October 2022
OM1 for bird photography
All focal lenths mentioned are in FF equivalent.
In 2021 I had written a blog on my website www.glimpsesofnature.net about what I would like to see from Olympus (Or their new owners i.e. OM systems). I had basically pointed out that OM has a huge advantage in wildlife and certain other genres which it may not enjoy in other genres like say wedding photography. Note: I am going to digress here a bit. We had a wedding function at home recently and the photographers came with a full frame camera and f/1/4, f/18 lenses etc. many of the photos had too shallow depth of field and many photos were actually ruined. So looking at high ISO performance, of the new OM-1 body, I think wedding photography could also be a good field for m43,purely because of slightly better DOF in close settings like mehendi party or something. So I had argued, that OM must come out with lenses and systems which are excellent for wildlife and which already builds on its various strengths like fantastic lenses, lightweight bodies, AI and computational photography features. To name a few. To achieve this, I felt they needed a new sensor, which has much better dynamic range, 1-2 stops better noise profile and a significantly better autofocus system with computational and Ai learning aspects.
And boy have they delivered with the new OM-1!!!
Heres a brief review of the OM-1 covering only certain aspects. Much of the article will be spent in discussing aspects of AF performance in both BIF and stationary birds, noise performance, shooting speed, ease of use, etc.
I got to use the OM-1 only a couple of times. Once was at a mangrove very near my house, in the airoli area. These were brief trips in the rains so I couldn’t spend more than1-2 hours here in total. The other time was 4 days during a tour to the Greater Rann of Kutch. We spent 3 days walking around in blistering heat , looking for some hard to photograph birds. However, conditions were good to test some aspects of the camera.
Autofocus
The camera of choice for birders in the Olympus family used to be the EM1X. The introduction of the bird detect autofocus was a real advantage. I had shot with this system quite a lot last year and gotten pretty good results. However, I always felt that is not doing justice to the totally excellent 150-400/4.5 lens. In the EM1X, I felt that the autofocus was lagging a bit. There was lesser degree of confidence in the autofocus process. Ultimately it turned out to be quite good, but it was a steep learning curve. I remember my first outing with the EM1X and the 300/4 was a mess of blurry and OOF photos and I had wondered at the time whether I had made a mistake in shifting to Olympus. Further effort and study established the capability of the system and I have no regrets.
The learning curve on the OM-1 is more a gentle ramp since the camera seems to do most of the work and does it well. Basically, the OM-1 has 1000+ AF points vs the 121 points the earlier sensors had. This is helped by “computational photography” aspects supported by a new sensors and new AF engine. This makes bird photography pretty much effortless and pretty much riskless since now, the likelihood of getting a sharp bird shot is very high.
For Birds:
OM has a new subject detect system which automatically detects a whole bunch of subjects like cars, trains, planes, birds and animals. When Bird AI is selected, it automatically detects the bird in the frame and locks on to the eye of the bird. This was a decent implementation in the EM1X but you always got the feeling that it lacked a bit of bite. On the OM-1 the bird detect is just amazing as will be seen by the examples which follow.
If you see this sequence which took place in about 3-4 seconds, the bird has moved all over the place. Its impossible to manually choose the focus point so that the focus point is always on the eye. OM-1 in Bird Ai does the job flawlessly.
This is a collage of the bird at various points in the same frame. Imagine trying to manually change the focus point each time the bird moves!!!
I was going to photography this black ibis which was sitting on the roof of a nearby shed. Just as I got my eye to it, the driver started the car. If you have ever been in a diesel jeep when it starts, you know that it rocks all over the place. And at 1400mm, the field of view is very small. So this sequence was taken when I was not even looking in the viewfinder. I had acquired initial focus and then the car started, so these were taken without knowing whats there in the frame. However, the OM-1 was able to follow the birds eye reasonably well. Even with the head of the bird being all over the place, focus is still retained properly on the head and eye…. @ 20 FPS!!!!. Note: The area I had selected was cross type. Even when the bird was out of the cross area, the camera was able to lock focus. However, I think after using the camera for a bit, I feel its better to leave it on all points and trust the camera to do its job of finding and latching on to the bird.
In this sequence the bird isn’t even being seen properly, yet the camera managed to latch on to the eye with little problem. I think the capability of the OM-1 to find birds amongst complicated backgrounds is almost magical.
We were tracking a bird called common whitethroat which is a huge skulker. It rarely comes out on a perch, just prefers to flit from one branch to another or one shrub to another. It also maintains its distance. So the bird is very small in the viewfinder. Many times our guide used to point to a bush or shrub and the whitethroat would be there only for 1-2 seconds. Often I took a series of shots without actually seeing the bird. Usually I would try to keep the bird in the center of the frame. But after a few sequences I realized that its impossible to track the bird and just let it rip. Here you can see the OM-1 tracked the bird to the very edge of the frame (left center in bottom right image of the collage). I was shooting at the center point thinking the bird is there. But the bird had moved in the meantime and was at the edge of the frame but I got the shot because OM-1 recognized and tracked the bird even when I couldn’t. If you actually see the frame, you realize the bird is very small and there is a huge amount of clutter. However, the OM-1 HAS DONE A GREAT JOB HERE.
Heres the crop of the image in the extreme left corner.
Failures of the bird recognition system,
If anything, the system is too good. In some of the photos, it actually picked up and latched on to the insects flying in front of the stationary bird.
I had to manually refocus on the bird, after which it latched on nicely. Note: full time manual focus is another great feature. In difficult to focus situations, you can focus manually, and manual focus works even with autofocus enabled. Combined with focus peaking (the camera paints the in-focus areas in a specific colors like red or yellow or whatever, REALTIME … so focusing becomes very easy) this combination of manual focusing during autofocus is very useful
But in most cases, the bird detect works really well Note: Theres also a animal detect, plaine detect, train detect etc. For example, shots of birds on the ground are difficult unless you yourself are on the ground and have a clean background. These are hard to nail since the bird is exactly the same color as the ground. The difficulty starts in first finding the bird (remember, when you first see through the viewfinder, its mostly focused at some other place and you have to find and center the bird before you start the process of getting it into focus), then getting the AF working etc. When the bird is moving, its very easy for the camera to lose focus and then focus on the background since its so close to the bird. The bird detect feature of the OM-1 really helps here. In many cases, it was sufficient to point the camera in the general area and let camera figure out which is the bird and focus on it accurately.
Setting for static birds:
I felt that setting the camera to all points actually was the best option. I had initially set it to large and then to cross, but in terms of versatility, I think all points actually works the best and lets the camera do its stuff. Also, I think in all points mode, the camera defaults to center af point priority so its actually ok to use all points. The only time I would use smaller AF area is when there are too many birds in the frame and you want to select a particular one.
My AF sensitivity was initially -1. But over time I felt that 0 or +1 is slightly better. Since I was shooting in conditions where the birds were moving a lot, this may have worked better. I can’t help but feel that a sensitivity of 0 should be ok for most conditions.
AF accuracy and consistency. Initially for static birds (C1) I had set the frame rate to 10fps. But ultimately, I set it to the max i.e. 20fps in silent mode (electronic shutter). I didn’t use shutter mode at all. There are some slight inconsistencies in focus within frames. I think out of 100 frames, 85-90 would be properly in focus and the rest would be somewhat soft. This is the reason I has kept it on -1 and 10 fps to begin with. Ultimately, I felt that its better to capture more frames even at the cost of some irregular focus frames. So for example, if in-focus frames are in focus say 70% of the time (my practical numbers are closer to 85-90%), then @ 20 fps, you still get 14 frames in focus per second. That’s definitely good enough. “Quantity has its own quality”
Focus performance for BIF:
I didn’t do too much BIF with this body during the GRK trip. There weren’t too many BIF opportunities. However, in the resort, there were some swifts so I thought I should raise the ante and see what I get. So I selected the most obscene subject i.e. swifts, in the worst conditions, i.e. with busy background and very short 2 seconds window when there was some chance to get them. I was quite astounded by the results. The camera managed to locate and hang on to the bird even in very busy background. Anyone who has shot swifts knows that these birds are very fast and very quirky. They change direction on a whim and are very hard to get unless you have a nice clean background. Here, the background was very busy, bird was super fast, and small in fame and yet the camera did a magnificent job. It regained focus very quickly after the bird has gone behind some foliage and re-appeared in the next few moments.
These are quite amazing results for such a small, swift bird against such a bad background. These files were exported to ACR and opened as 1500 px jpg files and then the above images were cropped (400*400 px) so the resolution may seem low but they are fine when you zoom in. No processing except resizing and cropping has been done.
Whereas I haven’t used the Z9 yet, but I can tell u for sure, having used many many cameras, these results would have been impossible for almost any other body, especially not one without a fantastic bird detect AI or other computational photography features. Note: In fact in a recent birdwatching trip, I again tried to shoot some swifts. Among the whole group, I was the only one who got good shots. In fact think I was the only one who even tried!!!! Yes, there was a Z9 user in the group
In clear skies, with no difficult background, the camera had no real difficulty latching on accurately. I tested this at Bhandup on a variety of subjects, both backlit and not, like harrier, egret, spoonbill, night heron and also the usual subjects from my balcony like black kites and pigeons. In most cases, the camera performed exceptionally well. The figures given by some people of 75-85% accuracy are more or less realistic but I would say they are more in the 85-95% range. Again, as mentioned earlier, at 20 fps, even with 70-85% accuracy, you generate between 14-17 accurate shots per second and its very likely that you will get a good frame. I haven’t done massive testing of BIF and this is one genre where individual style makes a difference. At the moment I feel sensitivity +2, all points focus and 1/2000s is the way to go.
I will do a separate post on BIF experiences and setting subsequently. This is a brief general overview.
Noise.
This was the the other critical point apart from AF which had to be addressed. The OM-1 has a BSI sensor of 20mp. The performance of this sensor is radically different from the earlier sensor on the em1x and the em1.3. In the earlier cameras, I was ok to use till ISO 2500, going to ISO 6400 with proper exposure only. In the OM-1 I am quite convinced till ISO 8000-10000 and even don’t mind going upto ISO 25600 with proper exposure and ISO 10000 are quite ok to use. The images clean up pretty well. Needless to say that this may be more a result of the advances in software, but why should we care!!!! As long as we get a good usable image at the end of the day, I am not concerned whether its due to software or hardware. But I suspect its because of the improvements in hardware since the Em1X images don’t clean up as well with the new software.
I have taken a number of shots at varying ISO of the same subject and as shown ahead, the images clean up really well as long as your are exposing correctly. Among the 3 software primarily in use, pureraw 2.0, nonoise ai, topaz photo ai I found topaz is doing an altogether better job in general. There was a rumor a while back that om systems had tied up with topaz to implement the NR in the OM workspace software. Looking at the results, there may be some truth in those rumors. However this may change over time as changes are made to software and new versions come up since this is still a new body and I am sure improvements will keep coming. These images were done with DXO Pure Raw 2. Pure Raw 2 sometimes doesn’t remove noise completely (at least in this version). So I did a secondary treatment with Topaz Denoise. Results are much better.
One thing I sort of noticed and its still early days, but I think you need to saturate the OM-1 sensor a little. I think it performs much better when its overexposed by about 1/3 stop rather than if its Under-exposed by 1/3 or 2/3 stop. So its quite advisable to expose to the right. I also noticed that center weighted metering in fact tends to slightly underexposure subjects so its good to dial in some + ev compensation.
The canon 40d had a similar problem of notoriously bad noise profile if it were even slightly underexposed. I think they improved that by firmware 1.4 or something. I am just posting a few preliminary results. ISO and processing software is mentioned in the image
Dynamic range: recovery of shadows, recovery or highlights, retention on colors…. Coming up in later posts
Image processing.
If done right, theres very little to correct in OM-1 images. They are good straight out of the box. I find that theres not much you need to do if exposed correctly. Of course, some levels contrast sharpness still need to be done, but theres no major stuff that needs to be done. The only other body I had this happy problem was on the canon 1DXM2. The images from that camera were also spot on and nothing much had to be done.
I am currently doing a comparison of the various noise reduction methods and will update that in a subsequent blog. But overall impressions are very favorable. Noise cleans up extremely well. There is no real hesitation upto ISO 5000, ISO 12800 is very usable and even ISO 25600 is usable with some proper exposure and planning.
The Gripes:
The AF stays a bit inconsistent (10-15%). But as mentioned previously, you still get more than enough shots and the danger of losing a critical moment is minimal. I am not completely convinced of the supposed 2 stop increase in dynamic range. I tried processing a few severely backlit images but whilst I was able to recover luminance, I felt the color data was a bit reduced. However I am not an expert and haven’t yet done controlled tests which I will do later.
The only other real gripe I have is with the size of the rear and front dials. They are pathetic!!! Why OM had to go an resize dials of a perfectly good size from the EM1X and EM1.3 is beyond understanding. I cant imagine anyone being able to use the front And back dials with gloves on. I hope they fix this!!!!!
Comparison with the EM1X, EM1.3: Should you upgrade:
This is a question that will be asked by very many. The question is a difficult one to answer and depends primarily on what you are shooting most. If, like me, you are shooting birds and especially Birds in Flight, then my answer would be a resounding YES. Its definitely worth the upgrade. Many people have asked whether the Image Quality is significantly better. The point is that the possibility of comparing image quality comes into play only if you get the shot. OM-1 will help you get the shot with a far greater certainty than either the EM1.3 or the EM1X. Beyond that, 2 things stand out, the marvelous AF and the better noise performance. For macro I would argue that the upgrade wont be essential since many factors are in fact in your control. Same thing for street and even landscapes. These genres don’t need the same kind of high performance that bird photography needs. The EM1.3 or EM1X Would remain a very capable camera for these genres. But its for bird photography in particular and wildlife photography in general that the OM-1 really shines and is a must have.
Conclusion:
The OM-1 is a very convincing camera. This was the camera that OM system desperately needed, to stay in the mirrorless game. In 2017 or so, sony was the pioneer with their mirrorless cameras. I think they have stagnated a bit. The next big thing were the fabulous canon R5 and R6 but they were let down really by their poor lenses (800/f11, 100-500/f 7.1 etc) forcing users to keep using the old heavier lenses with adapters and negating the advantages of the smaller bodies. Now we have the Nikon Z9, which from all accounts is a very capable camera and is well supported by a good range of lenses for wildlife. In this crowded market, comes the OM1. OM systems already had a good base with their superb pro lenses especially the superb 300/4 and the 40-150/2.8. The addition of the phenomenal 150-400/4.5 was a game changer in terms of the sharpness and performance that could be crammed into a compact, lightweight lens. What was missing was a body that could utilize the full performance of the 150-400. Olympus bodies lacked 2 things in particular that are very important for wildlife i.e. AF performance and ISO performance. The OM-1 addresses both these issues quite convincingly. The OM-1 is a performance beast, capable of delivering excellent results even in difficult conditions. In combination with the 150-400/4.5, I think it’s a combination that hard to beat if not impossible to beat for wildlife photography in general and bird photography in particular. The AF system, especially Bird Detect of the OM-1 is quite spectacular. As long as you have the bird in frame and can hold it for a few moments, I think the OM-1 will ensure that you get good sharp images. You can trust it to do its job. And it does so with amazing skill.
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