OMD E-M5 MKII impressions

[jonoslack]

Here is what I use : OK center button to bring up the SCP, then navigate to the stabilization icon, pick the mode you want if that needs to be changed (off, IS1, etc.) using the right left arrows, then click on the info button and you should be able to change the focal length using the up-down arrows.

Thank you - I'm an idiot - I'd looked and looked on the SCP and not seen it - it's bottom left and works fine.

As for the roses . . dark background and not being afraid to clone out distractions seems to be it (pity Lightroom is so crap at cloning and you have to go into PS, but there you go!). Bart is the master here.

Best
Jono

 

[scott kirkpatrick]

From a rooftop in Somerville (just uphill from Cambridge MA):

P6240351 by scott kirkpatrick, on Flickr (click thru to the 64 MPx original -- sharpened and reduced x2)

L6002985 by scott kirkpatrick, on Flickr (using the new Leica SX28 on M240)

scott

 

[Godfrey]

Thank you - I'm an idiot - I'd looked and looked on the SCP and not seen it - it's bottom left and works fine. ...

LOL! It gets tricky when you go from camera to camera, always looking at different menus and panels. I remember picking up a Pentax K10D after not using it for four months and not being able to remember how to set the ISO anymore.

Score another plus for cutting down the camera collection.

G

 

[raist3d]

Ptomsu- I have to say I still really like what Fuji is doing. I still think they got a nice image aspect to it that is very to my taste.
Hey Jono- that first flower with the insect- that's some real nice tones you got there.
Godfrey- I second that. Part of why I have been looking ideally for one system instead of many.


We really are living in the era of all cameras are good in one way or another. I still like fuji but I think I am finally making my peace with the OMD. Got the Panny-Leica F1.4/25mm m/43rds finally and glad to see it's a good lens + see what I wanted to see.

I guess other than the Oly 75mm prime, we will have to wait for one of those "super prime" patents to become real and have another true 4/3rds quality style prime lens from Olympus (note: a little bird did indeed tell me apparently at least one of those super primes will happen, but next year).

In the meantime, looks like all the Panny-Leica primes are really good.

Anyway, this shot reminds me a bit of a religious painting. 15m pancake:

- Ricardo

 

[raist3d]

Today I used the OMD EM5 MKii to cover a major street event- Pride Parade in SF. I have some thoughts on the matter, particularly going out with 3 primes (15mm, 25mm, 75mm focal lengths - the first two Panny-Leica's and the last the Olympus 75mm).

- Ricardo

 

[raist3d]

I usually like when people don't pose, but every now and then people notice and in this case, she posed and held the pose until I took my darn sweet time to walk past the lamp post from the left to the right and boom. I nodded and she winked and changed her stance.

Really love these camera-subject-photographer interactions when they happen. We don't need to speak any spoken language at all yet we connected.

Will comment later on how this relates to my experience with the OMD EM5 MKII today as a tool.

- Ricardo

 

[Annna T]

Hi !

Not sure why, but I'm not seeing any pictures since Jono's flowers macro. Not even a question mark in a square. This concerns Kirkpatrick and Raist. Whose text clearly indicates that I should be able to see pictures.. Not sure whether it is a trick of my webbrowser (Firefox on a PC) or whether it is the new updates of the forum software.

 

[raist3d]

I would try to check for FireFox updates, then clearing the cache.

- Ricardo

 

[Brian Mosley]

Also, try viewing the site with another Web browser... and look to reset your Firefox browser to defaults.

Kind regards

Brian

 

[Annna T]

Thanks both.. I don't think it has anything to do with the updates (I do them regularly) or the cache. I'm seeing them now and didn't do anything. Plus I'm also having that problem on the iPad where I'm using Safari. I think it has something to do with Flickr : on the previous version of the forum software, I had quite often a white spot with an onliner Flickr advise indicating that the picture wasn't available "at the moment".

 

[raist3d]

Well, this is not posted on flickr but it's posted on typepad. Maybe type pad was down? I wonder.

Update: that doesn't seem to make much sense. I remember I could see my links on other places like my phone.

- Ricardo

 

[raist3d]

One of my attempts at zone focusing using the 15mm. I set an aperture like F5.6/F6.3, focus to an object getting a feel for the distance and then put the camera on manual focus. It made me appreciate more the lenses that have the focus ring lock (Olympus 17mm F1.8 which I don't have but probably won't buy anyway), Ricoh GR snap focus, Fuji sense with focus ring and cameras that let you know in manual focus how far they are focusing.

Speaking of that, I don't understand why Olympus doesn't have such distance focus scale.

- Ricardo

 

[raist3d]

- Ricardo

 

[raist3d]

Posting this shot under the impressions thread because it's a shot I took some time ago, and shows one interesting use for the IBIS.

The exposure is 1 second and was shot hand held.

- Ricardo

 

[raist3d]

Just when I think I have a good decision on Fuji X-T10 vs OMD EM5 MKII I get something out of the OMD I like quite a bit (gratuitous self portrait).

Converted with Iridient Digital (latest at time of writing).
Like how the color came out.

- Ricardo

 

[raist3d]

So after some more serious play with the OMD, I think I finally figure out a way that it puts the DR of the sensor to better use on an average case at night. ARGH that took forever. Part of the puzzle is something I saw myself experimenting with but that dpreview to my surprise put in concrete terms- which is shooting at a lower ISO then pushing back, and the camera may still show good detail in shadow but good recovery in highlights.

Turns out the OMD EM5 MKII (and I bet EM1 and EM5) have a nice shadow range but can clip highlights with the standard matrix metering a bit easy.

And so far the cure I have found- Go to:

Wrench Menu-> Utility-> Exposure shift-> Set Matrix Metering (Olympus 'ESP" metering) to -1.

From then on if you develop a raw in-camera, develop with +1 EV back and in other raw converters same thing. You should now have a nice range of highlights to work with while the shadows are surprisingly good.

To think of this another way- the shadow areas you develop back up at the time of shooting, if you shot at ISO 800 with the exposure shifted -1 ev, that would be an ISO 1600 equivalent when developing back up. And we know the OMD does reasonably well at ISO 1600 so those areas that are shifted up that way, within reasonable ISO's should present no concerns.

Here's a scene I was having a hard time getting "in range" of the camera with the normal metering, after the final development and the same scene with EV -4 to show all the highlights detail. Shown using Capture One 8.3.2

Max extreme highlight recovery (ev -4).

Below a bottle in a bar, in very low red-led light, at ISO 1600 (pushed back to 3200) and the last one an ISO 10,0000 (!) pushed up back to ISO 20,000 (!!).

What this buys you is a relatively care free metered scene with a nice highlight range. Highlight range I was frustrated I wasn't getting.

Of course doing an exposure to the right using "blinkies" works best but for fleeting scenes, this is pretty good.

- Ricardo

 

[Knorp]

Interesting stuff, Ricardo.
I have set ESP to -3/6 and C-W to +2/6, perhaps a little conservative.

Kind regards.

 

[scott kirkpatrick]

Re: 4/3 vs M4/3 at 64 MPx

My favorite lens in the good old days of the 5 MPx E-1 was the 11-22 f/2.8-3.5 (well, the 50 macro was also lovely, but there are even nicer current alternatives). I re-bought an 11-22 once the E-M1 came out and offered phase-detect autofocusing. Subsequent GAS attacks have brought an E-M5.2 and the 12-40 pro zoom into the stable, so it is hard not to wonder how they compare. I went pixel-harvesting in an overgrown part of the garden with both lenses on the e-M5.2 yesterday. Set at 14 mm and f/4, autofocused at the same point in a wall of foliage that ranged from 2 to 3 meters distance, back light at the top of the image, processed identically in COne 8.3 with strong sharpening, here is the 11-22 version:

P9061128 by scott kirkpatrick, on Flickr

The older lens has no trouble delivering its 64M pixels, is sharp across the frame without any funny stuff at the edges, and handles the flare at the top just a bit better than the new pro lens, although both have some problems there. Autofocus with the older lens on the m5.2 does take a while. You can see the same scene taken with the 12-40 Pro lens at 14 mm at this link.

Here's another feast of foliage, this time at 22 mm:

P9061137 by scott kirkpatrick, on Flickr

scott

 

[raist3d]

Re: 4/3 vs M4/3 at 64 MPx

Scott, I am going to be frank and say my experience with the older 4/3rd lenses is that they are clearly better than the m4/3rds one. I get the impression the "pro" new zooms are pretty good, but even then they are not a match for the older SHG (though they are vastly smaller).

I can't deny I am frustrated. Every single of the Olympus m/43rds primes I have tried (25mm F1.8 and now the 45mm F1.8) are sub-par to the 4/3rd lens Olympus experience. The only lens I see sort of a match is the 75mm F1.8.

4/3rd lenses were amazingly resilient to purple fringing/CA's. Not so with m4/3rds. I understand Olympus will come out with "Super fast primes" next year, and part of my romulan intelligence network tells me they are coming. They better be Pro line and darn good. Really.

It's amazing the OMD EM5 MKII is being *held back* by the smaller standard primes. To their credit though they are small, and if the light is soft they respond good.

- Ricardo

 

[raist3d]

Interesting stuff, Ricardo.
I have set ESP to -3/6 and C-W to +2/6, perhaps a little conservative.

Kind regards.

I think -0.5EV for ESP is not bad. It's better than the default and should get a bit better shadow than what I am doing. I am still finding for the shots at night what I am doing seems to work a bit better for me but that's at night.

Finally lenses that are wide angle I think benefit more from the negative shift than zooms, as normally you would have a chance of a higher contrast scene/elements with a wider field of view.

- Ricardo