Don Kotlos

? I have never said such a thing not here not in dpreview and to tell you the truth nobody else has either in this forum. You start imagining words. If anything I said that if IBIS is not as useful then there are plenty of better cameras and I agreed with Andrew that for landscape somebody should get a GH4. I reply to these forums because I am interested in getting the best out of this camera since IBIS is important to me. I have provided a test scene with the E-M1 and shared the settings that I used so we can all find out what this camera can do and what it cannot. So for example it will not be good to use for infinity type of shooting (I doubt if it is even better than E-M1 for that), but for close focus shots it provides adequate results (to me). I am camera company agnostic, I just use them as tools and currently there is no other tool that can do what I need better. I wish there was and I wish that either the E-M1ii comes with GH4 quality or the A7sii gets a better stabilization than A7ii or Canon comes with a sensor stabilized compact GH4 killer. You on the other hand: ​It seems that you are here to do just that. So go on with your bashing and ranting but please leave me out of it.

​Your examples will be most welcome. My "acceptable quality" comment was comparing it to the E-M1. Anyone that has used E-M1 under such conditions will know what is to be expected --> macroblocking. An interesting test that somebody with an atomos should do is these infinity focus scenes. My guess is that the implementation of the codec is what is not good enough for these scenes, and the clean HDMI out should behave much better. I hope Andrew will be motivated enough to plug in his atomos shogun and do a comparison! ​Definitely.

Real use examples make anything less irrelevant I guess. ​I am happy with this quality.

​As you mentioned before, everybody would like to have the video quality from bmpcc in the E-M5ii. I get that, and I would even pay double for it. What I don't understand is when Olympus, a company with zero experience in video implements in a model update more improvements towards video than any other company that I can think of, people are still disappointed and most of the time without event trying the camera themselves. Again, contrary to what Andrew finds, in my hands the video in E-M5ii has improved dramatically over the E-M1. From what I can tell it is the same sensor as the E-M1, has the same readout method as in the E-M1 (however crappy that might be), but the processor handles the data more gracefully and the codec does not create a mush whenever there is plenty of detail or when there is motion or in low light. You can find an example in the following video at the 6min mark comparing it to the E-M5i: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v57kNf6-mEE Maybe I am biased I don't know, but at the end it doesn't really matter since I am happy with what Olympus has provided and it will improve the videos that I create. The E-M5ii will allow me to go out and capture things that I wouldn't be able to with any other camera. Isn't that what is important? I understand that other people do not find IBIS as useful so of course in that case there are plenty of better cameras around.

​Very true. Moreover, not only there is a limited number of stabilized lenses but these are also slow. I can shoot under dim light with an T/0.95 stabilized! Looking at the following video it reminds me the days that I tried to make handheld footage from my D800 +VR watchable with the warp stabilizer. Imagine trying to follow children around... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBlfBelTLwU Now if an A7s II with a better sensor stabilization than the A7II comes, I might stop using my E-M5ii.

Yes. You can always go to ebay and check for the average price of recently sold used cameras to get an estimate of what is reasonable. Just make sure it is working

Thanks for the comparison. Other than the failure to track, aliasing and the increased crop why do you think the E-M5ii is a huge disappointment? The image quality looks comparable to me at least with this test.

​I tried zeroing everything with the default curve and I get the same quality as the graded -2,0,-1. I also tried with the SLRMagic 25 0.95 and the sharpness is great so it is not the lens. Unless there is a bad batch, I would think that most people were setting sharpness below 0 and that is what was causing the blurring. The more I use this camera the easier is to see that the video quality has improved dramatically over the E-M1. Resolution, dynamic range, colors, less compression artifacts. The video is finally gradable! Just make sure that sharpness setting is not below zero. Another thing that I noticed is that the VRB is really different between the two codecs. For fairly static subjects, all-I gives a bitrate between 25-50Mbps whereas IPB reaches the maximum 50Mbps really fast. So if there is not much movement happening (following a subject/ panning) IPB might be a tad better. My only complain is the articulated LCD...

​Yeah I figured that out a bit later.. It would be really strange for the framerate to affect it but you never know...

I am going around the settings that I showed with the towel example: Contrast:-2 Sharpness:0 Saturation:-1 . From the curves a step decrease of the whites, a step increase of the blacks. That is in All-I 24p 1/50 and with the 17mm f1/8. I am trying to find out what settings that guy used for that test. Edit: Apparently he used the natural profile: (Contrast, Sharpness, Saturation ALL set to '0'). Thanks for asking him too ;). Maybe the lens is also affecting the quality? So could it also be that with Olympus lenses there is some kind of compensation that manual lenses don't get?

​This is similar to the sharpness that I get too, and that is why I was so surprised with Andrew's take on the camera. Either is the settings that can really affect the quality or there is a bad batch of cameras.

Here is another E-M5ii sample that somebody uploaded on Vimeo. Somebody uploaded another example from the E-M5ii:

I might not do it but myself but I understand that there is a need for the simultaneous adjustment and it should be easy to fix with a firmware. Thanks for the footage it looks great. What sharpness setting did you use? I find that 0 is the minimum that I would go with E-M5ii whereas with the E-M1 I could even go to -2. Also did you do any adjustment from the curves?

Noa of course not, on the contrary your question was valid. That last sentence had no target, I just made it so we should come up with a list of things that should be improved in order to make the camera more useful.

​I haven't tried the physical button method that Jery mentioned, but once you have the setting that you want to modify enabled, modifying is as instant as having a physical button/wheel. If you want to change two settings like f-stop and iso in one shot it takes tree button presses instead of one so about 2 seconds. Now, I have never came across a situation that I have to adjust both in one shot, but most of the time I shoot with manual lenses that have an aperture ring anyways. Valid criticism is always good in that it can be hopefully addressed with a new firmware, so I agree with fuzzy that Olympus should allow more customization. Bashing on the other hand, will only scare consumers away and in turn convince shareholders to abandon the video development that brought only trouble for a unique camera.

​I totally agree, especially if you have a planed shot, or don't have an E-Mx camera. But it is important to keep in mind that even though IBIS is not replacement for professional equipment: ​Once you need to focus while you move, Nebula is next to useless. Once you have only a pocket to carry your camera, Nebula will be waiting at home for you. Once you need to shoot something now, well too late after all the time it takes to assemble and balance the Nebula.

​Sorry but it is not useless for me, since I have already used it a couple of times Would it be better if you could do it through a dial? Yes of course. But that is just a minor handling issue that is easily addressable with a firmware. Again not for me or many other people, but this is your review so something might be different. Maybe a faulty camera with a bad EVF? ​Imaging resource claims it is a new sensor with more pixels: http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/olympus-e-m5-ii/olympus-e-m5-iiTECH.HTM

​Yes it is possible only from the lcd screen.

​Sorry I did not want to appear like a pixel peeper. I thought these are your samples upon which you base your decision that video with E-M5ii it is "7D quality". Of course IBIS is great and getting the shot with an equivalent 600mm lens handheld is not a small feat.

​I don't know why but my E-M5ii can produce videos with much better resolution that your sample. Do you use a profile with reduced sharpening? I have seen that with the E-M5ii that will decrease the quality so '0' should be optimal. If that is not the case then I think that the stabilization algorithm might be causing this blurring.

​They do not just disagree, they provide evidence for it. That test replicates the same findings of my own test so I am pretty sure something wrong happened to Andrew's review.

​Ok I am sorry Andrew but I think you have it wrong here. How did you compare the resolution of the two cameras? : You shot a bag at close distance. How is that better than the towels? Actually I did the towel on purpose, since their texture should provide ample opportunity for aliasing. Anyways if you want to shoot landscapes then 4k on the GH4 is a better choice. But if you want to have a light setup that you can shoot handheld then there is nothing else really. And from what I see the E-M5ii is performing much better that E-M1. And there are plenty of others who observe the same thing. I don't know why it is easier for you to believe that Olympus gave John Brawley a better firmware than to accept that your test might actually be problematic. Now I don't test cameras for a living, but I would expect something better than "close-ups of towels tell us nothing". You come out as somebody that has made his mind up already and is not willing to give the camera a chance. Maybe your full review will be more informative. Best,

Ok I did a small test. From what I see the discrepancy most probably is due to the fact that the default sharpness is different between the two cameras. Other than the sharpness, framerate and bitrate all other settings are the same. The quality of the E-M5ii is much better than the E-M1 at least in my hands. Dynamic range and color seem better and resolution is at least the same if not better with the E-M5ii. Here it is:

Very often the codec cannot handle the noise from high isos and quality drops because of that. So I was hoping that the prores HQ might give an advantage in low light. ​Good. It would be great if you could provide us with some samples too. Thanks again

You can from the touchscreen. I seem to be able to do that, I don't know why you can't. Half-press the shutter button does it for me I didn't notice it until I read Andrew's review, but I understand why it might be problematic for some.