Had a great day out at Snetterton on Saturday at an Olympus photo day, hosted by Power Maxed Racing, a BTCC team sponsored by Olympus. Hospitality was first class, cooked breakfast and dinner, and some Olympus kit to play with in-between being fed and watered!
Here are a few images, haven't sorted them all out yet:-
My thoughts on the kit I had a chance to play with ...
EM1x
Owning the EM1 Mk2, and with the latest firmware that supposedly adds some EM1x features, I wasn't expecting the EM1x to be significantly better than the EM1 Mk2 but I have to say I was impressed. Perfectly sized and shaped for my hands, it felt rugged and comfortable, the "motorsport" tracking mode really does work, and having double the processing power of the EM1 Mk2 it just felt all round faster and more responsive. I can't justify replacing my EM1 Mk2 as I don't feel it's £1,000 better, but even so, I was very, very tempted!
Olympus 300mm f/4
The flag-ship lens in the Olympus range (for now!) I was a bit disappointed they only had 4, for a group of 24 people, so my time with it was very limited, but whilst it's undoubtedly an astonishing lens, the limited time I had was enough to convince me I don't need it. As a prime lens I found it limiting, I feel with m4/3 @ 20 MP you need to frame the shot fairly well to begin with, as there's less scope to crop, so I prefer to stick with my zoom lenses. I did try it with the TC2.0 converter and that's just insane, 1200mm FF equivalent in a hand-holdable lens + converter that's still smaller and lighter than a FF 70-200 f/2.8! At Snetterton there was little need for this lens, anything that was far enough away was a blurry mess in the heat haze anyway.
Olympus 7-14mm f/2.8 PRO
We were taken to the Power Maxed garage, and I was loaned an Olympus 7-14mm f/2.8 PRO, a lens I'm very interested in. Unfortunately we weren't allowed in the pit lane (the BTCC cars were out on track for final practise at the time) but this might well be my next purchase, it's incredibly sharp, and for motorsports photography that wide angle opens up some very interesting possibilities. Absolutely loved this lens, although before I pull the trigger on one I wonder how it compares to Panasonic's 7-14mm f/4 or 8-18mm f/2.8-4?
All in all a great day, although we kept to one area for the track side shooting, so I think a lot of my shots will look very same-y. Would love to do one of these days again at another track.