Gosh, it's been SO LONG since I last posted up a review here and I'm extremely happy that I finally am.
Today, I'll be talking about a forerunner in modern camera technology:
Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II
If you're not familiar with mirrorless cameras, or the Olympus OM-D system in particular, you can head on down to my first impressions entry to get an overview about this exciting new platform for camera developers.
At the end of the aforementioned entry, I expressed my hopes to acquire a unit from Olympus Malaysia to peruse and after some talks with their representative, I got the E-M5 MkII to grind out and run through its paces for about two months.
For that, I am eternally grateful.
Anyway, with great opportunities come great expectations.
Do be prepared for a long, in-depth review this time around because I do have a lot to say.
And now, my thoughts on the camera and system; starting with the external features.
Design & Feel
The E-M5 MkII boasts a beautiful retro outer shell, complete with dials, knobs, and a prism-shaped viewfinder (that houses a non-existent prism inside).
The silver finish on top of the black body also accentuates the retro look reminiscent of the old OM cameras.
It's actually smaller than it looks.
The camera isn't all beauty, though.
Along with its fancy looks is a weather-sealed body, tough enough to face water and dust.
The body itself is fairly small in size, comparable to that of a lower-end DSLR like the Nikon D3300.
However, because of its retro charm and silvery sparkle, the camera is far from unassuming.
DSLRs can almost be considered a norm to the public these days, but retro-fashioned cameras are the new trend and are certainly turning heads.
The E-M5 MkII, along with its Fujifilm counterparts, have always garnered the question, "Is it a film camera?".
No, my friends, I'm afraid not.
Because of its obvious attractiveness, there hasn't been an instant where I could sneakily grab a shot without someone noticing; not that I usually do, anyway.
Now, despite its good looks, there are some details about it that I don't quite like.
Firstly, I loathe the placement of the On-Off switch at the top left of the camera.
Of course, it is an homage to original Olympus OM cameras but personally, I found it to be somewhat cumbersome.
The switch being in a different place means that I lag for a few seconds because I have to switch it on using my left hand instead of just switching it on using my right like I would using my Nikon DSLRs or the Fujifilm X-T1 & X-T10.
Also, because the switch isn't located around the shutter button like it usually is, I tend to forget to even turn off the camera, which results in wastage of precious battery life.
Other than that, I was also provided with the new HLD-8G battery grip, which gives the camera a more fuller grip and a headphone jack.
At first, I thought the grip was godsent, and answered my handling worries.
But, after actually using it to shoot a concert, I found that it really started to hurt my palm because the grip was so straight-edged and the corners of the grip started to penetrate my palm.
Because it was made of some rock-hard material, it was really hard to the touch.
I understand that a bigger grip is useful, and sometimes necessary, but I actually liked the camera better without it, which in itself caused another problem: an unbalanced body-lens combination.
This meant that I needed extra support on the lens side to counter-balance the tilting-forward of the heavier front side, which would introduce shakiness and made my arm sore quicker than usual.
A killer combo; for images and also palms.
This is a photo I shot at the Olympus Touch & Try Event.
Operation
The E-M5 MkII certainly isn't a camera you can just pick up and start shooting straight away.
You have to really take the time to learn all the functions of the individual knobs, dials, buttons and switches.
It was especially confusing (and a bit of a wonderful surprise) to learn that in order to adjust my ISO setting, I had to first turn a lever on the back of the camera downwards from 1 to 2 in order to change the roles of the front and back dials on the top right side of the camera from adjusting aperture and shutter speed (as usual) to adjusting ISO and white balance.
In times like these I realize I should have taken a lot more product shots of the camera.
Learning all the functions isn't a case of simply fiddling around, too.
You have to actually go through the whole system to get to know the camera so that you won't encounter any unwanted hiccups during a shoot (which I did, but more on that later).
This took quite some time and wasn't made any easier with the honest-to-God complicated menu system.
Even after using it for a few weeks, I still couldn't figure out how to get to the movie settings to shoot full HD at 60fps.
I was stuck shooting at 50fps for a while before I finally found the 60fps after tweaking the menus more.
Besides that, the electronic viewfinder (EVF) was simply magnificent... at first.
Looking through the EVF, I could already imagine the beautiful colors that I would obtain from the camera.
At first, I retained the setting where I could instantly see the photo I took (image preview) so I didn't have to take my eye away from the viewfinder to check my settings and it was very helpful.
Shooting became seamless because I could instantly adjust my settings without taking the camera away from my eye and having to look down, breaking my eye-contact with the subject.
Although sometimes the subject breaks eye-contact with me
E-M5 MkII + M.Zuiko 25mm f1.8 | f/1.8 | 1/500 sec. | ISO-400 | 25mm (50mm equiv.)
I love the fact that the EVF was much better than the EVFs of mirrorless cameras before it.
There was absolutely no lag, almost no flickering and the exposures were accurate.
However, on shoots where I continuously took photos, the EVF tended to black out a lot!
Happened quite a number of times while shooting Against The Current live in KL
E-M5 MkII + M.Zuiko 40-150mm f2.8 | f/2.8 | 1/400 sec. | ISO-2000 | 75mm (150mm equiv.)
Thankfully, I didn't miss that many shots because of that particularly but it would be a real detriment to people shooting fast-paced stuff.
On the contrary, I would ultimately learn that having the instant image preview function on meant that I would miss a Hell of a lot more shots.
This was apparent while also shooting Against The Current (ATC), when I had to keep track of the constantly moving Chrissy Costanza (pictured above).
Her erratic movements made it extremely difficult to photograph her, and the never-ending image previews after every shot didn't make it any easier.
Halfway through the first few songs, I decided to fiddle through the menu system to turn the image preview off, which was a horrific experience because it was so hard to maneuver through the menu!
Fortunately, a fellow blogger, Robin Wong, had posted up a cheat sheet to setting up OM-D cameras, especially the E-M5 MkII.
I had gone through the post before but, as I said, left the instant image preview on because I actually liked not having to chimp.
But then I realized that it would mean I wouldn't be able to keep track of my subject.
After I turned it off, I was able to just shoot my shots without having the image preview.
Chrissy is not an easy subject to photograph
E-M5 MkII + M.Zuiko 40-150mm f2.8 | f/2.8 | 1/400 sec. | ISO-2000 | 50mm (100mm equiv.)
However, this brought forth another problem!
Because I was shooting a concert, I had to always check my exposure due to the ever-changing lighting.
If you've shot concerts before, or have been to one, then you will know how the lighting never stays the same, even throughout one song.
So for me who needs to "chimp" (check the screen for my exposure) constantly, it was really hard because the camera read the photos to the card quite slowly.
I had to wait 2-3 seconds just to check my exposure, which also meant that I would be missing important shots, like Chrissy's famous yoga pose, which I didn't get.
To put things into perspective, I was shooting RAW only with a 32GB Toshiba Class 10 30MB/s memory card.
While shooting the concert, I actually found a way to counteract this problem: by shooting long bursts, which will be discussed in the next section.
Yeah, there was supposed to be an exposure preview function for the EVF but I'm not sure why it didn't work, even after turning off live view boost.
Maybe I didn't do it right.
The battery life was quite good but not as good as my Nikon D7100 (comparing it with what I usually use).
I could take my D7100 at half-power to a concert and shoot the whole concert without fear of it dying half-way through (not advisable, by the way).
But with the E-M5 MkII, I tried this out and it actually did die half-way through!
It was all good, though, because Olympus Malaysia had provided me with two batteries so I had a spare on hand and ready to go.
It's just that I wanted to make it a point to not take the short battery life for granted.
Even so, I did manage to shoot off a whopping 1,800 photos that night on one single battery.
1,800 photos?! Dan does not approve
E-M5 MkII + M.Zuiko 40-150mm f2.8 | f/2.8 | 1/320 sec. | ISO-2000 | 85mm (170mm equiv.)
Autofocus, Tracking & Burst
Let's get one thing straight, the AF on this thing is snappy!
In good light, the camera is super quick to grab focus.
It rarely ever misses, especially with the PRO lenses.
Reliable focus (in good light) when it really matters
E-M5 MkII + M.Zuiko 7-14mm f2.8 | f/3.2 | 1/100 sec. | ISO-3200 | 14mm (28mm equiv.)
Taking photos of people was made even better with the face-hungry auto face detect.
Even when my focus point is nowhere near the subject's face, the face detect function had no problem in swiftly locking on to it.
Unfortunately, I made the mistake of not utilizing the much more accurate face detect function to choose to focus on either the left or right eye of the subject, which did cause a lot of missed focus.
Hmm...
E-M5 MkII + M.Zuiko 25mm f1.8 | f/1.8 | 1/160 sec. | ISO-200 | 25mm (50mm equiv.)
Click on the image to see it in FULL RES to check focus.
Like the photo above, the camera did very well in focusing on the face of the subject, but the nose of the subject was the main focus, thus only making that part of the face sharp.
When taking photos of people, it is imperative to get the subject's eyes in focus, so getting it wrong could cause a photo to be trashed and a whole shoot to be redone.
I didn't realize this until I got back and processed the photos in Lightroom, which was of course already too late.
Leaving the camera to auto detect the subject's face and then shooting wide open was a really huge gamble on my part but I guess I wasn't really thinking about my settings at the time because I was really pleased with the focusing thus far.
The focusing in low-light, though.
*sigh*
I cannot begin to tell you how much the camera hunted for focus while shooting ATC.
I mean, I had gone just through the whole debacle with the image preview and dead battery incident and now I had to contend with the dodgy focusing.
Now I'm not saying it was horrible; not at all.
I'm just saying that it was definitely difficult to get the camera to focus as quickly and as superbly as it usually did in better lighting conditions.
But when it hits the mark, it's damn good
E-M5 MkII + M.Zuiko 40-150mm f2.8 | f/3.2 | 1/200 sec. | ISO-2500 | 150mm (300mm equiv.)
On the other hand, I didn't do a lot of tracking shots with the E-M5 MkII, I'm afraid.
I guess although Chrissy would've been a great target to track, I've never used a focus-tracking system to follow my subjects; even with my DSLR.
Also, as you might have gathered from the whopping 1,800 photos that I took at the ATC concert, I took the camera for a joyride shooting at continuous high the whole time and I did this for two reasons:
- For reviewing purposes
- For exposure checking purposes
It's funny, how I found out that the camera would still show image previews when I do a burst even when I've turned the setting off in the menu.
Once I found out, I went on to always shoot a burst of 6-7 photos just so I could see if got my exposure correctly.
This meant that I didn't have to wait the dreaded 2-3 seconds before the buffer empties and I could instantly change my settings where I needed to.
Of course, it meant that the camera had to sort of "reload" quite frequently but as long as I didn't check the rear screen, the camera would just shoot and shoot until it either blacked out or I just paused to wipe the sweat out of my eye.
Either way, it held up extremely well when shooting continual bursts at a time.
Thank God the camera didn't burst into flames, amirite?
E-M5 MkII + M.Zuiko 40-150mm f2.8 | f/2.8 | 1/80 sec. | ISO-2000 | 150mm (300mm equiv.)
Articulating Screen
Side note: The 5-axis stabilization in this camera is a beast. Enough said.
I am in love with swivel screens, man.
It is definitely a feature that everyone should take advantage of if their camera has it.
The best thing about it?
Selfies! Especially selfies with ECHOSMITH!
E-M5 MkII + M.Zuiko 12-40mm f2.8 | f/2.8 | 1/100 sec. | ISO-800 | 12mm (24mm equiv.)
I will not take group shots at large apertures.
I will not take group shots at large apertures.
I will not take group shots at large apertures.
I will not take group shots at large apertures.
I will not take group shots at large apertures.
I will not take group shots at large apertures.
I will not take group shots at large apertures.
I will not take group shots at large apertures.
I will not take group shots at large apertures.
I will not take group shots at large apertures.
DAMN IT!
E-M5 MkII + M.Zuiko 12-40mm f2.8 | f/2.8 | 1/100 sec. | ISO-8000 | 12mm (24mm equiv.)
Yup, ISO-8000. More on that later.
But seriously, though, this camera is great for selfies.
It's relatively light even with the wide angle lenses so hand-holding it with one hand still produces great photos.
Oh, and videos, too!
Below is a vlog I made, where I used the E-M5 MkII to record myself in the first half of the video (before "6PM").
Below is a vlog I made, where I used the E-M5 MkII to record myself in the first half of the video (before "6PM").
Anyway, there also a lot of other applications with the fully articulating screen, such as low-angle shots, high-angle shots, movie-making, and an overall cool feature to have.
It certainly has a lot more advantage over the tilting screen of the Fujifilm X-T1
E-M5 MkII + M.Zuiko 25mm f1.8 | f/2.8 | 1/125 sec. | ISO-2500 | 25mm (50mm equiv.)
Image Quality
So here's where it really matters.
What a camera does and what it's supposed to do are two very different things, and they get even more distinctive with every new release.
But we have to really consider what people want out of a camera; or maybe what I want out of a camera: high quality photos.
Because editorials are way more fun in high quality
E-M5 MkII + M.Zuiko 40-150mm f2.8 | f/2.8 | 1/500 sec. | ISO-800 | 40mm (80mm equiv.)
God bless this little machine for chugging out good photographs.
16MP on a micro 4/3 sensor is already pushing the limit and I guess from what I've seen, it's doing pretty well.
I know, I don't sound too enthusiastic about it but the fact is that I'm happy with the photos that I have shot with this camera, regardless of megapixels or sensor size.
Of course, I would have been much more pleased if the details didn't look too rigid or if the photos weren't so soft when shot wide open but, hey, it doesn't bother me a whole lot.
Look at that! The beautiful colors were captured brilliantly despite the harsh lighting
E-M5 MkII + M.Zuiko 40-150mm f2.8 | f/2.8 | 1/400 sec. | ISO-2000 | 40mm (80mm equiv.)
The skin tones in the photos from the E-M5 MkII are just unbelievable, even better than what Nikon sensors usually produce.
I'd go as far as saying that the tones are comparable to Canon full frame sensors.
Dem tones doe
E-M5 MkII + M.Zuiko 40-150mm f2.8 | f/2.8 | 1/250 sec. | ISO-400 | 150mm (300mm equiv.)
Again, I was shooting RAW only and converted the ORF files to DNG because I'm still only at Adobe Lightroom 5.7.
I know that the camera does SUPER FINE but I find solace and serenity in diving into Lightroom for a few hours to get the photos just the way I want them to be.
It's not that I don't shoot JPEG at all but I personally like RAW because I get larger files and a lot of leeway to adjust the photos as much as I want to.
Anyway, the photos that the E-M5 MkII are simply great.
And another thing, this camera is no slouch when it comes to bokeh, too!
Bokeh creamier than soft serve
E-M5 MkII + M.Zuiko 25mm f1.8 | f/1.8 | 1/160 sec. | ISO-1600 | 25mm (50mm equiv.)
Okeh bokeh
E-M5 MkII + M.Zuiko 25mm f1.8 | f/1.8 | 1/80 sec. | ISO-1600 | 25mm (50mm equiv.)
So, the notion of "small sensors can't do bokeh" is pretty much whack.
Yes, I agree that bokeh from full frame sensors are better, but even those sensors have nothing on medium format.
So, STFU!
Better yet, the E-M5 MkII can also one up most bigger sensor-ed cameras by the new HIGH RES function, where it combines 8 shots of a scene into one 40MP photograph.
Now, I did not personally test this out because I didn't want utilize the feature just for utilization's sake but my blogger friend, Robin Wong did a superb job at applying it, which you can see here.
A comparison of a 100% crop of a 40MP photo (left) vs a 100% crop of a 16MP (right)
Photo by Robin Wong
So, yeah, that works pretty darn good I must say.
Here are some more photos I shot:
I just love Chrissy, I'm sorry
E-M5 MkII + M.Zuiko 40-150mm f2.8 | f/2.8 | 1/125 sec. | ISO-2000 | 150mm (300mm equiv.)
I'm on a boat (not)! A photo from an upcoming editorial I shot
E-M5 MkII + M.Zuiko 12-40mm f2.8 | f/8 | 1/125 sec. | ISO-400 | 12mm (40mm equiv.)
The lack of distortion disturbs me
E-M5 MkII + M.Zuiko 7-14mm f2.8 | f/3.2 | 1/100 sec. | ISO-3200 | 7mm (14mm equiv.)
All in all, the E-M5 MkII passes the image quality test in my book.
One thing to note, though, is that the camera does tend to blow out the highlights and shoots in a 4:3 ratio, so you really should be aware of the extra space in the photo for your composition.
High ISO
Not sure if you've noticed thus far but a lot of my photos in this review have been shot at exceptionally high ISO.
That's because this camera holds its own when it comes to high ISO performance.
Happy days
E-M5 MkII + M.Zuiko 12-40mm f2.8 | f/2.8 | 1/100 sec. | ISO-8000 | 16mm (32mm equiv.)
ISO-8000 and the only thing that's wrong with the photo is my aperture being too large.. AGAIN!
Okay, if you were to pixel peep then you may find the details starting to fall apart and the grain is noticeable but come on!
The photo is completely usable and I'd definitely frame it and put it up on a wall if it were a photo of me at my birthday party.
But I digress.
The only thing that's falling apart here is my heart
E-M5 MkII + M.Zuiko 25mm f1.8 | f/1.8 | 1/100 sec. | ISO-4000 | 25mm (50mm equiv.)
I was truly not afraid to bump the settings up to higher ISOs, even when I would normally not even go up to ISO-3200 if I could help it.
The details are still retained well even though the colors begin to botch a little.
The advantage of being able to shoot at such high ISOs is that I wouldn't need to rely on an external flash as the E-M5 MkII doesn't have a built-in flash, which would mean a lighter bag to pack.
This also debunks the notion that "small sensors can't do high ISOs".
Is This Camera For You?
Ah, the question that almost always delays my entries because I really don't know what to say.
Alas, it can't go without an answer.
Here's the thing and I want to make it crystal clear.
If it produces the results you need and helps you to, not only perform, but to also improve yourself as a photographer, then it really doesn't matter what camera system you use.
With that being said, you have to decide whether this camera would do that for you.
For me, in my own personal opinion, I wouldn't trade my DSLR gear up for this system for my work; solely because I'm still traumatized by the major hiccups that did happen while I was on my shoot.
On the other hand, if I did have the money to splurge on various systems, I might consider taking up this particular body with a few primes and pancakes because I am genuinely impressed with the things it can do and has done for me for the less strenuous stuff.
It was nice to have a good, smallish camera to bring around everywhere I went.
I just wouldn't go out of my way to acquire a smallish form of a camera just to invest in loads of bulky lenses, such as the complete trinity package.
But, again, it really does depend on your own type of photography and style of shooting.
Right now, the E-M5 MkII retails for around RM3,750 for the body only.
That's almost as much as a Nikon D7200 (at RM3,950), which has a larger sensor (Micro 4/3 vs APS-C), more resolution (16MP vs 24MP), much longer battery life and a proven performer in low-light.
Moreover, with the Nikon system, there's so many more choices, with a wide spectrum from very affordable lenses to the more premium-priced lenses.
With the Olympus system, a decent prime lens would already set you back for around RM1,000.
Just so you know, I really hate deciding on things by just considering the cost, because what's more important is the value of the product, but in this case, it's necessary to compare what you get with the same amount of money you would spend.
Conclusion
In such a small form factor, the Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II definitely packs a punch.
It shoots beautiful photos, great video and has a lot of functions and customizability that you don't get on DSLRs of the same price range.
For the whole seven weeks that I was in possession of this camera, I literally left all my DSLR gear at home because I knew that I could trust the camera and its capabilities.
Its portability and substantially smaller body make it more suitable for walkabouts and general shooting.
I'd previously stopped bringing my camera to class long ago because it was always a hassle to lug around a large piece of equipment but with the E-M5 MkII, it became a lot more convenient.
And I'm pretty sure it will be much, much better to take the brand new E-M10 MkII everywhere I go, so I hope to collaborate with Olympus Malaysia again to make this happen.
The many flaws that I thoroughly described in the previous sections are all avoidable with proper knowledge and practice, except for technical issues like the EVF blacking out or the slow buffer.
Also, I would have really loved it if the overall low-light performance was improved more, but I'm optimistic about future iterations from Olympus, especially the E-M1 MkII.
I'd say that I was generally happy with the camera, except for the bloody weird reason why they had to disable the WiFi.
All in all, based on its own features, functions and photographs, the Olympus E-M5 Mark II is a modern marvel for many applications that produces stunning pictures with very high quality images.
But then again,
Ah, the question that almost always delays my entries because I really don't know what to say.
Alas, it can't go without an answer.
Here's the thing and I want to make it crystal clear.
If it produces the results you need and helps you to, not only perform, but to also improve yourself as a photographer, then it really doesn't matter what camera system you use.
With that being said, you have to decide whether this camera would do that for you.
For me, in my own personal opinion, I wouldn't trade my DSLR gear up for this system for my work; solely because I'm still traumatized by the major hiccups that did happen while I was on my shoot.
On the other hand, if I did have the money to splurge on various systems, I might consider taking up this particular body with a few primes and pancakes because I am genuinely impressed with the things it can do and has done for me for the less strenuous stuff.
It was nice to have a good, smallish camera to bring around everywhere I went.
I just wouldn't go out of my way to acquire a smallish form of a camera just to invest in loads of bulky lenses, such as the complete trinity package.
Even if it is all I'd ever need
But, again, it really does depend on your own type of photography and style of shooting.
To put things into perspective, here's a comparison just for comparison's sake and to further explain why you should really consider a lot of things before switching or committing to a system.
Right now, the E-M5 MkII retails for around RM3,750 for the body only.
That's almost as much as a Nikon D7200 (at RM3,950), which has a larger sensor (Micro 4/3 vs APS-C), more resolution (16MP vs 24MP), much longer battery life and a proven performer in low-light.
Moreover, with the Nikon system, there's so many more choices, with a wide spectrum from very affordable lenses to the more premium-priced lenses.
With the Olympus system, a decent prime lens would already set you back for around RM1,000.
Just so you know, I really hate deciding on things by just considering the cost, because what's more important is the value of the product, but in this case, it's necessary to compare what you get with the same amount of money you would spend.
Conclusion
In such a small form factor, the Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II definitely packs a punch.
It shoots beautiful photos, great video and has a lot of functions and customizability that you don't get on DSLRs of the same price range.
For the whole seven weeks that I was in possession of this camera, I literally left all my DSLR gear at home because I knew that I could trust the camera and its capabilities.
Its portability and substantially smaller body make it more suitable for walkabouts and general shooting.
I'd previously stopped bringing my camera to class long ago because it was always a hassle to lug around a large piece of equipment but with the E-M5 MkII, it became a lot more convenient.
And I'm pretty sure it will be much, much better to take the brand new E-M10 MkII everywhere I go, so I hope to collaborate with Olympus Malaysia again to make this happen.
The many flaws that I thoroughly described in the previous sections are all avoidable with proper knowledge and practice, except for technical issues like the EVF blacking out or the slow buffer.
Also, I would have really loved it if the overall low-light performance was improved more, but I'm optimistic about future iterations from Olympus, especially the E-M1 MkII.
I'd say that I was generally happy with the camera, except for the bloody weird reason why they had to disable the WiFi.
Damn, I would've loved to really take advantage of the WiFi.
But, it is what it is.
All in all, based on its own features, functions and photographs, the Olympus E-M5 Mark II is a modern marvel for many applications that produces stunning pictures with very high quality images.
But then again,
"What matters is picture quality, not image quality,"
- Kristian Dowling.
Lastly (LOL When is this going to end?), I would like to send my deepest appreciation to the people at Olympus Malaysia for making this in-depth review possible.
Do head down to their Facebook page and website to check out all the awesome stuff they have there.
Until the next review, thanks for sticking around!
Check out the photos from this review and more at my Flickr gallery here.
Check out my coverage of Against The Current Live in Kuala Lumpur here and the photos from the concert at QZ Photography's Flickr here.
Check out also the photos from the upcoming editorial that I shot here.
DISCLAIMER: I do not represent Olympus, or any other brand that might be showcased in this review. This review is written for THE FEAR and is of no significance to any sort of argument that may or may not ensue. I deliver this with utmost honesty and sincerity.
Comments
E-M5 MkII + 12-50mm f3.5-6.3 kit lens retails for around RM4,300.