The Paradox in My Bag: Olympus OMD E-M1 and the Magic of Not Knowing

Tucked away in my everyday bag is a small, unassuming camera that has quietly earned its place among my most used tools the Olympus OM-D E-M1, usually paired with the equally understated Lumix 20mm f1.7 lens.

I purchased it with a fault (intermediate IBIS that I have permanently switched off) so not the most expensive when I bought it. But it is easily the most efficient. And in many ways, it is the camera that reflects who I am when I want to move quietly, shoot instinctively, and travel light. Its the closest thing to a digital version of my film OM1, and carries the same name on its casing, not the frankly ridiculous ‘OM System’ branding that is now engraved on the newer cameras.

There is a lot to love here. The E-M1 is compact without feeling fiddly, tough without being overbuilt. It is weather sealed, has a button for everything, robust, and just discreet enough to melt into a crowd, ideal for street work, documentary projects, or simply walking through town with no intention other than to see and respond. Paired with the pancake sized f1.7 Lumix lens, it slips into a small unasuming bag, where 7 charged batteries always live, and still does not weigh on my shoulder.

Another thing that makes this camera sing though, is how it handles. The controls fall naturally under the fingers, the autofocus is quick, and the exposure system is among the most reliable I have used. It nails metering even in complex lighting, letting me concentrate more on composition than compensation.

It has excellent high ISO performance, ISO 3200 is nothing for this camera even though I disclipine myselft to shoot at ISO 400 or 800 when the light drops. The praise I have for this camera is not something I give lightly, I have worked with a lot of cameras over the years, and this one gives me confidence in nearly every frame. Its nearly perfect for digital.

Heres the best part. I shoot this camera almost exclusively in black and white JPEG and the results, straight out of camera, remind me uncannily of Ilford Pan F 50, a slow film I have long loved for its smooth tonal range and rich, silvery contrast. There is a softness to the transitions, a restrained elegance to the way it handles highlights and shadows. It is not digital trying to look like film. It is digital behaving as if it understands film and that is rare.

The electronic viewfinder (EVF) deserves special mention. What Olympus achieved with this generation of EVF was remarkable. It is bright, responsive, and crucially shows you exactly what your final image will look like in real time. For many, this is its biggest strength: no surprises, no guessing, just immediate visual feedback……

….But for me, that is also where the magic begins to unravel.

One of the things I have always cherished about photography is that moment of uncertainty, the gap between seeing and capturing, between clicking the shutter and seeing what you have made. I have sometimes waited 6 months to view film images, I needed that time to distance myself from the image so that when it came to be self critical I was emotionally detached from the image, and how I felt when I took it.

With film, or optical viewfinders, you are working on intuition. You are committing to something that has not quite revealed itself yet. And when you finally do see it whether on the contact sheet or the screen there is a quiet kind of alchemy. The image becomes more than you expected. Sometimes less. But always a surprise.

The E-M1 does not leave room for that. It shows you everything in advance. The contrast, the exposure, the white balance all previewed in exact detail. And while that is fantastic for nailing the shot, it also means the shot no longer reveals itself later. It is already arrived before I even press the shutter and I struggle with that. I know I can turn the realtime exposure option off, but still the EVF bothers me.

That is not a flaw in the camera. It is a reality of the medium. But it has changed the way I feel about photography when I use it. Its why I prefer the heavier and older Nikon D2X, it has the traditional SLR non EVF viewing and that allows space for the image to reveal itself later.

The OMD E-M1 is my insurance policy and so it stays in my bag. It is the camera I trust when I need results in low light, when I want to be fast and light and unnoticed. Its black and white images are beautiful, its exposure performance flawless, and the joy of using it tactile, responsive, alive is undeniable.

But it also reminds me why I still reach for older cameras and load a roll of black and white film into the OM1s. Because sometimes, the best part of photography is not just seeing what is in front of you, its waiting to see what it becomes.