Using the E-M1 Mark II and the Holy Trinity of M.Zuiko PRO lenses for Wedding Photography

Hi, my name is Boris Štuller, I am 32 years old, and I am based in Havířov, Czech Republic. I work at Siemens as an expert focusing on digitization and automation of accounting processes in most cases. Apart from my love for photography, I do all kinds of sports such as jogging, hiking, paddle boarding on the lake, working out, or boxing, to name just a few.

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How it all started with me and photography? It actually started when I was a child, and my grandfather was a professional photographer and also a teacher of analogue (film) photography at a private school in Ostrava. At that time, I was a little kid and had no interest in photography. But it had changed. I once went to summer camp in Croatia, Novigrad, when I was 10.

My grandpa gave me a film camera (I cannot remember the brand exactly, but it might be Canon), so I started to take pictures of the camp, seaside and the kids the whole week. When I came back from the vacation, we had the photos processed, and my grandpa reviewed them all. He liked some of them a lot and said I had a decent talent. I felt so happy and blessed.

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So I started to take more and more pictures. However, the moment that changed my life was when my grandpa suddenly died when I was 18, and I was about to go to University. I wanted to follow his footsteps and honour him, so I got my first DSLR, a Nikon D3000 with the 18-55mm kit lens. This was the game-changer for me.

I began to love photography so much that I was taking the camera everywhere with me, even when I was walking outside with my dog in the woods. But to be honest, I did not have any professional ambitions at that time. I just loved it as I love it now!

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But everything changed three years ago when a longtime friend of mine asked me to photograph her wedding. I was really surprised because I was still devoting my time to photography only as a hobby. I did not have any portfolio at all, just some random pictures on my social profiles. I was reluctant to accept her offer because I knew it is one of the hardest genres one it comes to photography.

But, she said she did not mind and that she liked my pictures. And as I am a „Yes“ man, I jumped straight into this and photographed the first wedding in 2019. Wow, I still have goosebumps when I recall this. The photos came out quite well, I thought it could have been worse, but it turned out it was not that bad at all! They were pleased with the pictures, so was I.

The editing part was a different story, though. Two edited pictures from the same location looked different, and I did not mind I proceeded like that. I must laugh now. Nowadays, I love it when the pictures are edited in the same manner, not necessarily the same, but the consistency must be there. I am really punctual about that.

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Since then, I say: I have been lovingly doing the photography part-time 😊. I am really grateful for the first offers as they helped me to start my career. I mostly focus on wedding and portrait photography because I can see people having different emotions, and I love capturing them!

Now, I use Olympus gear exclusively for all those kinds of photos. I was actually a Nikon guy until 2016, but I sold my Nikon D7000 thinking my iPhone 7 did better pictures and was much lighter and more compact. But after some months, I started to miss the camera, the control dials and everything, but not the weight of the DSLR, of course 😊. I felt like I lost a part of myself.

So I was looking around to purchase a new camera that could be light and sleek, so I went for the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark II (which I still own, by the way – what a perfect small camera). With this camera, I photographed the first wedding, and I could not believe my eyes that such a small and compact camera could do the job. At that time, I did not have any pro lens purchased, only the M.Zuiko 14-150mm f/4-5.6 II and Panasonic 25mm f/1.7.

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Nowadays, I use the Olympus PRO lenses only because they match my two OM-D E-M1 Mark II bodies. And yes, I do not use zooms at all, I zoom with my feet. I have the so-called holy trinity (17mm F1.2 / 25mm F1.2 / 45mm F1.2) and use this for everything. The advantage of having these lenses is the wide aperture, so I can shoot in low-light conditions.

They also help me to separate the background better. I think I do not have to mention the sharpness of these lenses, I am shooting at f/1.2 in 99% of situations, and I go up with the aperture only when I shoot group photos at weddings. What I also need to mention is that all of them are dustproof, freezeproof and waterproof, so I no longer need to cover my cameras and lenses if there is rain coming. Wonderful!

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As you might have noticed from my photos, I prefer shooting in the natural environment, and I love to work with the light as it is. I use external flashes only at weddings in really low-light conditions, such as the first dance taking place inside. I do not mind going up with ISO up to 2.000.

I rather go for emotions and the actual present moment. I find it interesting rather than chasing up the technical quality only. I have never had any complaints about it. To be honest, I do add some grain on all of my pictures – not too much, but I love the film look.

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Up to recently, I thought there were some major disadvantages to the Olympus M43 camera system. Sometimes, I blamed the sensor for photos I took and thought: „Damn, it could have looked better with a Sony or Fuji mirrorless camera“, but I was so wrong. I once tried Fuji which had excellent colours in Jpeg.

However, converting the RAW file to my PC, I expected much more, and suddenly I realised how little difference there was and gotta say I am happy with Olympus. Of course, the low-light performance or dynamic range is not amongst the best, but the lenses produced by Olympus, especially the f/1.2’s, are just amazing!

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Now, I try to focus much more on light or the environment around me. I love taking pictures of people/models with a ray of sunshine in their back. These moody pictures are simply amazing, considering you shoot in some natural environment such as mountains.

The benefits of Olympus are obvious – really nice looking and small cameras, seeing exposure immediately is a big plus and the burst-mode (up to 60 frames/second) wow, what do I need more? I know, I need to get better at photography in general!

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How do I process my photos? This may sound silly, but I use Lightroom only (both LR Classic and Lightroom). I have Photoshop installed, too, but I stopped retouching the pictures. This is my philosophy. I capture the moments as they were and do not want to intervene in them! I process each photo individually, but with the presets I already have/created.

But I never paste one preset to hundreds of pictures. I go one by one, it takes more time, but I need to change the exposure, contrast etc. for each picture individually. As I have recently explored the simplicity of editing the photos using Lightroom on the iPad, I even speed up the editing process.

I only import the photos to my PC and select the best ones and synchronize them via Lightroom to all my devices. I make a coffee, sit down on a couch, open my iPad and start editing – easy and addictive!

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And why do I love wedding photography? Every wedding is different, and you get to know many new people, and you feel like a family member. And you socialize with people and laugh! I remember once, at the end of the day at a wedding, I took the final pictures of the bride and groom lighting up the sparklers. When he lifted the bride, his pants tore off completely! All the wedding guest could laugh forever!

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