I did it...

I broke down finally after saving up and purchased the Olympus OMD E-M1 Mark III. It is NOT considered a pro camera. But wow, the features it has!

It will take me a while to get used to it. I've been a fan of the Olympus camera since owning my very first Olympus Stylus in 2006. I literally wore that pocket camera out. Being one of the first pocket digital cameras, it wasn't cheap. But it taught me so much!

I learned that a pocket camera is essential because it is so easy to carry around. I've 'killed' so many pocket cameras in the past 13 years. I even used a pink ugly camera for a long time. I purchased Pink Fugly camera so I wouldn't feel bad about dropping it in snow or demolishing it by accident. It was cheap, it was ugly, but it took great photos. I even lost it once in the creek. I dried it out and it kept functioning.

It lived another few years before the lens wouldn't open anymore. 

Last year I sent my old Olympus OMD EM 5 to be converted to a full spectrum Infrared camera. 

I replaced it with an Olympus OMD EM10 Mark iii. It was Olympus's version of a cell phone camera. Easy to operate by swiping the menu on the LCD. I could choose landscape, sunset, sports, indoors, and other options easily.

Imagine my disappointment then to read about Olympus selling out? 

Seeing as that my Oly OMD EM 5 was still creeping along after 7 yrs of hard labor [the only menus that work are... Program Mode and Manual mode at this time and the LCD turns a sickly green most of the time]...I decided to go for the gold and get the new higher end version when it went on sale.

The cameras are built to be exposed weather. I have the lenses I need and if I care as well for the newer model as I cared for the old one, they will last me a very long time.

So with all that goobldy gook aside...I decided to dive into this last upgrade. Note, better gear doesn't make me a better photographer at all. Nope, not at all. I've done very well in the past years of always purchasing a DSLR camera that was being discontinued or buying a used one. I favor Olympus because they are small and lightweight. Carrying my Nikon D5200 was like carrying a load of bricks compared to the light weights.

I like hiking and I like photography, but I don't need to carry extra pounds while hiking. This new one has two new features which I really like.

It has an in camera ND filter. What? It works like a neutral density filter contained within the camera settings. Wicked cool. The image stabilization allows me to take a longer exposure shot up to a full second Hand Held.

I used to lug around a tripod almost all of the time when going near any source of water.

Anxious to try this feature out, I headed to the creek before the winds started Saturday morning.

The shot on the left is just a normal shot of the little pond between my land and the neighbor's land [f 5.6 at 1/15th of a second]. On the right is a shot hand held with a in camera ND shot at f 5.6 at 1.3 seconds. 

Another sample of a first try. On the left a normal shot, on the right .25 of a second. Not a big deal right? But I really like the smoother water. Olympus says that the filter actually merges several exposures together at once. 

Rich wouldn't let me wander around off our property, he said there were too many odd balls bow hunting on the neighbor's 500 acres of land. So I took Charlie and we headed to Tainter Hollow. Alas, we couldn't walk the trails next to Tainter Creek either!

The USDA and DNR had put out traps for the beavers who have been causing a lot of damage to the trout stream. 

Charlie and I parked and walked the gravel road down to the bridge where I thought I could try for some more hand held shots. So these are shots for fun and not for any wowzer factor. I call them learning shots.

Internal ND 8 Filter. 64 ISO, one second exposure. Better! Things look pretty good.

Looking down on the other side of the bridge. Same exposure.

I took one more short walk on Sunday and had to try this again.

I will have to actually use a tripod for any longer exposures than 1 second. But now I don't have to add a filter or even carry one when using this camera. I think that is a bonus. 

There is one more feature I am anxious to try out. It is called Starry Sky AF. But with clouds and rain for the next week, I doubt I'll get a chance to try that. 

I will use the in camera focus stacking and use the focus bracketing.

In short.
I am pleased with this camera. And it will take a while for me to take it through its paces. I think it is built tougher than my old one and definitely can be taken out in poor weather. 

One last parting photo. This was taken in 2016 at Parfrey's Glen near Wisconsin Dells. I climbed rocks and carried my gear over precarious ground to get to this place at the end of the rock gorge. A 1 second shot on a tripod with an ND filter.

Still one of my favorite photos.

The end goal is to be able to not have to carry all the gear to get a shot like this in the future. I guess we will see!