Olympus?

[rockmeister]

Anyone here using or have experienced the Olympus OM-D series?

The new EM-1 looks v interesting indeed and they make a huge range of superb lenses to boot.

Any experiences??

 

[mikehit]

I have the E-M5 and have been very impressed with it. The in-body stabilisation is little short of superb and seems to work quicker than the in-lens IS on my Canon lenses (and it is great for my legacy Leicas as well ); the IQ is as good as my Canon 7D - and the noise performance of the Oly is definitely better. There are even reviews that compare favourably against the Canon 5DII: obviously it will suffer when blown up to 40" prints but I think that at A3 and less I would defy anyone to tell the difference. Measurebating websites put the dynamic range up towards the top of the pile, beating many DSLRs.

My one hassle with the E-M5 is the interface. I find the Panasonic cameras far more intuitive and being a haphazard shooter I am changing functions a lot, and as the Olympus cameras are very menu-driven this can be irritating - but I should add that I have not yet set up the custom menus so I should be able to solve that one. Having said all that, the E-M5 is still the MFT I take with me instead of my Panasonic GX-1 so go figure.

The price of the E-M5 is plummeting at the moment: on Amazon it is now below £700 which makes it an absolute bargain IMO.

Oly lenses are superb, and because they do not have IS built in they are generally small, light and cheap. My set of primes would be Panasonic 20mm, Oly 45mm and Oly 75mm. But several bloggers have the two Panasonic lenses (12-35 f2.8 and 35-100 f2.8) as a do-it-all kit and I think that is the way I am headed, with the Oly 60mm macro for portrait/macro.

Until now, the problem with MFTs has been that the contrast detection AF is not best for tracking moving subjects. With the E-M1 they introduced hybrid phase+contrast detect AF it seems they have sorta solved it, and on one website I frequent one poster figures the E-M1 + 75-300 is as good as his Canon 7D +100-400 lens for tracking birds (in flight!) and bikes. Until I take the plunge with the E-M1 I will keep my Canon 7D for wildlife and use the MFTs for virtually everything else.

 

[fordy]

If you can live with the limited creative DOF opportunity with the sensor size then the E-M1 with the best M43 lenses is ALL win right now and represents absolute M43 maturity. You have to pixel peek hard to tell it apart from great APS-C cameras. Frankly it's astonishing what they are getting from that sensor just now. I think it has topped out though as a system. Oly need new sensor technology to go further with M43 and as Oly is skint, I can't see them getting more from what they have or innovating. M43 is relying on Panasonic to deliver the goods, which it is doing in collaboration with Fuji but it's an open question whether Oly can benefit from this.

 

[mikehit]

Oly need new sensor technology to go further with M43 and as Oly is skint,

They have a tie-in with Sony (who own 10% of Olympus), and as Sony make the current Oly sensors that should not be a problem. I think the next two leaps will be improving on-sensor phase detect AF and the 'organic' sensors giving leap in IQ and dynamic range (if you need it!0

I think the limited DOF is not as big an issue as is made out on some fora. It is about 1-stop difference in DOF so if you have a f1.8 prime lens, how often do you shoot at f2? If the answer is 'a lot' then maybe AP-C is not for you. The advantage of MFT lenses seems to be that they are pretty much top of their game at the widest aperture but many APS-C/FF lenses need to be stopped down to hit their peak.

If you buy from Amazon, their returns policy is very good - you can return it for full refund within a month and, if it is not faulty, all you pay is the return carriage.

 

[f1eng]

I have an OM-D and like it a lot.

I will probably get the new E-1 when available at a discount since I have some legacy 4/3 lenses which should autofocus properly with it, they are very slow with the E-5.

 

[rockmeister]

DPReview seem to rate the EM-1 very highly, and the prime lenses test out extremely well. I'm looking for something for my wife, who is a damned good intuitive photographer, but keeps everything on full auto. Her ideal camera would be something with NIL fuss, but a decent IQ, small SLR size and very fast and faultless autofocus attached to a lens somewhere from 35-300. She has a Nikon D5100 with 55-200 zoom but since the focus selection switch is easily moved, has trouble with the focus and therefore hates it.

Ideas on a postcard. ;-)

 

[mikehit]

If she would prefer something with a built-in viewfinder there is the new Panasonic GX7 with IQ as good as the E-M1 for the price of the E-M5. On the Panasonics, I like the fact that you can pre-program user settings and access them through the twist of the function button, but in Oly you need to get at them through the menu (if they combined the Oly technology and the Pana interface that would be my ideal camera). Add a 14-42 20mm prime and a 45-150 and you are away.

The bridge cameras are getting much better as well and the Canon SX range have been at the forefront for a long time. Methinks she needs to get to Jessops and fondle them.

 

[rockmeister]

you can methinks about fondling as much as you like, but the only fondling those hands are gonna do .....

nah you're right. Just having a glance at the GX7 now. Ta.