In January of 2013 I purchased the Olympus OM-D E-M5 to start learning basic photography.

A short history of why I decided to go with Olympus and the Micro four-thirds format.

When I was growing up we had a 4Head VCR made by Panasonic, that VCR out lasted all the subsequent VCR’s we bought and the VCR era to boot! That VCR is in a remote corner of the old house now collecting dust, but I bet if I were to hook it up, the damn thing would work!

I had previously bought a Panasonic HDC-TM900 camcorder in 2011, it to has been a great product which I still heavily use today. When I began looking for another camera I was looking for a camera that could do both stills and video and was looking at the Panasonic Lumix GH2 and GH3, but videos I saw when panning the camera seemed to lag too much and this seemed to be an issue with all the hybrid still/video cameras on the market in late 2012 and early 2013. So I figured I’d look for a good still only camera and continue to use my old TM900 camcorder until the technology for still/video cameras improved the video lag problem.

I had previously looked at Olympus cameras, but never looked at them in much depth…. I was looking to go with Nikon or Cannon, but was never crazy about those two either. When a photographer friend of mine suggested I take another look at the new Olympus OM-D E-M5, I took his advice.

While doing more in depth research about the camera, I learned that  Panasonic and Olympus had teamed up in the Micro four Thirds market and that all of their lenses were compatible, plus all the great reviews on the OM-D I decided to to buy the OM-D.

Since I’ve had it, I’ve been really impressed with the quality of the still images! Now it does have a video capability, but it’s not very good, so this camera is my still image workhorse and the Camcorder is still my go to choice for video.