Olympus E-M1 II and Rode Stereo VideoMic X first impressions

[liork]

10 hours ago, DPC said:

I'm not sure the video supports the writing here. There's not much movement to show the virtues of the in camera stabilisation. It'a a long low wide shot with a few cutaways inserted. There is a colour difference between camera angles (magenta vs green). At times the focus is significantly off. I don't see the image quality described at all.  Sorry.

From the video description in Vimeo:

"Handheld shots, Olympus E-M1 II
Static wide-angle shot, Sony A7S II"

[DPC]

1 hour ago, liork said:

From the video description in Vimeo:

"Handheld shots, Olympus E-M1 II
Static wide-angle shot, Sony A7S II"

Point taken. Should have been more attentive. Trying to do too much at the same time. Neither looks particularly good... 

[Miklos Nemeth]

The A7Rii and A7Sii both have 0.78x EVF (2360K pixels) and 1229K resolution LCD, the EM-1ii EVF is 0.74x (2360) and 1040K resolution LCD, A7Rii/A6500 has excellent quite usable no hunting video AF, the EM-1ii just like GH4/5 continuous AF is unsubtle because of excessive microhunting. The EM-1ii doesn't support focus magnification/MF assist while recording video. How do you evaluate these (severe) limitations? Simply ignore them? Whatever you say the image feels just from a small sensor camera; I simply cannot see any reason to go Olympus/Panasonic when we have no cropping 4K full-frame A7Rii and A7Sii. The 4/3 sensor's aspect ratio is terribly not efficient for 16:9 or 17:9 videography.

[Davey]

I know this is a predominately camera based site, but what an achingly good track that was.

[fuzzynormal]

3 hours ago, Miklos Nemeth said:

 focus magnification/MF assist while recording video. How do you evaluate these (severe) limitations? Simply ignore them?

Yes.  You work with the limitations.  Lots of hybrid cameras don't allow this function.

3 hours ago, Miklos Nemeth said:

I simply cannot see any reason to go Olympus when we have no cropping 4K full-frame A7Rii and A7Sii.

The in body stabilization.  Also, they're cheaper.

[markr041]

I downloaded the 'original' video and played it on my color-calibrated (4K) monitor (I know the video is 1080).

Let me get this straight: the wide shots are from an A7s ii. Most of the video is composed of the wide shots. Those are fine. The handheld shots often were out of focus and shaky - those were the Olympus, right?

I also do not get what is going on with the audio - if the mic was on the Olympus, then we would have heard a shift in the audio when the camera was moved or in a different position across clips. So, there is no way the touted mic was mounted on the Olympus, or that the audio is actually from the mic if it was mounted on the mobile, handheld camera. I listened with Sennheiser HD650 headphones. I also heard electronic clicks throughout, which may or may not have been the mic, the preamp, or what was coming from the speakers in the venue. The clicks were not coming from my sound system.

Finally, testing audio by recording music from speakers is like testing video by shooting a video displayed on a television screen. As people have posted above, how can we tell if the lack of bass, and other shortcomings like high distortion, is due to the sound system in the venue or the mic (which ever mic it was).

I am unimpressed not only by the sound and video, but by any positive statements about the camera or mike based on this video. The other parts of the article were informative, but the final issue is video and audio quality, and this example tells us little about the camera or mic.

 

 

[mike_tee_vee]

How usable is the continuous autofocus?  I'm looking for something more reliable than the GH4, and am considering a mushy 1080p Canon for my run and gun needs just to get Dual Pixel.

[Dane]

Got the camera in the mail today, immediately had to test the 60fps raw burst mode. I used a SanDisk Extreme PRO 300MB/s card and was amazed how fast the bursts were being written to the card (over 48 frames of 5K raw in less than 8 seconds).  Raw processing in After Effects takes forever, took about 2 hours to render ~34 seconds. No raw color adjustments, just rendered the image sequence and applied warp stabilizer to the shot of the power lines.  Kept all the missing frame flashes as well as the frames it records after the 48 frames of 60p (pretty cool speed up effect it gives). I shot another 2000+ frames which I will render out and share here soon. Used a Speed Booster Ultra w/ Zeiss zf 50mm 1.4.

Also, I tried to connect my Atomos Shogun via HDMI and was able to get clean signal for 4k 30p and 1080 60p but it says connection error when I try Cinema 4K. I have the latest firmware so not sure what the problem is...?

 

[Kisaha]

@Miklos Nemeth Isn't a little bit too much to imply that everyone HAS to use A7rII or A7Sii, or "A6500 has excellent quite usable no hunting video AF"?

Some people could call that "camera fascism" and definitely it doesn't match this poly(multi)-selective forum.

I prefer APS-C/super 35, I believe MOST people are perfectly fine with it for both, photos and videos.

Only if you own a lot of Sony stocks I can understand this behavior, but people do not care about your stocks portfolio and they are mature and independent to make their own decisions (and it seems that are buying more m43 cameras and lenses, look at Olympus/Panasonic/Yi/DJI/Blackmagic/JVC LS300 etc), thanks God (or science) for that.