[Pavel]

I had a high hope that my wife will inherit my (still great) Nikon D300 and that we will be able to share the pool of lenses. After several months of trying, no such luck. TOOOO HEAVYYYY is all I heard back. Over the last month, it became clear that alternative is needed and staying with (a nice travel camera) G11 is too frustrating (no control over depth of field, no real macro, no ultrawide, no telephoto - more or less in that order). Enter Olympus OMD E5. You can get a light camera, good controls, shalow DOF possible with primes, decent macro and ultrawide BUT only mediocre telephoto zooms.

Placed a deposit on the camera body (Should be here Friday, I hope) and today I ordered Samyang 7.5 mm fisheye (love the 8 mm APS-C version). A bit in a hurry, would like to have her a camera for our vacation in Newfoundland mid August.

Plan to buy with the camera:
Olympus 12mm f/2
Panasonic 20mmf/1.7
Panasonic 45mm f/2.8 macro

I will wait for something decent in 100mm+ range in the future (so there may be complains about "no telephoto").

3x UV, 1x ND (3 stops), 1x ND (6 stops) and 1x polarizing (all most likely B+W), 2 hoods, a spare battery (when available) and shutter release will complete the system. Unless Henry's ( a local camera store) pulls a rabbit out of a box, I will buy that online. My wife is averse to carrying a tripod. My SLR Gorrilapod was a failure for my DSLR (D300), but it is light and compact and it will be able to hold Olympus well enough, I hope. Baby steps. She may discover that a tripod is a good thing after all.

[NT73]

What you think your wife wants, and what she wants are probably two different things. If it is made of chocolate then you have a chance.

[Pavel]

NT73, what she wants is often what she says (my working hypothesis, that have been right on many occasions). We talked about this a lot. But sometimes what she says is not quite what she actually wants. HMMM

Purchased today the WHOLE DAMN THING (camera, lenses, filters, memory, shutter release). Please send food stamps.

[NT73]

I still reckon it's what you want. Just think of how happy you will be without all that weight of the d800 plus glass and tripods and filters and ........oh, I'll not go on.

[shuttertalk]

Purchased today the WHOLE DAMN THING (camera, lenses, filters, memory, shutter release). Please send food stamps.

Lol... fantastic to hear Pavel - I'm sure your wife will be very happy! My sister in law has a OM-D as well as a Canon DSLR and she swears the Olympus is the best thing ever.

[Kombisaurus]

Very nice Pavel.

I made the switch from a GX-1 to an E-M5 a few weeks ago and instantly fell in love with the Olympus. It is a beautiful little camera.
Images from it are lovely, the IBIS system is amazing, the build quality is teriffic, and once you get used to the exhaustive menu system, the customisability makes it fit in to the way you like to work. But most of all, this thing is FUN to shoot. It just begs to be picked up and played with, and it rewards you with great images every time. And it does it all while also feeling like a professional tool, not just a toy camera.
While the GX-1 is a small camera that can give professional results, the E-M5 is a professional camera that is suprisingly small. I wouldn't feel embarrassed pulling the E-M5 out during a paid gig and shooting with it (I couldn't say that about other mirrorless system cameras).

Your lens selection looks interesting. The 12mm and 20mm are no-brainers, but I'm a bit surprised you didn't go for the Olympus 45mm rather than the Panasonic. The 45mm f/1.8 is universally awesome. But I guess if your wife needs macro, the Oly doesn't do it.
I'll be very interested to hear your experience with the Samyang fisheye. I love my DSLR fisheye and have toyed with the idea of an MFT one.

You mention wanting a 100mm+ lens. There aren't a lot of options out there except for the consumer tele zooms.
While I would love the new Oly 75mm f/1.8 as a modest telephoto lens, I've been using a Canon FD 85mm f/1.8 on an adapter with great results instead. Apart from being a manual focus lens, there's nothing to complain about. Image quality is very good, it's cheap as chips, looks good on the camera, and is easy to work with. I have the Video-Record button set up to toggle magnify mode which makes it very easy for accurate manual focussing with legacy lenses.
There are numerous 135mm f/2.8 or similar legacy lenses that can be adapted, but if your wife already doesn't like the hassle of using tripods then she may also not like the hassle of using manual lenses.

Have fun with it.

[Pavel]

Adrian, way back as a grad student, I had Olympus OM-1. I loved my camera and the E5 reminds me of it. I think it is a good choice for somebody serious about photography who does not want to lug heavy gear. The 45 f/2.8 I bought because it is a macro. We have a nice park near us with constantly changing plants and flowers. When we have just a couple of hours, we go there and my wife likes macro photography. the 45 f/1.8 is not a macro and I am not about to duplicate lenses at this point. It was a very costly purchase as it was. I ended up getting the Panasonic 45-175. It is decent quality for a consumer zoom, compact for its reach and takes 46mm filter like all my other lenses. I heard of the 75mm f/1.8 and I understand it is supposed to be a good lens but I saw no review, it is not yet available, it is expensive and it is a little too close to the 45. The Samyang fisheye I have for the APS-C is a wonderful lens and despite of what you hear of fisheyes, I find it very versatile (see my post elsewhere in the forum). I hardly ever take it out of my bag and pack it even with D800, despite the fact that it is an APS-C lens. At $280, for the 7.5 mm MFT version, it was a nobrainer.

[Kombisaurus]

I'm 100% with you on the usefulness of a fisheye. They're so much more than just a novelty lens. I took a Sigma 15mm fisheye for my 5D MkII with my on my Asia/Euro trip and left my Canon 17-40mm UWA zoom at home. Best decision ever.
I've got a trip to Thailand coming up very soon and I plan on only taking my E-M5... But now you've got me contemplating the Samyang lens for the trip! Doh... more expense.

Good luck with it all. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. I mean I'm sure your WIFE will enjoy it!
I'll be interested to hear your experience with the 45-175.

[Pavel]

I do not know if my wife will let the camera out of her sight. However, I will report what I see with the 45-175.

[matthew]

Adrian, I love that photo. It took me a while to sort out what I was seeing.

Pavel, that looks like an awesome set. I have to admit that I'm jealous – I even took out my GH1 today, but it's just not the same. The E-M5 is a great looking little beast.

The macro situation is a very odd one for m4/3. I'm still amazed that there's only one macro lens available, and that it's an expensive and somewhat compromised one at that. (Optically exceptional, of course, but I don't get the idea of a macro with internal focus and no distance/magnification scale.) I'm particularly surprised that Olympus hasn't stepped up with their own model, but perhaps they're still working on the Four Thirds 100mm Macro that has been on their roadmap for seven years.