Hello and welcome to my nature photography blog where I share my adventures, sojourns and musings on all things related to wildlife and landscape photography and, come to that, anything else that springs to mind! I’ll always endeavour to post on a semi-regular basis so do pop by from time to time and feel free to add any comments or questions; you’ll always get a response as I’m a stickler for replying!
Generally, for my close-up/macro work, I prefer to use the Nikon D850 since it provides me with greater control over the depth of field than APS-C and MFT. However, there's no getting away from the fact that it's darn heavy and when used with either my Laowa 100mm Micro or Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 it lacks image stabilisation which is incredibly useful for when I'm shooting in low light and, also, in aiding composition. For the last 6 months, I've enjoyed using the light and discreet Olympus OMD EM5 III for travel and some landscape but until recently I hadn't considered it for close-up for which it has many advantages, not least being MFT affording a greater working distance (very useful for flighty insects), massive reduction in weight and amazing IS. But, since MFT gives you 'approximately' 2 stops greater DOF over a FF set-up equivalent (thereby making its 60mm f/2.8 Macro similar to a FF 120mm f/5.6), it makes it doubly difficult to obtain those ethereal, soft focus photos I enjoy making so much. I guess I could purchase either the Zuiko 25mm or 45mm f/1.8 but given I am in the process of purchasing a new mirrorless Nikon and telephoto (It had to happen sooner or later!), I didn't really want to spend even more money on yet another item; plus, I'd also need a set of extension tubes to permit closer focusing.
So, with thinking cap on and after cobbling together various items that I have accumulated over the years, I've arrived at a hybrid OM/Nikon set-up. By using the Nikon 50mm f1/4 via an adaptor on the OM and attaching Nikon close-up lenses (I prefer these over extension tubes as there's no light loss and I can pop them into my pocket), I can now shoot at a FF equivalent of a 100mm f/2.8. I benefit from the OM's light weight (half that of the 850), IS and EVF histogram and from the quality I've come to expect from the 50mm/close-up lenses combo. Here are a few examples from my first morning with the set-up.
