In our new review, the club's photographer " Russian photo» Aleksey Makushin tries out the OM-D E-M1 Mark II in interior shooting, reporting with insufficient natural light, and outdoors. How the camera proved to be in such different conditions - read in our review.
I got the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II for two weeks for testing just in time - I just handed in my Nikon for repair. I tried the camera shooting the interior of an apartment and took it on a short trip to Krasnaya Polyana, as well as a report from a corporate event.
F5.6, 1/320s, ISO 200, 80mm (35mm equiv.)
First Impressions
I have been photographing with SLRs for nine years now. Nikon cameras and Canon, and my first impression of the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II was: “Oh, what a toy-small! I hope she doesn't slow down."
I got the camera with an Olympus ED 7-14mm f/2.8 Pro wide angle and an Olympus ED 12-40mm f/2.8 Pro zoom, which translates to 12-24 and 24-80mm in 35mm equivalent.
In my opinion, the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II is more comfortable in the hand than, for example, the Nikon D750, but it has quite a few sharp protruding corners. In general, I liked the build quality. I was also afraid that the huge switch would turn on the camera itself in the backpack, but it turned out to be very convenient, there were no false positives.
The interface is intuitive, we were immediately struck by the speed and instant response to pressing all the buttons; I remembered the almost non-working LiveView mode in my Nikon D810. The viewfinder is very bright and contrasty.
We shoot the interior of the apartment in HDR mode
I immediately took the camera to work - to shoot the interior of the apartment in HDR mode.
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F 8, 1/25 s, ISO 200, 14mm (35mm equiv.) OM-D SuperHD |
F 16, ISO 200, 14mm (35mm equiv.) OM-D HDR |
During the photo session, the OM-D was pleased with the function of increasing the sharpness zone with highlighting the sharp edges of the subject. Even with a small camera it was more convenient to work, and a folding swivel screen helped when shooting small rooms - a pantry and a bathroom.
Shooting a story in low light
Now it's time to see how the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II performed when shooting a report. It took some time to get used to the camera.
I want to note the Olympus autofocus right away: it turned out to be very fast, especially as long as there was enough light, and there was practically no delay in response. But in the evening, when the lights were dimmed, focusing began with a slight delay. The difference compared to the DSLR has already become noticeable!
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F4.5, 1/60s, ISO 320, 54mm (35mm equiv.) |
F 3.5, 1/60s, ISO 1600, 32mm (35mm equiv.) |
As for sensor noise, due to the small size of the sensor, ¾ inch, it was naturally larger than that of a full-frame camera. Noise is especially noticeable at ISO values from 1000 to 2000, but with a 20-megapixel matrix, noise reduction effectively suppresses it.
It was a surprise to me that with the OM-D, many shots at shutter speeds of 1/20 - 1/60 turned out to be successful, because I was used to using shutter speeds shorter than 1/80 sec in reporting with the Nikon D810. And here, because of the powerful optical stabilizer, a large range of shutter speeds of the camera turned out to be working.
Art Modes OM-D E-M1 Mark II
I went with my family on a short trip around the Krasnodar Territory. Olympus has a very cool art mode with real-time filtering.
F4.5, 1/1000 s, ISO 200, 24mm (35mm equiv.)
Winter Sochi Arboretum
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F4.5, 1/40s, ISO 1600, 24mm (35mm equiv.) |
F 3.2, 1/80s, ISO 200, 32mm (35mm equiv.) |
You look through the electronic viewfinder and see any edits and art filters you've made without delay. I especially liked how black and white shots are obtained in grain mode.
F 3.2, 1/800 s, ISO 200, 48mm (35mm equiv.)
Gray Black Sea
You can endlessly sit on the black pebbles of the Sochi beach and look at the sunset sun. I continue to shoot with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II.
F2.8, 1/30s, ISO 1600, 24mm (35mm equiv.)
Olympic Park in Sochi
How not to look into the Sochi Olympic Park? The scale of construction is amazing. All Olympic facilities have not yet collapsed, but they are half empty and freely available. A few athletes are training.
I stopped here at dusk not by chance, but to test how the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II handles photography of bright illumination and architecture. Here are some unprocessed photos from the Olympic Square, straight from the camera.
Skiing
What to say? When there is a lot of light and the weather is good, it is great to ride with such a camera. For a week in the mountains, I took only Olympus with me, and left a DSLR with a couple of lenses in a hotel, because 700 grams is better than 2 kilograms.
F 7.1, 1/1250 s, ISO 200, 24mm (35mm equiv.)
I shot a lot in continuous mode and video in motion, the quality turned out to be excellent. In very bright sunlight, the picture was visible both on the screen and in the electronic viewfinder.
Conclusions, advantages and disadvantages
Advantages
- Light weight camera and lenses.
- An excellent image stabilizer allows you to get interesting shots at slow shutter speeds and smooth video when shooting handheld.
- High speed work. Instant on-the-fly image processing, fast write to memory card.
- Ergonomics. Convenient settings and intuitive interface. Olympus is quite comfortable in the hand.
- I really liked shooting video - autofocus, smooth video in Full HD, speed and quality in 4K mode.
- Convenient viewfinder. Very bright both on a bright sunny day and in dark rooms. The swivel screen can be used for selfies.
- Cool and diverse creative art modes, especially for Instagram post-processing can be outsourced to the camera.
- Innovation and functionality.
Flaws
- Weak battery. Enough for a couple of hours of active use, be sure to have a spare.
- Turning on is quick, but until all functions start, stabilization, AF, it takes about 2 seconds. When reporting, I missed a couple of moments, and if the camera is not turned off, then the battery runs out.
- It was not possible to set up a quick time-lapse (time-lapse shooting), for some reason minimum time between frames is about 2 seconds, even if you set it to 1 second or less.
- In the photo backpack, the lenses themselves switched to MF mode and the caps constantly jumped off them, I didn’t lose them only by a miracle (but this is not about the camera anymore).
F 7.1, 1/1000 s, ISO 200, 38mm (35mm equiv.)
Well, 2 weeks have passed, I really liked the camera and parted with it, I'm frankly sorry, it really encourages me to be creative.
OM-D E-M1 Mk II impressed me and is no longer perceived as a toy. You remember that you didn’t have time to shoot a few ideas for it and try interesting modes. I highly recommend her, especially when traveling.
Specifications Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II |
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| Matrix | LiveMOS sensor with a resolution of 20 megapixels |
| Permission | High definition mode 50 megapixels (JPEG) and 80 (RAW) |
| ISO range | 64 - 25 600 |
| Shutter speed range | 1/32000 - 60 s |
| Burst shooting | 15 fps continuous shooting with mechanical shutter Burst speed 18 fps in C-AF mode 60fps continuous shooting with S-AF |
| Video | DCI 4K video recording up to 236Mbps |
| Dimensions | 134.1×90.9×68.9 mm |
| Additionally | dust and moisture protection, two cards |
| CPU | TruPic VIII |
Thank you for your attention!
Alexey Makushin
Two years. Exactly this much time lay in the closet my "unity" Canon. The reason - in a small angular black box with the inscription Olympus. Taking a system test OM-D camera E-M1, I never got to part with her.
For two years compact camera changed my attitude and approach to photography. I threw away unnecessary accessories from my backpack, practically stopped using a tripod and flash. I began to spend less time on camera settings and the shooting itself - it turned out to be much easier and faster to shoot with the “olik” than with the “SLR”. First of all, the camera is more compact and lighter, this also applies to glasses. The device has many settings that can be changed very easily. And most importantly, in the viewfinder I see the very picture that will be on the computer screen - taking into account color and exposure compensation.
My backpack has lost a lot of weight, which has accelerated my movement around the locations. The simplification of the shooting process also affected the result - the percentage of high-quality, interesting pictures increased. The E-M1 has been an excellent work camera for me, with which I have shot hundreds of stories for my blog and a dozen stories for GEO magazine. And in the sizzling heat in the African Gambia, and in the piercing cold of the Pamir highlands, and under the constant rain in foggy Albion, the camera worked like clockwork.
In December of this year, I was one of the first to receive a new product from Olympus - the E-M1 Mark II model. To be honest, I didn't expect the new camera to be so much better than the old one. After three months of testing, I thought and thought ... and posted on Avito my entire set of Canon equipment - all carcasses, all glasses, all accessories. In this review, I will try to show you what prompted me to take such a step.
In the test of any gadget, there should be a reference point, as well as specific tasks and operating conditions. The starting point in this review will be the first "one". The main question that I will try to answer in my review is whether you should buy new model? To do this, we will analyze different scenes and types of shooting.
Appearance and design
But first, a visual comparison. The cameras look very similar, but up close it becomes obvious that the Mark II is slightly larger, especially in the body grip. Case size 134 x 91 x 67 mm.
As a result, the camera began to lie better in the hand, especially without the use of a butblock (with it, the first “one” had a “grasping” too). The weight of the camera (excluding the buttblock and lens) has increased by 77 grams to 574g. As before, the frost-resistant body of the camera has moisture and dust protection.
The additional battery pack has become much larger, due to the battery capacity increased by one and a half times.
The fastening of the belt has also changed - the right fastener has moved from the side face to the top panel, which reduced the load on the attachment point and improved the weight distribution of the camera on the belt when using heavy telephoto optics.
Another "geometric" solution is the new location of the tripod socket, right under the optical axis of the camera. In theory, this should slightly reduce distortion when shooting panoramas from a tripod.
The location of the controls has not changed - once you get used to the first one, you can use the second one right away. Traditionally for professional Olympus models, the camera offers the widest possibilities for customization. So, through a very capacious menu, you can reassign the function keys and control dials to easily change ISO settings, white balance, shutter speed, aperture, exposure compensation, and so on.
The two-position switch on the back of the case has changed its direction, but still allows you to choose one of two sets of custom settings.
Behind sealed rubber plugs on the side panel are all the necessary connectors, including HDMI and an external microphone. Instead of a USB 2.0 connector, now USB 3.0 - the data transfer rate has increased to 5GB / s. The new camera has a headphone jack.
Behind the door on the right sidewall, two memory card slots are hidden at once. The lower one is standard UHS-I, and the upper one is high-speed, UHS-II. Unlike the previous model, memory cards are now correctly deployed with labels facing the photographer. Looking ahead a little, I will say that the cards can be flexibly managed - for example, record photos on one card and video on another, as well as record simultaneously on two cards, keeping a backup copy of important shooting on the fly.
The touch screen is now free, swivel, and not hinged on the camera at the back (on the E-M1 it could only be tilted up and down).
Perhaps this is the only change that cannot be unequivocally attributed to a plus. On the one hand, this is very convenient for shooting from below or above, or even from around an angle, but from a professional reporter's point of view, the screen turned to the side is a potential weak point, because the camera often hits various obstacles, and even falls to the ground (sometimes , along with the photographer). However, when shooting in hostile environments, the screen can be rotated to face the camera, reducing the risk of screen damage.
Specifications
Inside the case, there are even more differences. So, the Mark II uses a completely new 20 MP matrix instead of 16 MP in the first generation model. Phase and contrast autofocus sensors are integrated into the matrix, grouped into 121 cross-shaped zones, which capture almost the entire frame area. The physical size of the matrix has not changed, and is 17.3x13.0 mm. That is, the area of the Mark II matrix is \u200b\u200babout four times smaller than that of a full-frame DSLR (i.e. "crop factor" \u003d 2.0)
The new sensor is able to transmit information twice as fast as before. It is processed by the eight-core TruePic VIII processor (against the four-core TruePic VII in the first "one"). As a result, the speed of the camera has increased dramatically, it is noticeable even when flipping through photos, which can now be viewed as a movie. As before, the camera turns on in a fraction of a second and is immediately ready to shoot.
The camera menu has also undergone changes - it has become simpler and richer, due to getting rid of the blue background and the appearance of new sections in it. Literally everything can be configured here. This has both an advantage and a disadvantage - without reading the manual in the wilds of the menu, it is easy to get lost without finding the desired parameter.
The new mechanical shutter allows you to shoot in S-AF at 15 frames per second (instead of 11 frames per second on the E-M1), and when using the electronic shutter - up to 60 frames per second, with AF tracking and tracking - 18 frames per second. These settings for this moment- a record not only for this class of photographic equipment. For example, professional camera Canon EOS 1DX Mark II produces only 14 frames per second in tracking mode, Nikon D5 - 10 frames per second. At the same time, Olympus emphasizes that the new processor and sensor do not have the Rolling Shutter effect.
Image detail
Pictures from the new camera have not only a higher resolution (5184x3888 instead of 4608x3456), but also improved detail.
Below I give examples of processed photos, below them are 100% crops from RAW without any correction and sharpening.
ISO 64, f=7 mm, f/2.8, 1/800 sec
ISO 320, f=57mm, f/2.8, 1/500 sec
ISO 640, f=7 mm, f/2.8, 1/800 sec
ISO 200, f=40mm, f/3.2, 1/3200 sec
ISO 200, f=10 mm, f/3.5, 1/4000 sec
ISO 64, f=40 mm, f/4, 1/400 sec
ISO 400, f=150mm, f/2.8, 1/1250 sec
ISO 500, f=7 mm, f/2.8, 1/60 sec
Dynamic Range
The Mark II matrix demonstrates a wider dynamic range, which makes it possible to use the HDR mode much less often when shooting (in it, as before, the camera itself takes several shots, and then combines them into RAW or JPG).
ISO 200, f=11mm, f/6.7, 1/750 sec
An example of shooting in backlight:
ISO 250, f=7 mm, f/16, 1/200 sec
If earlier, when shooting such a frame, overexposure was possible, and I would use HDR, but now everything is much better, the margin for stretching has increased both in the bright parts of the frame and in the shadows.
Lest you think that all this is the result of a long stretch, here is an in-camera JPG for example:
ISO 3200, f=7 mm, f/2.8, 1/3200 sec
However, when you are shooting a scene with objects of varying brightness, using the HDR mode is still appropriate. The computer-glued picture looks somewhat "cartoonish".
Handheld shooting in low light
As I said, the detail has grown in all modes, but this is especially noticeable when shooting in low light conditions. If earlier significant noise in RAW files was already noticeable at ISO 2500, now the working range has grown to about ISO 6400. Frames shot at ISO up to 2500 can not be tweaked by noise at all in Lightroom, when resized for web publications, the noise is absolutely invisible .
ISO 2500, f=14mm, f/5.6, 1/250 sec
ISO 2500, f=40 mm, f/2.8, 1/60 sec
ISO 2500, f=7 mm, f/3.5, 1/60 sec
ISO 5000, f=7 mm, f/2.8, 1/30 sec
ISO 6400, f=7 mm, f/2.8, 1/60 sec
ISO 10000, f=7 mm, f/3.2, 1/13 sec
ISO 12800, f=40mm, f/2.8, 1/60 sec
ISO 12800, f=7 mm, f/2.8, 1/125 sec
If you shoot in JPG, then you don’t have to worry at all, the in-camera “noise reduction” does its job just fine, ennobling even the pictures taken at ISO 12800 and the maximum for the camera 25600. Such a high value can only be guessed from the slightly “floated » flowers. On this gif you can see the difference between RAW and in-camera JPG.
Summarizing the detail of the pictures, I note that although the quality and resolution have increased compared to the first model, the picture does not reach the level of the best full-frame cameras - you can’t argue against the laws of physics, because the sensor here is four times smaller.
However, Olympus offers a solution to this problem for static shooting - Super-HD mode. By shifting the matrix from frame to frame, the camera stitches together an eight-frame image in super-high resolution (25 or 50 MP in JPG and 80 MP in RAW).
Face and Eye Recognition System
The E-M1 Mark II's hybrid autofocus can detect faces and eyes to automatically focus on people (and more).
ISO 1600, f=150mm, f/2.8, 1/160 sec
When this mode is activated, the focus points selected by the camera are automatically highlighted in the viewfinder. But the main thing in new system autofocus is not that, but rather that it has been radically improved.
First of all, the problem of focusing on poorly lit objects, familiar from the E-M1, is gone. Now you can even focus on a black cat in a black room, if there is one. Even if it is not there, the camera will find something to “hook on”.
Tracking autofocus
But the main thing for me is that the autofocus in the Mark II has learned to perfectly track moving objects, and guide them in tracking mode, regardless of whether they are moving along or across the optical axis of the camera. How was this achieved?
An important difference between the E-M1 Mark II's phase-detection autofocus system and DSLRs is continuous autofocus during continuous shooting. During the shooting, information is taken from the sensor, after which the computer analyzes the shot itself and makes adjustments to the focus settings - and all this in a split second. SLRs cannot do this - autofocus is not available there both at the time of shooting and at the moment when the mirror is still raised.
Autofocus has a sensitivity setting through the menu. Increasing C-AF Lock to +2 is necessary for shooting fast and erratic small subjects such as animals. A value of +1 is optimal for shooting fast moving cars. Reducing the sensitivity to minus is suitable for shooting with the wiring of large objects (the same cars) moving perpendicular to the optical axis of the camera.
After testing the E-M1 Mark II's AF tracking in continuous shooting mode, I can state that it now performs just as well as on professional DSLRs. The first "one" was seriously inferior to them.
If earlier I most often did postings with manual focus, now even at a shutter speed of 1/10 second, the camera excellently drives a car that travels at a speed of about 40 kilometers per hour across a broken field. The percentage of marriage during posting has decreased radically - there are practically no unsharp frames in the series.
ISO 64, f=40mm, f/10, 1/10 sec
ISO 64, f=106 mm, f/3.5, 1/80 sec
Tracking work is very helpful when you are filming a car moving diagonally towards you and you need to capture its movement. The shutter speed should be long enough to show the wheels spinning, but short enough so that the front of the car is in focus.
ISO 200, f=150mm, f/5, 1/250 sec
ISO 200, f=150mm, f/6.3, 1/200 sec
The E-M1, again, had problems with this, the focus often ran away from the right point. Now this problem is no more. It doesn't matter if the objects are moving towards you, away from you, from right to left, or from left to right. They will be sharp. Dot.
Pro Capture Mode
The E-M1 Mark II has a new ProCapture burst mode. In it, the camera starts constantly shooting in the buffer when the button is half-pressed, and when the button is pressed fully, it saves 14 frames taken up to this point, and everything that you recorded after. The length of the series can be infinite, or limited through the menu (up to 99 frames). The camera writes the first 48 frames in RAW + JPG to its own buffer, after which it rewrites them to the memory card, so in order to make longer series with maximum speed, it makes sense to use a fast memory card such as the Sandisk Extreme Pro. Combined with super-sharp autofocus, this makes it possible to capture complex scenes such as a bird taking off and being chased by a hunting dog.
ISO 1600, f=97mm, f/3.2, 1/8000 sec
Handheld Long Exposure Shooting
The upgraded five-axis optical stabilization system further enhances the photographer's capabilities. Due to the soft, but fast shifting of the matrix by a magnetic field, the Olympus stabilization system is considered by many experts to be the best in the world among consumer cameras. This is reflected not only in the effective stabilization of videos, but also in the fact that when shooting stills, you can win back up to six and a half stops of exposure when shooting handheld.
How does it work in practice? This means you can shoot handheld at 1/8...
ISO 64, f=7 mm, f/9, 1/8 sec
Or for 0.8 sec...
ISO 64, f=7 mm, f/2.8, 0.8 sec
Or even at shutter speeds of 1.3 seconds or longer and still get sharp, detailed footage.
ISO 64, f=7 mm, f/3.5, 1.3 sec
Additional functions
What else can I tell you about the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II? Above, I have listed far from all the features of this camera.
So, in addition to the HDR mode, the camera has a focus bracketing mode with an automatic gluing function. After taking eight frames, the camera itself will collect one of them with an extended depth of field.
In Live Composition mode, the camera "finishes" the first frame taken with only bright objects. You can shoot the trajectories of stars and any other illuminated objects.
In addition, the E-M1 Mark II has auto mode for shooting time-lapses, followed by gluing the pictures taken into a video right inside the camera.
As in the E-M1, right in the camera you can edit a RAW or JPG file, correct perspective distortions (their camera can “heal” even when shooting), apply art filters, make JPG from RAW and transfer all files to a smartphone via free app Olympus Image Share.
It is also important that the camera shoots Cinemative 4K video (4096 × 2160) with a bit rate of up to 237 Mb/s, and "regular" FullHD shooting has a bit rate of up to 202 Mb/s, which allows using the Mark II for professional purposes not only like a camera - especially considering the unrivaled stabilization system. I plan to test the video capabilities separately.
Additional test shots
In this section, I bring to your attention some test shots taken on the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II during testing.
ISO 250, f=40mm, f/3.2, 1/5000 sec
ISO 2500, f=7 mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec
ISO 64, f=110mm, f/4, 1/100 sec
ISO 2500, f=35mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec
ISO 400, f=115mm, f/4, 1/1000 sec
ISO 2500, f=14mm, f/2.8, 1/800 sec
ISO 250, f=7 mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec
ISO 400, f=100mm, f/2.8, 1/320 sec
ISO 64, f=7 mm, f/3.2, 300 sec(live comp)
ISO 300, f=21mm, f/3.5, 1/320 sec
ISO 400, f=150mm, f/4.5, 1/3200 sec
ISO 200, f=20mm, f/9, 1/1250 sec
ISO 640, f=7 mm, f/2.8, 1/160 sec
ISO 200, f=7 mm, f/4.5, 1/500 sec
Outcome
Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II - despite the tricky name, is, in my opinion, the most prominent representative among all mirrorless cameras designed for reportage use. Thanks to the excellent optical stabilization system and advanced autofocus, the novelty from Olympus is able to compete with DSLRs in their field. Despite the fact that in terms of detail and image noise, noticeable at 100% crop, the camera is inferior to the "top" full-frame DSLRs, in terms of burst speed, as well as ease of use, Olympus is far ahead. Given the cost of the body at 140 thousand rubles - three times cheaper than a professional DSLR - we can state that with the release of the new camera, not only advanced amateurs shooting complex stories, but also professional reporters will stand under the banner of Olympus.
I also invite you to take a look at my reports shot in their entirety with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II:
How will the Olympus E-M1 Mark II perform in the cold, under the snow, how long does its battery last, and how good is the new M.Zuiko 12-100 f4 IS Pro lens in a real trip to the North? These were the main questions before the trip to Komi, and not having an answer to them, I also took a SLR camera as a safety net, but whether I got it at least once is a completely different question.
M.Zuiko 12-100mm f4 IS Pro
About the M.Zuiko 12-100 f4 IS Pro lens
The fact that the range of 24-200mm in 35mm equivalent and with a constant aperture ratio is magnificent does not need to be explained to the dedicated. The f4 aperture is a compromise, but many have put up with it for the sake of range or lens size and weight. For example, once I changed 70-200 f4 to 70-200 f2.8 and regretted it very much. A fast telephoto was good, but more and more often I didn’t take it with me on trips. It was too big and heavy.
M.Zuiko 12-100mm f4 IS Pro
Already collecting things for a trip, the moon rose above us. Gorgeous moon. Without hesitation, he grabbed the camera and went outside. It didn’t even occur to me that I needed to change the lens to a telephoto. If there was M.Zuiko 300mm, then I would have removed the sleepwalkers, but in the “point-and-click” format, two hundred millimeters was enough with my head. It's time to throw it in the trunk and go to the real world.
M.Zuiko 12-100mm f4 IS Pro
The range of focal lengths is good to show on real examples. Once at the recreation center "Mishkin Les" I specially took two shots from the high bank of the river. The first is at 12mm (equivalent to 24mm).
M.Zuiko 12-100mm f4 IS Pro
The second at 100mm (equivalent to 200mm). All this was shot with a single lens the size of a standard DSLR kit and smaller than the same 24-105 f4 for Canon or 24-120 f4 for Nikon.
M.Zuiko 12-100mm f4 IS Pro
We add that the M.Zuiko 12-100 has dust and moisture protection, as well as a stabilizer that is synchronized with the in-camera and gives a pair of 6.5 stops. Not bad? I am personally very pleased that I chose this new lens. I recently learned that Sasha Belenky also switched to the BZK with might and main and also shoots at 12-100. The ice moved towards the future.
M.Zuiko 7-14mm f2.8 Pro
I analyzed the footage from the trip and found that in more than 80% of situations I shot at 12-100mm. In other cases, the camera was equipped with M.Zuiko 7-14mm f2.8 Pro. I need an ultra-wide lens for shooting cars, and it's also perfect for shooting indoors, in museums and at exhibitions, where close quarters and aperture will be important.
Pairing the Olympus E-M1 Mark II with the M.Zuiko 7-14mm f2.8 Pro lens is ideal for autojournalism.
In the end, I ended up with the perfect set: the fast M.Zuiko 7-14mm f2.8 Pro and the versatile 12-100mm f4 IS Pro. There is also a macro lens M.Zuiko 30mm f3.5 Macro, but I have yet to start shooting something with it, and for now this is an experiment for me to enter the world of macro photography.
About the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II camera
Before the start in Komi, I was asked to report back on work in sub-zero temperatures and on the survivability of the new battery, which became one and a half times larger. I could also tell about the work in the minus from the experience of communicating with the OM-D E-M1 on Varandey and in several other places, in conditions of low temperatures and snowfalls.
I did not conduct laboratory tests of battery survivability, and there was no such task. I needed to understand how much the charge of one battery is enough in ordinary life, when something needs to be filmed at an event or run out and take a couple of shots. Laboratory indicators are not very suitable for real shooting in different conditions, so it makes no sense to equal them.
M.Zuiko 12-100mm f4 IS Pro
The biggest consumption is traditionally on long shootings in the cold. I managed to shoot Lampiada for about three hours. During this time, I did not remove the camera and did not turn it off, I shot both in series and with a tracking shutter. On the same day, I also took pictures on the way there and back. As a result, a little more than 300 frames were shot, and the first battery remained alive, a spare was not required.
M.Zuiko 12-100mm f4 IS Pro
Shooting in heavy snow is no problem at all for the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II. The main thing is to keep an eye on the front lens, so that later you won’t be surprised what kind of spots are in the photographs. As for moisture, even on the E-M1 I washed the camera with the lens after filming on the trophy in the shower. Just don't tell that to the guarantors. It is said that they do not like the topic of washing chambers under the shower. However, I have never applied under warranty and not under warranty either.
M.Zuiko 12-100mm f4 IS Pro
We were lucky with frost and snow. Spring in Komi is real, as in the Russian proverb: "Martok, put on a hundred trousers." Wind, frost down to minus 20 and below, snow is falling, beauty! By the way, I forgot, along with the photo, I also periodically shot the video. The button to start recording is at hand, one passage on the photo, the second passage on the video. Then I riveted something along with a video from a DJI drone.
M.Zuiko 12-100mm f4 IS Pro
Finally, about a sore point - about autofocus. The E-M1 had about a 10% failure rate in difficult conditions. The camera simply did not have time to focus or focused on the wrong thing. In the E-M1 Mark II, the situation is much improved, but not ideal.
In snow slush or in bright direct front light, the camera still focuses a little worse than top-level DSLRs. Sometimes you have to move the AF point to make sure you get the subject. But not everything is bad, for example, through the glass blurred from dampness, the camera managed to focus on the go and take the right shot.
Finally, the new Bleach Bypass art mode is available in the new 2.0 firmware for the OM-D E-M1 Mark II. This is of course pampering, but now I even have a personal preset for processing the JPEG image obtained with this mode. It turns out something "tube" and quite funny. Here is an example of a locomotive using this mode.
M.Zuiko 12-100mm f4 IS Pro
The Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II has a few more features worth writing about separately and I will definitely do it later. In the meantime, it's time to sum up that the camera passed the first combat test, and I am disgracefully satisfied with a bunch of two lenses. If you take an Olympus PEN-F camera for a wide-angle lens and shooting indoors, then it will be a bomb and a photographer’s dream.
We reviewed an Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II camera with a 12-100mm f/4 IS Pro M.Zuiko Digital ED lens.
20 MP, continuous shooting at 60 fps in RAW, 4K video, frost-resistant housing with dust and moisture protection, stabilizer compensating up to 6.5 steps.
Body and ergonomics
The E-M1 Mark II received a larger handle compared to the E-M1. The grip is very deep, the hand fits perfectly into it. Also increased the ledge under the thumb on the rear panel.
In general, in terms of grip, this is one of the most comfortable mirrorless cameras to date.
The camera is equipped with two SD card slots, one of them supports UHS-II interface. In the menu, you can configure the distribution of data across maps. For example, recording data on both cards at once or recording photo and video data on different cards.
The tripod socket is located on the optical axis of the lens.
The case is frost-resistant and has dust and moisture protection.
The novelty received a large battery in size and capacity (1720 mAh). Full charge time is about two hours.
Matrix
1/30, f/4.0, ISO400, @12mm The camera is equipped with a matrix with a resolution of 20 megapixels with integrated autofocus sensors. ISO sensitivity range - 200-25800 units. Expands only down to 64 units.
Working ISO - 3200–6400 units. At high values, strong noises begin.
The speed of reading data from the matrix is doubled compared to the E-M1. This reduced the effect of jelly (Rolling Shutter), which is important when shooting video.
The camera has very powerful performance thanks to the combination of a fast sensor and a dual eight-core TruePic VIII processor.
This bundle allows the camera to shoot at up to 15 frames per second with a mechanical shutter. The electronic shutter provides up to 18 fps with tracking autofocus and up to 60 fps with single focus.
The camera is capable of shooting bursts at 60 frames per second in full resolution and in RAW, RAW+JPG or JPG format.
In addition, the camera has a Pro Capture feature. When it is turned on, the camera cycles through the frames in the buffer. When the shutter is pressed, the camera starts shooting and simultaneously saves the last 14 frames from the buffer. All this at speeds of 18 or 60 fps.
Stabilizer
1/125, f/4.0, ISO6400, @100mm The camera is equipped with a five-axis stabilizer that compensates for camera rotation in three planes, as well as vertical and horizontal shifts.
This gives a gain of up to 5.5 steps. And up to 6.5 stops with PRO lenses such as 300mm f/4 or 12-120mm f/4.
According to Olympus engineers, this is the maximum possible in the development of stabilization systems. Further improvements are next to impossible due to the effect of the Earth's rotation.
In practice, what we have now is enough for shooting with a focal length of 100 mm and a shutter speed of 1/50 handheld. Moreover, we are talking about an ordinary photo walk, when the photographer takes out a camera and takes one or more shots. Experienced photographers not spoiled by working with Olympus will be able to get blur-free shots at slower shutter speeds.
Stabilization opens up huge opportunities for working with camera movement without the use of a steadicam.
Viewfinder and LCD screen
The camera received an electronic OLED-viewfinder with a resolution of 2.36 megapixels and a refresh rate of 120 fps.
The camera maintains focus with a touch when looking through the viewfinder.
The viewfinder can be set to S-OVF (simulated optical viewfinder). In it, all shooting parameters are displayed on the monitor, and in the viewfinder you see only a clean image. All changes in shooting parameters (white balance, stylization, etc.) are also not displayed.
autofocus
Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II received a hybrid autofocus (contrast and phase), equipped with 121 focus points.
In the menu, you can enable face detection, focusing on the right / left eye, or “i” mode, in which focusing occurs on the eye closest to the camera.
For tracking autofocus, you can set the sensitivity to indicate how quickly the camera should refocus when another subject appears in the foreground.
Video filming
The Olympus E-M1 Mark II can shoot 4K (4096x2160) at up to 237Mbps. In Full HD resolution, the bitrate is up to 202 Mb/s.
Shooting parameters (resolution, bit rate, frame rate) are configured separately. But the bitrate is not indicated in Mbps, but in the degree of stream compression, which is somewhat inconvenient. A-I (ALL-Intra) - each frame is recorded as a separate image, IPB - video contains a key frame, and the compression ratio is specified as SF, F and N (Super fine, fine, normal).
Here are the main combinations:
- 4096×2160 (C4K) / 24p / IPB (up to 237 Mbps)
- 3840×2160 (4K) / 30p, 25p, 24p / IPB (up to 102 Mbps)
- 1920×1080 (FHD) / 30p, 25p, 24p / ALL-I (A-I), IPB (SF, F, N)
- 1920×1080 (FHD) / 60p, 50p / IPB (SF, F, N)
- 1280×720 (HD) / 60p, 50p, 30p, 25p, 24p / ALL-I (A-I), IPB (SF, F, N)
And keep in mind that the frame rate is not quite accurate:
- 60p - 59.94 fps
- 30p - 29.97 fps
- 4K 24p - 23.98 fps
- C4K 24p - 24 fps
AF modes and area are set separately from photography modes, so it's very convenient to switch to video shooting without additional menu work.
Image stabilization allows you to shoot video with very smooth camera movement without using a steadicam. Although, of course, the stabilizer will not replace professional equipment.
In the video shooting mode, you can use two types of stabilization - matrix shift or matrix shift plus software method. We only used sensor shift with the 12-100mm f/4 lens.
The camera is equipped with connectors for an external microphone and headphones, which allows you to work with sound.
Shooting practice
1/40, f/4.0, ISO1600, @18mm The camera received a large number of very interesting and even unique features.
As already mentioned above, a mechanical shutter allows you to shoot up to 15 fps, and an electronic one - up to 60 fps.
In order to unleash the possibilities of continuous shooting, you need to use cards with a UHS-II interface. For this test we used Delkin cards.
The E-M1 Mark II allows for multiple bracketing options, including focus bracketing. In this mode, the focus shifts with each frame (the degree of shift can be set in the menu) - and you get a series of frames with different focus.
In addition, you can turn on the Focus Stacking mode, and the camera will automatically align frames with focus bracketing. This function does not work with all lenses.
The Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II received a Hi-Res (“Super-HD”) mode, in which the camera takes a picture with a resolution of 50 megapixels by shooting 8 frames with a micro-shift of the matrix. As you understand, this function is only suitable for shooting stationary objects. Most importantly, in this mode, you can save data in RAW format. But this mode also has limitations: the maximum ISO is 1600, the aperture is f / 8.
Live Composite mode allows you to see directly on the camera screen the image formed long exposure. For example, when working with a light brush, you can see the result without stopping exposure.
conclusions
1/400, f/5.6, ISO 200, @18mm, shadow and highlight correction Olympus has released a very strong camera. It has well-thought-out ergonomics, it fits comfortably in the hand, and in terms of grip depth, the E-M1 Mark II is not inferior to SLR cameras.
Stabilization allows you to shoot blur-free photos and shake-free video in low light. Winning up to 5.5 (and with PRO-optics and up to 6.5) steps is a serious competitive advantage for the photographer.
Combinations of tenacious autofocus and high-speed shooting up to 18 fps with subject tracking allow you to capture the most dynamic scenes. And if necessary, you can turn on the maximum 60 fps and focus on the first frame.
The E-M1 Mark II has got a lot of video capabilities, which, coupled with excellent stabilization, should attract the attention of operators.
In my opinion, it is very important that this review will have a creative component, since one of the most important aspects when choosing photographic equipment - opportunities in real shooting. And I am very glad that the editors of Prophotos trusted me to evaluate them.
I want to say right away that the attitude to the crop sensor is very subjective and the degree of criticality of this parameter is different for everyone. I know of examples when photographers shooting with a cropped sensor produced results that were many times higher than those obtained by their colleagues working with a full frame.
The camera was in my hands for only a couple of days, and I did not have time to test great amount modes built into it (Super-HD, Live Composition, Pro Capture, 4K video), but we still managed to get a clear impression.
The OM-D E-M1 Mark II is a very advanced camera. But only the photographer who previously had an Olympus camera will be able to use all of them immediately after purchase.
The first thing I encountered when I took the camera in my hands was the need to configure it for myself. The factory settings of the camera are very different from the usual ones. For example, by default, the Live View screen displays the image not according to the settings you entered, but in such a way that everything is always visible.
There is a lot to adjust by digging through the huge menu and looking for items. Unfortunately, the desired setting can be easily missed, because you simply do not know how it is called here. This problem should be solved by the instruction, but I did not have it, and even more so the time to read it.
E-M1MarkII / OLYMPUS M.12-100mm F4.0 SETTINGS: ISO 500, F4, 1/125s, 200.0mm equiv.
Now about ergonomics. The camera is very, very comfortable to shoot. Olympus makes some of the most comfortable cameras around. All these two days I walked and admired the fact that nothing causes discomfort when shooting. The swivel screen is made exactly the way it should be in all cameras. It is convenient to shoot both vertically and horizontally. On the set, I often have to lie on the floor and pavement to see what is in the frame. With the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II, you can easily shoot from different angles.
I also really liked the focus on the face and eyes when shooting people (turned on manually). I always choose the center focus point. With my camera, when shooting portraits, I usually focus on the face, then, without releasing the shutter button, I form the frame itself and press the button. The Olympus in face priority mode simply immediately focuses on the face/eyes if they are in the frame, regardless of the set center focus point.
E-M1MarkII / OLYMPUS M.25mm F1.2 SETTINGS: ISO 200, F1.2, 1/640s, 50.0mm equiv.
This greatly speeds up the shooting process, and all the emotions, movements of the model are captured with the right focus. The only small minus is that this mode, as well as focusing in general, does not always work correctly and clearly at night or in the dark.
E-M1MarkII / OLYMPUS M.25mm F1.2 SETTINGS: ISO 200, F1.2, 1/1250s, 50.0mm equiv.
Another important parameter is the shooting speed. I haven't tested the burst mode, but the speed of the camera is felt in single-frame mode as well. When shooting the same portraits, I took quick series of shots (one frame at a time) with breaks of five seconds, and the camera buffer never got clogged up and did not make me and the model wait.
A big plus is the capacity of the new battery. I could not plant it in a day, even up to 50%.
All these advantages, which I managed to appreciate, are very important for me, since I face almost every day with their absence in my cell.
At the end of testing, I evaluated the processing of images taken with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II. Here my opinion can hardly be called unambiguous, I could not decide whether the quality of the resulting picture suits me. And it’s hard to understand this in two days of shooting, although I tried to shoot in different conditions.
I can say with confidence that the camera shoots just fine during the day. Light, shadows, color - everything is very good. The quality of the pictures is also top notch.
But in the dark at ISO 400, I began to notice a strong loss of detail. For example, in the portrait, the model’s waist-length hair is completely “stuck together”. At ISO 800, strong unpleasant noises are already noticeable. Most likely, the matter is in the small size of the camera matrix.
E-M1MarkII / OLYMPUS M.12-40mm F2.8 SETTINGS: ISO 500, F3.5, 1/40s, 24.0mm equiv.
Perhaps I messed up the settings in the noise reduction section, and therefore my evening shots turned out like this. I hope that I will have the opportunity to test this camera longer and better, in order to fully understand everything for myself and decide whether I want to switch to Olympus (and I have been thinking about this for a long time).
The novelty is super convenient to use, gives excellent results during the day and dubious when shooting portraits in low light conditions.
E-M1MarkII / OLYMPUS M.25mm F1.2 SETTINGS: ISO 400, F1.4, 1/125s, 50.0mm equiv.