Only reason I won't get an M1: the M5

[Annna T]

The E-M5 has the same processing features as the E-M1 in terms of native Olympus lenses. As far as IQ though, I tested both cameras and found that my 75mm/1.8 lens was also slightly sharper on the E-M5, consistent with the findings of DxOmark. This was a big disappointment to me, since I was excited about a possible lack of AA filter on the E-M1, which turned out not to be true.



Yeah, unfortunately I did not test the E-M1 when shooting towards light sources. I guess like most people who try to control their testing scenario, such cases are typically ignored. You should be able to see the stripes though on the E-M1 sensors, if you go to a store that has them for demo or display. And you are probably right that it won't be much of a problem in typical shooting. But it bugs me that it can happen at all on the E-M1.

I was really hoping the E-M1 would be an improvement over the E-M5. There are indeed some improvements in the E-M1 viewfinder and perhaps its ergonomics as compared to the E-M5 without a grip, but in the end the images from the E-M5 were always a wee bit better, at least with my lenses.

I think that unless you need long exposure without dark frame subtraction, then the two cameras produce very similar results, save for pixels peepers. The main difference will be found in handling. Personnally I prefer the E-M5 handling and its smaller size.

 

[Tim]

Personnally I prefer the E-M5 handling and its smaller size.

I am a bit the same, if I didn't already have the E-M5 I'd probably go the EM-1 just to have the technology it offers, but I am yet to stretch usage of my E-M5 past a point where it has not worked for me. The differences to my eyes in IQ are minimal and seem more different than better than one or the other.

Right now my DP2M and GR get more love, the E-M5 being more a tool. My FL trio is 14/20/45 but I'd really like a 10mm prime - ha, there I knew I'd get that one in again!. I am considering trading the 20mm to 25mm also.

I think I might sit this one (E-M1) out unless my E-M5 gets broken or other issue.

I do however visit this forum a lot just to see how you E-M1 guys are getting on.

 

[Annna T]

I am a bit the same, if I didn't already have the E-M5 I'd probably go the EM-1 just to have the technology it offers, but I am yet to stretch usage of my E-M5 past a point where it has not worked for me. The differences to my eyes in IQ are minimal and seem more different than better than one or the other.

Right now my DP2M and GR get more love, the E-M5 being more a tool. My FL trio is 14/20/45 but I'd really like a 10mm prime - ha, there I knew I'd get that one in again!. I am considering trading the 20mm to 25mm also.

I think I might sit this one (E-M1) out unless my E-M5 gets broken or other issue.

I do however visit this forum a lot just to see how you E-M1 guys are getting on.

Concerning the lenses, i own both the 20mm and 25mm. Since i got the 25mm, the 20mm see far less use, because i love its rendering. But it is a little big and comes with a cumbersome hood which can't be reversed for storage. Olympus has just announced (or will announce in a few days) the launch of a 25mm F1.8. It looks much like the 45mm. If you care for size, you should ould wait to read the first reviews and see how it compare to the Panasonic before getting one.

 

[250swb]

I think this thread highlights they way people want a personalised camera these days, and the minor things that can irritate them.

Fifty years on from being given my Dad's almost silent old Kodak Retina I've never once judged a camera on the sound of its shutter or action of the shutter release, even after a few years doing theatre photography. Before I've even thought about that I've decided a new camera is right because of the things it does, not the things it doesn't do. Lets face it, we are spoilt for choice, as Godfrey says no modern camera in the ballpark of the EM5 or M1 is going to let you down or seriously disappoint. Why haven't I bought a new M1 and kept my EM5? The EM5 with a pancake lens fits into my coat pocket, if I bought an M1 I'd also need to buy a new coat with bigger pockets. For 99.9% of all photography having a usable camera with you outweighs clicks, whirrs, clunks, and even pixel peeping image quality.

Steve

 

[Tonygamble]

"the 25mm, the 20mm see far less use, because i love its rendering. But it is a little big and comes with a cumbersome hood which can't be reversed for storage"

I have put one of those rubber ones on my 25mm and it folds back into almost nothing - but the lens is still a lot less pocketable than the 20mm.

Tony

 

[Tonygamble]

"a new coat with bigger pockets. For 99.9% of all photography having a usable camera with you outweighs clicks, whirrs, clunks, and even pixel peeping image quality."

So true. I have spent a couple of satisfying hours today tweaking some lovely images I took on my Samsung S4 phone as the fog lifted from the River Thames.

I have the M5 these days for 'proper' photography but I've decided that for my Club's spring exhibition I will try to have all five prints from my cellphone.

Tony

 

[Godfrey]

... For 99.9% of all photography having a usable camera with you outweighs clicks, whirrs, clunks, and even pixel peeping image quality.

Every time I find myself diving into the pixel-peeping world again, I just pull out a Polaroid Spectra and make a couple of photos.

​

They're not sharp, they're small, and I just love how they look. How can something so rudimentary be so satisfying?

​

I don't know, they just are. And they reset anxiety over details of which magical digital camera does what better time and time again.

 

[greypilgrim]

So as advertised, I spent the past weekend in Yosemite with a rental EM-1, and I thought I'd follow up here.

On the extremely sensitive or short throw shutter release, I must have had at least 15 accidental triggers of the shutter due to it. The most annoying being while shooting starts (hrmm, 30 seconds wasted). Cold hands made for more likely triggering as there just isn't any forgiveness in it that I can find. The funny thing is there is a menu item to seemingly make it even mores sensitive. Since I use IBIS turned on when the shutter is half pressed, this remains a challenge for me. Also oddly, there is significant travel in the shutter button with good resistance, but it is all after the shutter has triggered. Just strange to me.

The viewfinder, what can I say other than sweet? Just a pleasure to use.

The feel of the camera is very good in my hands. VERY.

The fn1 button up by the thumb rest is a total candidate for accidental tripping for me also. I had it set for bracket and was hitting it constantly. I think I would either just set it off or set it to something like peaking which I wouldn't mind being accidentally triggered.

I had the AFL/AEL button set to AF lock with the shutter half press set to AE lock. This is my standard setup with my EM-5. My thumb did a lot of searching between the AFL button and the info button (two buttons I use a lot on the EM-5).

I had the fn2 button set to peaking, but in hindsight, I might move AF-L to that button instead. Not sure.

I ignored the lever around the AF-L button as I just set ISO and WB via the control panel.

I didn't notice IBIS being any better, but I wasn't pushing its capabilities, either.

Quality of images seems about the same to my eye with that of the EM-5.

Focus peaking and shooting with the 60 macro was a treat. Although I wish peaking would stay on when the shutter was half pressed. This came into play when I was shooting clusters of moving lady bugs. If I could put AE-L on a different button from AF-L, maybe this wouldn't concern me.

A totally qualitative comment. It took me far less time to be up and running with the Fuji XE-2 rental than it did with the EM-1 even though I am quite familiar with Oly's menu "system" and method of doing things.

So, I've mentioned lots of niggles and things. Did I have fun with it (you bet ). Would I buy one over an EM-5? Mixed bag, not sure. Is it a heck of a camera? Oh yeah. Did I settle down with it over the weekend? Yep. Did I periodically grumble when something triggered accidentally? Grumble, Grumble :banghead:. If there was no EM-5, would I buy one? Yep.

Doug

 

[Godfrey]

Interesting, thanks for posting your experience.

I normally use the E-M1's Aperture Priority AE and evaluative metering, with S-AF focusing mode. This is right on the money most of the time, with EV comp as direct on the front dial and the histogram display up in the viewfinder. But I often toggle to MF and switch to Manual exposure with more difficult lighting and/or complex subjects that trip up the automation systems. My standard control configuration is:

- FN1 button does DoF Preview. Curiously, I never hit it by accident.
- FN2 on my camera is set as an AF/MF toggle.
- The Movie Record button is set to only initiate movie recording with the mode dial set to movies, otherwise it is the Multi-Function button.
- The AEL/AFL button is set to do AE-Lock (with Spot metering pattern) except in manual exposure mode, when it is set to initiate S-AF.
- I use the lever and the dials to change ISO settings with their default config.
- The upper front button is a two-press for setting focus magnification (first to set the amount, second to initiate it).
- The lower front button toggles focus peaking. (It works together with focus magnifcation, and they can each be toggled separately.)
- I have the magnification and peaking focusing aids set to disable on the shutter half press. (This assists my usual "Set Focus then Frame For Shooting" shooting methodology.)

(I had a config set up for using adapted manual lenses too, but I've since deleted it because I realized that I greatly prefer to use this camera with my FT and mFT lenses that work with all the automation and configuration options.)

This works beautifully for me. And yes, the E-M1 is certainly a complex machine to understand and configure due to the many possible combinations of settings and behaviors. But ...

I've been working a lot with the Sony A7 too, I bought that body specifically to adapt my Leica R lens kit to. Frankly, the Olympus is much easier for me to figure out how to set up because the deep menu system is far more logically organized and the controls are better positioned. The A7 manual is confusing, the menus are scattered as are the physical controls. I *did* get it set up very nicely in the end, but it took me a lot longer than I thought it would.

Fun stuff ... Now both cameras achieve my goals in purchasing them nicely. They're two of the best cameras I've used, the image quality from either is just delightful, and both have that nice quality (now that I have them configured to my taste) of becoming transparent in my hands so that I can concentrate on my subject rather than the camera.

fun, fun, fun.

G

 

[greypilgrim]

Godfrey,
Good post. Definitely added to my thoughts about different ways the camera could be configured. I was working "forward" from where I have my EM-5 configured, and I imagine if I did end up with an EM-1, my setup would evolve over time.

I didn't see a setting that would let me keep focus peaking enabled with the shutter half pressed. That would have helped.

Thanks,

Doug

 

[Godfrey]

...
I didn't see a setting that would let me keep focus peaking enabled with the shutter half pressed. That would have helped.

Hmm. Normally, you have focus peaking turned on when setting focus manually. You don't need to have the shutter half pressed when you're doing that with manual focus ... I'm not understanding the benefit you're looking for.

G

 

[Annna T]

Hmm. Normally, you have focus peaking turned on when setting focus manually. You don't need to have the shutter half pressed when you're doing that with manual focus ... I'm not understanding the benefit you're looking for.

G

If you have set IBIS to work when the shutter is half pressed it should improve the focusing experience when focusing longer lenses and using the magnifier : from what i have read, peaking works when the magnifier is not set at full magnification; too bad if it is lost when you half press the shutter.

As a side note : when my E-M5 is in magnified view, a half press can also return you to full view, unless you have configured the camera for this purpose. On the E-M5 you have to set up IBIS to work when the shutter is half pressed and in the cogwheel menu D you have to set the close up mode to 2; this ensure that you can remain in magnifying view with the shutter half pressed and IBIS activated : may be that this setting would allow peaking to remain in the E-M1 too (i can't test it, since i don't have an E-M1, only an E-M5).

 

[scott kirkpatrick]

Do the extra phase AF sensors reduce resolution in the M1?

Well, I tried to check this question out yesterday. The solid data point is that DXO reports a composite resolution number for the 75/1.8 m.Zuiko lens on an E-M5 of 13 while on the E-M1 that lens scores a mere 12 DXO points. Whatever the points mean, 12 and 13 are unusually high scores, not seen on any other common M4/3 lenses or cameras. So I photographed as a test target a rusty old construction trailer, with lots of texture, from about 15 m away. Here's a 100% crop of the center of that picture, shot with the E-M1. It should show without any resizing:

From about the same position, I reshot with the same lens and my E-P5, which has the sensor and imaging chain of the E-M5 but the image stabilization of the E-M1. Absolutely no difference visible at 100% magnification. But off axis, the M1 was crisp and the P5 a little soft, which could be a focus or an alignment problem, since I am using the same lens.

But here's the P5, again using the 75/1.8 (all shots in this post were taken at f/4.0), shooting a forest of rebar at a distance of 100-150 m. First the full frame (full width, with some boring foreground stuff cropped out):

and then a 100% crop from the middle of the frame:

As for determining which sensor is better, the 16 MPx P5 or the 17 MPx heterogeneous M1, I'll wait for someone like Roger Cicala at Lensrental who uses Imatest tools and reports numbers that have engineering definitions. But I don't think we will be able to see the differences in images, even if printed big.

scott

 

[Godfrey]

Re: Do the extra phase AF sensors reduce resolution in the M1?

... As for determining which sensor is better, the 16 MPx P5 or the 17 MPx heterogeneous M1, I'll wait for someone like Roger Cicala at Lensrental who uses Imatest tools and reports numbers that have engineering definitions. But I don't think we will be able to see the differences in images, even if printed big.

Exactly. I don't really see the point of all the testing and worrying people do about these minute differences in imaging performance. Both the E-M1 and the E-M5 (and E-P5, etc) are terrific performers - the differences are nearly invisible nuances of no consequence.

Were your test photos done with a tripod or hand-held? Unless you're making them with a sturdy tripod, they are meaningless for determining such fine points of imaging performance on resolution and contrast.

There are several other criteria by which to choose one camera over another that are much more important. I chose the E-M1 after I handled the E-M5 and didn't like the size/organization of the controls very much. The grip and the small differences in button size and placement, the nuanced improvements to the viewfinder, plus the better support for my existing FT lenses, made the E-M1 the right pick for me. But I still like the E-P5 form factor too ... Ah, too many options. ;-)

G

 

[scott kirkpatrick]

Exactly, Godfrey. I wanted to know if in my shooting there was a visible difference. So handheld, in good light, exposures of 1/400 or shorter. If I wanted to publish a scientific paper on this comparison, I would go to tripod, focus with magnifier, release on self-timer, take five shots of everything and focus-bracket. And maybe stay indoors with supersharp standard targets instead of real stuff. It turns out to get that kind of accuracy, the camera has to be perfectly aligned and square to the target, so making a jig in which to do this is part of the lab assignment.

So I'm satisfied that I can use either camera -- the hulking great E-M1 with my big old 4/3 11-22 zoom or the inconspicuous and equally easy to control E-P5 with VF4 with smaller prime lenses, and not worry about any quality tradeoffs. I shot for a month in Iceland with the E-P5 and the 75/1.8 as my "puffin camera," so I wasn't worried. But after posting the shots below I noticed an artifact in the E-P5 picture of the rebar that I will check into. Do you see it?

scott

 

[scott kirkpatrick]

Sometimes there IS a difference

Exactly. I don't really see the point of all the testing and worrying people do about these minute differences in imaging performance. Both the E-M1 and the E-M5 (and E-P5, etc) are terrific performers - the differences are nearly invisible nuances of no consequence.

G

OK, so I concluded that I couldn't tell the quality of the E-M1 sensor apart from that of the E-P5 under reasonable shooting conditions in decent light. But as a bit of a GAS-addict, I also have an M[240]. For which I finally got Leica's R to M adapter and can use some pretty nice APO-Elmarit-R lenses on it. So here's a comparison of the same portion of an image from my current construction site, taken by each camera. This section was about 2400 pixels wide on the M, reduced to 1200 pixels for here, and about 1900 pixels wide on the E-P5. First the M[240]:

and then the E-P5

The first picture gets more of the texture of the wall around the building-to-be, and resolves the stairs better. And the difference is pretty obvious. It had better be, since the Leica gear cost about six times as much as the E-P5 and its 75/1.8 lens. The E-P5 picture was shot at 1/1600 sec, the Leica picture at 1/750, each with the lens at about two stops below wide open aperture. The Leica shot used a tripod and self-timer, but there was a howling wind and it's hard to focus with only a VF-2 viewfinder, so I think conditions were equal. The difference, I think comes from 24M pixels instead of 16M, with each Leica M pixel 7 times the area of a M4/3 pixel. One lesson is to be extra careful about exposure with M4/3. The E-P5 picture above was exposed for the darker, lower portions of the stairs, so the part being compared is exposed to the right a bit.

scott

 

[retow]

Re: Sometimes there IS a difference

OK, so I concluded that I couldn't tell the quality of the E-M1 sensor apart from that of the E-P5 under reasonable shooting conditions in decent light. But as a bit of a GAS-addict, I also have an M[240]. For which I finally got Leica's R to M adapter and can use some pretty nice APO-Elmarit-R lenses on it. So here's a comparison of the same portion of an image from my current construction site, taken by each camera. This section was about 2400 pixels wide on the M, reduced to 1200 pixels for here, and about 1900 pixels wide on the E-P5. First the M[240]:

and then the E-P5

The first picture gets more of the texture of the wall around the building-to-be, and resolves the stairs better. And the difference is pretty obvious. It had better be, since the Leica gear cost about six times as much as the E-P5 and its 75/1.8 lens. The E-P5 picture was shot at 1/1600 sec, the Leica picture at 1/750, each with the lens at about two stops below wide open aperture. The Leica shot used a tripod and self-timer, but there was a howling wind and it's hard to focus with only a VF-2 viewfinder, so I think conditions were equal. The difference, I think comes from 24M pixels instead of 16M, with each Leica M pixel 7 times the area of a M4/3 pixel. One lesson is to be extra careful about exposure with M4/3. The E-P5 picture above was exposed for the darker, lower portions of the stairs, so the part being compared is exposed to the right a bit.

scott

But then the bright sun-light comes from completely different anlges in the two shots.....

 

[scott kirkpatrick]

Re: Sometimes there IS a difference

But then the bright sun-light comes from completely different angles in the two shots.....

I'm not sure if that helps or hurts the M240 shot. The upper picture was taken at 4 pm two weeks after the lower one, which was at 6 pm, or just before sunset. If I adjust the contrast sliders to make the shadows of the steps equally dark, I still won't get the midtone contrast on the wall in the P5 shot that the M240 reveals. In this case the Olympus 75 is up against a world-class lens and doing pretty well, I think.

I calculated pixel size wrong. The M240's pixels are 3.5 times the size of a P5 or M1 pixel.

scott

 

[drofnad]

Re: Sometimes there IS a difference

I calculated pixel size wrong. The M240's pixels are 3.5 times the size of a P5 or M1 pixel.

scott

I think that we should ask you to "show your work" --you're still way off, by my reckoning (which is maybe simplistic : sensor size / pixel count ; M240 has bigger but also more (24 vs. 16), and the ratio of sensor areas is what you seem to be giving). ... => 2.5 ("pixel pitch" values give a smaller factor).

?!

 

[scott kirkpatrick]

Re: Sometimes there IS a difference

I think that we should ask you to "show your work" --you're still way off, by my reckoning (which is maybe simplistic : sensor size / pixel count ; M240 has bigger but also more (24 vs. 16), and the ratio of sensor areas is what you seem to be giving). ... => 2.5 ("pixel pitch" values give a smaller factor).

?!

You're right. The M240's pixels are 6 microns on a side, and the M4/3 pixels at 16Mpx are 3.9 microns. So the ratio of pixel areas is 2.37. (pencil and paper helps to get that right.) What also matters is how many electrons each can collect without overflowing and what is the noise floor. I last saw this information published for the M8's sensor. Are there data sheets for the current generation of M4/3 chips?

sorry about the guesstimates on pixel size.

scott