OLYMPUS OM-D E-M1 Mark II Camera Body Only, (Black)

OLYMPUS OM-D E-M1 Mark II Camera Body Only, (Black)

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• New 20.4 megapixel live MOS sensor
• New TruePic VIII dual quad core image processor, auto focus points phase detection: 121 (121 cross type), contrast detection: 121
• 60 frames per second S AF, 18 frames per second C AF (silent electronic shutter)
• 15 frames per second S AF, 10 frames per second C AF (mechanical shutter)
• 121 point dual fast AF with cross type on chip phase detection focusing

Buy Now : OLYMPUS OM-D E-M1 Mark II Camera Body Only, (Black)

Brand : OLYMPUS
Category : Electronics,Camera & Photo,Digital Cameras,DSLR Cameras
Rating : 4.5
ListPrice : US $1699
Price : US $1699
Review Count : 196

OLYMPUS OM-D E-M1 Mark II Camera Body Only, (Black)

• With a background in professional photography, I have a more pragmatic and moderate approach to photography than most in this tech crazed age we live in. Cameras are tools, and a tool requires skill to use the benefits of said tool. Today’s technological advancements in camera gear is so far past what many of us grew up with in the film days, that it is hard to imagine how simple it was to make an image compared to current times. The plethora of parameters, options, customizing and configuring even basic digital point and shoots to mirror less cameras means there can be steep learning curve to squeeze the best out of many of these imaging machines. I have used many excellent cameras that in stock trim were terrible despite great reviews and high praise from experts...learning your camera is imperative.With that intro said, this OMD is a tour de force of an imaging tool. Astounding in features, configurability and performance. To say I’m pleased with it is an extreme understatement. I’ve spent the last 8 years shooting with the E-3 and 2nd to top tier Zuiko zoom glass and never felt the camera held me back much. Graduating to the OMD EM-1 mk2, the quality of my images is much greater and the flexibility to adapt and configure the camera setting to suit yours needs is far better and more in-depth. I’m still learning the envelope of its behaviors in various realms of my primary shooting, mainly environmental abstract and landscape imagery. The sheer ability to tweak and shape and mold the camera to my desires or needs is breathtaking. And it is the single most powerful aspect of this camera....and it’s greatest downfall. It’s complicted menu’s are deep and often confusing until you spend time learning the nomenclature and what the parameters can do.Technically speaking the bump from 10 to 20mp images was a huge leap for my photo’s. Plenty to work with, even in cropping ability there is more than enough. Dynamic range is vastly better than the e-3, which was like slide film of yore, yields more organic images, even the home cooked HDR can be amazing. With that said, critical judgement of exposure was necessary to eke out the range of tones and hues of high contrast scenes in all seasons. The OMD has the ability to take so much more range that I find no troubles getting great exposures, but I also find myself not allowing the camera to get more out of my scenes I’m shooting, such is the depth of its performance. Now, is this as good as APSC, perhaps; ow about full frame of medium format? We all know that answer, but the tech is so good anymore that the scenes we view our images on and the printers that we may print on can’t handle that dynamic range nor color gamut cameras are capable of capturing so there isn’t much point in measurebating the superiority of these cameras. Indeed, this is the golden age of photographic equipment. Suffice to say, this camera is not holding my imaging back in the least. PERIOD. Nor should it hold you back.This camera is small, almost too small. I dont have large hands but while the camera has heft and good balance with many lenses I have put on its face, I do sometimes struggle with comfortable holding in many situations. I’m a big fan of vertical grips for this reason on these smaller cameras. Yes, this does make the camera as a whole bigger, but that also gains comfort, stability and balance and that translates to steady images and shooting ease. If there is one thing I miss is a top mounted display, like on the Panasonic G9 or my old E-3. Not a deal breaker, but it is nice to have. The shooting via the rear lcd or EVF is great and while there are technically better cameras out there in this regard, ie. resolution and clarity, I don’t feel let down either. I love the touch screen focusing and I like the feel of the buttons. Usesing gloves to find and operate the vast buttons is simply a joy. I appreciate the level of thought and engineering in button placement and how the camera feels as you view potential images in the EVF and work the controls to get the image just so before a press of the shutter button....and all by feel! Many cameras are superb imagers but lack this critical tactile aspect that you are left wanting.Focus is swift and accurate, sure footed and discerning. Not perfect mind you, it cant read my mind but it has a high hit ratio and focus is typically right on. The 3rd major update really opens up this camera to nearly the ;ever of the mkiii and EM-1X. There is a lot of sophistication to the algorithms in side and the tweaking that can be done to fine tune is maddening. Much like Nikon focusing tech, you need to dig in and learn how to tweak this camera to make it work best for you and your success in grabbing shots depends on this and can be oftentimes frustrating. But in that frustration comes the power, if you can Be patient.One quick work about build quality. You will NEVER feel let down by this camera. It is solid. It’s light by virtue of its size but has heft and weight like a proper tool should. Switches have a smooth throw but require at the right amount of effort to work. Buttons have a very tactile feeling...no accidental triggering of external modes on this camera. Just like my brick of a camera E-3, this camera is very weather indifferent. Go and use it, don’t. Mind the elements. Shy of full underwater use, this camera will not hold you back. It is awesomely realizable. I regularly rinse of my camera in the sink, not full immersion, and not in full pressure stream and I have never had an issue. Weatherproof is not an exaggeration in my experience. I shoot in heavy moisture and rain in the warm seasons and in sub zero in the cold seasons. The only issue, common to all cameras I have used, battery life substantially drops in the cold.I find the battery life to be pretty good, but down quite a bit from my E-3, but I feel like the full electronic nature of this camera is the sole reason for the shorter battery life. I’m still getting a feel for this aspect but it certainly isn’t DSLR level battery life. The HLD-9 grip will solve that issue and I imagine the second battery will make for easy all day affairs.Another standout feature of this camera is the IBIS! Legendary and very remarkable! And high use of it depletes the battery significantly in the field. But let me be clear, it rocks the casbah when you can’t use a tripod and need to get the shot hand held. I try to use a tripod as much as possible, but often cant get the shot with one and this camera loves to get me sharp images that are clearly in tripod territory. Wonderful for low level, on your stomach in the mud kinda stuff. That said, I try to not lean on it too much because its addicting and makes me soppy in form, but damn its so easy, fun and smooth!HDR tech is great nad while it is fun and can result in outstanding images, it can be a challenge to ecke out the proper tones and contrast balance, so post processing is a must. But there have been plenty occasions were a light touch of HDR made the image possible. Another amazing tech, that was overblown, but very useful and excellent is the claimed 50MP hi-res mode. While it is not that high, closer to 36ish in my opinion, it really is good and noticeable in static shots. Given this is first generation implementation, I am not sure how much is hardware versus software based. Meaning it is very unclear if future updates will ever improve the performance. That said, it works, its good and if you have need, its another tool in the tool box.The last remaining thing I feel inclined to mention are the mean menus architecture. Why so damn complicated Olympus?! That complaint aside, the vast menu gives us great power in configuring nearly every button or switch and adjust parameters to hearts content. The super control panel is awesome and most of the important and high use parameters are accessible in there. Kudo’s for its inclusion!There is much more I can wax poetic about his amazing camera. This is already far longer than I anticipated but I hope you get a feel for my thoughts on this fine lil camera. Please don’t let specs dictate your next camera purchase, you gotta test drive and if you’ve got some experience and skill, meaning you aren’t a rank noobie, this is an excellent option to try out. It’s not the best, nor fastest nor the highest ISO rig out there, but to my mind, its not meant to be. It’s a fine tool meant to extend the level of a photographers imaging capabilities and vision with Goldilocks size and weight. It’ll grow with your abilities and help you grow your skills as well. There isn’t a problem with finding great native mft mount lenses, and the small form factor of many of them means having your camera with you always ready to go. And you ought not get tired of lugging around gear on extended photographic forays.Bravo Olympus!Update: 1 year later, still loving this camera. New news....Olympus is folding up its camera division. Sad times, but I think the gear is still amazing and if you are still looking for an amazing camera, don’t pass up the deals coming on this camera. So many good lenses for micro 4/3rds and Olympus quality is tops. I’m on th shunt for a mkiii and maybe an EM-1X that will flood the market soon.
• Having used the EM1.2 for a while, I write down my first impressions, related to Olympus EM10.2, from my feeling experience rather than a scientific view. I get raw images to be processed later with RawTherapee and do not make movies.Note:I know this is nothing new but an end user experience with a still perfectly capable camera... and may help you if you are thinking to move on to an EM1.3 or EM5.3.Ergonomically, is a delight to use. It is more comfortable than EM10.2 in hand, especially with large lenses like 75-300mm. Has many extra buttons, all configurable so all handy options are at a button press far (FN1 = Manual Focus, FN2 = Multi Function with ISO, Front Top Button at left = peaking, Front Bottom Button at left = zoom, etc.). AEL/AFL is more handy to be configured as Back Button Focus (BBF) but I think I\'ll stick to shutter button because I have the feeling that my hit rate is higher having auto focus there.Front dial on EM10.2 is more comfortable, being the EM1.2 front dial smaller (and rear too). But I\'ll get used to it, no doubt; I guess it is smaller because it\'s located on grip instead of body.Weight, almost the same feeling, minimum perceptible extra 180g. Battery life, lasts a little longer. Noise and dynamic range, looks a little better when stretching shadows. Auto focus, see no difference with good light (according to EM1.2 advertising, C-AF mode is PDAF only and S-AF mode is hybrid: PDAF + CDAF).Stabilization, no perceptible difference to me. Over 100mm I haven\'t found a reliable standing position and breath technique while pressing the shutter so I still adhere to the 1/focal_length speed rule with m43 and 2x crop factor. Below 100mm, I can relax the rule significantly on both cameras as much as 1/2s with 25mm.Menu System is the same as EM10.2. No change here but with some extra options; same complexity but functional. Super Control Panel the same ;-)Shutter feels more silent or quiet; don\'t know if it is different or a compact metal housing absorbs shutter shock more efficiently.I see a difference with EVF (being LCD instead OLED), liking more OLED in low light situations. I set to OFF \'View Boost - Manual\' in order to EVF resemble exposure and WB at first sight. Letting View Boost ON (e.g. when flash is used) in both cameras, they look the same. In good light situations, both OFF, behave similar or equal.Now, pictures aren\'t worse than with EM10.2... to my relief ;-). But I must say I have the feeling that at pixel level (being myself a pixel peeper) they are softer, using same lens and being both CDAF in S-AF mode. Looking at pictures from both cameras at the same size, they look equal to me so I guess that having the EM1.2 25% more pixels (20MP against 16MP) is less forgiving with motion blur at pixel level. Or perhaps I\'m reaching lens capability with this resolution. Tested with several lenses got almost same result. A Pro lens would make a difference?Adding a sharpness notch at post-process solves the situation (fortunately, just a little without producing artifacts or halos).I don\'t make large prints so I guess I wouldn\'t take advantage from the resolution increment.C-AF with PDAF, no chances to test it yet. I find this a useful feature because I do some BIF pictures. CDAF does not behave well in this area but I found a technique with EM10.2 that helps.Update: had a chance to try it, and behaves very well and have many pictures in focus where to choose from. Does not hunt and locks focus very fast. C-AF works fine following the subject with a good contrast area and a proper AF target mode.A weather sealed body would make me feel more relaxed in rough environments. Sometimes, I left my EM10 in the bag when faced rough weather - now I know it can handle it but I\'m not sure I\'ll take the camera off the bag :-). Anyway, I own only one weather sealed lens.Both cameras can do focus bracketing. EM1.2 has the ability to produce a stacked jpeg using then internal engine (some lenses only). As I use raw, I post-edit them outside camera and later stack them with Zerene Stacker.As I said before, I still think EM1.2 is an EM10.2 in a better and comfortable weather sealed housing, adding auto focus PDAF, a little more dynamic range and less noise, an extra stabilization stop, two cards slots and a fully articulating monitor screen (plus a high speed sequential shooting and facilities related to continuous/tracking auto focus - that would be of great relevance in action events).All these extra attributes make EM1.2 even better than my highly regarded EM10.2 ;-)

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