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OMD gold award at dpreview

Godfrey

Well-known member
Had some time to play with the E-M5 this past Sunday at the store.

- Nice feel, tight and solid.
- It's small!
- Lots of controls*in a cramped space, but what you need to work with*all the time is easy to deal with.
- Good viewfinder, good LCD.
- Don't like the 12-50 zoom, but the 45/1.8 is delightful.

All in all, a fine piece from Olympus, as I always expect. I wish it were 20% larger overall, though.

(And I'm happy with my current equipment ... not looking to buy anything photographic. I've been putting money into shaping up die Gelbe Gefahr instead... ;-)
 

nostatic

New member
All in all, a fine piece from Olympus, as I always expect. I wish it were 20% larger overall, though.
fwiw it looks like adding half of the grip (the non-battery part) will get you that 20% increase in size. I'm looking forward to adding that as I could use a bit more grab space. Of course that won't fix the buttons being tight but so far I can live with it and once configured I don't do much button fiddling. Mostly wheel turning and screen touching.
 

kit laughlin

Subscriber Member
Mine should arrive today, and I will pick up a grip and an extra battery when I get to the US in a couple of weeks. I wonder if Richard Franiac is planning a grip... I will check and report back.
 

jonoslack

Active member
Mine should arrive today, and I will pick up a grip and an extra battery when I get to the US in a couple of weeks. I wonder if Richard Franiac is planning a grip... I will check and report back.
Hi Kit
Good luck - I'll be fascinated by your response . . I think I'm slightly in love (and that's not common)
 

kit laughlin

Subscriber Member
the battery is charging now...

I have emailed Richard Freniec re. whether he is planning a grip, and his work is stellar—if he does decide to make one for this camera, I'd buy one sight unseen: the three other grips I have bought from him transformed the respective bodies, from an ergonomic POV.

I have the 20/1.7, the 25/1.4 and the 45/1.8. Once battery is charged, good to go.

First impressions? Compact, and well set out (the playback and Fn1 buttons are close together!) and I feel a grip will be very helpful.

Jono: do you have a setup for simple folk for the OM-D? I use your setup on the NEX exclusively. I notice on the NEX-7, though unless you use AUTO ISO and P, turning the dial jumps the ISO and shutter speed by a full stop—I would love half or third stops, if possible.
 
B

boyzo

Guest
Mine should arrive today, and I will pick up a grip and an extra battery when I get to the US in a couple of weeks. I wonder if Richard Franiac is planning a grip... I will check and report back.
Forget the RF grip .. its just a bit of CNC machined plastic
The Full Oly grip is way to go two extra shutters control wheel sets + battery storage and Bfn1 Bfn2 buttons to configure.
Handling is improved to :)
 

Annna T

Active member
Jono: do you have a setup for simple folk for the OM-D? I use your setup on the NEX exclusively. I notice on the NEX-7, though unless you use AUTO ISO and P, turning the dial jumps the ISO and shutter speed by a full stop—I would love half or third stops, if possible.
My name isn't Jono, but here are one or two helpful things :

1) Richard Butler at DPreview has issued an article on how to configure the OM-D, in which he explains some quirks of the camera.
User Guide: Getting the most out of the Olympus E-M5: Digital Photography Review

2) Here you'll find a link to how you can configure customs set of settings in the Olympus cameras, using the Mysets options :
Re: MySets - DekHog's help file extracted here.: Micro Four Thirds Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

Hope this helps.
 

soboyle

New member
How is start up time of OMD?
A frustration of the Fuji X100 is the slow start up and response. any comments comparing AF and start up speed between these 2 cameras? IQ similar?
 

kit laughlin

Subscriber Member
Hello Boyso,

Yes, I had a closer look at the Oly one, and it's a beautiful (and clever) device, so will probably get that.

Good morning Annna T; thank you for those links—I have owned hundreds of cameras literally, film and digital, but the OM-D is the toughest to set up for me, so far.

I wlll go through both of these links, and post back. Thanks!
 

Terry

New member
How is start up time of OMD?
A frustration of the Fuji X100 is the slow start up and response. any comments comparing AF and start up speed between these 2 cameras? IQ similar?
The Fuji start up is only slow under one instance. That is when files from your operating system end up on you SD card. This happens with Apple computers depending on how you download the files. To solve it you can write protect the card when you copy the files to your computer or reformat the card after each download. It can take like15 seconds to have a functioning camera if you don't do this.
 

smartwombat

New member
The review says the focus tracking on the OM-D is very disappointing. Too bad - I thought I could use it for fast moving sports. I have written a review of the NEX-7 with the phase adapter as a sports camera that will appear soon on stevehuffphoto.com.
I spent the weekend at Laguna Seca shooting with the OM-D and the GH-1 as backup for when the battery went flat.

Initially I was disappointed with the continuous AF on the OM-D and also the blanking on the EVF. Then I went back to the GH-1 and saw how comparatively bad that was.

CAF-TR is a pretty awful mode to use if you believe the manual. Half-pressing the shutter and waiting for it to lock on the subject, while panning a moving race car, just does not work.
I simply panned with the car and fully pressed the shutter, no half measures, and with release priority Off (default is On, change that!) it locks in about 1/4 second and takes the 1st shot. Then there is an annoying 1/2 second delay before it goes into burst mode and almost reaches the requested 4fps.

Same applies to CAF mode without tracking, try to pan with a car and even with the huge AF area I could pan all the way from the top of the corkscrew to the bottom and there would be no AF lock to then shoot a burst.
Just mash the shutter and trust the electronics and it worked much better.

Trying to use CAF-TR for a bird in flight was useless.
First I had the bird in my sights, then the tracking engaged with a half-press and the square with ticks jumped around like a flea anywhere except where the bird was. Finally the AF kicked in and drove the lens so far out of focus the bird vanished and I could no longer pan with it.

In CAF mode it was little better, once the AF hunted far enough to blur the bird into the blue sky so it could not be tracked, then there was no way to fully press the shutter to get the picture.

My best attempt was to half-press and get an AF lock on distant trees, then look up to the vulture, track it and full-press the shutter and wait until it got AF lock and shot.

This is going to require a lot of work to get the right technique, because it's not working following the manual.


Oh and even with release priority set to Off, the camera will still shoot an out of focus image. Really far out of focus.

Overall though, it was manageable and I got saleable images out of the weekend.

I can't wait until I recover the strength in my hand and can use my Canon 1D cameras though. They're what I really need for motorsport :)
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
Thank you for a very useful writeup, Racingwombat. That means I'll keep my Nikons for motor racing (and I'll need another dry cabinet :rolleyes: ).
 
B

boyzo

Guest
Had some time to play with the E-M5 this past Sunday at the store.

- Nice feel, tight and solid.
- It's small!
- Lots of controls*in a cramped space, but what you need to work with*all the time is easy to deal with.
- Good viewfinder, good LCD.
- Don't like the 12-50 zoom, but the 45/1.8 is delightful.

All in all, a fine piece from Olympus, as I always expect. I wish it were 20% larger overall, though.

(And I'm happy with my current equipment ... not looking to buy anything photographic. I've been putting money into shaping up die Gelbe Gefahr instead... ;-)
From the Old fart a judgement on the new OM-D . we are blessed ;-)
 
B

boyzo

Guest
Hello Boyso,

Yes, I had a closer look at the Oly one, and it's a beautiful (and clever) device, so will probably get that.

Good morning Annna T; thank you for those links—I have owned hundreds of cameras literally, film and digital, but the OM-D is the toughest to set up for me, so far.

I wlll go through both of these links, and post back. Thanks!
go here
suggested settings for the Olympus OM-D E-M5 Micro Four Thirds camera [Gary Ayton's photography wiki]
 
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