Two Largely Forgotten But Great Features of the Olympus E-M1 and E-M5

"Irony"; Fujifilm Velvia 50 from the early 1990s (click to enlarge)

The Olympus E-M1 and E-M5 seem to have hundreds of customizable features.  Most of us don't use that many of them, but they are available for each of us, no matter what types of photography we practice and images we like to take. Olympus was kind enough to build the needs of a wide variety of photographers into each camera.

Two of my favorite, but largely forgotten features of the E-M1 and E-M1 are these:

1)  The ability to reduce the size of individual focusing rectangles, thereby provide more accurate focusing on small areas.  In other words, instead of focusing on a face, I can place the rectangle on an eye.

Here are two images of the LCD of my E-M1 showing the focusing rectangles.  The top one is the standard size as default setting and the bottom is the smaller, more accurate size.  I normally always use the smaller size as I focus precisely on an object and don't like a focusing rectangle to bleed over onto something else.

2)  The other is Live Bulb/Live Timer.  This is an amazing feature that I have repeatedly used.  Live Bulb/Live Timer is a feature that allows a photographer, especially at night or during low light, motion, etc., to open the camera's shutter and then actually watch the image appear on the back LCD as it builds on the sensor. When you see the image is at the correct exposure or you have captured what you want to record in the image, you can then immediately curtail the exposure, getting exactly what you want in your photograph.  The Live Bulb feature keeps the shutter open as long as you press on your remote release and Live Time keeps it open for a set period of time.  I normally use Live Bulb.  There are several settings with this feature. If you are interested in what the settings control, either look at your manual or look at the E-M1/5 manual online.

I'll give you two examples.  First, let's assume I am out to photograph fireworks.  When we photograph fireworks, instead of trying to time each exposure to get the explosions of color, we lock open our shutter for a certain amount of time to record multiple bursts, sparkles and streaks of light.  After we estimate we have recorded enough, we close the shutter.  We then repeat the process.

With Live Bulb, we can actually see the fireworks bursts accumulating in our image as it happens.  No worries about closing before getting what you want or overexposing the image by leaving the shutter open too long.  What a great feature.

The other example would be the same technique but photographing stars or night scenes.  We can actually see the stars (and Milky Way if you are in a very dark area and have the camera pointed in the right direction) building on the LCD as it happens.  When the image is exposed to our satisfaction, we close the shutter.  Again, no guessing.

There are many, many other wonderful features that are found on these two cameras.  Olympus engineers, along with their consultants, did a super job in creating these fine tools for us.

Thanks for looking.  Enjoy!

Dennis Mook

Many of my images can be found at www.dennismook.com.  Please pay it a visit.  I add new images regularly.  Thank you.


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