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Archive 2013 · OM-D E-M1 Rolling Impressions

  
 
galenapass
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p.5 #1 · p.5 #1 · OM-D E-M1 Rolling Impressions


Is there any indication of a fix (eg more durable rear dial) on more recent copies of the EM1?


Oct 18, 2014 at 09:49 PM
MayaTlab
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p.5 #2 · p.5 #2 · OM-D E-M1 Rolling Impressions


Michael H wrote:
Okay, speaking of first impressions, I have a bit of a like.dislike problem with the E-M1 EVF.

Is the color cast normal? I can't seem to adjust it to provide accurate colors. The rear LCD looks fine, the images look fine but the EVF has a pretty prominent blue cast to it. I was able to slightly improve it with some tweaks in the menus but still not quite what I would expect.

Is this normal? How accurate is your EVF?


I have two E-M1s and one thing is clear : Olympus doesn't care for proper display calibration. None of the four displays are similar, although there is a tendency for the EVFs to be a little greener than the rear LCDs (but to varying degrees, one is greener than the other is greener than the LCDs, which aren't roughly similar either) - something which unfortunately can't be properly corrected because Olympus only half-arsed the colour correction by only providing a yellow / blue tint slider and not a green / magenta one. Apparently Olympus hasn't yet be stricken by the idea that it might not be totally idiotic to provide decently calibrated displays with a device which main purpose is to take pictures. As it stands my iPhone has a much better calibration.

Actually, I'm disappointed in Olympus' manufacturing tolerances. Although the most important thing (sensor to mount alignment) is similar with the two bodies, their buttons or dials give me a substantially different haptic feedback to the point that I have to be constantly aware of which body I'm using to mentally adapt (for example, on one of them, the front dial is easily turned but very clicky, very positive, while on the second one there is a friction resistance to the turn but the clicks are almost unnoticeable meaning that I constantly "overshoot" the adjustment target), one of them has a somewhat faulty SD card door (it doesn't click as positively as the other one, and it needs to be pushed further than the clicking point to be properly closed), although typically the kind of thing Olympus would say is "within manufacturing tolerances", one of them has a slightly finicky rubber port cover that has to be put in a certain way to allow the LCD to fully close, and, of course, the aforementioned issue with LCD calibration. Ah, and one of the two bodies had to be exchanged because it had a dead pixel on the LCD from he start.

And that's without taking into account lenses. I initially bought two Olympus lenses, the two had to be exchanged for severe decentering. Only one of the replacements was correct. I then went through seven 25mm lenses, four of which were rubbish.



Oct 20, 2014 at 05:45 AM
e6filmuser
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p.5 #3 · p.5 #3 · OM-D E-M1 Rolling Impressions


MayaTlab wrote:
I have two E-M1s and one thing is clear : Olympus doesn't care


I think the remainder of your text, with respect, is superfluous.

Harold



Oct 20, 2014 at 05:53 AM
corndog
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p.5 #4 · p.5 #4 · OM-D E-M1 Rolling Impressions


Let's not be hypersensitive. If one is looking for a reason to reject information, one will always find it.


Oct 20, 2014 at 10:40 AM
e6filmuser
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p.5 #5 · p.5 #5 · OM-D E-M1 Rolling Impressions


corndog wrote:
Let's not be hypersensitive. If one is looking for a reason to reject information, one will always find it.


I'm not rejecting the detailed information but suggesting that the broad statement says it all.

Harold



Oct 20, 2014 at 10:45 AM
millsart
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p.5 #6 · p.5 #6 · OM-D E-M1 Rolling Impressions


MayaTlab wrote:
And that's without taking into account lenses. I initially bought two Olympus lenses, the two had to be exchanged for severe decentering. Only one of the replacements was correct. I then went through seven 25mm lenses, four of which were rubbish.



So you bought two Olympus lens, both of which had to be returned, and then only 1 of the 2 replacements was acceptable. Furthermore, you went through seven 25mm lens, finding only 3 of the 7 to be acceptable ?

In other words,out of 11 lenses, only 4 met your standards ?

Hmmm... not sure if that suggest a bigger issue with you, or with Olympus.....

Not to say bad lenses don't happen, they do, but I always find it really interesting how rare they are between all the users on this forum, but then at places like DPR, it seems that every other lens is bad.

You might have really, really bad luck, but I just can't recall anyone here going through 7 different lens. Why did you keep testing them after you found a "good" one ?

Is your hobby photography or is it lens testing ?



Oct 20, 2014 at 11:42 AM
MayaTlab
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p.5 #7 · p.5 #7 · OM-D E-M1 Rolling Impressions


The second 12-40 was just fine.

Olympus kept exchanging (two times, so that's three lenses) the 25mm (the other lens) but couldn't get me one which focal plane (or sphere if you prefer) wasn't severely tilted (i.e., if the lens focused on one side at 10 meters, it would focus on the opposite side at 2 meters for example). I decided to buy on my own four 25mm from four different retailers and returned the surplus. Among these four, only one was titled like the others. All the correct ones had posterior serial numbers if that means anything.



Oct 20, 2014 at 11:56 AM
Michael H
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p.5 #8 · p.5 #8 · OM-D E-M1 Rolling Impressions


I'm really not sure why you...or anyone else...would go through that much trouble to get the "right" one. I'd have abandoned the system long before doing all of that. Too many solid alternatives to deal with crap like that.




Oct 20, 2014 at 12:48 PM
bobbytan
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p.5 #9 · p.5 #9 · OM-D E-M1 Rolling Impressions


Olympus is not the only one with these problems. Both Fuji and Sony have their fair share of QC issues and quirky products. Pick your poison.

Michael H wrote:
I'm really not sure why you...or anyone else...would go through that much trouble to get the "right" one. I'd have abandoned the system long before doing all of that. Too many solid alternatives to deal with crap like that.






Oct 20, 2014 at 01:16 PM
corndog
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p.5 #10 · p.5 #10 · OM-D E-M1 Rolling Impressions


Don't even get me started on Canon bodies and lenses in the pre-microadjust days. Add me to the list of 'unlucky' customers.


Oct 20, 2014 at 02:06 PM
millsart
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p.5 #11 · p.5 #11 · OM-D E-M1 Rolling Impressions


Its very strange how people who use their equipment to simply take actual photos always seem to be so "lucky" in getting "good" copies of a lens, and those who obsessively shoot brick walls and rulers always seem to be so "unlucky".

I remember back in my DPR days all the poor unlucky souls who kept going through copy after copy of a lens (until finally having their accounts at Amazon et al, closed due to excessive returns) and always posting a bunch of 100% crops of dollar bills etc taped to the wall and asking "does this look sharp" or "did I get a good copy". Didn't even matter what the format was, I saw the same thing in the Canon, Nikon and m4/3 forums.

At the same time, when you check out presentation forums, be they the landscape forum here, the dedicated Fuji, Sony et al threads on this very forum or pretty much anywhere else, all you see is great, sharp shots. No one seems to have issues with "bad" copies of lens.

Again, yes, it sometimes does happen, but real world results seem to suggest a very low frequency. I have an lenses where the entire left side simply wasn't in focus. Obviously bad lens.

Seems that if you polled all those folks who regularly are out shooting and posting lots of amazing images all the time, the frequency of bad copies is super low.

Poll those those only seem to post "test" images and who obsessively "measurebate" and its like 25-50% of all lenses produced are "bad" copies.

Strange isn't it............



Oct 20, 2014 at 02:33 PM
Michael H
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p.5 #12 · p.5 #12 · OM-D E-M1 Rolling Impressions


110% agreed. I've had a lot of different bodies/lenses over decades of shooting. While I have had the occasional questionable and 1 incident of truly "bad", it's really rare. At one point I started with the whole micro-focus thing but never got very far. Probably me as much as anything and the methodologies in which I tried.

In literally decades of shooting film over a wide range of system, I can only think of the one incident I mentioned above of a defective lens. In that case it was a Pentax 100mm Macro which just would not focus. I took it back to the store where purchased and it was exchanged instantly. While I haven't used it in a very long time I still have that lens today. At the same time, I completely accept that technologies have changed and we all tend to look at things a bit more critically. I suspect if we were just judging from the prints we did in the past, a very large percentage of those items deemed defective would show little or no sign of being less than great.

I still stand by what I said above...I'd never bother with going through -7- copies of lenses to find a good one. I just have better things to do with my time I suppose. Case in point, if there were any sign of my newly acquired 12-40/2.8 lens being defective, I'd simply return it all and stick with what I had while looking at alternatives. Maybe my standard is tougher than some others but in the age of modern mfg processes, I just expect it to work.

M

millsart wrote:
Its very strange how people who use their equipment to simply take actual photos always seem to be so "lucky" in getting "good" copies of a lens, and those who obsessively shoot brick walls and rulers always seem to be so "unlucky".

I remember back in my DPR days all the poor unlucky souls who kept going through copy after copy of a lens (until finally having their accounts at Amazon et al, closed due to excessive returns) and always posting a bunch of 100% crops of dollar bills etc taped to the wall and asking "does this look sharp" or
...Show more




Oct 20, 2014 at 02:52 PM
corndog
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p.5 #13 · p.5 #13 · OM-D E-M1 Rolling Impressions


Wayyyyy too many variables to just lump everyone into two categories. I don't buy an 85L so I can focus on the air in front of someone's face, but who cares if it's off 6" at f/8 at infinity? It would be unwise to make blanket assumptions without knowing what type of shooting a person is doing and not even asking any questions to try and understand indicates one is just rolling with preconceived notions.


Oct 20, 2014 at 03:21 PM
galenapass
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p.5 #14 · p.5 #14 · OM-D E-M1 Rolling Impressions


Can't one just send a decentered lens in for realignment anyway? Do you really have to keep buying new ones?

I had a Canon 85 f/1.2 that was decenterd - just sent it in and it came back sharp. Not sure about Oly's support compared with Canon.



Oct 20, 2014 at 11:05 PM
millsart
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p.5 #15 · p.5 #15 · OM-D E-M1 Rolling Impressions


Obviously in the real world people don't always fit into tidy little boxes, however, spend enough time on internet photo forums (hours a day for years and years) and you can pretty easily start to observe patterns and make generalities.

If you want a lens to be defective, just keep on testing it long enough and you'll get your wish.

I've been there, done that. I used to have a bunch of newspaper clipping, dollar bills, and rulers at a 45 degree angle taped up in my den. I was a huge pixel peeper.

Stopped doing it and strangely all but one of my lens, out of the 100's I've bought and sold over the past few years (I'm on my 3rd RX1 for crying out loud lol) have been just fine. The 17-35 I had was quite visibly poor on one side with anything I shot.

So even with my highest resolution bodies like the D800e and A7r, in normal use, I've had no issues, nor have I had a single client ever complain about IQ or optical defects, and this is how I've solely earned my living for over 10 years now.

Do enough test, you'll find something wrong. Simple as that.

I'd personally rather spend all that time actually out shooting though, and if you do that, 99 times out 100 you won't even notice any issues with your images.

That is the nice thing about real life...it never seems to resemble a resolution chart or just a brick wall.

Heck, even if you do shoot a brick wall, its not like your going to get the laser rangefinder out and make sure your exactly perpendicular to it, then are you really going to flip your camera upside down and shoot it again, just so you can compare it to the shot the other orientation and try your very hardest to spot differences ?



Oct 20, 2014 at 11:40 PM
galenapass
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p.5 #16 · p.5 #16 · OM-D E-M1 Rolling Impressions


millsart wrote:
.... then are you really going to flip your camera upside down and shoot it again, just so you can compare it to the shot the other orientation and try your very hardest to spot differences ?


Hey, that's clever. I should give that a try.



Oct 20, 2014 at 11:53 PM
you2
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p.5 #17 · p.5 #17 · OM-D E-M1 Rolling Impressions


This depends on the company. There was some comment on the issue by Roger @ Lenstip. I can't remember but I think he noted one company was awful at this (Fuji??) and some were better. This is the arcile where they talk about their own special device for detecting decentering defects (kind of a neat device and a *lot* better than shooting paper clippings). No clue about olympus. I've only used them once for an em-5 shutter issue and the fix was very fast and it seemed to work fine after the fix.
-


galenapass wrote:
Can't one just send a decentered lens in for realignment anyway? Do you really have to keep buying new ones?

I had a Canon 85 f/1.2 that was decenterd - just sent it in and it came back sharp. Not sure about Oly's support compared with Canon.





Oct 21, 2014 at 06:58 AM
KaaX
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p.5 #18 · p.5 #18 · OM-D E-M1 Rolling Impressions


I find Roger Cicala's observations about lens QC/quality to be very very useful. He's in a unique position to be able to test a statistically significant number of lenses, do it using proper equipment, and blog about it.

I don't buy multiple copies of lenses to test and then return all but the best one, but I exchanged a lens recently. It was the m43 Samyang (actually, Bower in my case) fisheye. I received it, took some pictures of foliage, and looked at the corners. They were worse than corners of images available online. So I exchanged the lens for a different copy and hey, the corners improved :-)



Oct 21, 2014 at 10:36 AM
corndog
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p.5 #19 · p.5 #19 · OM-D E-M1 Rolling Impressions


Well that AC adapter worked pretty decent. The prongs and hard stop face could be longer so that it doesn't kick out at an angle when plugged in, but it works just fine.

Looks like I need to return my E-M1 to Olympus for the rear dial fix. Does anyone have first hand experience returning for warranty repair when using a receipt that's not in your name? I'd expect them not to care, especially with the rear dial issue since it's clearly not an anomaly, but figured I'd check here first.



Oct 27, 2014 at 06:31 PM
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