Olympus Interchangeable 3 0 Inch Tilting Touchscreen
Well as of the time of writing this review it is rather hard to get one of these cameras, and as a highly anticipated camera I'm sure there will be many reviews better than mine soon. Here though is the quick early adopters guide:
- As an Olympus camera this thing is ridiculously configurable. You can swap dial functions, directions, many programmable buttons and so forth. This means from an ergonomic perspective you can get it to do nearly anything you want.
- It is most definitely a small camera. Some early adopters are finding that troublesome and prefer to add the optional grip. Personally I don't mind small cameras and so far have been very happy using it.
- The IBIS system does make a whispering noise. It is audible to the photographer in a quiet room. Still audible held at arms length in a very quiet room.
- The shutter is very quiet for a focal plane shutter. Certainly the quietest micro-four-thirds shutter so far.
- The IBIS system is very good, at least at the moderate focal lengths I've tested it at (45mm) it performs exceptionally with an easy 3 stop advantage. A quick test at around 150mm was less satisfactory, maybe two stops at best though is seems to be what the Panasonic OIS systems are doing at such focal lengths as well. More testing needed.
- Image quality is excellent. I'm still waiting for RAW support from Adobe, but interim tests by myself and others show it at least on par with the GH2 and G3 - perhaps a bit better in both high ISO noise and low ISO dynamic range.
- AF is very fast. Early adopters have discovered a rather interesting "feature" - you can make many AF functions perform even better by selecting higher contrast and saturation settings in the camera. It appears the CDAF system uses the JPEG engine output. Counter intuitive to be sure, but users are posting clear improvements in continuous AF mode especially if using high contrast vivid settings.
- One apparent gotcha so far - IBIS does not function in video mode with adapted MF lenses. They work just fine in stills mode, and IBIS works in video mode with native micro-four-thirds lenses just fine, but no luck with adapted lenses in video mode for IBIS. Multiple users confirm and I've tested this as well. So if you've got a bunch of adapted cine lenses you were hoping to use hold off until it is determined that this is a correctable firmware bug or a true limitation of the IBIS system.
- The OLED display on the back (LCD I suppose you could call it) has a fairly pronounced color shift when viewed even slightly off angle. This appears to be a limitation of this type of OLED display. Things go a bit green when viewed even 10 or 15 degrees off axis. A slightly annoying aesthetic issue.
Overall a wonderful camera. Excellent sensor plus great IBIS opens up lots of possibilities for low light shooting with primes that hasn't existed in this system so far. Either you got IBIS and a so-so sensor from Olympus or a good sensor and no IBIS from Panasonic. Best of both worlds with this camera.
Warnings would be that some folks find it "too small" to be comfortable and that it is not an inexpensive camera so consider the value proposition. For instance, the Panasonic G3 is significantly less expensive and has comparable image quality and many comparable features.
That's it for now, but definitely a five star product in my book.
-----------------
Some further thoughts, some comparing to the GH2.
- There isn't a particularly quick way to change between bracketing and standard shooting on the OM-D (the GH2 has a nice dedicated switch). In theory you could use a "Myset" on the OM-D (the Olympus implementation of custom modes) but I really find the "Myset" implementation to be difficult to use and suspect I'll never use it. The OM-D does support a vast array of bracketing options.
- The GH2 has a "record" button right on the top of the camera that switches you to video mode and is easy to bump, a definite annoyance. On the OM-D you can program its similar button to do something actually useful which is much better.
- There is an excellent live view mode called "highlights and shadows" which displays highlight and shadow clipping areas in real time on the live view (highlights turn orange, shadows blue). You can even set the thresholds for the clipping indicators. This is an excellent feature, and more useful than a live histogram if you are attempting "expose to the right" kinds of techniques. Many cameras (GH2 included) can display clipping in playback, but of course it is most useful in live view. Of course the clipping indicators are based on the JPEG engine so if you would need to tweak the JPEG settings to better match RAW levels if you are a RAW shooter.
One more thought on the camera being small and the grip a bit "crimpy". It seems like from reading user reviews those that typically shoot with two hands (left cradling the body and lens, right controlling the camera) are likely to be happy. Those that often shoot with one hand are probably going to notice the tight grip and controls placement more.
okay so i have a older Japanese Canon FT camera, it takes film. but i was wondering if there was a way to make into a kinda newer one so i wont have to use film for it. some of the buttons are a little sticky but from what i could see, no real big rust bad aging on it, you can still see all the words and numbers on it. thanks in advance
BalasHapus