Olympus PEN E-P5 w. VF-4 Hands On Preview

Olympus is introducing today the new flagship of their PEN line, the PEN E-P5. This camera is not meant to surpass the E-M5, which has been the best mFT camera from Olympus but also belongs to another line, OM-D. However, Olympus has incorporated most of E-M5´s features into E-P5 and made some of them even better. 

Mr. Toshi Terada presenting the E-P5 to European press last month. (These presentations are the culprit of leaks like we have seen again with E-P5. Journalists and ethics...)

New PEN E-P5 is faithful to the orginal PEN F in styling. Even the size is practically the same in all three directions.

Maybe the subject line should have been first impressions. I have tried a pre-production E-P5 shortly, but then only to get those first impressions. There and then I did not take any images with me to see on computer screen because I was supposed to have an E-P5 to test in the beginning of this week. Sadly test sample shipments to Europe were postponed to next week... So, now I write about how I see E-P5 compared to OM-D E-M5 and shortly about those first impressions with camera in hands. I´ll write more after I have checked how certain features are working in practice

How is E-P5 compared to E-M5?

Technically E-P5 is roughly E-M5 minus EVF and weather sealing but with a built-in flash. As E-P5 is a newer model by a year, many features are enchanced. Here´s the list of main features compared to E-M5:

- Same sensor and processor

- New extended ISO setting LOW, which is ISO 100.

- New shutter with 1/8000 second as the fastest speed. (Equal to best DSLRs. With ISO 100 combined possible gain towards shallower DOF in bright light is 2 aperture steps compared to E-M5.)

- Shorter shutter lag: Normally 50 ms. In release mode ”Short” with IBIS off: 44 ms. (Equal to best DSLRs. Increases power consumption slightly.)

- Same 5-axis IBIS, but now with automatic detection of panning. (No need to change into special IS mode as with E-M5. Live View is also stabilized, of course.) 

- Same AF, but now with option for smaller AF points. Olympus calls it Super Spot AF. Smallest spot at 14X magnification is 1/70 th of diagonal screen length. Besides this there is also same smaller AF point as introduced in E-PL5.

- Fastest sequential shooting with AF (AF-C + Tr) is now 5 fps, and E-M5 equal 9 fps with IBIS off and AF locked to first frame.

 

- Similarly two control dials, but now complemented with a 2x2 Dial Control which doubles the functions of dials. (Example: In 2x2 Dial position (1) control dials may be for adjusting Aperture and Exposure compensation. Switching 2x2 Dial to position (2) changes control dial functions to WB and ISO. These are configurable.)

- Similar menus with same highly customizable controls.

- Start-Up is now 0.5 sec. (Fastest in mirrorless cameras. Fuji X-E1 has the same as limited feature.)

- Histogram can now be displayed during Live Bulb Shooting for assistance in adjusting the exposure.

- One-push (configurable into Fn button) switch between normal shooting and AE bracketing.

- 3.0”, markedly sharper, 1.04 million dot LCD touch-panel with fingerprint resistant coating. It is tiltable in the same way as in E-M5.

- Flash sync time for built-in flash 1/320 s.

- Mysets can be configured into Mode dial like in E-PL5.

- Same BLN-1 battery, but number of shots is up to 400 from 360 with E-M5 according to CIPA/Olympus test standard.

- Metal body with no visible screws except in the bottom plate.

Completely new features:

- New optional hi-res viewfinder VF-4. (See below.)

- Built-in WiFi with smartphone (iOS and Android; Olympus Image Share app) connectivity and interactivity. (See below.)

- Focus Peaking on MF Assist with black or white accent. Peaking can be configured to Fn button.

- Photo Story (as in Olympus XZ-10 to create template based photo montages in-camera on the go.)

-  Automatically generated time lapse movies with interval shooting function. Up to 99 shots to make a max. 10 second movie.

Other:

- Three colors: silver, black and white.

- Limited premium model with wooden grip.

- Premium accessories: Leather Camera Bag, Leather Body Jacket and Leather Strap.

Not available:

- Weather sealing.

- Optional extra grip. (Lack of extra grip is something I discussed with Mr. Toshi Terada and expressed my opinion for the need for such extra.)

Lenses:

- Now M.Zuikos 17mm F1.8, 45mm F1.8 and 75mm F1.8 will be available both in silver and black as regular options and both colors have same price.

Built-in WiFi

When the WiFi button in the upper left of the screen is touched, a private connection screen with QR code will appear. Read the camera´s QR code with a smartphone. Connection will start and smartphone shows thumbnails of all the images on cameras memory card. Easy. Images can be loaded to smartphone and shared from there.

Camera´s playback screen has also a share button. Touching share button adds share icon and these images can be viewed in smartphone with a one-time connection. Touching send button sends images. Afterwards camera can be turned off, if needed, via smartphone.

Wireless shooting via ”Touch AF Shutter”

This is a remote control function where camera´s Live View monitor can be displayed on a smartphone. By touching image on smartphone screen you can autofocus on subject and release shutter. There are two restrictions: E-P5 itself cannot be operated while connecting to WiFi and the only available shooting mode via WiFi is iAUTO.

GPS via WiFi

Another feature of built-in WiFi is transferring the GPS log acquired by your smartphone as geotags to photos in camera´s memory card.

Electric viewfinder VF-4

At the same time with E-P5 Olympus is introducing a new hi-res electric viewfinder, VF-4. It has a 2.36 million dot LCD panel, which is again markedly better than 1.44 million dots in E-M5 or VF-2. VF-4 shows 100% field of view and has 1.48X viewfinder magnification. Eye-sensor is now included in VF-4.

VF-4 is hinged in the same way as VF-2 plus it has locking pin to secure it to hot shoe.

VF-4 magnification compared to other cameras as 35mm camera equivalent magnifications: Nikon D7100 0.61X; Canon EOS 7D 0.62X; Panasonic GH3 0.67X; Nikon D800/D4 0.70X; NEX-7 0.71X; VF-4 0.74X; Canon EOS 1DX 0.76X.

This new EVF has big optics which means also sharp and distortion-free image up to the corners. Looking through VF-4 made me quite happy.

More technical stuff: Image display time lag is 32 ms, eye sensor switching time lag 0.4 s. VF-4 will be compatible with earlier Olympus mFT bodies with an upcoming firmware update for each body. And yes, VF-2 and VF-3 are compatible with E-P5.

Photo from back shows how big the eye piece is. Also eye sensor is visible here. VF-4 has practically the same measurements as VF-2, it only looks boxier. 

Hands-on

When OM-D came, shooting with it felt cramped until I got horizontal grip. That was because I was used to shoot with E-P3 and VF-2. VF-2 sits higher on E-P3 than OM-D´s EVF relative to shutter. Horizontal grip on E-M5 moves right hand slightly forward, adjusts wrist angle and corrects the right hand position, at least for me. Now with E-P5 and VF-4 everything felt very natural. Thumb rest gives support and both dials are easy to use when camera is on eye. I only miss a somewhat bigger grip than E-P5 has now. It would support fingers when camera is hanging with wrist strap.

VF-4 is a big improvement, literally. Viewfinder image is so big, nice and sharp. The difference was most obvious when I raised my E-M5 on eye again.

That´s all I can say for now. Shooting technique with E-P5 plus VF-4 is not really different from shooting with E-M5 because of similar configurability. More on this later.

Olympus E-M5 plus 17mm F1.8 lens. Key West, Florida, USA, 2013

Personally

Of course, with E-P5 plus VF-4 the technical quality or even style of my images would not change in practice compared to E-M5. For me E-P5 is not really different from E-M5 there. The difference is in seeing through camera, the experience. VF-4 would help in focusing and precise composing. This would definitely be the biggest helper and change here. Related to this, the shorter shutter lag would help with VF-4 when composing things which are moving in viewfinder area. These are the most important improvements over E-M5. 

Of other features I would pick ISO 100, but the image quality and possibly limited DR must be seen first. Also every now and then doubling of dial functions by 2x2 switch, 1/8000s shutter speed and automatic panning detection could be handy. I would not miss weather sealing but the missing extra grip is worth complaining. And again, that´s just me, my preferences.

Compared to any previous PEN, E-P5 plus VF-4 is a huge improvement.

The next OM-D 

For some of us E-P5 actually moves our expectations to the next model in OM-D line. I know pretty much what will be the big highlight of this body. Quite obvious to everyone seeing E-P5 should be that the next OM-D series model goes well above E-M5 in features. Incorporating VF-4 should be just one of them. And that is all I can say now...

Prices in Europe and availability

E-P5 body = 990 €  /  E-P5 + 14-42mm zoom kit = 1099 €  /  E-P5 + 14-42mm zoom + VF-4 kit = 1249 €  /  E-P5 + 17mm F1.8 + VF-4 kit = 1449 €  /  VF-4 = 279 €. These will be available during the lastter part of June. There is no E-P5 + 17mm F1.8 kit like some rumor sites have speculated. 

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Videos on E-M5 stabilizer and C-AF

I am posting three videos below. They are very raw, just simple tests to see how things work.

The first one is captured looking into E-M5 monitor (camera in my hands at about chest level) while walking. Everything set auto and IS OFF. The second one is captured as similarly as possible with the first one except for having IS 1 ON. The experience is now quite different, smoother, and shows the benefit of IS. 

The third video is shot to see how C-AF and IS work in low light with rapidly changing camera-subject distance and various camera movements. The lens here is M.Zuiko 12mm wide open at F2.0. Continuous AF and IS 1 ON. I am moving on my knees, camera in my hands, bending here and there. The only light is 20W energy saving lamp. TV gives a good indication on light level. I think C-AF does a nice job without hunting and IS dampens my erratic movements quite well. The small size shown here does not show C-AF as it really is.

These videos can be downloaded at full HD size here.

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Untitled from Pekka Potka on Vimeo.

Untitled from Pekka Potka on Vimeo.

Untitled from Pekka Potka on Vimeo.

Olympus E-M5: 5-axis image stabilization

Olympus introduced with E-M5 a new image stabilization system, which has five camera movements stabilized. Present Olympus cameras have different versions of two-axis stabilization.

This picture shows the 2-axis sensor-stabilizator component of E-P3 on the left and the 5-axis component of E-M5 on the right. The sensor floats in the field of electromagnets.

IS test

I have now a pre-production E-M5 body with 1.0 firmware. My first test with it was to see how effective this new image stabilization is. An easy and effective test method is to shoot the ready lights of some electric gadgets in a dark room. 

Here is my test done with E-M5 and Zuiko D. 50mm Macro lens.

I shot a series of 10 images handheld (and standing) at various shutter speeds both with IS off and IS1 on. Then I opened those 10 images from each shutter speed in Photoshop as layers and aligned them so that the lights are as exactly above each other as possible in all images. Layer mode was Lighten. In this way I get a well defined image if every shot is sharp. The more there is blur in images the blurrier the combined image becomes. What I get is kind of cumulative camera shake at every shutter speed. Already one bad shot shows.

The upper row shows what happens when IS is off. This picture shows 100% pixels. I am not steady enough to get sharp images at 1/30s. Actually only at 1/125s I can be sure that there is no blur because of camera shake. At 1/60s I get more sharp images than blurred. This is very well in line with the old adage: you should not use a slower shutter speed than what your focal length says in 35mm eq. millimeters. My shooting technique seems to be quite average. Hmmm...

The lower row shows a similar series with IS1 on. At 1/30s and 1/15s every image is sharp. At 1/8s there are 8 sharp images out of 10 and at 1/4s maybe 2 or 3 out of 10.

I did the same drill twice more and each time the results were consistant. This means, with my shooting technique I gain at least 3 EV values. This of course varies a lot between people depending on your posture, how you hold the camera, press or squeeze the shutter button etc.

Next I checked IS with M.Zuiko 12mm lens. With IS off I can be pretty sure of getting sharp images at 1/15s. With IS1 on I got repeatedly sharp images at 1/4s. Half a second is way too long for me to stay still, my body moves too much and IS can´t compensate for it but only occasionally. So, at this focal length I gain 2(+) EVs from IS. With 12mm lens I had this red LED at the edge of image to see the effect of roll compensation. Looks like I don´t "roll" very much, my body shake is more sideways. 

Many people claim that optical stabilizers are better than in-body stabilizers at longer focal lengths. I was really interested in seeing how effective this new 5-axis IBIS is with a tele lens. To test it, I shot again similar series of images with Zuiko D. 150mm lens plus 1.4X Extender. The total focal length is 210mm, which corresponds to a 420mm lens in Full Frame 35mm camera. Again upper row is without IS and lower with IS1 is on. With IS I was able to stay sharp up to 1/30s. (Blurriness in this image is because of focus. I focused once manually at start and after that my position shifted somewhat between each series of shots.)  That´s at least 4 EV values better than I can do without IBIS. At 1/15s there are more sharp frames than shaken ones. Even at 1/8s there was at least one sharp image in each series of 10 images. Quite astounding!

Conclusion

Olympus claims that their new 5-axis IBIS is effective for up to 5 EV values. It´s based on Olympus´ testing method. Pekka Potka´s testing method gave me again real world knowledge on how far I can trust E-M5 IBIS. I was really surprised to see the benefit at longer focal lenghts. With wide angle lenses like 12mm you really can´t expect to get a 4 EV benefit, as that would mean sharp images at 1 second. Well, maybe some of you can, but at least I wobble way too far over the moving limits of IBIS. 

One huge benefit with already 50mm lens and especially with 150mm lens is E-M5´s stabilized EVF. It´s so calm, you can concentrate on subject and framing without any vibration. EVF image just stays put there solid and clear. It even lacks the snaps and jerks of optical stabilization.

IBIS and video

Olympus new IBIS stabilizes also videoshooting. I will make a separate post on this feature.

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Olympus OM-D E-M5 Hands-on Preview

Olympus has today introduced their new m4/3 camera line, OM-D, and its first body, the E-M5, and a bunch of accessories including two new lenses. 

Some time ago I had the first chance to try this new camera. At that time there were only two E-M5 cameras in Europe and everything was very hush hush. I was not allowed to take the camera out of that conference room. Also it was a pre-production sample, which are useless for real testing. Anyhow it still was possible to try handling the new camera and get an impression of its new features. This blog tells what I see as interesting in this new camera. If you read me using expressions like better or markedly better, they are based on experience with E-P3 + VF-2. Right now I have no hard test or comparison data of anything. I will have a production sample in about two weeks to really shoot with E-M5.

Size

As you can see in these two pictures, E-M5 is small. It´s a lot smaller than at least I would think when looking at Olympus product shots. At 121 x 89 x 42mm it is smaller than E-P3 + VF-2 combination in EVERY dimension. Below is a comparison of E-M5 with Olympus OM-4, E-620 and E-5.

Construction

E-M5 is built around a magnesium alloy body. The body is dust- and splash-proof to the same standard as Olympus E-5. Red lines in the image above show the layout of sealing parts in body as well as in the optional landscape and portrait grips. Right now E-M5 is the smallest dust- and splash-proof body among all interchangeable lens type digital cameras. The pre-production body I tried felt solid and well made, but these samples are not always up to production standard. This body had a couple of buttons that were said to be not as final.

EVF

E-M5 viewfinder has the same 1.44M dot (800x600 RGB pixels) resolution as Olympus VF-2. Olympus doesn´t tell who is the manufacturer but my guess is that E-M5 has the latest version of the panel type used in VF-2. 

A new feature is the possibility to have all info collected below the image. Info field can have a blue background like here or everything can be against black. This image shows only a small fraction of possible information. Because of info field, the image will then be smaller. Here black shows the whole viewfinder area and image proportions has been chosen to be 3:2. Now image magnification is 1.0X (50mm lens). With native 4:3 setting image magnification is 0.92X. You can also fill the whole viewfinder area with 4:3 image and then image magnification is 1.15X. All the info is now superimposed on image with the same general layout as with E-P3 + VF-2. Of course you can also turn all info off. Field of view is of course 100%.

Viewfinder optics is new. It was easy for me to see the whole area sharply even with my glasses. New optics allows also a wider diopter adjustment range between -4 to +2 diopter. Eye point is 18mm at -1.

Frame rate has been doubled, it is now 120 fps. You can also choose the old 60 fps. According to Olympus, the absolute color quality of viewfinder image is better at 60 fps. There and then I couldn´t really see any difference. The real difference is 120fps giving you a lot smoother experience with moving subjects and while panning. 

Another improvement with moving subjects is a markedly shorter refresh time of EVF. E-M5´s new TruePic VI image processor has separate processors for saving images and LiveView. Now EVF seems to be on almost all the time. According to Olympus, the lag is shortened to 29ms.

Stabilized EVF is another real breakthrough. Viewfinder image is always stabilized when in body stabilization (IBIS) is on. Always means here also video and with every lens. This means a marked benefit when using long focal lengths, shooting macro and using magnifications with manual focusing. Viewfinder stabilization actuates when you press shutter button halfway down.

EVF has now an eye sensor. When you move the camera to your eye, the image is displayed on the EVF. When you move the camera off your eye, the Super Control panel is displayed on the backside monitor. You can have the backside monitor to display the image by pushing monitor button on the right side of EVF structure. 

EVF is not tiltable. You can use Olympus (4/3) angle finder with E-M5. You can also take off accessory port cover and add a VF-2 on E-M5 and have a tilltable EVF. The combination may be funny looking but totally functional. 

16MP Live MOS sensor

E-M5 has a new (for Olympus at least) 16MP sensor instead of the 12MP sensor used in E-P3. It might be the same sensor as in Panasonic GX-1 or not. Olympus doesn´t tell. Comparing some specs from these two cameras makes me think the basic sensor could be the same. But there is lot more to a sensor. Olympus is now using a version of their ”Fine Detail Processing” technology which was introduced in E-5. That is an implication of E-M5 having a thin low pass (AA) filter which is good for sharpness. Olympus is using their ”Real Color” technology which is related to used RGB array. E-M5 is reading the sensor at up to double speed compared to previous cameras and that has benefits in fps rate, continuous autofocus and video quality. 

Testing a production camera will tell the truth about sensor related to image quality. Right now I can only say that IQ will be better than with E-P3. Olympus speaks about highest sensitivity, lowest noise and widest dynamic range in their E-series. ISO range is now 200 - 25600.

Five Axis In Body Image Stabilization, IBIS

The newly developed 5 axis IBIS unit is a huge element compared to E-M5´s volume. I have outlined it here with red. It contains also Olympus SSWF sensor cleaning unit. I have not seen the units or pictures of them side by side but I think this structure is some three times as big as the one in E-P3. IBIS unit forces EVF electronics situated above EVF, which together with accessory port dictates the height of EVF box.

This is the first and only 5 axis image stabilization in interchangeable lens cameras. Those five stabilized movements are shown above. So far Olympus IBIS has been able to compensate for pitch and yaw. Canon has in some lenses also a stabilizer capable of compensating for horizontal and  vertical moves. Roll compensation is not possible at all in an optical stabilizer. According to Olympus, this new IBIS system is effective for up to 5 full EV steps. They had the same claim for E-5 IBIS but it was effective for a lesser amount of camera movements.

IBIS works with all lenses and this new MSC type IS is as good for video as stills. Olympus says that the new IBIS removes rolling shutter effect ”dramatically” from movies. Also it stabilizes the video if you walk during shooting. 

FAST Autofocus

FAST AF is Olympus´ name for their AF system, F.A.S.T. being an acronym for Frequency Acceleration Sensor Technology. Olympus claims E-M5 AF being the fastest AF system in intechangeable lens cameras.

For single shot AF, S-AF, the focusing speed should be roughly the same as in E-P3. It is based on the same 120 fps readout from the sensor as in E-P3. Maybe new algorithms and new processor make it even faster and boot response time is shorter. Couldn´t tell because Olympus MSC lenses focus so fast also with E-P3.

For continuous AF (C-AF) and AF tracking (Tr) everything is changed. Firstly the system reads video signal from sensor at double speed, 240 fps. Turning camera around and from far to near and back with C-AF on, showed that the camera keeps staying focused significantly faster than E-P3. TruePic VI has a new and separate object tracking unit just for calculating subject movements. It should give a ”vastly improved” predictive AF, as Olympus puts it. The system is based on face, color and pattern recognition. It can calculate movements, not only in changes in horizontal and vertical movements, but also in the rate of change in object size. That means 3D Tracking AF. Continuous, 3D tracking AF works up to frame rate of 4.2 fps. This will be one of the most interesting features to test later!

I know many 4/3 system users are disappointed to hear that C-AF and Tr do not work with 4/3 lenses. Only S-AF is available. I did not try S-AF speed with any of 4/3 lenses.

Manual focusing is a lot easier with stabilized EVF. Enlarged view options are 5X, 7X, 10x and 14X.

Sequential shooting

There are two mode settings for sequantial shooting, L and H.

L: 3,5 fps; or with IS OFF 4.2 fps. Buffer capacity is 17 RAW images. In JPG shooting there is no buffer limit.

H: 9 fps (IS and C-AF OFF). Buffer capacity is 11 RAW or 17 JPG images at best quality.  

Video

Video recording has now MOV, MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, as a new recording format. It is Full HD with 1920x1080, 60i. Sensor output is 30 fps, recording 20 Mbps. Maximum recording time is 29 minutes. Video is stabilized by IBIS as told above. There´s no more need for software stabilization. The true effect of Fine Detail Processing, Real Color, reduced rolling shutter and removal of aslant jaggies in movies will be seen later.

Built in microphones are on the sides of EVF box, as can be seen in the image below. They have wind noise reduction.

Configurability and handling

In this example I have Aperture priority chosen on the left, like I normally do. In basic use I would set aperture with main dial and exposure correction with sub dial. Shutter button is in the middle of sub dial. Autofocus is mapped into Fn1. This makes handling very easy and I can keep the camera on my eye all the time. Most of the time there is no need to interrup shooting because of camera. 

With E-M5 at factory settings, pressing Fn2 and rotating main/sub dial would call and make active in EVF any of functions: highlight/shadow control, white balance control, magnification control and aspect control. You can do all these adjustments on the fly while keeping on shooting. But the again, Fn2 and many other buttons are configurable. So, what will be my final configuration for E-M5 button functions and dials is still open.

E-M5 is a small camera. Its handling qualities can be changed with optional grip set. Landscape grip (HLD-6G) and portrait grip (HLD-6P) change E-M5 into a different kind of tool. Landscape grip can be used alone with camera. Portrait grip only with landscape grip. Landscape grip has its own shutter button and sub dial. Portrait grip has the same plus main dial. It also has Fn1 and Fn2 buttons which can be configured to be the same as the ones in camera body or something different. Portrait grip has one battery slot. You can choose which battery is used first. Two batteries can give around 650 shots. DC-IN jack is included for operation with AC adapter AC-3.

Body with HLD-6G landscape grip seen from above shows the difference in right hand grip size. I like a system camera to have more grip than E-M5 does, so I think this is going to be my normal setup with E-M5.

GS-4 Wrist Strap is another accessory to complement grips.

E-M5 has a 610k dot, 3” OLED monitor which can be tilted up to 50º downward and up to 80º upward. This OLED monitor is a touch screen. It can be used as a Live Guide or for choosing focusing spot (also with 5, 7, 10 or 14X magnifications) and releasing the shutter. After shooting it can be used for playback with sweep gestures.

Live Bulb and Live Time

With E-M5 Olympus is introducing a new feature to set exposure and expose an image. They call it Live Bulb and Live Time. It is maybe best understood if you think about fireworks. You press release button once and shutter opens. You can see firework going up but now you can see it´s fiery path developing in OLED monitor. You watch the firework explode and grow bigger in monitor, and when you like it best you press shutter button again to close the shutter. Now, you actually have seen and know what kind of image you got! Only OLED monitor can be used here, not EVF.

There are still some technical limitations which mean what you see is not totally live. The monitor can´t be refreshed faster than every half a second. Also the number of refresh counts is limited to 25 (ISO 200). This means that with half a second refresh rate your exposure time is limited to 13 seconds. The maximum exposure time is 30 minutes with slowest refresh rate. All these parameters can be set in a menu.

Flash

E-M5 comes bundled with a small flash unit, FL-LM2. It has GN 10 at ISO 200. This flash is dust- and splash proof, the above image showing sealing parts. FL-LM2 includes commander function for wireless flash control.

Olympus is also introducing another new flash unit, FL-600R. GN is 50 at ISO 200. It has a video LED light below flash head. Video light can be used as focusing aid in still photography.

New lenses

Yes, the list goes on and, at least for me, here´s one of the most important news. Olympus introduces two new prime lenses:  M.Zuiko ED 75 mm 1:1.8 and M.Zuiko ED 60 mm 1:2.8 Macro.

75 mm lens has the same beautiful metal finish as M.Zuiko 12 mm. It is a very interesting combination of reach (corresponds to 150 mm in FullFrame 35) and speed.

60 mm Macro is dust- and splash-proof. As seen in the picture above, it offers life size 1:1 images at its nearest focusing distance of 0.19 m. Focus limiters are on the left side of barrel. E-M5 new IBIS should be quite a combination with this lens, I hope.

Bits, pieces and price

A couple more accessories: 

• MMF-3, dust- and splash-proof adapter for 4/3 lenses.
• Interchangeable eyecup EP-11

E-M5 has new battery, BLN-1 at 1200 mAh. 

There´s one new art filter, Key Line, and one new sound effect for video, Echo.

I will not reproduce all the minute details here. All the specs can be read at Olympus web sites.

As pictures have shown, there will be black and silver versions of E-M5. Faux leather surfaces differ, and silver is complemented with a traditional pattern and black with a more techno pattern. Cameras will start appearing in shops in April. Europrices around: 

• body (including bundled flash), 1100 €
• body (including bundled flash) with M.Zuiko ED 12-50mm, 1300 €. 

Conclusion

 

What more can I say than being really interested in E-M5 as camera which has a promise to go well beyond E-P3 capabilities in so many aspects. Olympus is addressing EVF and AF usability issues in action shooting which I have critized in my previous blogs. I really am not an action shooter but every now and then E-P3 can not keep up with my pace. These new IBIS features are so important for me, I have already done 99,9% of a lifetime´s tripod shooting. I like E-M5´s smallness combined with Olympus system thinking.  Being able to make one small body to adapt into many purposes is tempting. How good it really is for my photography will be seen later when I get a production sample. Two weeks... Hi-yo, Silver!

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Olympus E-P1, hands on

In my previous blog I was wondering Olympus´ zeal of retroing with E-P1. Yes, I do like it´s styling, it´s pretty, but these things are quite trivial in the end, I really did not feel like using an old time Pen camera while shooting. This is a modern, small system camera and that´s fine with me.

I had for three days this Olympus two lens kit shown in picture above: E-P1 body, zoom 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6, "pancake" prime 17mm f/2.8 and optical viewfinder VF1 which is intended for 17mm lens. This body was a pre production camera which is apparently close to the final production camera. Its firmware version was exactly 1.0. Pre-production cameras may have differences, so all my writings and photos tell about a camera that is as good or, possibly, in some cases slightly worse than the final production camera. 

My experience is not a camera test telling about every operation or characteristics of the camera. I tell how well the camera suits to my own needs, using only part of Olympus E-P1's features. 

Configuration 

The first task with a new camera is to configurate it to suit my way of using a camera. Here E-P1 was excellent. It has really good and varied menu options and also faster shortcuts for main functions. It was easy and logical to learn, review and adjust camera´s functions. A PDF manual was available but, in reality, I needed only to check some of the things to be sure that I had got it right. 

While shooting, in addition to shutter button, the main buttons for me are focusing, exposure program shift and exposure correction. These are all managed by three right hand fingers. The picture below shows the most important functions for myself. 1) Camera's power button. 2) Thumb locks focusing with the AFL / AEL button. Focus point is shown on LCD as a green movable frame and focus lock with a green circle. 3) Program shift with vertical dial in upper right corner. LCD displays shutter speed and aperture, and Ps symbol as indication of program shift. 5) Exposure correction is done with two fingers, middle finger and thumb. Middle finger presses a button next to shutter button and thumb rotates vertical dial to the desired correction. Exposure correction is done in 0.3 aperture steps within + - 3 EV values. 4) Shutte button has exposure lock as like normal when pressed halfway down. This is exactly the same way I use my own DSLRs. 

I used both AUTO-ISO and fixed ISO 100 sensitivity. They are quick to change. AUTO-ISO is working well and sensibly, although it can not be configured further. Lowest sensitivity is sadly ISO 200. Why on earth it can´t be ISO 100? 

First impressions 

I used the camera mostly with separate viewfinder. Almost immediately, it was obvious that the viewfinder angle is narrower than the 17mm pancake lens. Equally quick was to check that it corresponds very closely to kit zoom`s marked 18mm focal length. So, I had to get used to crop a little tighter with 17mm lens. I was expecting that in this price range the optical viewfinder image should be slightly rounded, but still I would have liked to be surprised. But I can live with this. A good feature with finder and kit zoom is that 18mm position can be seen at the bottom of the viewfinder. It is therefore easy both to crop exactly or zoom a little wider or tighter as necessary. 

In a DSLR I use thumb focusing in servo mode. Press the button, and camera focuses where I want. Keep the button pressed, and camera focuses and keeps the moving subject focused. This can also be configured in E-P1. Unfortunately, in servo mode camera just keeps focusing, there is no locking in the same way that I am used to. Focusing follows a moving object, but it is quite slow at least with this firmware. Even user rmanual says that the camera is trying to focus on the moving object. That´s honest. So I rejected servo mode without further tries, and I can´t see this camera suitable for anyone who needs to shoot something like dogs running. Single shot thumb focusing keeps focusing distance locked unless I want to focus again. This keeps camera´s shutter lag very short. If you don´t need to focus, E-P1 shoots as fast as any comparable camera.

The camera seems to be very well made with it´s metal shell. Inside that there is a plastic composite structure typical in this price category. Also lenses seem to have well made plastic structures. Kit zoom has some play like there is with all brands. Sensor (or more accurately filters in front of it) is exposed when you change lenses, which is not the best situation. In any case, shutter curtain is open at this moment.

Camera´s recording medium is an SD or SDHC card, which is the most sensible choice of such a camera. 

There was a nice leather shoulder strap attached to the camera. I thought first to change it into a pocket camera style wrist strap but actually shoulder strap worked nicely wrist-wound like with DSLRs. E-P1 has just and just enough weight to be hang on shoulder.

Exposure 

I used the camera only in Program AE with ESP (multi pattern) metering, because vertical dial makes it possible to alter shutter speed/aperture pair. Camera exposed generally accurately and logically. Of course there were cases where I wanted to depart from what camera suggested, but actually even less than with eg. Nikon D3x´s multi pattern metering. I shot both at ISO 100 and AUTO-ISO and it had no effect on accuracy.

E-P1 has of course manual exposure, shutter and aperture priority modes and "intelligent" AE. I did not try those this time but in the future I would surely use this camera also with shutter and aperture priority modes.

White Balance 

Olympus E-P1's automatic white balance is one of most accurate that I have come across. I felt some need to correct afterwards, mainly open shadows and cloudy scenes needed some wamth and less magenta. Some of this is surely an issue of taste. So, I ended up this time using only AWB as there was no need for any other setting.

Lenses 

I was surprised by the quality of kit zoom at around 18mm focal length. It has nice sharpness and contrast, and keeps straight edges fairly well. There is some chromatic aberration, otherwise this performance would be kind of unnatural for a cheap kit lens. In fact, I prefer kit zoom to 17mm prime at this focal length. I did not compare them by shooting the same subject but somehow kit zoom images had a better mojo. At longer focal lengths it zoom shows some lack of contrast which is typical for this group of lenses. It´s therefore sometimes difficult to use lens wide open to make subject stand out, when subject does not pop out by sharpening. But here by sharp I´m speaking about A3 size prints. In smaller sizes images are sharp enough. Typically kit zoom´s negative feature is lack of speed, especially at long focal lenghts. The other side of same thing is small size, and especially nice is collapsible construction for easy carry around.

17mm prime left me with somewhat lukewarm impression optically. I don´t mean that it´s bad but E-P1 sensor is better than this lens. Again on the other side is camera´s extremely handy size with this lens and reasonable maximum aperture. Better still is that this lens gives plenty of depth of field for candid street photography. Already aperture 2.8 gives practically the same  depth of field as aperture 5.6 in a comparable 35mm lens for 35mm camera. This 17mm lens proved out to be extremely carefree lens, it´s easy to use for candid photography and difficult to really fail.

Stabilizer and dust removal 

I had IS on all the time at the general IS1 position. Other options are disabled, or following a moving object horizontally or vertically. I am so used to optical stabilizer that I actually forgot the existence of IS as I did not notice it working at all. Therefore I did not test any shooting situations with stabilization on or off. I just noticed that images were sharp all the time. Olympus says that IS has max. 4 steps efficiency which is plenty. Anyway IS working like this emphasized even more the positive carefree nature of E-P1.

Dust, I did not see any in my pictures, which a good point and illustrates the efficiency of Olympus dust removal. Namely, this sample camera had already seen a lot of usage judging from fingerprints and dirt on all lens surfaces when I got it. 

Shooting speed and focusing

I tried: In RAW-only mode E-P1 shoots 12 frames at 3 frames per second before buffer is full and I could not shoot any more. The last frames are not really any more at 3 frames per second but close enough that I counted them in. Obviously this number depends also on memory card speed and mine were Sandisk 30MB Extreme IIIs. Like I wrote before, I used E-P1 clearly in two steps: first focusing then exposure and they are not related to each other. In this method the camera shoots exactly when I want and makes also possible relatively fast continuos shooting.

When focusing is configurated into thumb button, E-P1 doesn´t halt to wait for autofocus and while there´s generally lots of depth of field, E-P1 is really suited for street  and candid photography. With a little practice this is doable already from almost maximum aperture with 17mm lens without any need for re-focusing.

Autofocusing was very reliable, I did not have any problems. Autofocus does every time a kind of iiuu-iiuu-bling operation which means it does not just snap on like with best system cameras. While E-P1 is definitely not an action focusing camera, I did not consider it as slow for my subjects and when needed I shot with pre-focus. With optical view finder I used only central focus point because optical VF doesn´t show any information. I pointed optical VF´s center to where I wanted to focus, pressed button, heard bling and re-framed. Actually this works clearly faster than the very same operation manually with a rangefinder camera like Leica M8. Other focusing points are of course usable when shooting via LCD.

Battery 

The camera's battery was a disappointment after experience with latest DSLRs. It is smallish and runs empty after some 200 shots when walking with camera on. Here I must notify that I do not know the history of this sample camera and it´s battery. Also the battery is not charged very quickly. On the other hand this battery is so small that it is easy to carry around a couple of spares. And again on the other hand, my opinion is that E-P1´s ergonomics would have been better with a larger grip. For instance a centimeter protruding grip wouldn´t have made E-P1 any bigger but there would have been some space for a litte larger battery. But now I guess I´m already stepping into region of Pen design ideology. I can do with a few small batteries. And especially those who intend to shoot video with E-P1 should prepare to acquire extra batteries.

The camera's power button is conveniently next to the shutter. After running out of power once I started to tap power off whenever there was nothing to shoot immediately in sight. The camera starts up again reasonably quickly. 

Pen only from the front, rear is digi 

E-P1´s Pen design ideology is seen only from the lens side, so a grip would not have been shame. Namely from the back side it is a very ordinary digital camera. Thats no reproach as all the button´s are located in proper places.

LCD screen is big and bright, exceptionally usable in the sun. Sadly LCD goes totally black for vertical images when I´m wearing my polaroid sunglasses. The screen resolution is modest by current standards. Maybe Olympus has aimed for brightness and less battery drainage instead of resolution? Anyway judging image sharpness was a bit challenging for me. LCD was handy in some cases and I used it when needed. Especially I used it in close focusing situations (eg. flowers) where I framed and sought focus by moving camera slightly back and forth. I other cases auto focus is precise and LCD is needed only for composition. LCD screen can be also used for setting exposure, especially with live histogram.

RAW and Olympus Studio 2 

I shot exclusively in RAW format. During shooting, there was nothing special to it, and the only time I hit buffer limit was during before mentioned test. Camera was ready for the next shot all the time. After shooting I copied sdhc-card into computer and opened images into Olympus Studio 2 software. During test it was the only MAC RAW converter for E-P1 I knew.

This was my first experience with said software. By features it looks good. There are plenty of adjustments, even overlapping, they are precise and adjustment ranges are mostly generous. In spite of all this, using software was painful, to be honest. First some overlapping adjustments and their distribution into two separate tabs made workflow unintuitive. Worse, no adjustment is saved into or with RAW image. Saving means rendering a TIFF or JPG image at those settings, and RAW image loses everything. Next time you have to start again from scratch. Adjustments, for every image if you want, can be saved as a separate recipe which then can be downloaded again or copied into new image. Even worse than this was enormous slowness. I tried software in a MAC Pro quad with lots of memory. After any adjustment you have to wait and wait and wait, especially in 1:1 view. This experience sends Olympus in my list to the same category with almost all other Japanese cameramakers. This category is semi-well made and thus useless RAW converters. My Gallery of E-P1 images shows somewhat incomplete images because my patience simply run out. There is some under or over corrected CA, some over or under sharpening and some imbalance in the relationship between sharpening and noise reduction. I simply couldn´t cope with screen update after every adjustment of every image to adjust them individually. Anyway, these images tell all the essential things about E-P1 image quality already now.

Image quality

Lately my cameras in use have been Canon 5D MkII and Nikon D3x with some of their best lenses. So, I had to adjust my rating scale for quality when I judged E-P1 images because now the level of quality is not the same. It can´t be, naturally. But when I compare with the best  P&S cameras like Panasonic LX-3 I must say that we are not there either. E-P1 is in between, clearly better that P&S, clearly worse than full size DSLR. This is what I frankly waited and hoped for.

At ISO 100 of the quality is particularly good. Sharp and pixel structure allows good degree of sharpening control. Good color. Some noise in the shadows but nothing to be worried about even in larger prints. However, there is a surprisingly big difference already between ISO 100 and ISO 200. Noise grain gets bigger and starts to creep up from the shadows. In DSLRs I use, I have become used to see not much difference here in normally lit images. This fact makes it especially sad that Auto-ISO´s lowest sensitivity is ISO 200.

With bigger ISO´s noise is more and more prominent but very gradually after that leap at ISO 200. For me ISO 1600 is the practical limit, I can tolerate noise up to there but not above. The nature of noise is what usually is called film like, monochromatic. To be honest I have seen a lot worse years ago when I had to use sensitive color films. What I like is that highlight areas stay sharp and clean, high ISO speed and noise crawling up from shadows to medium to three quarter tones are tied together. My Gallery images are sharpened in Olympus Studio 2, where it can be done only for entire image. Better result can be obtained in Phostoshop where sharpening can be contained into less noisy areas of image.

All in all, I´m very happy with image quality at ISO 100. Other sensitivities are usable as needed and in relation to E-P1´s purpose for me. One issue that I noticed is some smearing of red color, but I leave it to be investigated later with other RAW converters. Anyway, this level of quality is totally different from times with Olympus XA, dramatically better. At digital age this is so easily forgotten as standards are creeping up year by year.

Other Features 

I did not try any other features. I did not try the video. I do not try long exposures times . I do not try flash photography . No Art settings nor any other of camera´s many features and possibilities. Description of the camera's full range of features and more detailed technical information can be found on the Olympus website. This short test period left much for the next time because I just wanted to make sure of one thing. 

Sum summarum 

The very thing that I wanted to find out was: Is this finally my new Olympus XA? Is this a fast and precise acting, responsive, but smaller and lighter camera than DSLR, which can be carried around and be available almost everywhere and with which I can just go to shoot without fretting image quality compromises? The answer is: Yes. There are always some reservations, but now I know quite well E-P1´s limits for me and the limits are wide-ranging enough. 

I know very well that m4/3 system will soon see even better cameras, and mirrorless/EVF cameras will be seen in other systems with larger sensors. But still, my waiting ended here. 

-p-