Initial Impressions OMD E-M1 plus 14-42mm F2.8 kit

[ajohnw]

Waiting for the battery to charge up so not much at the moment.

First thing I noticed was the weight of the lens and it's finish. Weight wise it's the same as the camera about 1/2 kg. It's extremely well finished and no signs of any plastic at all or rubber zoom etc grips. The lens cap had me fooled for a moment as it seems to have a large metal insert in the front. Also comes with a pouch and hood. The hood fitting is via a bayonet of sorts but two adjacent buttons on the hood have to be pushed in to get it on.

Unusual these days but it all comes with a fairly wide substantial camera strap. Add say a 200mm F2.8 and I would probably wish it was wider but always wonder about using simple straps with lenses on like that.

The camera is neat and still small but noticeably bigger than the E-M5. By eye it looks like the main difference is that it's about 15mm longer and the main body is somewhat thicker and taller. As it has a battery bulge that some call a grip the 2 thumb wheels have room between them for 2 buttons rather than being at the side of one on the E-M5. This has also allowed them to move the rear thumb wheel nearer to the end of the camera where most people would expect it to be. Have to reach across on the E-M5 which isn't a problem but takes some getting used to. There is still a place for the thumb at the back but this time it's doesn't slightly foul the FN-1 button at all. Looks like there is a button for everything. The prime real estate for buttons looks like it defaults to movie and jpg tone curve manipulation. These are behind the front thumb wheel. Top left has On/Off, AF and metering plus burst, timer and HDR. All buttons look easy to get at even the viewfinder - screen selector which was hidden away a bit on the E-M5. There is also a button on the lens.

The camera mode dial can be locked but as it has decent indents for each position I feel that's a bit pointless but other manufacturers are doing the same thing.

All in all I don't think I will have any problems taking the camera out of a shoulder bag when I want to use it and putting it back in afterwards which is how I usually shoot. I did wonder if the increase in size would spoil that. Ergonomics just like the E-M5 seem rather well thought out - to me.

John
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[ajohnw]

Had the 1st 1/2 hr in the menu's and took a couple of shots just to check all seems ok. Seems to be a pretty gritty lens. This one is a camera jpg sharpened moderately full sized and slightly again after reduction plus a mild inverted s curve. The stamen group is about 20mm across. All camera settings off.



This is a crop from the centre full resolution.



The lens focuses down to 200mm. Maybe this is a bit closer. Full res crop straight from the camera. No PP at all. I should have set a bit of compensation by the look of it. Probably down to the yellow.



John
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[Shadowman]

Looks like a contender in favorable lighting conditions, next step some low lights and sky shots.

[ajohnw]

Focus test of a sort. Not sure if the camera is happy with a Sigma 100mm 4/3 macro lens plus 1.4x converter and m 4/3 adapter. This is 1600 ISO. Several shots with slowest speed of 1 / 125 no real signs of noise. Sharpened in fairly heavily in and again after reduction.



They refused to stay still for any length of time and leaves in the way on this one. The leaf partly obscuring the head wasn't really apparent in the viewfinder. The other few I took were NVG,

John
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[ajohnw]

Ok Some high ISO

Whole shot 6400 1/4 sec. No PP. Got fed up with the skeleton case for storing my camera bits so found a bit of Old Charm. Old hi fi cabinet.



100% res crop




Bella wondering what I am doing and watching disdainfully. I couldn't see either of her eyes with the light available so the blown highlights are in all probability excusable. The blacks in the crop are a bit muddy but this area was very dark. Just sharpened a touch after reduction and a bit of an inverted S. Not sure about ISO so check - 1600?



Crop of the darker eye. No sharpening.



John
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[ajohnw]

May have missed something in the menu's but some noise reduction has been applied to the jpg's. This is a crop from raw. The noise was easy to remove.



PP's this from raw



And this is straight raw just reduced. Definitely no noise reduction etc and no sharpening at all.



John
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[ajohnw]

There was another noise reduction setting that needed turning off. It seems to be pretty effective but jpg's are now as noisy as raw.

I thought that the multiway was difficult to use initially. They have recessed it slightly to avoid using it by mistake. No problem once I realised. Just a finger angle thing.

One thing I couldn't find out about before buying the camera was if the auto tracking could be turned off in continuous AF. Not too clear in the menu but easy in the super control panel. The tracking so far seems to be a lot better than the E-M5's. It has a facility to ignore things passing between the camera and the subject in this mode. No idea how good that is yet.

Bulb mode can be set so that it shows the progress as the image builds up eg show image of so many sec every some other sec. I'll try display for 1 sec every 2 sec at some point so the exposure can be multiples of 2 sec, Sounds too fast to me but other times are available.

Flash sync is stated as 1/320. Big improvement over the E-M5. A generic flash can be set to 1/250 rather than 1/160. The FL36R can be set to 1/250 as well with the flash set to auto. Set the flash to auto TTL and any speed can be used.

Kathy mentioned lack of flash power settings. I suspect the way round that is to set the camera in manual as desired so that the flash is say contributing 1EV or what ever between 0 and 3EV using negative compensation. Pass really but that should work. No signs of flash power levels as far as I can see. Odd as Pen's had this on their built in flashes.

No sun here at the moment so not point trying shots with sky. It would eat what we currently have easily.

John
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[Shadowman]

Nice assessment, looking forward to seeing more of your analysis. High ISO looks controllable and PP looks like it will take care of some of the other issues.

[ajohnw]

Nice assessment, looking forward to seeing more of your analysis. High ISO looks controllable and PP looks like it will take care of some of the other issues.

You would have to tell me what issues. Anything done to these was very quick even the noise reduced from raw. I used a LAB adjustment on that. This should retain colour with brightness but personally I don't think it does really as it tends to pale colours as they are brightened. Looking at the final result I think I used too much detail level orientated local contrast as well. New toy.

John
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[gratefulgordons]

You and I gotta talk. Much to learn from you John and i've had the camera 3 months now. I guess you did have the 5. At any rate what, you commented on using any speed with the flash on TTL. We picked up a YN 560iii, which seems to work just over the 320 cut off and I was wandering how to get it to sync faster if possible? One way or another I feel we have a lot we could learn from you about these cameras. Recently picked up the 75mm which I will say is fantastically sharp, as most reviews have already stated. can be a bit long in some cases, but honestly I like the reach in general.

Thank you for the overview and reminder that I have much I can do still,

Brett

[Shadowman]

You would have to tell me what issues. Anything done to these was very quick even the noise reduced from raw. I used a LAB adjustment on that. This should retain colour with brightness but personally I don't think it does really as it tends to pale colours as they are brightened. Looking at the final result I think I used too much detail level orientated local contrast as well. New toy.

John
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I meant issues like maintaining detail in patterns and especially the dog's fur. Noise reduction has a tendency to smooth out areas.

[ajohnw]

The Olympus flash guns have a burst fire mode that is set on the flash gun as focal plane or something like that. It appears to have changed to TTL-Auto on the flash gun on the E-M1. I have only had the gun, an FL-36R for a couple of weeks so both modes might be there on both cameras. What it does is fire the flash a number of times as the curtains move across the sensor - or at least I think it does. The problem is that the flash power available decreases as the speed goes up so best look at the manuals before buying. The FL-600R manual I found was very toy town and didn't really tell users anything of much use. The manuals for the earlier guns like the FL-36R are much better. The FL-36R is a relatively low power one.

The flash sync speeds I quoted are in TTL mode - camera using a pre flash and probably focal distance to set the flash power. I suspect you are using the flashes own auto setting which isn't so precise. The usual answer to being able to keep at or below the flash sync speed and still use wide aperture lens settings is to add neutral density filters. That way TTL can be used.

John
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[ajohnw]

I meant issues like maintaining detail in patterns and especially the dog's fur. Noise reduction has a tendency to smooth out areas.

The shot where I posted the crop of her eye was a 1 1/2 sec exposure at 1600 which should give some idea how dark that area was. I couldn't actually see her eyes. It's been brightened with an inverted S as well. Ties in with another I took at 6400 which was 1/3 sec. The hair in the dark isn't recoverable at all in that one but the other detail is. Bella doesn't usually move much when she is watching me so just took shots as they turned out.

Must admit now I have used the jpg noise reduction I may see what it can do as it doesn't seem to have lost anything at all on the macro shot. I'm all for saving time and if the jpg can be PP'd no harm in removing noise if it can.

Have to look at the menu's again now to see if anything has changed. Hadn't checked if the firmware was up to date.

Other bits and pieces.

With the Sigma 4/3 macro lens on it will AF with either the 1.4x converter or a 25mm extension tube on but only manual focus with both. The camera must have some way of identifying the tube. Since updating the firmware it seems to be happier with this lens.

The camera brackets a range of different setting for hdr at 2 or 3 EV steps. Feels like It takes them at max frame rate. I sort of expected them to be merged in the camera - they aren't unless something is buried in the menu or it's an image editing option. Raw can be developed in the camera but I have never looked at this area.

John
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[ajohnw]

I took a shot with it that I have taken before. A bit of a check of the sensors dynamic range. It's way way better than a Pen. Unfortunately the weather was never suitable to try the same shot on an E-M5 but my feeling is that the E-M1 has more. This is a jpg exposed for the sky with slight clipping and simple shadow restore and a little playing about.




This is 100% crop of the bright end.



This ( I think) is a 5 shot camera HDR. Hand held. Sorry about the think but when I've tried this before the camera doesn't seem to want to stack the shots or doesn't do it as I would. One thing I do know is that compensation was needed to keep all of the church in a jpg.

I'm not sure what's going on. To get the shadows well exposed the church should be blown out. The colour of the stone work has shifted but the sky is still blown.



John
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[Shadowman]

I took a shot with it that I have taken before. A bit of a check of the sensors dynamic range. It's way way better than a Pen. Unfortunately the weather was never suitable to try the same shot on an E-M5 but my feeling is that the E-M1 has more. This is a jpg exposed for the sky with slight clipping and simple shadow restore and a little playing about.




This is 100% crop of the bright end.



This ( I think) is a 5 shot camera HDR. Hand held. Sorry about the think but when I've tried this before the camera doesn't seem to want to stack the shots or doesn't do it as I would. One thing I do know is that compensation was needed to keep all of the church in a jpg.

I'm not sure what's going on. To get the shadows well exposed the church should be blown out. The colour of the stone work has shifted but the sky is still blown.



John
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John,

Does the camera blend the individual shots or does it have to be done afterwards? Also, you should have at least one image exposed correctly, the others should cover your dynamic range. Are the highlights blown in your correctly exposed image?

[ajohnw]

I'm not sure John. Sounds daft I know. It offers a sequence of 3 or 5 shots taken in burst mode and I have read that the camera assembles them. I tried 2 and both gave similar results one based round an exposure for the church and another with compensation applied. It appears to have not used either of the extremes of the 5 shots in both cases. One of those is very blown and the other mostly black but with sky detail that wasn't visually visible. They were at 3 EV spacing. It will do 3,5 or 7 frames as 2 EV spacing and 3 or 5 at 3 EV. Never really thought about this feature in a camera but there are 2 other HDR modes which according to the manual take 4 shots. I assume these are metered to suit were as the one I used just sets up the EV's and takes the shots. Metering what is actually needed makes more sense.

I did look at just using exposure compensation based round an exposure for the sky and doing it manually but the 5 EV available wasn't enough. It wouldn't bring the dark areas in. The church is in a valley in full sun but the foreground is shaded by densely packed trees. There is a stream running through the shot but for some reason they haven't cleared the banks this year.

I had a worrying hour or so with the camera. The 12-40mm pro lens wouldn't auto focus and only offered manual. Panic. Turns out that the focus ring is pushed/pulled to select manual or auto focus. When in manual sliding the ring reveals a focusing scale.

I've found the 2 buttons for AF mode and HDR settings nice to use. Seems a flick of a switch changes HDR to conventional bracketing. 2,3,5 or 7 shots at 0.3, 0.7 or 1EV spacing. Flash bracketing uses the same compensation but 3 frames.

John
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[ajohnw]

E-M1 off for repair under guarantee. The rear thumb wheel went intermittent.

Talking to the repairers they have had very few problems with any aspect of the camera especially this area which it seems isn't uncommon on all makes. Doing a quick check on the web their comment seems to be correct. All makes crop up even really high end cameras.

This has caused me to pick up the E-M5 again and realise what a wonderful camera it is. It's so nice to handle. Some how the E-M1 doesn't have that feel to it.

John
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[Venser]

I just sold off my Nikon 12-24 f/2.8 and 24-70 f/2.8 and picked up an EM-1 along with the 12-40 f/2.8 and 60 macro. Already have an EM-5 with Pany 20mm f/1.7, Oly 45 f/1.8, and Oly 75 f/1.8. Now I just need to rid myself of the 70-200 and D700 and I'll be all m43 from now on.

For the majority of what I shoot, it was simply silly carrying around all the Nikon gear. Weight alone was getting cumbersome. When the 40-150 f/2.8 goes to retail, I'll snag on also, and that will completely replace everything from Nikon in terms of functionality for half the cost, and more importantly, half the weight.

[ajohnw]

My reason was similar but am a bit disappointed in the way the Pro lenses are going. On a weight basis I would rather they had stuck with glass reinforced plastic which is what they used on 4/3 or what ever they used on the m 4/3 lenses. Even better carbon fibre filled. As things stand as with all lenses there is probably plastic running gear inside. I'm not so keen on F2.8 either weight wise. They could produce high quality F4 very usable wide open. That would up the weight but still save on F2.8.

My only area of concern is wild life including macro. 60mm doesn't leave much working space for macro work. Not that it will do any good but I contacted their pet UK pro and pointed out that 150mm would be a lot lot better. It would also make a very useful prime. F2.8 on that would just be a waste. They are going to introduce a 300mm F4 as well. Going on the 75-300mm 300mm is often too short for birds and in other cases it can be too long. Lots of 150-500mm lenses are sold for use on crop and the 150-600mm are attracting a lot of attention. I feel they would have done better to try and serve that part of the market some how but would guess it would hard to reach the quality levels m 4/3 needs to match or exceed crop. Maybe something like a 150-400mm could.

I doubt if I will buy the 40-150mm F2.8. The slow plastic one may look like a load of rubbish but i feel it isn't and it's super light. My only worry about mine is I finished up with a silver one due to a used camera I bought to try m 4/3 - E-PL1.

John
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[ajohnw]

The E-M1 is back from repair. Looks like they fitted an entirely new top to the camera. It was away for 2 weeks. Exactly the time the repairers mentioned. They reckon that they have had very few of the cameras in for repair and that all makes have their moments with thumb wheels. I did a web check on Canon and Nikon and that seems to be correct. The note that came back with it said that they had also calibrated the sensor ???????

The firmware had been updated as well. Some new things to look at. The main change I have noticed is the ability to set continuous shooting speeds in both the slower with focus mode and the faster setting without pre focus. Personally I am glad to see that. There seems to be more button settings too but haven't really gone through those.

I tried a few birds in flight the other day. No luck but they were flying across and I couldn't really pan the camera fast enough to keep up with them for long enough to allow the focus to settle or even get the focus square over them. I didn't try playing around with the focus area settings and tracking etc just tried to use the central af area.

John
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