Olympus E-m1 Mark Iii

[Margaret Sigars]

Thankyou for the reply. Still mulling the possibility of moving over, have to get one in hand before making any decisions. But the dust is awful in my two favorite Fuji lenses and the weather sealed zooms are too big or my travel purposes.

Maybe they could do it the other way round: pixel shift via lens IS and stabilize using sensor ? Eventually on an infinite timescale someone will definitely implement this feature in a reliable manner.

I have E-M5 mark I and I am thinking of upgrading. Do you think that it is still worth upgrading today to E-M1 mark I? I use my current E-M5 primarily with Nokton 17.5 mm manual lens or sometimes with Pana 12-35 zoom. I dont shoot sports, I rather take pictures of landscapes and my daughter (but here i prefer the character of the wide open nokton over AF speed of the zoom). Thank you for your response.

There is life for 4/3 lenses. I use an EM -1 with a 4/3 12-60 lens f2.8-f4 and MFF adaptor. The lens is a legacy from my E 520 days. I purchased the EM-1 with the 12-40 pro lens and find that the 12-60 is preferred over the 12-40. Resolution is equivalent if not better and the zoom range is more useful. Looking forward to the 12-100 which I think will be perfect for my travels. I have the 40-150 but rarely use it and left it home on a recent trip to Japan

Interesting observation. Did you notice that at all focal lengths for the 12-100 or near 100 where there would be more compression effect. Lens might be worth taking a look at if the initial impressions hold up. Seems like more people are talking about this lens then the new 25mm which was a surprise for me.

Ming, I am surprised by your comments about the 12-40mm f/2.8 transition bokeh. Your earlier comments on good quality bokeh/no double lines in the 12-40 review have been quoted on forums multiple times. Seems like you have drastically changed your mind as now you call the transition bokeh ugly. I was interested in this lens so would appreciate a clarification. Thank you.

Thanks Ming for sharing your thoughts and insights on this camera. I had a chance to try the The E-M1.2 and 12-100 lens at a local demo day last week. I found them to be everything that you said they are. After reading your review I feel comfortable pre-ordering both.

I feel that the choice comes down to other intangibles (e.g., ergonomics, video codec). I generally find myself using the E-M1 for only stills and the GX85 for all my run and gun video and for some stills (especially when traveling light and small with native primes like the Panasonic 20mm F1.7 which is a gem on the GX85). Both bodies have their place and offer subtle pros/cons.

Good images + review. Bought an e-M5.2 hoped to strike a balance between weight / IQ, but my Nikon D5300 seems produced better IQ in general (and 60% of the price), perhaps I need to try a few more prime lenses on m4/3 before drawing a conclusion. Discovered your blog and learned so much in few days, will continue to support the site(more merchandise?)

You mentioned battery life as comparable to the Nikon D5, but is that realistic? Presuming CIPA does not set different testing standards for mirrorless compared to a DSLR, the Olympus is rated for 440 shots by CIPA standards, while the same tests gave the D5 an estimated 3780 shots. These numbers are the official specs.

Funny because the other end of the market is moving in the opposite direction: that X1D is so small it actually compares favourably to the D500/ D750 sized bodies; having just completed an assignment with a H5, H6 and X1D, I can say I definitely prefer smaller and lighter!

When I first got the E-M1, I was surprised at how poorly it worked with my Four-Thirds lenses. I considered many times that they had been used quite a lot, but putting them on the E-1, E-5, or GH4 proved otherwise.

There is no visual quality of an image that depends on the real focal length, what matters is the angle of view and the aperture diameter. The focal length gives you a larger aperture diameter at a given f/stop, but if you use the equivalent f/stop (same aperture diameter) at the same angle of view, you will get the same DOF, the same background blur, and the same transitions. There is a simple mathematical relationship between blur and aperture that transitions are not exempt from, and anyone claiming otherwise should provide images that demonstrate their claim.

Without next gen sensor technology to take us past the current plateau, I think Olympus has hit a bit of a functional wall. I doubt this camera will do a lot of volume, at least not at its inaugural price.

In term of image quality, does micro 4/3 still hold a competitive place when compared to the mirrorless aps-c and full frame? I read somewhere in your article where you mentioned technology had moved on, size and quality of m43 was no longer hold. Do you still think Olympus is still a smart choice?

Bottom line: the price is what makes me hesitate. As I said before, unless you really need some of the specific features, image quality improvement over the last generation is not going to be the reason you buy this camera.

Thank for the clarification that you actually did test the mechanical shutter in the EM1.2, and apparently, you did not experience any shutter shock. We know that Olympus improved the camera design to reduce the possibility of mechanical shutter shock. How low a shutter speed did you try in mechanical shutter mode to confirm no shutter shock? From articles and my own experience with the original EM1, you will see rolling shutter issues with stills if say your subject was a functioning electric fan.

Two days in Iceland in October (and at least two days to get there and back) sounds like work, not play. I doubt that they got more than 50 km away from the airport. But I can respect the effort that David Farkas put in to do a Leica S report a while back at his own (business, deductible) expense. He spent about two weeks there, with his own transport and camping gear.

My best guess of what Olympus does with its eight shots is what you suggest. Two sets of four Bayer filters brought to the same location, the second set displaced by half a pixel spacing in both x and y directions. The secret sauce is how they reduce the 8 shots to four times the original number of raw pixels. Afterwards, you need to sharpen. Understanding what they are doing would help to determine the best controls to use. Half the usual radius? Half the threshold? My experiments with the 64 MP files from my EM5.2 suggest doing something like this.

Hi Ming,

Thank you for a very balanced and intelligent review. The new body and new lens seem a great combo! As a EM-5 user I consider an upgrade, but I am not sure where to start: the new body or the new 12-100 zoom? What would be your suggestion?

Another very informative review! I find it intriguing that you find the 12-100mm F/4 to be more useful than the 12-40mm F/2.8. Certainly a zoom ratio of 1:8 1/3 is more than twice that of one of 1:3 1/3. However, I must echo the question of the previous member who inquired about the quality difference between the two zooms, even though I am aware the ultimate qualitative comparison awaits the advent of the ACR software for the M1 Mk II.

12-100 has much nicer looking OOF transition areas. It has equal resolving power in all zones and FLs, as far as I can see. I suspect this lens was designed with that in mind for video, and the other one was not. It may be a stop slower, but I much prefer the rendering of the 12-100.

So today I saw price of that camera. 2000$ for m4/3 body in US? Besides lot of cool technology inside price is a joke. Of course if you earn money with Oly I could imagine that you will buy it. But for normal users price is astronomical.

Yes, you are right sales volumes are decreasing. So I hope that in consequence in quality will grow. But as we can see there companies take other direction. Nikon is moving production to China. Pentax have factory in Vietnam for a long time. And I as pentax user can agree that it make some critical problem with quality (paint especially). I read a news that all sensors bigger than m4/3 are combined from smaller units. That why Sony could make so cheap 645 size sensors.

Other than that I find this a nice write up but feel you are a much better photographer than a reviewer, still your take and that of Robin Wong nicely differs from most other reviewers Thx for the effort!

Thanks for your review Ming. You are among very few reviewers who actually gets and treats cameras for what they are, and that makes your reviews much more reliable and valuable than the average so called reviews on the net.

1. Did you get a chance to check if the new camera lets you set the Auto ISO from the extended base ISO (ISO Low)? The current ones do not let you choose ISO LOW as the min. ISO.

2. Does the camera choose a proper minimum shutter speed with the electronic shutter? (current one disregards the hackish min. flash sync and always goes to 1/8 sec before moving the ISO up in firmware v4)

3. Did you feel any lag in AF while shooting slow moving subjects in Single AF mode? DSLRs have no perceptible lag for example in parades when people are moving slowly towards the camera, while my Olympus (E-M1 and E-M10s) have a very short, but perceptible lag.

4. Any chance shooting with any of the old FT lenses?

Of course, having seen that Olympus are locally pricing it on a par with the D500 & 50% more than the 7D II, and well north of the 6D/750/A7 Mark II, I can see sales people struggling to justify them to customers, which is a pity.

Particularly surprised on your remarks of the 12-100mm f4. A competent super-zoom seems almost paradoxical. I would have thought the f4 aperture too limiting at m4/3 equivalence levels to be useful most of the time.

Thanks for the reply. Did you try at 18fps? Does it show live view between images or is it just a slideshow of the captured images? I tried the X-T2 recently and it can do 5fps with live view, 8fps with the power grip. I would expect the E-M1.2 to beat the Fuji in this respect, especially considering the price.

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