10 Common Mistakes Beginners Make Using Olympus OM-D Cameras

I have had the privilege to interact with many Olympus users for many years - from my blog audience to recently YouTube crowd, then in real life consumer events with Olympus Malaysia's workshops, photowalks and outings, I have observed many mistakes that were recurring. I am compiling this list of common mistakes which I believe will benefit the newcomers to Olympus system. Some of these mistakes include basic camera settings, accidental presses of shortcut buttons or misunderstood camera settings. I hope you find some of the tips useful!

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[robinwong]

I am currently away from Kuala Lumpur, making a short one-week trip home to Kuching to visit my mum. Also, I honestly need some time away from the city and considering all the drama that's happened this year, I do need a short break myself. Since I am away from my workstation and do plan to take time off for myself, I shall reply to comments and emails a little slower than usual. I will be back at full swing next week.
Meanwhile, do follow me (stories updates) on Instagram @shutter.therapy as I will be updating my adventures, what I shoot, where I go, who I meet and what I eat during my time in Kuching, Borneo.

[sirbondman]

I am glad that I stumbled across your YT channel. Your slow, precise speaking is a joy and enables the listener to digest exactly what you are saying. Nice! Stay healthy.

[morrisbagnall]

Here's one that is lens specific but can be resolved on some OM-D cameras. I had planned a trip to shoot a steam train. Got there early yesterday, found a good spot. Used my C3 preset for CAF+tracking and waited for the train to appear. It came around the corner and the camera would not focus and within 10 seconds the train was passing me. Afterwards, I noticed that I had inadvertently slid the manual focus ring back on the 12-40 Pro when removing it from my bag. I had been doing some close up work at home and enabled the focus ring in the MkII menu then forgot to turn it off again. Lesson is: either turn it off in the menu or remember to check the manual focus ring before you set up for a shoot.
Great video as always, thanks Robin.

[lisaatheni]

Omg! I thought it was something wrong with my lens cause I was like why it was so zoomed in! Turns out I had the digital tele-converter on the whole time! So glad I came across your video thanks again!

[nicktheobald]

Thanks - just got my first M43, E-M1 mark I, really helpful info on the Olympus system. Need to decide on lenses now (I am getting the 17mm f/1.8 as well)...

[doloresneilson]

Thank so much Robin! You understand beginners and common mistakes so well! I'm still learning how to navigate menus and my OM-D so I found this invaluable. You are an AWESOME teacher!

[ipadista]

Hi Robin, I always appreciate your videos!
I have asked you this before, but I didn't fully understand your previous replies.

You often mention that the camera should always be turned off, to preserve battery life.
I am certainly not arguing against the basic statement, that you should always try to preserve battery life, but I have mentioned previously that if you have the screen closed and set Quick Sleep mode to something low like perhaps 10s, then as soon as you put the camera away from your face, it will go to sleep. In sleep mode, there doesn't seem to be any noticeable drain in my experience.

Waking from sleep is considerably faster than powering the camera on, you often refer to wanting the camera ready in order not to miss a shot, something I totally agree with! Sleep-wake is less than a second, I usually half-press the shutter as I raise the camera to my eyes, and it is ready when I get to aim it.

Currently, I turn the camera on as I head out with it and only turn it off (if I remember to) once I stop using it. Even forgetting to turn it off does not seem to be much of an issue as long as you have also set an Auto Power Off timeout, I have set it to 4h to make sure it happens eventually, but not whilst using it.

As in many cases, different approaches to achieve the same goal are sometimes mostly down to personal choice, so I am certainly not arguing against using the power button approach. If anything, it is meant to mention an alternate way to achieve the same result, that in my experience is more convenient, and actually saves more power, since it goes to sleep within seconds, between your shots even in the middle of using it.

If you find the 10s sleep timeout too low, whilst actively using the camera, it can be raised to 1 min.

However, your previous comments on this seemed to imply that sleep mode is just not a valid method to preserve power, thus more being wrong than another way to prolong battery life. But you never explained why. This has confused me a bit since in my experience it seems to do the job.

I might have misread you, but to me, this part of your position doesn't seem to make sense. I might of course have misunderstood you, if you have the time, it would be interesting to learn about the drawbacks of sleep mode!

Perhaps I should mention that the Quick Sleep is not available on all Olympus cameras, but I have used it on both EM5-II and EM1-II

[RTFM]

Thanks Robin. With modern digital cameras it’s so easy to accidentally change settings. It was a lot simpler, easier in film days 😀
Best wishes.

[HR-wdcw]

I know this is an older video, but most cameras have a "sleep" mode. If you're not going to be shooting for say 30 minutes then sure, turn it off. But if you're going about 5-10 minutes, you can try to enable sleep/standby/power saving timers if the camera has them. This uses less power than if the camera was on all the time (EVF and LCD illuminated) and also uses way less power than turning the camera on/off which probably uses the most power if you do this a lot. Even turning off the LCD/EVF (if you can) but leave the camera on is also a way to save battery power. For years I used to turn off my camera and only got an average of maybe 200-300 shots per charge when I should have been able to get 450+. I later reailzed it was because of me power cycling the camera constantly, like every 10 minutes, instead of using the standby timers to let the camera go to sleep on its own after say 5 minutes of inactivity.

[joshrobertson]

The first mistake was why I came here. Thank you for sharing your knowledge, Robin

[johnyutzey]

Very helpful video, and not just for beginners. I'll add another mistake: changing one or more settings for a specific shot, then forgetting to change them back for the next shot. Worse: forgetting to change them back before you turn the camera off when done. What's wrong with my camera? Guilty. That's one reason why I still shoot film from time to time. ISO fixed. Meter. Focus. Adjust aperture and/or shutter as needed. Shoot. Hard to mistakenly change a setting when there are so few settings to change. Cheers! And thanks for the video.

[uTPH]

Yes, I got caught out by the function switch today when I took the camera out of my bag. Great tips as usual, thanks Robin.

[michaeldouglaskemp]

This video was so useful as i'm buying new camera system. I now add Olympus to the list. Only have 3 now. Ahh desicions ! Thank you sir.

[chanakarnorsuwan]

This is very good for a new Olympus new user.

[rolandrick]

To me, your and Peters are the 2 best Olympus channels 🖖

[tnarch]

Thanks Robin, always a pleasure to watch your videos…

[oneseekinglight]

Hi Robin, I have just set up my camera to use the digital 2x teleconverter but I also made sure to use a SuperFine Jpg file to record the image. If I shoot both JPG and RAW and the shot itself has a reasonable amount of information I am finding that the JPG file is 8mb to 9mb whilst the RAW image is around 17mb. It is obviously not the same information being recorded as it's not the same image as the RAW image is shot further back and has different information recorded in its file. I have added the 2x to one button and the change for the file to another. I'm going to give this a go with my 40-150mm f2.8 PRO lens for surfing. I have the 1.4 TC which makes the lens f4 but needs to be stopped down to at least f5 for a sharp image. The 1.4TC will give me a focal length of 420mm in FF equiv but if i use the digital 2x TC I get an effect FF focal length of 600mm and can still use the lens at f2.8. As I only want this for surfers I'm going to give it a try and see how it goes.

[RevHengSure]

Thanks, Robin. Most helpful! Enjoy your break.

[henriklauritz]

Thanx for all the good videos. im watching each and every one with joy. greetings from a Copenhagen photographer (y)

[sugarrhapsody]

Thank you! I'm currently saving for a camera and these tips really help!