No need for much exposition here: yesterday was the Nagoya Marathon (technically the Nagoya Women's Marathon, but it included a half marathon for men and women both). So here are some pictures from it! Everything shot with an Olympus OMD-EM5, the 14-42 and 40-150 kit lenses but mostly the hugely superior Zuiko 75mm 1.8

At the start of the race:

I shot the marathon last year too, so this year I wanted to take fewer pictures of the athletes and more of the "supporting cast", i.e. marshals, stewards, volunteers, viewing public. Especially if they wore amusing headgear.

"Dogs not interested in marathons, research indicates"

A pre-emptive victor's crown?

"No crossing here"

Good vantage point

Waving

Spectator's point of view

Perseverance

Pretentious arty shot :-)

Tough going

Watching from the bridge

Steward

Pulled out the 14-42 for this one. A reasonable enough lens, but I only use it if I really need to.

Volunteer and runners

Down low angle with the 75mm

Even the bank posters support you!

Swimming running against the crowd

"You going the right way?"

Checking the time

The OMD-EM5 uses contrast detect autofocus, which is not as fast as Phase Detect (which is mainly used in DSLRs). What you lose in speed, you gain in accuracy; once the AF is locked on it is almost guaranteed to hit what you aim it at. The AF on the Olympus, despite being the slower version, is impressively fast in single AF mode. It was hit and miss with the runners, but the upside is that if you can lock it on fast enough, you can hit focus even wide open, which is 1.8 on the 75mm. The results are pretty nice:

Group shots:

Entertaining headgear section:

"Just a little further"

Support or advertising? Maybe both.

"I'll have to call you back, I'm controlling a marathon"

And finally...once in a while a photographer gets a shot that impresses even the photographer himself. I really like this last one, even if I say so myself.

Hope you enjoyed these. Thanks for looking and feel free to comment.