Last weekend, I met a group of friends for our annual wildlife photography outing. We meet the weekend before Thanksgiving at the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge on Assateague Island on Virginia's Eastern Shore. This facility is in the path of one of the great bird migration routes. Chincoteague is internationally known for their wild pony swim each summer.
In the past, we have photographed thousands upon thousands of migrating snow geese, bald eagles, sika deer (a small deer, about half the size of a white tail, introduced from Asia in the 1920s), foxes, black squirrels, otters, egrets, great blue herons, cormorants, plovers, ponies and many, many other species of bird and animal.
There are two important parts to this gathering. First, is the camaraderie of our friendship, the long talks, the shared experiences, the learning from each other, looking at each others' images, the laughter and, of course, as good friends, we love to pick on one another.
The second important part to our gathering is coming home with images of which we can be proud. But, even if we don't make great images, we fall back upon our great time together as friends. Good friends, good food, a great place to be and, of course, pursuing that treasure hunt we call photography.
Since I had only taken the Olympus E-M5 and associated lenses and gear on my recent three week trip to Oregon and California, and I have been using it much, much more than my Nikon D800E, its lenses and associated gear, I decided to use only the Nikon so I could refresh my mind and muscle memory on its use (which is different from mirrorless) as well as contrast and compare it versus the Olympus.
The images are very good, as expected. Technically, speaking of course. But, I have to believe that for almost every use of the images, the 36mp file is overkill. I think the sweet spot for me is about 20-24mp. That being said, my exposures were not nearly as consistent as they have been with the Olympus, and certainly not as consistent as I desire. Many of the images were about 1/2 stop underexposed and some were about 1/2 stop overexposed. The slight over and underexposure didn't affect quality as there is plenty of dynamic range in the D800E's sensor. But I know exactly why I didn't hit the exposures dead on as I normally do.
For most of this year, I have been used to looking through the viewfinder of the E-M5 and, as with all mirrorless, what I see in the viewfinder is how the images will appear in the final file. That, of course, is because you are looking "at" the image that is being captured on the sensor itself, and not through an optical viewfinder as in an SLR. This is my fault for not paying attention. But it also is indicative of how one thinks when using a mirrorless camera. What you see is what you get. Not so in an SLR.
I found that the weight and size of the big full frame Nikon was much more noticeable now that I have been using a smaller camera system. Additionally, it just didn't seem as much fun using it.
I suspect I have tacitly come to the conclusion that from now on my "go-to" system will be the Micro 4/3 with the Nikon as my backup. I won't sell the Nikon gear just yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't make that decision within a year or so. Still, my big "what if" about the Micro 4/3 is the flash units and flash system. I don't yet know much about that and I am one who uses fill-in flash outdoors and photographs events often so I need to be sure that the Olympus (or Panasonic) flash system will meet my needs.
Thanks for looking. Enjoy!
Dennis Mook
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