My Photographic Future, The Final Part

I've added a photo of the E-5 as a visual aid, not because I'm going to run right out and purchase a pair. I pretty much expressed  my modest opinion about the E-5 back on September 2010 (The Future and Olympus), when the E-5 was released during Photokina 2010. I also expressed my modest opinion about the E-P3 back on July 2011 (The Olympus E-P3 — Too little, too late). I spilled a fair amount of bile in both of those posts, and I still feel justified in having written what I wrote.

And then I came out all hot and bothered about the OM-D E-M5 in February (I'm A Believer – Again) where I expressed something close to ardour for the camera without even holding the camera, let alone used it. That ardour has since faded, and with the theft of my Olympus 4:3rds cameras, the desire to own the camera has gone into neutral.

It's not as if I don't have any cameras at the moment. I own three jewel-like µ4:3rds bodies; an E-P2, an E-PL1 and an E-PL2. Along with the bodies I own a small but quite nice collection of native µ4:3rds lenses, the majority of them primes. I enjoy what I have. The idea of sinking a small fortune back into "big" Olympus, or any brand for that matter, isn't something I want to rush back into. Right before I lost the big cameras I wrote a post about what I was looking for in my next camera, titled, appropriately enough, "What I Want In My Next Camera." For me it all boils down fundamentally to handling and image quality. The image quality issues are pretty much solved now by my current cameras, and certainly by the E-M5 and all the other major camera manufacturers. Handling to me essentially means two things; the ability to easily and quickly manipulate the camera's controls and to easily achieve focus. Everyone obsesses about how big a body is, but when it comes down to it if the controls are easily reachable and manipulative then the size takes care of itself; it is as big as it needs to be. Again, I've pretty much got that right now with the three µ4:3rds bodies and associated lenses. You've seen my latest work scattered through my latest posts. I'll let my work speak for itself. Some other issues I've been obsessing over, such as environmental sealing, I may not obsess over quite so much going forward. They're important, but they're an expensive proposition to fulfill, which leads back to a heavy investment.

I'm still going to wait for Photokina 2012, as well as all the pre-announcements that'll slowly unfold between now and the start of Photokina. And then I'll consider all that's finally been released for public consumption. But I'm no longer on pins and needles waiting for these reveals.