Thursday, September 12, 2013

Olympus OM-D E-M5 long-term experience

Click here for my initial thoughts on the Olympus OM-D E-M5 Micro Four-thirds camera.

The review linked to above represents my thoughts on the camera (hereafter referred to as the "OM-D") shortly after getting it. A year later and having taken ~20,000 pictures with it, I think I've come to terms with what this little powerhouse of a camera can and cannot do.

A note about how I use the OM-D: I do primarily landscape and nature shots, sometimes hiking and sometimes mountain biking to the location. I don't mind heading out when the weather is less than ideal; sometimes such conditions lend themselves to more dramatic images. For these scenarios I find the smaller Micro Four Thirds form factor to be perfect, and the OM-D shines in these situations. Lately I've started doing some action sports photography, namely mountain biking and ultimate frisbee. Admittedly the OM-D is not the greatest tool for the job, but I have managed to make it work.  I almost never shoot video - maybe having taken a total of a dozen clips over the past year - so I can't really comment on the video functions.

Finally, other than the OM-D, I've only really used the Panasonic G1, GF2 and Sony DSC-H50 to any great extent, so I can't compare to other camera systems.

I don't feel like waxing poetic or being wordy just for the sake of filling space, so here are my random thoughts in bullet points in no particular order:

Things it's good at:

  • Autofocus with most lenses, especially the more recent ones by Panasonic and the Olympus kit lens, is wickedly fast. It's not horribly slow with the older Panasonic lenses like the first 14-45mm kit lens, the 45-200mm zoom, and the 45mm macro; there's a noticeable difference between these and the newer lenses, but for most purposes it's ok.
  • Dynamic range is far superior to the early Panasonic Micro Four Thirds cameras that I've used, namely the G1 and GF2. 
  • Burst mode at 9FPS is awesome! And you can repeatedly shoot multiple short bursts without choking the buffer.
  • It's nice to not have to worry *too much* when I take the camera out in a drizzle.
  • The OM-D handles poor lighting conditions pretty well with in-body image stabilization (IBIS) and a fast lens. I tend not to go over ISO 800, but by all accounts the files are pretty reasonable even if you go above that.
Areas where it falls short:
  • Continuous AF tracking is pretty poor, and that's being generous. 
  • The lack of a dedicated control for bracketing is very irritating. I've been in situations where I'm trying to bracket shots for an HDR landscape scene, and seen something that I want to shoot a series of un-bracketed shots. Digging through the menu to turn bracketing off in those cases has meant that I've missed several opportunities.
  • Not really an issue with the camera itself, but I've been disappointed with the lens it came with. The kit Olympus 12-50mm lens focuses quickly and has a very usable macro mode, but compared to my other lenses, it's horribly soft, especially in anything other than full bright daylight, and I'm always disappointed when I see the resulting images on my computer monitor. Despite the weather sealing and the fact it's my widest lens, I almost never use it now except when the sun is high in the sky. In situations where image quality matters, I'd rather use a plastic bag and use my other lenses with care in inclement weather, and do panoramic stitches in the case where I'm presented with a wide vista.
  • I still miss the full-articulated LCD from my Panasonic G1. The OM-D's flip LCD is fine for horizontal shots, but when used for low- or high-angle shots in a vertical orientation, it's no better than if it didn't flip at all.

Other observations:
  • The accessory port covers and rubber eyecup for the viewfinder are fiddly and small and easy to lose. I've lost them all, and now the weatherproofing is less effective and it's extremely uncomfortable to put the viewfinder up to my eye.
  • I still rarely use the touch-screen menu, preferring to use the physical controls wherever possible.
Tricks I've learned:
  • As I mentioned in my earlier post, I've configured the controls as much as possible to match those of the Panasonic G1. It's not perfect, but it reduced the learning curve for using this camera.
  • When I first started trying to take action photos, I kept missing focus since more often than not, the camera wanted to focus on the background. Changing to a single-point AF helps somewhat, but it still misses far too often for my liking. I've learned a number of strategies to deal with this: 
    1. For mountain biking, where the subject is typically moving towards me at a great speed, even the fast AF can't lock in time to get the subject in focus. One thing I do is pre-focus on the area that the cyclist will pass through, using some terrain feature like a tree or rock as reference. I then time it and hit the shutter just as the rider gets to my "zone". I still miss focus fairly often, but it's much better than the ~90% failure rate I experienced previously.
    2. For most of my best mountain biking shots, I positioned myself at a corner in the trail, where the cyclist changes direction from coming straight at me to traveling across my field of view, making focus speed less critical. This also has the added benefit of creating a more dynamic shot as the rider leans into the turn.
    3. In Ultimate, using a single point AF and focusing on the head or body of the player does help a bit. However, the smallest focus point is still larger than that of the Panasonic cameras, which still leads to occasionally focusing on the background. To deal with this, I lower the focus point and target the *feet* of the player. This way, the background (literally, the ground) and the subject are usually very, very close, and with the typical depth of field that is achieved, the whole player is in focus. 
In summary, I'm quite happy with my purchase, and I'd be interested in obtaining a second body so that I don't have to switch lenses in the heat of the action. I'm quite curious to try the Panasonic GH3, thinking that the larger body may match my largest lens (100-300mm Panasonic F4-5.6) a bit better, and the Panasonic GX7, with 1/8000s shutter speed and rotating EVF looks cool too. On the other hand, the recently-announced Olympus OM-D E-M1 sounds like it addresses many of the E-M5`s shortcomings as related to the way I use the camera.

Do you have an OM-D or other Micro Four Thirds camera? What are your thoughts?

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