# Anyone try the Olympus OM-D E-M1?



## Aglet (Nov 14, 2013)

I see that it's performance levels are impressive and I've been intrigued by MFT for a while. I'd have to see what the available lenses are like, some seem to have a lot of native distortion before in-camera correction.

I played with one in the store tonite and WOW! I LIKE IT! Feels like it was custom made for my hand, yet nice and compact, unlike my very comfortable but mugh larger crop and FF DSLR bodies.

AF was super fast under indoor lighting. Not what I've come to expect from mirrorless, much more like newer DSLR and PDAF.

I'm definitely going to have to spend some time playing with one.
At base (200) ISO the files look, pixel-per-pixel, pretty close to the d800 output at 200 ISO.
Hmmmm... The Fujis are really nice but methinks I small new Oly toy is now higher on my lust-list.


----------



## Don Haines (Nov 17, 2013)

Aglet said:


> I see that it's performance levels are impressive and I've been intrigued by MFT for a while. I'd have to see what the available lenses are like, some seem to have a lot of native distortion before in-camera correction.
> 
> I played with one in the store tonite and WOW! I LIKE IT! Feels like it was custom made for my hand, yet nice and compact, unlike my very comfortable but mugh larger crop and FF DSLR bodies.
> 
> ...


I played with one in store too..... It is very tempting, plus I have a collection of nice 4/3 glass that just needs an adapter to fit it.... Very tempting indeed.....


----------



## Mt Spokane Photography (Nov 18, 2013)

They have gained a following, Olympus was one of the early top players in digital cameras and then faded away with high price to performance cameras. Its good that they are coming back.


----------



## Don Haines (Nov 18, 2013)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> They have gained a following, Olympus was one of the early top players in digital cameras and then faded away with high price to performance cameras. Its good that they are coming back.



My first DSLR was the E-300. It's user interface seemed like it was designed by a photographer.... at that time the Nikon interface seemed like it was designed by a programmer (go through menus to change aperture!!??!!??) and the lower end Canon's were not much better...

And then came the E-510 with in-body stabilization..... and ALL lenses became IS lenses.. That camera was superior to anything Canon or Nikon had out at the time in it's price range....

They had a lot of very nice lenses.... and the cameras and bodies were weathersealed... 

Unfortunately, there really wasn't any improvement after that in the four-thirds cameras.... all the work seemed to be going into the micro-four thirds cameras which were by then superior to the "top-of-the-line" E-3.. when their last 4/3 camera, the E-5, came out, it was inferior to the PEN cameras.... the writing was on the wall and I jumped ship to Canon and the high ISO performance of the 60D was leaps ahead...and the 5D2 even more so...

I still have my E-510 and lenses. Those lenses are superior to any of the micro four thirds lenses and just need an adaptor to work on a micro four thirds body... The 50-200F2.8-3.5 lens was certainly L glass quality... who knows what will happen in the future... they might see action again


----------



## Aglet (Nov 19, 2013)

Don Haines said:


> I still have my E-510 and lenses. Those lenses are superior to any of the micro four thirds lenses and just need an adaptor to work on a micro four thirds body... The 50-200F2.8-3.5 lens was certainly L glass quality... who knows what will happen in the future... they might see action again



I haven't had time to read much yet but so far that seems the consensus; the older 4/3 lenses are better, likely because of longer registration distance reducing distortion and other optical compromises in the MFT geometry. Apparently Oly's (old) zooms are very good performers and some of those older lenses can be had pretty cheap as people moved to other systems.

Rumor somewhere I read today has Olympus putting out an "entry level" body in early 2014 that will be a bit like the E-M5, with some tweaks. I hope this new body retains the shape and feel of the EM1.

Currently the EM5 is selling for less than $600, a pretty big price cut and tempting too, if I hadn't already experienced the siren-call of the EM5.

Muddying my decision, Fuji XM1 and XA1 are fairly economical APSC size sensors in lightweight bodies with similarly short registration distance and there's a good selection of (cheap) X-mount adapters to allow virtually any other lens to attach and use in manual mode. MUCH cheaper option than Sony's new FF A7r.
Kitted with the 16-50mm OIS lens, essentially for free, this makes for an economical and versatile still imaging tool also and a viable walk-around street-shooter with the cheap kit lens.


----------



## paul13walnut5 (Nov 19, 2013)

I attended an Olympus open day at a studio in Glasgow where I was able to use the new d-1 for a couple of hours.

Handles nice, af is very very fast and very very accurate (it was quite dark, although I was using fast lenses with single point af with tracking assist, the subject was a fairly static model)

I shot in jpeg mode to fit as many images as i could on the 2gb card they supplied, weren't great at 100% (i know i know don't pixel peep) and because I fidn't know if there was an acr raw plug in that supported the camera yet.

With a grip the camera is nicely ballanced, there weren't any long fast aperture zooms to play with (do they exist?) but I really liked the 45 & 75.

I'm firmly in the EOS system and am not going to change anytime soon, but I did find myself wishing that my m was more like the OM.

Didn't like the viewfinder, large lcd was great.

I was really more curious to see the new lenses, and I was straight with the guys about what I used, and that i'd probably get a panny gh body for my video work.

Impressed overall, I guess the next thing eould be to try an a7 or a7r.


----------



## Don Haines (Nov 19, 2013)

paul13walnut5 said:


> With a grip the camera is nicely ballanced, there weren't any long fast aperture zooms to play with (do they exist?) but I really liked the 45 & 75.



I have an Oly 50-200 F2.8-3.5....it is a NICE lens and would fit a micro 4/3 with an adaptor... and weather sealed to boot... quite a step up from the F5.6 and 6.3 kit lenses...


----------

