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Fun with Olympus E-P7

raist3d

Well-known member
This is a camera that was recently announced by OM Digital Solutions in Asia & Europe. I am in the USA, so after some thought decided to get it from Amazon Japan. Main reason is that this is a camera I said I wish OMDS/Olympus did over 1.5 years ago (!). A "super EPL10 with PenF profiles."

Some thoughts follow -

===============
Wow that was fast. Shipped through DHL - a German "international shipping UPS" I Guess? I sort of heard of them but you don't see them usually in the USA that often I guess. but they are here.

I will have to take the impressions over time but here's some:

- Setting the Camera to English language- not a problem. First screen is language select and the default was English. Go figure.

- Olympus I.S. iOS iPhone share- sets up the camera with no problem, and I can use the remote, import, turn on/off etc. just like a valid Olympus camera in the USA that has similar abilities.

- Camera is *FAST* saving to a good UHSII memcard- just like EM10 MarkIV is

- This camera runs *circles* around the PenF ability to respond to UI/do AF. Tracking on the PenF is pretty much a joke to a big degree, not so here.

- The camera is not on first pass "that much smaller" of a feel vs EM10 MKIV. IF you. just have an EVF (and I will admit I have been using the EVF a bit more recently on the EM10), this camera is not for you.

- I saw a review complaining the skin tones on LCD were too warm/vivid. I found out the camera by default has the LCD set to "VIVID" color (a few Oly cameras have this feature) - set it to Natural and that does go a long way to alleviate this "issue."

- The camera has the JPEG engine of the PenF from all I can see, but with a few WELCOME tweaks in the UI and usability, namely from what I have seen so far:

1. The UI to select the color or monochrome profile makes vastly more sense than the PenF, it's easy to see what state you are in and what comes next

2. Having the front dial being "Profiles OFF/Profiles ON" makes for a far quicker binary selection than the PenF's "Did I dial a bit too much, am I in monochrome or color?" deal

3. When using the raw in-camera converter, the profiles do change the settings on the shading (shadows, midpoint, highlight) to what you had them set to. This does not happen on the PenF and it's a welcome change.

Note that over the EM10MKIV you can change shading, EV compensation, etc. when developing in-cameras raws- on the EM10IV you only can select "current settings" if you want to change some things.

- The camera seems to use the same exact LCD of the EM10MKIV in its articulation. This is great in that you don't have the EPL9/EPL10 shuffle dance to get to a selfie position. Oddly enough you do have the small "tilt towards you in place" of the Em10MKIV.

On the EM10MKIV this small tilt lock makes sense to get the LCD out of the way of the EVF profusion when looking from the top view down to your waist. ON the EP7 I guess it makes some sense but not as obvious.

- IBIS so far seems ballpark same as EM10MKIV which means pretty great.

- Finally and surprisingly- the JPEG engine has the Super Fine compression exposed from the get go, you don't need to configure it to use it the first time.

=============



 

raist3d

Well-known member
A friend and his partner where setting up some interesting contraption to do the background for 3 bands playing somewhere in Santa Cruz, CA (Blue Lagoon) and he invited me over to take pics.

After thinking maybe I should take the EM5.3 or EM10.4 due to the immediate current Dxo PhotoLab 4.0 support for noise reduction, I decided to still take the E-P7 and give it a spin to learn about more of its AF and color.

I was most interested in color at higher ISO and it didn't disappoint. Olympus/OMDS has come a long way at killing chroma noise while keeping the overall color/tone up even if there's still detail lost.

Though you do lose detail as the iso climbs, the tones and colors hold - particularly if you are particularly using this for smaller prints, web sizes, etc.

Some shots follow- I had on hand only the Lumix 15mm F1.7 and the Oly 45mm F1.8, by conscious choice. My 45mm F1.8 is not so sharp wide open, very sharp at F3.2. This seems to be a copy variation issue.

All the shots are JPEGS out of the E-P7 usually using Profile Color 2, other than the resize down.





\

- Ricardo
 

raist3d

Well-known member
A note about these images- all of them are JPEGs out of the camera except for any resize down. If you see the Exif says Iridient Digital, I only used that to resize down. Iridient Digital does not support the RAWS of this camera yet.
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
Lovely photos, Ricardo, particularly the concert ones.

Your comment about DHL is kind of funny. Yes, it's German, owned by Deutsche Post. Second largest in the world after UPS and here in Asia (and I believe also in Europe), they are rather dominant. DHL was actually started in San Francisco in 1969, but was taken over by the Germans in 2002.
 

raist3d

Well-known member
Lovely photos, Ricardo, particularly the concert ones.

Your comment about DHL is kind of funny. Yes, it's German, owned by Deutsche Post. Second largest in the world after UPS and here in Asia (and I believe also in Europe), they are rather dominant. DHL was actually started in San Francisco in 1969, but was taken over by the Germans in 2002.
Thanks for the background on DHL. That it started in San Francisco(!) Hah!

- Ricardo
 

raist3d

Well-known member
More from today-

Decided to take the Lumix 42.5mm F1.7 instead of the Oly 45mm because wide open this Lumix copy is definitively sharper. Did find that in lower light it had more trouble nailing focus than the Panasonic with the EP7.

Or at least seemed that way. Two color shots first followed by B&W Profile Monochrome #2, medium grain.




I find the Monochrome profile #2 can work for doing some rather "graphic/silohuette" work due tot he high contrast:

 

raist3d

Well-known member
OMDS/Olympus Europe is having an offer where you buy the EP7 and you get the Oly 75mm F1.8 prime lens free. I am not sure this is the best match as a starter lens but it's a great lens and it's a ridiculously good offer. So good that makes me wonder what's going on. But if you are interested- go for it.
 

raist3d

Well-known member
I just love the color profiles of this camera (same goes for PenF).





And a comment on the "grain" monochrome profiles...
The grain can give the illusion of detail where there's highlight burn. This can be use nicely- a comparison below at 100% crop then more zoomed out.







You an also do this with the Panasonic's that support the grain on B&W, I just think the OMDS/Olympus grain is better overall. The Panasonic on works better when you want a more random/coarse/"old film" look.

- Ricardo
 

Makten

Well-known member
I just got an E-P7 and right away found a major issue that someone maybe can help me with...

There seem to be no way to use exposure compensation in manual mode with auto-ISO. I've used that on all my other cameras and it's been working great. But for some reason the E-P7 just refuses to change exposure even though I've assigned a button for compensation. It works in other modes, but not M.
The reason for using auto-ISO in M mode is because the default shutter speed when in A mode is waaaaay too fast. I'm using a 40 mm lens and the camera chooses 1/100 second, when I'd personally prefer 1/10. :oops:

Am I missing something here?

Edit: I'm missing that Olympus has had this "problem" since at least 2014 and still not done anything to fix it. Jesus. It means I'll probably have to sell the camera even before I have used it. :rolleyes:

 
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raist3d

Well-known member
I just got an E-P7 and right away found a major issue that someone maybe can help me with...
Sorry I *just* saw this post. Reading...

There seem to be no way to use exposure compensation in manual mode with auto-ISO.
Correct. Neither the EM10MarkIV nor EP7 allow this. Seems like Olympus/OMDS have relegated this to the EM5.3 and higher class camera tiers. Or Pen-F.

I've used that on all my other cameras and it's been working great. But for some reason the E-P7 just refuses to change exposure even though I've assigned a button for compensation. It works in other modes, but not M.
The reason for using auto-ISO in M mode is because the default shutter speed when in A mode is waaaaay too fast. I'm using a 40 mm lens and the camera chooses 1/100 second, when I'd personally prefer 1/10. :oops:
Is that a low light situation? I tend to use shutter priority and you get exposure compensation there. But yeah, I feel your pain.

Am I missing something here?

Edit: I'm missing that Olympus has had this "problem" since at least 2014 and still not done anything to fix it. Jesus. It means I'll probably have to sell the camera even before I have used it. :rolleyes:

It's on the lower tiers. The EM5.2/.3 do have auto-iso exp comp in M. I think it's one of those things done to delineate the lines.

As much as I love the EP7, looks like I am going back to 4-5 years Fuji.

- Ricardo
 

Makten

Well-known member
The problem is that the camera chooses a much too fast shutter speed when using auto ISO in A (or S) modes, which pushes ISO unnecessarily high. The whole point with using auto ISO is to always get the lowest possible ISO, at least to me. The solution could have been (as on Sony a7 cameras) to change to M mode when light gets low. But this isn't possible either because you are not allowed to exposure compensate. Sigh...

An other, even larger problem, is that IBIS is extremely unreliable. I've found that I can get sharper images at 1/10 without IBIS than with IBIS. The image on the screen is perfectly still and stabilization seems damn good, but then the images com out really unsharp anyway. It's like the camera decides to move the sensor sideways for no particular reason EXACTLY when the image is shot. :oops:
For very slow shutter speeds it works better. I've got sharp images at up to two full seconds with 20 mm, which is ridiculously good. So I have no idea of what the heck the camera is doing around 1/5-1/20, because in that range I can't use IBIS at all.

All of this has made the camera a pain to use. I love the image output, especially the JPG's. And my plan was that the E-P7 should be my small and "fast" camera to use when I don't want to fiddle with a ton of settings before every image, but it turned out that it's waaaay slower than my GFX 50S II because of the mentioned flaws. Pretty pissed off that something so relatively expensive can be so bad.

Edit: It works fine in good light though, when I can use base ISO and don't need IBIS. Unfortunately, that means it's useless for about 6 months a year around here. :rolleyes:
 

raist3d

Well-known member
I find the IBIS on the E-P7 ok. You may want to try to use the e-shutter mode and see if that helps, though a fast shutter in artificial light will introduce banding.

If you are using S-mode- you should be able to control the shutter. Dunno what to say, doesn't seem that I share quite the same experience... but yeah, no EV compensation in M mode.

In either case, as much as I still like it, I have started to migrate back to Fuji. X-E4 seems to work better for me, and IBIS not as necessary for the photos I do since I like to freeze movement.
 

Rayto

New member
Another E-P7 user. My first Olympus.

I feel it has the worst shooting algorithms I've ever seen. Couple that with a lack of available controls (no minimum SS, no ISO profiles, no shooting profiles) and it can be a PITA. A and S are unusable for me. I shoot in M-mode only. No issues with IBIS but I don't shoot below 30.

This is a good camera for a static environment. Sit somewhere, set it, wait for something to fly by. For dynamic environments, I can't trust its judgement.

On the positive side, nice files, both jpeg and raw, its pretty.
 
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