with the Olympus E-3. The 2X crop factor helps with the telephotoness of my longer lens. Compared to APS-C crop factors of 1.6X and 1.5X there really isn’t too much difference at all. I can still comfortably make prints at 8 x 10, for web use I have the camera set to 1280 x 960 for RAW+JPEG, that’s basically 1 Megapixel haha. If you’re wanting to do gigantic prints like 36″ x 24″, full frame is still not really enough to get 300dpi. If I need stuff that big, I’d use 645 medium format or stitch a whole bunch of smaller pictures together.

Is Canon or Nikon Better?

If I was to ever switch away from Olympus or add to my arsenal, I would go Canon. They’ve got a 65mm 1-5X Macro lens. That’s 5X magnification, completely insane! The highly touted Canon 5D would be my full frame camera of choice with the 24-70mm f2.8 lens. Large sensor cameras are absolutely terrible for telephoto use, you’ll need a massive MASSIVE lens. But for normal everyday use, that would be the full frame digital camera that I would currently consider. Canon L series lenses are very nice and easily accessible. The X0D offerings like 40D, 50D, and 60D are quite interesting 1.6X crop bodies as well. Featuring metal bodies and weather sealing too. Maybe it’s just me, I don’t like the backwardness of the Nikon lens mount.