In addition to my duties on this website, I'm a professional portrait photographer – something I've been doing for over a decade. I don't get to shoot for pleasure as much as I would like to these days, but there's nothing better than client work to keep your photography skills sharp.
You show up, typically having never met your subject before, with no clue about the location or lighting conditions or anything else, and you simply have to make everything work. That's the difference between shooting professionally and shooting for fun – if you're taking pictures for yourself, it doesn't matter if you go home empty-handed. But if you're shooting for a client, you have to produce.
There's no better way to test the mettle of your gear, either. Because while we all like to say that gear doesn't matter, it really does. Show up to a booking with the wrong equipment for the job and you're not going to be there long. At the same time, though, we've been fed myths for far too long that cameras with small sensors can't be used for professional work – and that's just nonsense.
While Fujifilm's popularity has helped wear down some of the prejudice, many photographers are still incredibly sniffy about the idea of using an APS-C camera for pro gigs – and the very notion that a Micro Four Thirds camera can produce professional results makes some folks positively apoplectic.
Well, I recently bought the OM System OM-3 – and, as fate would have it, I had a gig come up just days after it arrived. So the timing was perfect to show what my new camera – and what a small sensor – is capable of.
I was working with an incredibly photogenic model, Rosie, which always helps when taking portraits. But of course, when you've got a beautiful subject, you've really got no excuse for taking a bad picture (even though I've seen plenty of very unflattering portraits of very pretty people captured on very expensive cameras!).
It's worth noting that when I shoot on the OM-3 (or any OM / Olympus camera), I shoot JPEG. Yes, I capture RAWs as well (as my digital negative) but I get my colors and the look I want in-camera – an old habit from when I used to test cameras and photograph adverts for Olympus, as Adobe's RAW conversion software is almost never available for pre-production equipment.
This helps me, the subject, the art director and anyone else on set see exactly what the results are, without the safety net / excuse of saying, "They'll look better when I've edited them."
As you can see, the JPEGs and colors pushed out by the OM System OM-3 are sublime. Our first set was outdoors, in the strong summer sun, and I wanted to capture that vibe with vivid, punchy colors – perfect for a couple of OM's Art Filters. The advent of Film Simulations on Fujifilm cameras has made the industry a lot less stuffy, but I vividly remember when the introduction of Art Filters was met with comments like, "These are toy cameras." Pish!
Something else I'd like to point out is the shallow depth of field in the above shots – because if you listen to the internet, Micro Four Thirds cameras can't do blurry backgrounds. Clearly, that's more nonsense.
I concede that smaller sensors inherently render greater depth of field, but achieving subject separation isn't difficult – you just have to know what you're doing. Arming yourself with the best portrait lenses is a good place to start. I always pack four primes for people pictures: the Olympus M.Zuiko 75mm f/1.8 is my go-to, which is a 135mm equivalent lens that melts backgrounds like a flamethrower on a bokeh bender.
When space is more limited, I unleash the little wonder that is the Olympus M.Zuiko 45mm f/1.8 – a 90mm equivalent. This was the first lens I ever bought for my Olympus / OM setup, back in 2014, and I'm never going to sell it. Then, for half-and full-length shots, it's the M.Zuiko 25mm f/1.8 (an effective nifty fifty) and the M.Zuiko 17mm f/1.8 (which is 35mm, in full frame terms). And because they're all so small, I can stuff them all in my pockets at once and ditch my bag.
There's a huge upside to the whole depth of field thing, too – and this is something that only working pros will understand. Ever tried photographing a wedding in a dimly lit church with a full frame camera? You can open your lens up to f/1.8 or f/1.2, but good luck getting the bride and groom in focus! Having more depth of field at equivalent apertures can actually make social photography in low light easier.
Speaking of, for my sins, I'm mainly a natural light photographer. I don't mind using strobes or LEDs, but the truth is that I apprenticed under a lighting wizard who would use as many as eight light sources to illuminate an image. The results were incredible, but spending years as a voice-activated light stand (read: assistant) definitely make me lean towards ambient light in my own work!
In some ways, it's lazy. And saying "I'm a natural light photographer" is often code for "I don't know how to light my pictures." In other ways, though, it can push you to be more creative. Sure, if the light really is crap then it's time to throw up some flash. But if you have the time and luxury of being able to work with natural light, having your first idea handcuffed by the lack of it can often lead to a solution that's far more satisfying and interesting.
All of which is a longwinded way of saying, all these images were shot with natural light – which sometimes wasn't abundant at all. For the above bedroom shots I actually pulled the blind down, to kill the view through the window, so it was basically a dark room. And the corridor in the shots below was also painfully bereft of light.
Again, the internet will tell you that Micro Four Thirds cameras can't take very good pictures in low light. I'd argue that the OM-3 does a fantastic job here.
Like many photographers these days, I'm not a single-system shooter. I use three different camera formats: Micro Four Thirds (OM), full frame (Canon) and medium format (Hasselblad). I could have used any of those systems for this job and come home with the results I wanted.
But the truth is, not only does the OM System OM-3 deliver the results I want – it's also the most fun camera to use. And because it's more fun to use, I have a better time. Which means my clients have a better time. Which means we get better pictures. Which means I have a better chance of people wanting to work with me.
Never once, in 11 years of taking photographs professionally, has a single client, customer or commissioning editor else ever asked what camera I used to take the pictures. So if it's right for the job, why wouldn't I use a camera that's smaller, lighter, cheaper and more fun?
At the end of the day, the only people who actually care about sensor size are other photographers. So just use the kit you want to use and take the pictures you want to take!
You can see more of Rosie's work on Instagram.
Get the camera – cheap!
If my enthusiasm for this camera isn't evident enough, you can read my OM System OM-3 review for my full thoughts. TLDR: It's a gorgeous-looking body with the flagship firepower from OM's top tier of cameras, including 50MP and 80MP pixel shift shooting, weather sealing, 50fps bursts, pre-release capture, computational features like software-powered ND filters and ND grad filters… it's a beast.
The OM-3 has just received its first ever discounts, being reduced by $150 in the US and also seeing a £200 reduction in the UK, so you can save a couple of hundred notes if you pick one up right now:
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See how the OM-3 stacks up against the best Olympus and OM System cameras. If you're thinking of getting one, take a look at the best lenses for the OM System OM-3 along with the best Olympus and OM System lenses in general.
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