Micro 4/3 A little experiment

kevistopheles

Top Veteran
I have been treating my E-M10 like a glorified point and shoot and while that has worked reasonably well I recognize it isn't using the camera to its full potential. As of late I have been using a Fuji X10 and that has really become by go to camera when I want to grab and go leaving the E-M10 sitting at home more and more. I wanted to find a way to use the E-M10 that more organic to me so I played around with a few things like shooting adapted lenses instead of native. I have been shooting adapted on NEX (and Fuji) for years and quite like doing that. Overall I liked the results I was getting...

E-M10 with Konica Hexanon 40/1.8
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and so it begins
by kevin dixey, on Flickr

...but my adapted lenses don't balance all that well on the smaller Olympus body (although the Konica 40 with the adapter is not bad at all) and as much as I like the rendering of my adapted lenses my native lens (P20/1.7) is sharper and has better contrast. I wish focus peaking were better on the E-M10 (it's pretty terrible) but magnify works fine. After much noodling I have come up with a few things that are working for me and I thought some folks might find it interesting

What I have come up with is this:

1. Shooting the Olympus in BW JPEG mode (I did tweak the settings). I realize RAW has advantages (I shoot RAW on my Sony) but so far I am happy with the results.
2. Since I'm shooting JPEG...don't work the images too much, they are sharp and contrasty SOOC and I was working them like I would a Trans-X file or a Sony file. They need less tweaking IMHO.
3. Use the P20/1.7 in MF mode. The AF on that lens isn't bad but shooting it MF mode by default has been quite enjoyable (and switching to AF mode when you need it is easy to do anyway with the SCP). FWIW the focus action on the P20 is really pretty nice. It's focus by wire but at least my copy is a little stiff and that makes the process pretty enjoyable. I've seen worse.

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clue
by kevin dixey, on Flickr

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Ripe
by kevin dixey, on Flickr
 
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Appeal
by kevin dixey, on Flickr

I feel like I am getting a better feel on how to make this work. I really like the lens and think the output is terrific but I'm still struggling to get the look I want. Despite the Panasonic being measurably better than any of my adapted lenses (by a fair degree) I still think I prefer the rendering of some of my old lenses some ways but it's coming along.
 
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