The Hiatus is Over

After almost two months, I received my Olympus E-M5 back from shutter repair at Olympus Service, and all seems well, so far.  I have a six month warranty n the repair, so I need to shoot a bunch of pictures!

After receiving the E-M5 back a couple of weeks ago, I didn't have much chance to use it due to work, but this past weekend I put it to use.

We went up to watch daughter-in-law Amanda's graduation from Graduate school, and other than a couple of shots, kept the m.zuiko 45/1.8 on the camera the entire time.

Jack
The 45mm lens -- particularly at wide apertures like f1.8, produces a wonderful out-of-focus background, providing great separation for the subject.  And the wide 1.8 means that available light photos are the norm.

Watching Dad
The E-M5 has a focus setting that detects eyes -- you can select preferences for the nearest eye, the right ey, the left eye, or let the camera select an eye to focus on.  In eye-focus
mode it does a good job of not getting confused by foreground objects such as the straw.  In this shot, Mitch is trimming a straw with a pocket knife so it doesn't poke Jack in the eye!

Mitch
Mitch met us at Chili's after he got off work Thursday.  The E-M5 with the 45/1.8 really performs well in ambient light.  The focus just pops.  In photography terms, the texture of the out-of-focus background is referred to as "bokeh".  The m.zuiko 45mm lens produces very smooth bokeh -- I've seen some refer to the texture as "creamy".

Jack at twilight

At Amanda's graduation ceremony, it was hot and crowded. Jack got restless, so Holly brought him outside.  A few minutes before Amanda was to actually receive her Master's diploma, I went out and relieved her so she could watch the ceremony.  Jack and I stayed out in the grass and I shot this low-light picture after the sun had fallen below the trees and buildings to the west.  Focus remained quack and snappy, and it produced another great shot.

I had the 17/2.8 in my pocket, and it was easy to swap with the 45.  The 45 was a tighter fit in my pocket, but the pair of lenses may make  the perfect portable combo...

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