Olympus Has Amazing Shutter Sounds

Malaysia is now under total lockdown, and we are not even allowed to step out of our houses without good reasons, not even exercising in the park, and public parks in KL are banned from the public. My itch to shoot and create content is still there, and I need to scratch it somehow. I gathered a few Olympus cameras that I have, plus a few that were borrowed from Olympus and friends (some were overdue for return, but hey, lockdown and everything right?) and I thought, wow, I do have quite a few cameras to play with. Then the idea came, what if I made a video just to show off the shutter sounds from each camera? I did a quick search on YouTube and found nothing on shutter sound from Olympus cameras! 

So I made the video, here it is (click). 

The first Olympus DSLR using Four Thirds image sensor format. The legendary E-1, launched in 2003, 18 years ago. 

The setup for the shooting process was quite simple, I used one light, and placed the microphone as close as possible to the camera. I recorded everything with E-M1 Mark III and M.Zuiko 45mm F1.8 lens, except for the shot of E-M1 Mark III which was then recorded with E-M5 Mark III. The video output matched perfectly. I did not tweak the audio at all, except lowered the ambient sound pickup immediately before and after the camera clicks. I did this because I was living in an apartment bedroom with thin walls and windows, just by an open highway, it is impossible to get 100% zero sound environment even when I was filming in the middle of the night, which I did. 

In the list of 12 cameras, I managed to include the first Four Thirds DSLR Olympus E-1, which was launched in 2003 and also was known to have a very quiet and sweet shutter sound effect. I also managed to fit in the latest system camera - Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III. I have the oldest and newest Olympus system digital cameras in the mix (at least at the date of publishing). Among other notable cameras include various OM-D and PEN cameras over the years, and I even threw in the Olympus Air, which did not have a shutter unit at all, and it emitted fake electronic shutter sound effect via its speakers. I thought that was kind of ironic and funny at the same time. 

Unfortunately, I wish I have a few more popular cameras like the E-M5 Mark II, or the fan favorite PEN-F in the mix. I wanted to wait and see if I can ask around to borrow but then now everything is so impossible to do with the nation-wide strict lockdown and I guess, let's do this first, even if the list is not really complete.

I did have an E-520, my first Olympus DSLR that got me into photography, and fell in love with Olympus, but somehow the camera decided to act up and did not turn on at all. Not a surprise, I have tortured the camera a little too much over the years. I also have a faulty E-P5, which had a dead screen. I can still press the shutter and it will still click, though I cannot set the self-timer. I'd probably be able to do so if I have an external EVF (VF-2, 3 or 4), which I don't have at the moment. Having the E-520 and E-P5 into the mix would have been cool. 

The whole process was so fun and enjoyable to do, the filming took a little over an hour, time well spent I must say. 

PEN E-PL7 which I borrowed from a friend to do a comparison shoot against a smartphone (Xiaomi's Poco X3) half a year back and I have not returned the camera yet. Oops. 

OM-D E-M10 Mark II, which I wanted to make a video discussing how this is the perfect E-M10 and Olympus should build their future E-M10 cameras based on this, but never got to do it before the lockdown. Another borrowed unit, and I should be returning it soon too. 

This was mine. E-M5, I got this as a back up to E-M1, which I did use as my professional shooting workhorse for many, many years before I upgraded to E-M1 Mark II. I still really like the original E-M5 a lot. 

I set all the cameras to self timer for consistency sake, so you don't see my hands/fingers in the frame, and the video emphasized the camera as the center of attention. The shutter speed was fixed at 1/80 sec. I tried various shutter speeds and I figured 1/80 was the sweetspot - not too fast that you don't hear the first and second curtain, and not too slow that you feel there was something wrong with the camera. I have to admit some cameras like the faster newer models E-M1 Mark II and E-M5 Mark III sound much better at 1/60 sec, or a bit slower, because the shutter unit was so much speedier in response. But I want to keep it consistent for all cameras, so at the end I decided to go 1/80. 

I did the video in vertical/portrait orientation, I think much to a lot of people's annoyance. I was experimenting with YouTube #SHORTS, that has two criteria - the video must be less than 1 minute long and it must be in portrait/vertical orientation. I am still new to this YouTube game, and this was my second #SHORTS video, but I also realized if I don't try new things I will never learn and grow. Since this video did not have any talking head shots, and it was solely on camera clicking, I thought the #SHORTS format suits this perfectly. Only time will tell how this will perform on YouTube. Whether it will do well or not, it does not matter, at this point, I just want to give new things a go and besides, there is not much I can do being in such tight lockdown situation. 

Out of the 12 cameras, I am sure many of you owned at least one, or even several. Which shutter sound is your favourite? Do tell! I am curious. 

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