{"id":901,"date":"2012-06-02T19:34:09","date_gmt":"2012-06-03T00:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/?p=901"},"modified":"2012-06-03T14:03:28","modified_gmt":"2012-06-03T19:03:28","slug":"olympus-e-m5-sports-shooting-field-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/olympus-e-m5-sports-shooting-field-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympus E-M5 Sports Shooting Field Report"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Rory McIlroy tees off on 18 - 2012 Memorial Tournament Pro-Am<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As you can see by looking at the front page (or by looking in the “photos” archive if reading this a few weeks after I write it), I had a chance to shoot the Memorial Tournament Pro-Am and practice rounds using my Olympus OM-D E-M5 this past week. \u00a0I thought I’d share a few key observations when using the E-M5 to shoot sports that don’t require focus tracking, such as golf. \u00a0I know these sports are few and far between, but Golf and Baseball are two that I think can easily be shot with great effect with the E-M5.<\/p>\n

Click on any image to view it larger.<\/em><\/p>\n

For a much more comprehensive collection of shots from my week at The Memorial Tournament, view the image posts here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Battery Life<\/span><\/h3>\n

I was a little worried about battery life when I went out. \u00a0The E-M5 is rated for 330 shots on a single charge. \u00a0Well, in a full day of golf shooting, I will shoot FAR more than that. \u00a0I knew that I’d get more than 330, simply because I was shooting with the 9 fps burst on the whole day, so there wouldn’t be as much time viewing through the viewfinder per image. Still, I had my GX1 and viewfinder in a hip bag ready to fill in when the E-M5 died.<\/p>\n

Except, the E-M5 didn’t die. \u00a0During Wednesday’s Pro-Am, I took 872 images with the E-M5, and did quite a bit of image review as well. \u00a0While I had IS disabled upon burst, I did use IS to stabilize the viewfinder for focusing and framing throughout the day. \u00a0The best part? \u00a0I still had quite a bit of battery power left too. \u00a0Going up the 18th fairway, on my last hole of the day, was the first time I saw the battery meter switch from full to 2\/3 full. \u00a0Now, that happens at a little more than half actual draining, but still…I was very impressed and pleased.<\/p>\n

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Bo Hoag exits the sand by the first green - 2012 Memorial Tournament Practice Rounds<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

EVF<\/span><\/h3>\n

The EVF performed very well. \u00a0I shot the whole week with my manual focus Canon FD 50-300mm f\/4.5L. \u00a0It’s a wonderful lens, but required precise focus due to the long focal length and relatively fast aperture. \u00a0 I used the magnified viewfinder (I have magnify mapped to my Fn2 button) to set my focus, and it worked great. \u00a0I would frame the shot how I liked, position the focus box over where I needed to focus, then zoom in, hit precise focus when the golfer addressed the ball, and then zoom back out to confirm framing. \u00a0The in-body IS in the E-M5 can also stabilize the viewfinder just like when using optical stabilized lenses on other cameras, and it was a wonderful help, making precise framing easy. \u00a0Without it, even though I shot with a monopod, getting precise framing at the long end of the zoom (equivalent field of view like that of a 600mm lens on full frame) would have been very difficult.<\/p>\n

Performance and Handling<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Tiger Woods blasts his approach to within 8 feet of the pin on 17 - 2012 Memorial Tournament Pro-Am<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I used the HLD-6 grip, both horizontal and vertical sections, throughout the week. \u00a0It was a really nice thing to have the more comfortable grip, especially in portrait orientation. \u00a0It made keeping the camera steady easier and less fatiguing. \u00a0The camera also was a joy to shoot with.<\/p>\n

The 9 frame per second bursts allowed for great capture of action, and the ability to get just the right moment. \u00a0While I would fill the buffer on some bursts, it did not take long at all to clear some images and have the camera ready to shoot for additional frames. \u00a0This was the key to getting shots like the ones to the left and below. \u00a0The shot on the left was taken from in front of Tiger (I positioned my self about 70 feet in front of him, and shot low to the ground.<\/p>\n

I framed my shot and hit the shutter immediately after hearing the impact of the club on the ball, rattling off 15 frames in a little more than a second. \u00a0I caught a great part of the swing due to the rapid burst. \u00a0Then, I noticed him staring intently at the ball’s flight, and I quickly zoomed in, made sure it was in focus, and rattled off six more shots. \u00a0 The result is the rather nice portrait below. \u00a0Many other cameras I’ve shot with become very difficult to use once the buffer is full. \u00a0While there is a small pause when you first fill the buffer with RAW files, I continue to be impressed by how quickly the camera is ready to shoot again after a full buffer. \u00a0If you take more conservative 5-6 shot bursts, even in succession, it becomes even harder to fill the buffer. \u00a0A great performance all around.<\/p>\n

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Tiger Woods watches his approach to the middle of the 17th green - 2012 Memorial Tournament Pro-Am<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Image Quality<\/span><\/h3>\n

I am not going to go to deep into this. \u00a0The images speak for themselves, in my opinion, but I wanted to touch base on one key thing. \u00a0Shooting outdoor sports provides challenging lighting conditions. \u00a0As photographers, we seek out the best light generally, and shoot in the evening or morning to get that softer golden light. \u00a0Well, with sports you don’t have that option, and with golf, most of the time you’re shooting with the sun high in the sky. \u00a0That means harsh shadows. \u00a0Coupled with the bright white hats that many golfers wear, it’s a difficult task for many cameras. \u00a0The E-M5 handled this harsh light beautifully, maintaining strong detail in the shadows, even when the subject was backlit, as well as keeping all highlight detail. \u00a0It’s the first Micro 4\/3 camera to exhibit dynamic range wide enough to fly through these lighting conditions without breaking a sweat. \u00a0It was very welcome after clipping highlights a fair bit last year when I shot with the GH2 and GH1.<\/p>\n

Final Thoughts<\/span><\/h3>\n

While I would not classify the E-M5 as a sports camera due to its lackluster continuous autofocus and the lack of fast long native lenses for the format, the camera can do a very good job given the right sport. \u00a0As I mentioned earlier, sports that allow for a good bit of pre-focusing, like golf and baseball are well suited to the camera. \u00a0The continuous drive mode is competitive with even professional grade DSLRs, and the excellent viewfinder and stabilization helps in framing shots with long lenses. \u00a0I was impressed that the battery lasted all day, including 872 shots and a bunch of chimping, and still had some juice in the tank. \u00a0The image quality was excellent, even given the very difficult lighting conditions. Overall, I really couldn’t ask for more from this tiny wonder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As you can see by looking at the front page (or by looking in the “photos” archive if reading this a few weeks after I write it), I had a chance to shoot the Memorial Tournament Pro-Am and practice rounds using my Olympus OM-D E-M5 this past week. \u00a0I thought I’d share a few key […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[133,46,132,113,45,131],"class_list":["post-901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-shop","tag-burst","tag-e-m5","tag-field-report","tag-golf","tag-om-d","tag-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/rory_drive.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p28RGq-ex","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=901"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":908,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901\/revisions\/908"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}