Three Miles Final Photography

Olympus XZ-1 / In The Field Part II

Now we come to Part Two of the XZ-1′s trials on my vacation. Still shot in JPG mode and the only editing to the shots are straightening the odd horizon as that’s a pet peeve of mine. As well, I have included a three videos for those of you that do enjoy shooting them. It’s not a primary focus of mine but a nice feature to have once in awhile. I’ll let you decide about the quality, just keep in mind that my Grade 11 Video & Film Classes were over a decade ago now.

I still really am enjoying this camera. While I’ve not yet delved into shooting in in RAW with my normal Adobe Lightroom workflow, the possibilities are enticing!

The video capabilities so far have proven to be sufficient for my needs. Being able to zoom while shooting is a huge plus as well! Combined with the in-body IS system, the videos come out rather smoothly all being initiated by the handy red button on the thumb grip. Double checkmarks for that placement! Too bad the button couldn’t be assigned something else by the owner but I digress.

“Super Macro” mode is another feature that has been really amusing me. Since I’m lacking a Macro lens for my 1Ds, this on the Olympus has opened up a lot of opportunities for those random “I wonder what that would look like stuffed against the lens?” moments.

I almost hate to admit it but, the XZ-1 has been in use a lot more than the big guns recently. Being able to manipulate depth-of-field with this camera in almost a DSLR-like manner is great. It’s not nearly as shallow as a full-frame or even crop sensor but it’s enough to get subject isolation if you understand the concept solidly.

I haven’t really tried using the subject-tracking focus system yet but I am not anticipating too much from that. If I want to shoot fast moving subjects, I wouldn’t be reaching for a camera such as this.

The in-camera editing features have proven to be fairly useful as well. I’ve enjoyed being able to do a quick crop while reviewing in the passenger seat. Even on a sunny day, the OLED screen hasn’t been horribly difficult to see which is nice.

Having the control ring around the lens a la Canon S100 is very nice. Once again, if it could be user assigned it would be even better but as it stands now the functionality is just fine.

Some folks might want to use this as a Street camera. I’m not much of a Street Shooter but it seemed to handle it okay. Pre-focusing is a great benefit, ISO set to auto, set your aperture good and wide then go to town! It’s small, quiet and there’s no honkin’ white lens hanging off it so the “LOOK AT THE PHOTOG” factor isn’t there.

Olympus touts this as a performer in low light. So far I have been very comfortable operating it in some very dim situations. If you have realistic expectations of performance, you shouldn’t be disappointed. If however you are expecting to take a portrait in candlelight and no flash… keep looking.

If you have a really steady hand you can probably get better results than myself. Haven’t taken the time to mount it on the tripod at all and do some more planned shooting but there is always time to make a Part III of this review.

I’ll start shooting it in RAW and doing some head-to-head comparisons with the 1Ds hopefully in the coming weeks between my postings of the proper photos I took in BC.

That’s about it for now for this part of the Field Review. I am looking forward to continuing to give this little camera a good workout.

Just to end it off with a really low light handheld shot taken from the car to show what it’s like when pushed to its limits.