Olympus E-M5 Mark II - love and hate at first sight

[noa]

@ fuzzynormal: I understand that everyone has their own opinion about what is acceptable in IQ but I was referring more to the images in Andrew's post with framegrabs from a EM1 and the EM5II where the EM1 shows the detail and where the EM5II makes a muddy blurry mess of it, if this is what he saw and if Kotlos kotlos, who appears to have the em1 as well?  claims the exact opposite, so what's gong on here then?

[Bob Goldberg]

Keep casting your line then.  It's your prerogative.  As an owner of the camera I'll readily admit that the EM5II video IQ ain't great.  It's not awful either.

I mean, shoot, a hacked GH1 might rival it.

It should't take too much longer for that reality to settle in, even with many fanbois.  You'll always have brand loyalists making ridiculous claims though, so you'll be able to go at those folks as long as you want.  I just don't think here is going to be the best fishing' hole.

​You, Kotlos Kotlos, Flynn, etc. aren't really my target audience or who I'm primarily addressing with my posts. This is a public forum, and it might be read by a lot of people.

I know better than to try to change the mind of anyone here.

[fuzzynormal]

​Can I ask you if you have the em5 mark I or em1 to compare the em5II with?

​I had the EM5I for awhile while I was on an assignment last year.  I can't offer anything specific other than my own anecdotal testament, although I still have the raw footage to look back on.  The data rate on the EM5II is much more robust now.  So in that regard it's "better."  Compression artifacts aren't as noticeable. The EM5I would just fall apart when too much detail was happening on screen.  

Honestly though, the moiré level seem the same, which sucks.

So that's the rub then.  Why Oly has a new camera on the market with the same video moiré issues is kind of ridiculous.  Us video folks were hoping for something better this go-round and didn't get it.

None of that will stop me from using the camera though.

[noa]

Thx for the info, I understand what you are saying, I"m sure I could find a use for the em5 in my current workflow and that's for paid assignments but I need to be sure it doesn't look like crap when mixed with my gh3/4, I intend to only use the camera with a 25, 45 and 75mm f1.4 to f1.8 lenses and shoot wide open, specifically talking heads while shooting handheld which now requires a monopod on my gh3 that I would like to get rid of. Moire should not be an issue in these cases. For wide angle shots I'll use other camera's.

Maybe it's better to just order the thing and if it's really that bad sell it quickly again which I think shouldn't be much of a problem, I"ll loose a bit but since I can deduct the saletax the loss will be minimum.

[Bob Goldberg]

Thx for the info, I understand what you are saying, I"m sure I could find a use for the em5 in my current workflow and that's for paid assignments but I need to be sure it doesn't look like crap when mixed with my gh3/4, I intend to only use the camera with a 25, 45 and 75mm f1.4 to f1.8 lenses and shoot wide open, specifically talking heads while shooting handheld which now requires a monopod on my gh3 that I would like to get rid of. Moire should not be an issue in these cases. For wide angle shots I'll use other camera's.

Maybe it's better to just order the thing and if it's really that bad sell it quickly again which I think shouldn't be much of a problem, I"ll loose a bit but since I can deduct the saletax the loss will be minimum.

​I don't believe talking heads (or portraits) are really that demanding of the resolving power of a camera, so it may not be an issue.

It's only when you have landscapes and people at a distance that the camera needs to be able to resolve fine details. And without that resolving capability, you just get this impression of softness.

 

[fuzzynormal]

I need to be sure it doesn't look like crap when mixed with my gh3/4

​Yeah, rent it and compare.  

[John Brawley]

Hi John thanks for chiming in.  I went and read your blog so that all makes sense I'm just conflicted on the trade offs.  I do have one question you mentioned the IS in mode one having an additional crop, was the camera different in release 0.9?  As is now it seems the crop is the same all the time I wish I could turn it off and not get the crop on those occasions when I need the full field of view.

​Hi.

I have been told there is a 6% crop in MODE 1 when shooting video compared with MODE 2.  When I looked very unscientifically, I actually couldn't see any difference between them in terms of crop, but I'd need to go and get in front of a chart to be sure.  I've found MODE 2 to still be very good and I've been preferencing that lately.  MODE2 also suffers less form the IBIS warping on wider lenses (if you're not doing what i do and manually overide the IS focal length on anything below 25mm...

I have a feeling the overall crop chosen is more to do with how they are binning the sensor.  It's most likely a compromise....

I'm using the E-M5MKII a fair bit on a feature right now as a kind of POV camera on the film...  There's a lot of footage that is shot by characters in the film / story world itself and they have non functional prop cameras (with weapons attached) and we then switch out the prop cameras for E-M5MKII's when we want to show what they are shooting.  The cool thing is that they are just extras and actors but you can set them up with the camera and send them off in to the scene and they are getting pretty decent results, and IS is a big reason for that....Especially considering they are operating cameras without credintials !

JB

 

 

 

[Andrew Reid]

I can't see any difference in crop between the two sensors modes but nice to know there's less skewing in the sensor-only based Mode 2, I've been using Mode 1 and have too much distortion.

I'm still a bit underwhelmed by the E-M5 Mark II as a cinema camera, you may as well put a GH4 on a gimbal unless you need the tiny size and simplicity of no rig at all.

But the stills - wow. The 40MP mode is incredible and the stabiliser is a huge creative tool in low light... can shoot ISO 200 and half a second shutter with no tripod, where other cameras would need 1/50 and ISO 6400 to get the same exposure. Pin sharp at 1/2 shutter speed let alone 1/15!

[Don Kotlos]

​Except that this is completely false. There are a few posters here either implying or straight out saying that this is better quality that Panasonic high bitrate video.

I would put Kotlos Kotlos and Flynn right up there. Here's a quote from Flynn, "Not as nice as a Blackmagic Pocket but not terrible. Looks as good as good as a hacked GH2 to me."

? 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:

 

As far as I'm concerned, I'm going to bash away. I want this to fail because I don't want IBIS to start trumping video quality. Sure, it would be nice to have both video quality and IBIS, but I won't really settle for anything less than what Panasonic is offering. I want to see continued improvement. If Olympus actually ups the video quality (enough for Andrew to recommend them) but still not up to GH2 quality, I'm going to be very disappointed (and possibly start stocking up on cameras while they don't suck for video).

​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. 

[Inquisitive]

​Hi.

I have been told there is a 6% crop in MODE 1 when shooting video compared with MODE 2.  When I looked very unscientifically, I actually couldn't see any difference between them in terms of crop, but I'd need to go and get in front of a chart to be sure.  I've found MODE 2 to still be very good and I've been preferencing that lately.  MODE2 also suffers less form the IBIS warping on wider lenses (if you're not doing what i do and manually overide the IS focal length on anything below 25mm...

I have a feeling the overall crop chosen is more to do with how they are binning the sensor.  It's most likely a compromise....

JB

 

​I saw no crop difference which is one of my beefs I'd like to get field of view back if it isn't needed and don't like the compromise it's a little harsh about a 25% loss by my estimation compared with a GH2.  I also found mode1 just a little to much and to easily warping it maybe overall effecting image quality as well.  So I'm sticking with mode2. How do you manually override the IBIS?

Getting your settings right seems to make a big difference in quality I'm doing a final side by side with my GH2 tomorrow with the settings I'm settling on will post result.  My initial run looked promising for the EM5 vs GH2 all though the cameras were set the same there were exposure variances that might be effecting my judgement.  The GH2 seems a 1/2 stop more sensitive.

[fuzzynormal]

go on with your bashing and ranting but please leave me out of it. 

If the general angst of the internet could be harnessed as a power source we'd energize the planet for eons.

[John Brawley]

 

​I saw no crop difference which is one of my beefs I'd like to get field of view back if it isn't needed and don't like the compromise it's a little harsh about a 25% loss by my estimation compared with a GH2.  I also found mode1 just a little to much and to easily warping it maybe overall effecting image quality as well.  So I'm sticking with mode2. How do you manually override the IBIS?

Getting your settings right seems to make a big difference in quality I'm doing a final side by side with my GH2 tomorrow with the settings I'm settling on will post result.  My initial run looked promising for the EM5 vs GH2 all though the cameras were set the same there were exposure variances that might be effecting my judgement.  The GH2 seems a 1/2 stop more sensitive.

Hi. 

 

Im on set so stealin 5 to respond. 

 

Select OK in movie mode then scroll and choose IS in the quick menu. 

 

Then em choose info and manually set a focal length. 

 

I I find that setting a higher number when on actually on wider lenses helps. 

 

So so on the OLY 12mm I choose 17mm or 20 for example. 

 

JB

[fuzzynormal]

 

Random stuff.  It's transcoded, so don't look at it to judge compression, but you can see the moiré, and the cool 5-axis, doin' their thing.  Sort of a real world test as I just grabbed shots while traveling.

[noa]

That looked great, thx for making me doubt again.

[Bob Goldberg]

 

 

​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. 

​You're correct that I have no interest in this camera, but am I that transparent? I've generally tried to just blend in here and not stand out from the crowd, but it seems I've failed.

Just out of curiosity, how could you tell that I'm not really interested in this camera? I've tried my best to conceal this fact from everyone, and I'm not sure what I can do in the future to avoid making it obvious to people.

But, even with my failures, I don't think I'm off-topic here at all since the topic of this thread really IS NOT about getting the most out of this camera and settings, etc. My discussion of Olympus' advertising strategy, comparisons with the GH2, etc. is completely on topic for this thread, as are your comparisons with the E-M1. In fact, I can't think of anything much remotely related to the E-M5 II that would be off topic here.

Perhaps if you want a thread entirely devoted to help with the E-M5 II settings, you should consider starting one devoted to that. Then most of what I'm saying here would probably be off-topic, and you can hit the "complain" button.

fuzzynormal seems to be abnormally fixated on my completely on-topic discussions. I'm not sure why that is, TBH. And he believes I'm having some angst, while totally ignoring his own.

Perhaps my inclusion of you in my discussion was incorrect.

[DPC]

Thanks John Brawley for participating and giving hints on how to get the best from the camera.

I'm coming to the conclusion that the EM5 2 is similar to the GH4 in that you can seriously degrade the results by being too smart for your own good. Natural Picture Mode with everything set to 0 and standard noise reduction is giving me the best footage so far. I'm surprised at how good relatively high ISOs look. 

The moiré, on the other hand, is a major problem. I can't see how you could count on this camera to shoot paid video work in an urban environment. Far to risky. I can easily imagine situations where the moiré would make it impossible to deliver useable footage, it's that bad. No idea how Olympus could let a camera ship with that. It would be very interesting to hear from someone at the company. There appears to be a lot of goodwill around that Olympus is sacrificing due to what appears to be, at the very least, rather optimistic claims made in the marketing of the EM5 2.  

Stills are great. I did a job yesterday in awful light on my 5D MK III and the EM5 2. The Canon was at 3200 - 6400 f 5.6 most of the day, the Olympus at 800 ish and 2.8. The EM5 2 was a joy to work with, more stable and had better focus. The EVF made the Canon's optical viewfinder feel very old technology. Although the Canon files are bigger the Olympus seems to have better resolution. 

[Vlad Box]

​Hi.

I have been told there is a 6% crop in MODE 1 when shooting video compared with MODE 2.  When I looked very unscientifically, I actually couldn't see any difference between them in terms of crop, but I'd need to go and get in front of a chart to be sure.  I've found MODE 2 to still be very good and I've been preferencing that lately.  MODE2 also suffers less form the IBIS warping on wider lenses (if you're not doing what i do and manually overide the IS focal length on anything below 25mm...

I have a feeling the overall crop chosen is more to do with how they are binning the sensor.  It's most likely a compromise....

I'm using the E-M5MKII a fair bit on a feature right now as a kind of POV camera on the film...  There's a lot of footage that is shot by characters in the film / story world itself and they have non functional prop cameras (with weapons attached) and we then switch out the prop cameras for E-M5MKII's when we want to show what they are shooting.  The cool thing is that they are just extras and actors but you can set them up with the camera and send them off in to the scene and they are getting pretty decent results, and IS is a big reason for that....Especially considering they are operating cameras without credintials !

JB

 

 

 

​I have however a question: What is the native rated ISO on this sensor? I find more noise on 200 than 640, or is it me. 

[Inquisitive]

I've done another test and have come to a conclusion I think.  I think the EM5 mk ii settings in the camera are just a beginning and it shows it stuff when tweaked in grading.  The odd thing was I did my test and on looking what came out of the camera I considered the GH2 the winner.  When I was editing I could see the side by side the EM5 looked better than it was showing.  So I tried to simply grade them to make them more similar. After my grade I liked the EM5 better go figure.  I think it comes down to a flatter file on the EM5 where the GH2 has more contrast.  This all kinds of makes sense because sometimes what came out of the EM5 looked great to me and sometimes not!  Same with other peoples videos.

As far as the settings on the EM5 mk ii I was using natural -2 contrast +1 sharpness and -1 saturation.  As for the GH2 smooth -2 all except saturation -1.  Side note the EM5 files was 2,382,642 KB to the GH2 878,028 KB.  Both were auto WB and constant focus.  Both were set to 1/50th and auto exposure Iso was set to 200 on GH2 and the Em5 did what it thought best so no clue probably 200.  I ran them side by side the GH2 using the 14-140 and the Olympus the 12-40 which does give the EM5 a little help. I should also add I zoomed out to about 50 vs the EM5 40 to make up for the crop factor.

The very basic grade was for the EM5 -10 satuation -20 brightness 4 contrast WB and a slight hue adj.  The GH2 was saturation 5 brightness 19 contrast 7 WB and a slight hue adj.  I'm sure someone better versed in grading could get better on both cameras.  For me it was to see if they were in the neighborhood and after some tweaking I now do not share Mr Goldbergs opinion at least as far as the GH2 goes.  It's by no means perfect and I have big gripes manual control, moire, and crop that being said it is a great stills camera and not to embarrassing as a video camera I now discovered so it works for me I think??   A firmware update with a few tweaks could put it over the top.

 

 

[fuzzynormal]

fuzzynormal seems to be abnormally fixated on my completely on-topic discussions.

​I am.  It's fascinating because I can't really relate to it.  The level of engagement you're on about Olympus' camera is kind of amazing.  I'm not fixated on the topic, but on your earnestness about the topic.

Seriously though, don't let me discourage you from pursuing it.  Do what you feel you want to do.

As for angst, I don't really have any.  I'm too old to worry about that sort of stuff anymore.  One of the blessings about aging. 

[Bob Goldberg]

​I am.  It's fascinating because I can't really relate to it.  The level of engagement you're on about Olympus' camera is kind of amazing.  I'm not fixated on the topic, but on your earnestness about the topic.

Seriously though, don't let me discourage you from pursuing it.  Do what you feel you want to do.

As for angst, I don't really have any.  I'm too old to worry about that sort of stuff anymore.  One of the blessings about aging. 

​I have a challenge for you. Why don't you go back and look at my posting history and see how many posts I made here that were not in direct response to you (or related to you in some way) and your questions of why I'm posting here? I think you'll be shocked at how many of my very limited posts have been in response to your "engagement" or "fixation" on me. You seem far more fixated on me than I am on anything here.

And my posts would decrease markedly if I didn't have to keep responding to your inane observations of me.  This is yet another post in direct response to your fixation.