Not that this is going to become a photo blog or anything, but I wanted to mention the little E-PM1 I got the other day.

The Olympus E-PM1 was my first micro-four thirds camera back in 2011, I think. I'd been shooting with an E-520 and later an E-30 four thirds cameras for about three years. Micro four-thirds was the new hotness, and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Long story short, I was sold on the system and haven't looked back since, though I've bought some used four thirds bodies just to play with from time to time (E-410, E-420, E-500, E-1, E-620).

The E-PM1 was something of a revelation, given its size and the kinds of images it was capable of producing. Today, it's something of a relic. As an entry-level camera, it was never as advanced, sophisticated or robust as its more expensive siblings. But it had the same sensor and image processor.

People like to talk about "a look" that certain cameras offer, and it's true. Different manufacturers have different formulas for rendering their jpegs, the sensors have differing characteristics that affect that as well, even though when all is said and done, it's just numbers. I've always liked the E-PM1's jpegs. They're rich, saturated and contrasty. Just don't pay too much attention to the highlights and shadows, because there isn't much there. You can turn on "auto-gradation," which lifts the shadows, but this is "normal" and straight out of the camera.

Well, I wanted to play with an E-PM1 again, so I bought one from Japan. Was supposed to be in excellent condition, and for the most part it is. But the image stabilizer is broken. Happens to a lot of this series. A nylon gear comes off the shaft and a lot of unfortunate noise happens at startup and the camera tells you the IS has failed.

Not a huge deal. I turned IS off, and I think, though I'm not certain, that when the camera knows IS is off, it'll send power to the lens' IS system, if it has one. In good light, you seldom need IS anyway. I put a little Lumix 12-32/f3.5-5.6 collapsing zoom on the E-PM1 and, as small as it is, it supposedly has an image stabilizer.

The big advantage is that it's a tiny zoom, with a 24mm effective focal length at the wide end. It fits easily into my vest pocket, where I would often carry a compact like the XZ-1 or XZ-2 in case I didn't see any birds.

So that's what I did this morning. Stuffed the E-PM1 in my vest pocket and put the 75-300mm zoom on the OM-5, hoping for a bird or two. These clouds were cool, I thought. You look for relief wherever you can find it in a landscape that resembles a real estate development sales brochure. This cloud made me smile.

Thought I might have been shut-out on birds, but a little blue heron landed just before I had to turn around for home. More pix at flickr for those inclined. Most lightly edited and cropped.