Let me get one thing out of the way. I love the design philosophy behind the new generation of mirrorless interchangable-lens cameras. Personally I’ve been a member of the Micro Four-Thirds camp since the Panasonic GF-1 came about, but I have plenty of respect for the other competing systems as well. There have been a few duds along the way, but there have also been some fantastic highlights.

My latest M43 (micro four-thirds) camera is the sublime Olympus OM-D E-M5. This is the camera that has grabbed many pro photographers by the scruff of the neck and shown them these little cameras aren’t just cute toys any more, they’ve grown up. This is a serious little camera that need not feel ashamed sitting beside any DSLR kit, and will run rings around many DSLRs in situations that suit it.
What the E-M5 can do that a regular DSLR system cannot do is comfortably fit in a mini messenger bag along with FIVE lenses and an ipad and be lugged around all day and night without weighing me down or even looking like I’ve got a camera on me. Not only that, but when I pull out the E-M5 and photograph people in the street, I’m almost invisible. Nobody bats an eyelid. If I pull out a DSLR and a big lens then I get all kinds of looks. It also happens to have fantastic ergonomics, is very configurable, has great auto-focus, shoots at up to 9 fps, and has image quality on-par with a Canon 7D. Which is very good.

So… I only bought my E-M5 a few weeks ago and here I am on a trip to Thailand to get aquainted with it.
I’m in Bangkok at the moment and one thing I really enjoy doing when arriving in a new city is to choose a hotel in an interesting part of town and then spend at least a day exploring the surrounding area on foot.
And Bangkok, like many large South-east Asian cities, is a fantastic place to go street shooting. Here I am with what should be an ideal camera for street street-shooting and a bunch of lenses. Perfect.

Although I had both the Olympus 14-42mm kit zoom and Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 prime lenses with me which would be considered the most obvious choices for a walk-around lens, the 20mm was only used for about 3 shots and the kit zoom never got mounted to the camera. Instead I would alternate between tele shots (Oly 45mm f/1.8 and adapted Canon FD 85mm f/1.8) and ultra-wide (Oly 9-18mm zoom). Given the intense hustle and bustle on the street, I had no choice but to get really up-close-and-personal with my subjects and the ultra-wide let me get in close and still get lots of context around them, while the tele allowed me to eliminate the surrounding chaos and concentrate on single elements on the street when I wanted to.

My conclusion was that I absolutely loved street shooting with this camera. It really is the most fun camera to shoot with and was completely in its element here. Interestingly I found using the old (circa 1980’s) Canon FD 85mm f/1.8 lens mounted via an adapter to be perhaps most rewarding. Although it forces me to focus manually and think more about my shooting, the build quality and tactile feedback of using this lens/camera combo feels so right that the act of shooting is a reward in itself. The fact that it produces lovely photos is just a bonus.

Meanwhile the Oly 45mm f/1.8 lens is small, sharp, fast, and spectacular with all the mod-cons. And the 9-18mm ultra-wide makes up-close street shooting as easy as it’s going to get. Simply set to manual focus, pre-focus to about 1m in front of you, set the aperture to about f/5.6, shutter to 1/100 or faster (depending on light) and let the camera use auto-ISO to determine exposure. Then you only need to point the camera near your subject and click the shutter, which is very quiet and not distracting. You don’t even need to frame the shot through the viewfinder (or tilt up the rear-LCD if you like shooting from the hip). It’s great for shooting loose and fast.
Then when the sun goes down, the great high-ISO performance and fantastic in-body stabilisation make it easy to keep shooting into the dark (especially with f/1.8 lenses). All the photos taken here were hand-held. Some were shot without me even breaking stride from my walking. Many were stopped down a lot to deliberately introduce motion-blur.

So that was my first day exploring Bangkok. All within walking distance of my hotel (albeit about 8 hours walking). It was certainly an experience. I’m loving the E-M5, and am realizing there are many layers to this amazing city and it’s people.