I looked at it yesterday and was pleasantly surprised; I figured it would be quite good but it exceeded my expectations.
My only concern is how I will like the 12-50, have only found a couple of reviews of it and it looks to be firmly in the "kit lens" group performance wise. The weathersealing is a huge plus though--at least until some decent primes are available with it--so went ahead and got the kit anyway since it did not add nearly as much to the price as the lens would bought separately.
It uses the same (or very similar) sensor to the GX1 (which is itself essentially the same as the G3, but tweaked), which is performance wise a little better than the GH2 at high ISO (though perhaps slightly worse at low ISO, but I own both and I'll be darned if I can see a lick of difference even at 100% at low ISO). Olympus normally gets a little better performance out of the same sensor as Panasonic does, so it would be believable that the E-M5 would outperform the GX1 a bit.
It's very hard to tell from JPEGs alone, but the E-M5 does look to be best in class for Micro 4/3 from those samples. It will be interesting to see direct comparisons. The GX1 is surprisingly good at high ISO. It's not going to challenge a 5D II or something, but it's quite good. I find ISO 6400 usable for 8x10 prints and even 12,800 is usable for that size if you don't mind visible grain.
I still remember shooting with 40D and 85/1.8 is mild rain a few years ago. None is weather sealed and yet, nothing happened. I have no idea how this set will fare in heavy rain because in these times I stay at home.
See, I like to e.g. be able to just put the camera down in a snow pile when out in the winter. Usually the 7D and 24-105 is used at these times, but my intent is for the new cam to take over those duties.
Those images look very highly treated, already at ISO320. Don't care about the noise,
but I don't like the fake painting look at such low ISO...
Other two samples, iceberg and watch, are looking quite horrible to be honest.
OMD is shaping up to be as overhyped as any other Oly camera.
"best video ever" - there is no option for 24p even, "best image quality" - we can see that
I guess "fastest AF" is gonna be really fast..
It's a shame as the lenses they are starting to introduce are really interesting for
a small system. They seem to take advantage of the small size potential and it's never gonna happen for NEX.
But that sensor s@cks to be honest.
Robin Wong's three part field test, to quote from his review:
What I wish the lens could have been:
1) Wider aperture. I agree with the online crowd, F6.3 on the 50mm end is a too slow for many practical shooting conditions. I do not expect it to be constant F2.8, but a slightly brighter F3.5-4.5 from 12mm to 50mm would have made a whole world of difference.
2) Manual focus/Autofocus switch. Now that the lens has two dedicated buttons (one for macro and one for focus lock), it would have been very useful to have a quick switch AF/MF button on the lens itself.
3) Lens sharpness. While I agree that the lens performs well in close up/macro shooting, delivering good sharpness and resolution, but the overall details captured in most shooting conditions is nothing to write home about. To be fair the 12-50mm lens is noticeably sharper than the previous iterations of 14-42mm kit lenses, but it is still not nearly as sharp as the older DSLR lenses such as Zuiko 14-54mm or 12-60mm, both have been legendary.
snowboarder wrote:
Those images look very highly treated, already at ISO320. Don't care about the noise,
but I don't like the fake painting look at such low ISO...
Other two samples, iceberg and watch, are looking quite horrible to be honest.
OMD is shaping up to be as overhyped as any other Oly camera.
"best video ever" - there is no option for 24p even, "best image quality" - we can see that
I guess "fastest AF" is gonna be really fast..
It's a shame as the lenses they are starting to introduce are really interesting for
a small system. They seem to take advantage of the small size potential and it's never gonna happen for NEX.
But that sensor s@cks to be honest....Show more →
I doubt the sensor truly sucks, but I agree with the JPEG processing. Thing is, I don't think I've seen an OOC JPEG that I like on any high MP camera. They all look like crap to me. RAW files can be vastly different (and even JPEGs can be really different when the parameters are tweaked). I'd reserve judgement on the sensor until we see the RAWs. The JPEGs out of my GX1 generally stink too (I just hate JPEG compression artifacts, and it seems every camera I look at generates them), but the RAWs are really nice.
Agree with you on the video....
Fastest AF is said to be 40% faster than the fastest pro-level DSLR autofocus. That is a claim I have no trouble believing, at least for single shot. I have found my GH2 and GX1 to autofocus in single shot mode with a fast lens noticeably faster than any DLSR I've ever used. Well, exactly the same speed as my 1Ds II with 70-200 f/2.8L IS II in good light and dramatically faster in lower light vs. any USM lens I ever owned. It is extremely quick. Since the E-M5 reads out at 240fps vs 120fps on the E-P3 and GX1, I would imagine additional speed would certainly be possible. Though how much faster it can get remains to be seen, considering how quick it already is. In general use, the AF on the newest micro 4/3 cameras is essentially instant with the faster focusing lenses (Olympus MSC lenses and the HD Panasonic lenses).
