this is Moab Utah - a former uranium mining town set in a remote land of high
desert rugged canyons and sandstone rock faces. We've come here with Scott Rinckenberger,
a Seattle-based action sports photographer. Last time we were with
Scott we were heliskiing deep in the wilds of
British Columbia. For this video we're shooting a weekend of outdoor
activities with the new Olympus OM-D E-M0 Mark III. The E-M10 III is the entry level
model in the OMD lineup. It's a 16 megapixel camera built around the micro
four-thirds lens mount. It features in-body stabilization which works both
for shooting stills and its 4k video. Most of all it's a small camera with a
lot of features and a lot of direct manual controls
it's designed to welcome the first-time user but gives plenty of room to grow so
we've put it in the hands of an experienced pro and me - a keen amateur.
we wanted to get a different perspective on things so we arrived at dawn to take
a doors off helicopter ride over Canyonlands National Park. As well as
being an action photographer, Scott is a fine art landscape shooter and our
elevated vantage point meant he was able to get some spectacular shots.
meanwhile I concentrated on recording the experience by shooting video
the color response in the camera has long been a favorite of ours making both
my footage and the sunrise stills look great and of course there's always time for a selfie.
that was good yeah we took off right at sunrise and got some
amazing light over an incredibly varied landscape - so you think you got
something? yeah absolutely. Fantastic what did you think about your first doors
off helicopter ride? I'm glad I had the safety belt. But you concentrate on the camera,
don't look down too much, it's all good. As we drove to scout out the location for the
next day's shooting we saw the evening sunshine picking out a tree in the
middle of one of the canyons lining the Colorado River
here's a cool shot for that super-wide lens man
okay so I saw that you had brought out a lot of that shadow detail what was that
future? It's an option called Auto gradation. Yeah what it does is it it
tries to lift the shadows up you can take a shot you've already taken
reprocess it with Auto gradation on and you may find that more usable
file. Interesting. Then it was time to check out some of the climbing locations
Scott had researched a couple of climbs but wanted to get a chance to see them
and assess the location in person alright so tomorrow we're gonna be
shooting rock climbing I wanted to get out and get a look at some of the climbs
we might want to shoot and the nice thing about it is our two routes that
run in parallel right next to each other so we can get one up really quickly hang
a rope and then use that rope to shoot right across at the climber who will be
kind of right next to you and then the background is endless. Wow -
so is the plan to do video or stills or bit of both? A bit of both. Is there any
sensible way down? Easier said than done at this point.
well having come out here to scope out some of the climbing sites we realized
that we've timed it perfectly for sunset and then shortly the moonrise.
Moonrise! Today: 6/27 current time 6:28pm. My plan is to use the camera's intervalometer to
shoot a time-lapse series of images and on the basis my camera is going to be
shooting a series of something like 75 shots over the next hour - yeah - there's
not a lot I can do so I'm gonna go and get myself a beer. Cheers.
meanwhile Scott used one of the functions included in the cameras new
advanced photography mode. Alright so I'm using a function here that's cool for
nighttime photography it's called live time and what it does is it actually
displays on the monitor where you're at in the development of your exposure and
so instead of sort of having to know or guess at how long a shutter speed to use
you can actually watch the shot develop on the screen and then just stop it when
the exposure looks right to you. Despite the late night we made another early
start which meant driving back up long Canyon
before sunrise. I'm not one for Heights or for climbing anything more than a
ladder so thankfully Scott had contacted Kelly Halpin to be our climber
I've climbed here a bunch I love these these cracks here they're great really
good quality sandstone pretty close to town - yeah pretty psyched
To get the right perspective Scott ascended a rock face to set his line.
once the ropes were in place Scott rappelled down to get into position.
Got my camera, got a rope - the other climber, she has a rope and we're just gonna head up
this thing in parallel here.
Meanwhile I was much more comfortable shooting from the ground with the
12-100mm F4.
Scott's vantage point meant he was able to juxtapose Kelly against the vast
scale of the landscape yielding some remarkable results. Thankfully for him
it's quite a small light camera given how much gear he's already having to
carry but even from down here I've been shooting 4K video at the long end of the
lens and the stabilization is really impressive. It's like perfect hands and
then it gets really wide and then my whole arms in there and then my whole
body's in there it's a great crack. So I have a 7-14mm here which is a
great lens for you know when you're working close to a subject that's fast,
super snappy to focus and the camera's solid on this kind of stuff it's awesome
while you guys were up there I took some shots of you
now I don't think you've got the app for this camera. Correct. But in theory I can
share it with you anyway - if you go into your Wi-Fi settings you select that
Got it - that should connect now if you go to a browser, click on that folder as the
owner of the camera I get to choose which images - yeah - that you have acces to.
Cool. Bingo! Thank you. There it is. Well so one of the sort of hard and fast
rules of climbing photography is you don't want to just get right under the
climber and shoot up at their butt but you don't always necessarily need to be
on the wall climbing with them either. Sometimes you can just find an
interesting perch near the climb and in this case I'm looking directly at the
face of the climb and we'll be able to isolate her nicely. Before we left,
Scott shot a few portraits safely on the ground with a 45mm F1.2.
As well as its national parks, Moab is home to some of the most famous mountain
bike trails in the world.
I've read about these trails in countless articles over the past 20
years and today we're going to be riding one of them with Tyson Swayze whose
partner Corey. So Moab is definitely one of North America's great mountain bike
destinations so we had to take a day to sample the goods and we have
reached a point in the ride here where we're up on a desert plateau and there's
a really fantastic winding piece of trail behind us with a great backdrop
and so this will be our first shot of the day and see what we can get. Sweet.
Not only is Tyson an incredible biker he was instrumental in designing and
building the trail we're riding. The high Massa and Captain Ahab trails are a
little more challenging than I'm used to and top out at nearly 5,000 feet higher
than the level of my desk in Seattle. More than ever
I appreciated being able to leave my tripod behind and stuff the camera in my
hydration pack meaning I should enjoy the trails rather than lugging my gear.
well it's getting late in the day, the sun is getting very low now - lovely
long shadows. Scott do you want describe the setup to us? Yeah yeah this is a
great spot if you have confident athletes to shoot because we are on the
edge of a multi hundred foot cliff here but we've got fantastic light, fantastic
views and a really cool stretch of slick rock that comes right along the edge of the canyon.
Cool shot.
One thing that I like about this camera, shooting outside when it's bright is
that you can review your images in the viewfinder so I've been spending a lot
of time looking in here and getting some really good feedback
whereas I was shooting with the little powerzoom that's usually sold with the
camera, Scott was taking advantage of Olympus's
PRO series of lenses showing just how much room the camera and the micro
four-thirds lens lineup give you to grow. First time in Moab, what do you think?
Absolutely blown away mate, it's been an epic couple of days - not a word I
usually use but we've flown in helicopters over canyons at sunrise
you've been climbing sheer rock faces and then we've just been tearing up the
trails today. Yeah. Has it been a productive couple of days?
despite all the fun we've been having or perhaps because of it yeah I'm really
really pleased with everything we've got finishing out on the canyon rim at
sunset with the bikers just absolutely on fire
I've been glancing over your shoulder of some of the shots you've been getting
really looking forward to seeing it me too let's do this every year! But right
now I think we deserve a beer. Agreed brother. For DPReview
I'm Richard Butler.