Compact M43 camera to replace actual compact camera?

[alpinist]

@europlatus

What was the shutter speed chosen in point 2? This might be telling, because in Auto ISO, you can also have “auto” for shutter speed (in the Auto ISO settings), and the value chosen will depend on your lens. I think it’s 1.5x the focal length with the OM-5.

It chose 1/250 s, i.e. it was happy with the same parameters it didn’t like in S mode. (I added this to the post above.)

@europlatus

When you want the aperture to go as wide as possible, for example, it’s simply frustrating when it doesn’t, even though it looks like it should. And then people like me stop using that mode. At least Aperture priority pretty much works exactly how you would expect, especially with the extra settings for auto ISO.

That’s why in practice I rarely use shutter priority mode. I mostly use aperture priority with auto ISO, but with the tweak that I have set minimum shutter speed to 1/60 s regardless of the focal length (“ISO-Auto Set” in the menu E1), and max ISO to 2500.

I find that 1/60 s works well in many situations: It freezes movement sufficiently in most non-action situations, and IBIS can handle that speed even at the longest focal lengths that I use. (In contrast, the default of making the shutter speed depend on focal length is pointless, given the excellent stabilization.)

Why a maximum ISO of 2500 ? In the age of “ISO invariant” cameras, ISO has lost most of its importance as a photographic parameter. Other than base ISO, the only other ISO value that is interesting (for my camera) is ISO 2500. It allows to improve shadows by 0.5 EV compared to base ISO. There’s not much point in going beyond it, and when ISO 2500 is too much, one might just as well shoot at ISO 200 and protect the highlights (see the linked diagram).

The above is my base setup. Here is how I adapt it (quickly!) to challenging situations:

• When shooting sports/action, I choose a higher minimum shutter speed in the menu. It would be great if that setting was available by a button combo, or at least in a quick menu… For outdoor sports this could be 1/500 s or 1/1000 s. In contrast to S mode, if there is a lot of light, the camera will happily choose faster shutter speeds instead of stopping down into diffraction territory or overexposing.

• When shooting static scenes in low light, I set ISO to 200. Since I can reliably hand-hold landscapes up to 1 s or so, this is usually enough even with a f/4 lens. Increasing ISO is rarely necessary, and it’s pointless beyond 2500.

• When there is (the possibility of) movement, I use auto ISO. This keeps the shutter speed at 1/60 s or above unless there is very little light and ISO bumps against the 2500 limit. If I want to quickly increase shutter speed for some reason, I dial in up to -3 EV of exposure compensation, but usually -1 or -2 EV is enough. Compared to raising ISO, this has the advantage of protecting highlights.

Let’s consider an example where there is so little light that the camera bumps against ISO 2500 and wants to use a shutter speed of 1/8 s. If I think that this is too slow for the movement in the scene, I quickly dial in perhaps -2 EV of exposure compensation. This results in a shutter speed of 1/30 s which is hopefully fast enough. In any way, increasing ISO beyond 2500 does not really help to improve the image, so if I can’t use a faster lens or flash, I’m out of luck. Photography requires light.

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Edit: Important caveat

In order to preserve the ISO-invariance of OMDS/Olympus cameras (at least this is how it works for mine), it is necessary to turn off in-camera vignetting compensation. It is better to perform it in post-production anyway.