One thing I’ve struggled with in my photography is obtaining crisp, sharp closeup images. A lot has to do with the quality of the lens, some has to do with camera shake/vibration as one clicks the shutter. And, of course, there are many other issues as well. In searching for a means of capturing clear, closeup images of the world around me I started looking at quality lenses at an affordable price. Not easy to come up with, especially in Canon’s lineup. Canon’s “L” level of lenses can cost multiple thousands of dollars and are not found on every street corner. An Olympus OM-D E-M1 camera from around 10 years or so back came on my radar. After looking at all kinds of options on used camera gear sites and fleabay a deal was struck on one that came equipped with the desirable 60mm Olympus lens. This lens is known for capturing sharp images and the crop factor on the Micro Four Thirds camera gives it an equivalent angle of view of a 120mm lens on my Canon 6D full frame. I’ve got a 135mm lens for the Canon – but the closest focusing distance is something like 6 feet, maybe more. And it’s not “the sharpest knife (lens) in the drawer”. As mentioned, a deal was made and the camera/lens combo was obtained for not much more than just the lens sells for on the used sites, which translates to an almost free camera.
Yesterday I took delivery and started learning how to use this new tool. There’s more functions on this camera (once Olympus’s “Flagship” model) than I know what to do with (yet), but some quick clicking around yielded some promising results. I look forward to learning more about this setup as time goes on, and once we return home I’ll give it a whirl on the tripod for some macro shots.
