New eBook Update
It's never as simple as it seems...
I’ve had the OM System OM-1 Mark II camera for about a year now, and before that I used the original OM-1 for almost a year. I’d consider myself pretty good at setting up digital cameras, as I’ve been shooting exclusively digital since mid-2005, starting with the Nikon D2x, and moving through most of their DSLR and then mirrorless line until mid-2023, when I decided to move to the smaller and more nimble OM System cameras.
The advent of mirrorless cameras made them more powerful, and even more complex, especially when it comes to autofocus settings. When I first got my Nikon Z9 in early 2022, I thought, “hey, I can easily document my settings in an eBook.” Well, that project turned out to take nearly six months to complete, because as it turned out, things are rarely as simple as they seem (and firmware updates along the way made it even more maddening).
Modern digital cameras have amazing autofocus systems, and many of them include subject-detection algorithms that are nothing short of amazing. And while the algorithms behave nearly the same between cameras (it’s almost as though they all get them from the same programmers), the underlying settings can be quite different.
Enter the OM-1 Mark II. After spending nearly a year with this camera, I’ve finally been able to settle on settings for bird (and other wildlife) photography that really seem to work well. It hasn’t been easy, but after I spent nearly 3 weeks in the field this January, I had gotten a lot of time to practice and refine my settings. Add to that the cold Colorado winter, and writing seemed like a good idea. Heck, I even wore off the letter “A” from my computer keyboard in the process…
Anyway, what started as a project to document my camera settings has once again morphed into a somewhat larger eBook project. You see, I can’t just list my settings and call it a day. I mean, I could do that, but anyone reading them would have no clue as to the rationale I came up with for them. So I began to write about my settings, and how I use them in the field. From there, I began to realize that I’d also need to put in some fundamental background on just how the OM-1 Mark II camera’s autofocus works in the first place.
It’s been almost three weeks now since I got home from my Florida birding trip, where I got lots of time to practice using my camera settings and experiment with different options. I still have a ways to go, but I’m working hard on it! Stay tuned.
-Jason