Thanks MM. Right now I am trying to familiarize myself with the E-M1.2.
Although I still have and use an E-M5, E-M1, and E-M5.2 the E-M1.2 is sufficiently different with its own bugs or shall we call 'em features. I finally figured out how to use focus magnify.
I'll see whether this is really useful. It might be if the overall composition doesn't matter.
So far the original E-M5 has been holding up very well. No repairs necessary.
The outer cover of the E-M1 is separating and needs to be glued back on. But the camera itself works fine.
The E-M5.2 with PBH seems to have made 2 memory cards unuseable when I shot long video sequences and apparently it didn't switch over correctly when one battery was exhausted. I never had such a problem with the E-M5/1. So the E-M5.2 with PBH has to be sent in.
I find the fast AF-C of the E-M1.2 really impressive. In the summer Bandelier National Monument has the largest Turkey Vulture roost with up to 50 birds in NM. They can't make sounds like other birds. One can only hear them when they flap their wings. It's an incredible sight to see a very large number of them soaring just above the tree tops up and down the canyon. So far the OM-D cameras have been pretty much useless for me taking close up shots of the fast moving vultures right above my head. My hope is that the improved focus speed and focus direction without hunting of the E-M1.2 will rectify the problem.
The Sony A7r.2 is currently my favorite camera for general type photography, in part because the TechArt Pro autofocus adapter lets me use my Leica M rangefinder lenses with autofocus. Therefore my interest in what Sony will come up with next.
I have/do use this same plate interchangeably in my E-M1 II, E-M1, E-M5 II, Pen F, and Pen PL7. The only thing I don't use it on is the Pl100-400 for which I have another longer Kirk plate.
I just bought a used 6" Acratech plate for my 300/4 PRO lens, so I can attach a flash bracket and mount this to the Wimberley Sidekick for perfect balance. Acratech sells a number of used plates so you don't always have to buy them new.
gary0319 wrote:
Good tip,
I have/do use this same plate interchangeably in my E-M1 II, E-M1, E-M5 II, Pen F, and Pen PL7. The only thing I don't use it on is the Pl100-400 for which I have another longer Kirk plate.
As a bystander, I want to compliment the many great captures that can be found through these 60 pages. Not only is the new Oly performing, the folks behind the Oly are showing their skills. It is very hard to tell from shots posted on the net so I would like to ask one question. How is the sensor doing at rendering blue sky at base to 400 ISO ? When I took a brief run with Micro 4/3 there were a LOT of things I really liked and this new body looks like a powerhouse! Having said that on the previous Oly sensor I had real difficulty with blue sky even at base ISO. I always felt like it was grainy or at least not smooth. It very well may have been my lack of PP ability but I wanted to ask what you folks were seeing at full resolution on your screens at home?
Thank you for any comments that anyone may care to make!
Sincerely,
Greg
rxgolf wrote:
As a bystander, I want to compliment the many great captures that can be found through these 60 pages. Not only is the new Oly performing, the folks behind the Oly are showing their skills. It is very hard to tell from shots posted on the net so I would like to ask one question. How is the sensor doing at rendering blue sky at base to 400 ISO ? When I took a brief run with Micro 4/3 there were a LOT of things I really liked and this new body looks like a powerhouse! Having said that on the previous Oly sensor I had real difficulty with blue sky even at base ISO. I always felt like it was grainy or at least not smooth. It very well may have been my lack of PP ability but I wanted to ask what you folks were seeing at full resolution on your screens at home?
Thank you for any comments that anyone may care to make!
Sincerely,
Greg...Show more →
I live in Florida, USA. I find that I get more grainy sky due to the humidity then noise from the sensor. If we have low humidity the blue is pretty much noise free up to ISO 640. Even ISO 1600 and 2500 are fine with just a pinch of NR in post.
I doubt this image will be anyone's cup of tea. Playing with Pro Capture with the 40-150/2.8 as macro rig. Big bass speaker with Suran wrap, Laga Gaga blasting away, paint applied-
One of the "problems" with m43 cameras that I often read about and that kept me from trying the format before now, was that the high-ISO performance was just not that good. Since my primary photographic interest is nature and wildlife, high-ISO performance is fairly important. The a7rII is a very good high-ISO camera, and I wondered how the E-M1.2 compared against it at ISO 3200. I rarely ever shoot higher than that, and even ISO 3200 represents less than 10% of the total images that I've ever taken.
To satisfy my curiosity, I did a quick, unscientific experiment I did last night. Now, I know you're not supposed to compare a high-resolution, FF file at the pixel level with an m43 file, but I threw caution to the wind and did just that. I shot a dimly lit scene shot indoors with both cameras set to the same exposure parameters and with excellent lenses shot wide open. I tried to keep the framing as close to identical as I could, but I didn't have a plate to allow tripod mounting of the E-M1.2. I placed both cameras on a small stool for stability. Sony file was resized to same dimensions as Olympus file. No sharpening or NR applied (in-camera NR turned OFF).
The image below is a screenshot of my LR screen showing both files at 2:1. To my eye, it is fairly obvious that the Sony file is cleaner, but even with more noise, the Olympus file holds detail very well. If you step back from the screen and view from just a few feet back, the difference becomes even les noticeable. Pretty remarkable, I think.
That said, I don't believe I'll be giving up my full-frame cameras just yet. But I no longer believe that m43 cameras can't handle high-ISO situations.
ISO 4000, cropped to size then exported as jpg from LRCC, no post processing
Shot as part of a testing session shooting with the panasonic 100-400 in Shutter priority with Auto ISO, wide open, with shutter speed 1/1250th (which I need to overcome a tremor I have developed with age)
Thank you for this post Mitesh! The Mk II is supposed to be 1 stop better than the Mk I. I've set my Auto ISO upper ceiling at 6400. Most NR tools will do a good job of noise removal without sacrificing too much detail. Not over-processing and/or sharpening your images helps a great deal.
BTW did you have your "warm setting" turned on? I am surprised by the warm tone of the Mk II shot. I have found the Olympus OM-D Auto White Balance setting to be far superior to the Sony cameras. In the short period that I owned the A7 II and A7R II, I was very unimpressed with Sony's AWB.
Neither one of the 2 test images color temperature look right to me. It should be somewhere in-between.
mitesh wrote:
One of the "problems" with m43 cameras that I often read about and that kept me from trying the format before now, was that the high-ISO performance was just not that good. Since my primary photographic interest is nature and wildlife, high-ISO performance is fairly important. The a7rII is a very good high-ISO camera, and I wondered how the E-M1.2 compared against it at ISO 3200. I rarely ever shoot higher than that, and even ISO 3200 represents less than 10% of the total images that I've ever taken.
To satisfy my curiosity, I did a quick, unscientific experiment I did last night. Now, I know you're not supposed to compare a high-resolution, FF file at the pixel level with an m43 file, but I threw caution to the wind and did just that. I shot a dimly lit scene shot indoors with both cameras set to the same exposure parameters and with excellent lenses shot wide open. I tried to keep the framing as close to identical as I could, but I didn't have a plate to allow tripod mounting of the E-M1.2. I placed both cameras on a small stool for stability. Sony file was resized to same dimensions as Olympus file. No sharpening or NR applied (in-camera NR turned OFF).
The image below is a screenshot of my LR screen showing both files at 2:1. To my eye, it is fairly obvious that the Sony file is cleaner, but even with more noise, the Olympus file holds detail very well. If you step back from the screen and view from just a few feet back, the difference becomes even les noticeable. Pretty remarkable, I think.
That said, I don't believe I'll be giving up my full-frame cameras just yet. But I no longer believe that m43 cameras can't handle high-ISO situations....Show more →
Never tried a Sony, simply because of all the negative comments I have heard from wildlife photographers about how they preferred Nikon or Canon. High ISO performance and/or IQ can be of secondary importance if the camera is not that capable of capturing the image in the first place. Wildlife and sports photography requires a different set of camera criteria than that of landscape or studio photography.
So far, I have been happy with ISO 3200 & 6400 from the Oly, when I have to use it.
ISO 4000, cropped to size then exported as jpg from LRCC, no post processing
Shot as part of a testing session shooting with the panasonic 100-400 in Shutter priority with Auto ISO, wide open, with shutter speed 1/1250th (which I need to overcome a tremor I have developed with age)
bobbytan wrote:
Thank you for this post Mitesh! The Mk II is supposed to be 1 stop better than the Mk I. I've set my Auto ISO upper ceiling at 6400. Most NR tools will do a good job of noise removal without sacrificing too much detail. Not over-processing and/or sharpening your images helps a great deal.
Thanks for the additional details on the processing, Bobby. If accurate, a one stop improvement in high-ISO performance is astonishing. I was also reminded that it is a good habit to expose as far to the right as possible. With the Sony, I use Fred's Easy ETTR technique. In my simple test above, I actually shot three frames of the scene: the first at the camera's metered reading, the second at +1, and the third at +2. It is very apparent that as you increase exposure and pull back in post, the noise is less noticeable. If anyone would like to see those frames, I would be happy to post them.
Can anyone tell me if there a way to show highlight blinkies in Live View on the E-M1.2?
Imagemaster wrote:
Never tried a Sony, simply because of all the negative comments I have heard from wildlife photographers about how they preferred Nikon or Canon. High ISO performance and/or IQ can be of secondary importance if the camera is not that capable of capturing the image in the first place. Wildlife and sports photography requires a different set of camera criteria than that of landscape or studio photography.
So far, I have been happy with ISO 3200 & 6400 from the Oly, when I have to use it.
Yeah, you're right about that, Tony. Capturing the image is first and foremost. As I said, it was just curiosity to see how the m43 IQ holds up against what is supposed to be one of the best performing cameras. You're not likely to see me walking around looking for black bears with my Canon 800mm adapted to an a7rII.
thanks Mitesh, the mk2 is proving remarkably capable when it comes to shooting high ISO images, so long as I expose to the right and get focus spot on I'm getting usable images with ISO 5000 . I've just made a 16"x12" print from one which was cropped to 1500 pixels on the longest side, focused on the eyes with wide open aperture, the eyes were crisp and clean but the out-of-focus regions were noticeably more noisy. This makes me think a lot of the problems that I and others have had with high ISO images have been because focus and exposure (to the right) haven't been spot on
At its best I would not be surprised if its possible to get 1.5 stops benefit over EM-1 files with higher ISOs
Bubble wrote:
lol..i TRIED that with Nikon 800VR. it looks hilarious. I remember one bystander asked me why you shot with your lens only..where is the camera.
Only thing more ridiculous was when I stuck my a6300 on the 800mm. I swear people around me were laughing and pointing.
