OK, bird lovers... I bought the Mark II for other reasons and now I've sold it. The buyer is a happy student at a technology institute now playing with all the great features. I'll miss a couple of them. My loss his gain.
It is all my mistake; I bought the darn thing without checking some important things and discovered the problems during the first weeks of owning the camera.
Great camera no doubt. It didn't fit my hands and my brain though. My main problems was that I didn't find a way to make the camera work with the working aperture and that the release button has no pressure point after half pressing it. The last annoyance to mention here is that the camera doesn't react to adjustments of the control wheels unless lifted to the eye and hence the viewfinder activated. WTF? (I use viewfinders, not screens.)
All that is personal and I now blame myself for not checking this out better when fiddling with the camera in the store. Finding out about the focus shift in the 25/1.2 didn't help me trying to like the camera. I sold the lens as well.
I still have the original µ4/3 Panasonic G1 and an Olympus 17/1.8 lens - that's all the micro stuff I have now. I will no doubt come back one day. Perhaps when they make a Pen-F where you can assign the buttons and the levers to good functions rather than JPG-related and, for me, meaningless settings. Or a Panny G8 or similar with no shutter shock.
Jonas B wrote:
The last annoyance to mention here is that the camera doesn't react to adjustments of the control wheels unless lifted to the eye and hence the viewfinder activated. WTF? (I use viewfinders, not screens.)
I'm not sure about the other things, but it's not that the camera has to be lifted to the eye, but needs to be active for the wheels to change a setting. My Nikons are the same way. If the camera is on but I haven't touched the shutter release at all for a bit the camera goes into a sort of standby and changing the wheels has no effect. Just touching the release a little makes the camera aware again and I can change aperture or shutter speed or whatever with the controls. I like that, as it prevents accidentally changing things while just carrying the camera with it on and bumping the controls.
Hi Erich,
Maybe some setting prevented my controls? I could use the camera, change settings, lower it down, decide to turn the rear wheel one step or so and when lifting the camera to my eye again nothing had happened. Doesn't your MkII behave that way? With the same settings but using the LCD screen the controls worked (of course) in the same situation.
The DOF preview button can be set to sticky but you have to press it for every exposure. Very annoying, and more so considering the placement of the DOF button. Close to unusable for my right hand. The exposure button.... well, I'm sure many like the feeling of it but again, it is not for me.
All these, and a few more, details are small of course but they make up for the feeling of using the camera. As the MkII is great in so many ways I wish my hands and brain worked together with it.
It doesn't hurt to read the manaul before using the camera . If you didn't like the placement for DOf button, you could have assigned to whichever button you preffered. Even the On/OFF switch can be configured as a function button.
Jonas B wrote:
Hi Erich,
Maybe some setting prevented my controls? I could use the camera, change settings, lower it down, decide to turn the rear wheel one step or so and when lifting the camera to my eye again nothing had happened. Doesn't your MkII behave that way? With the same settings but using the LCD screen the controls worked (of course) in the same situation.
The DOF preview button can be set to sticky but you have to press it for every exposure. Very annoying, and more so considering the placement of the DOF button. Close to unusable for my right hand. The exposure button.... well, I'm sure many like the feeling of it but again, it is not for me.
All these, and a few more, details are small of course but they make up for the feeling of using the camera. As the MkII is great in so many ways I wish my hands and brain worked together with it....Show more →
Imagemaster wrote:
All buttons and wheels will change settings regardless of whether or not your eye is to the viewfinder.
You did not know how to use the camera properly.
Unless you have the screen turned in and eye sensor on which makes perfect sense. The camera logically assumes that you don't want to turn the rear wheel to adjust aperture for example if you can't see anything on the screen or in the viewfinder. Once you put your eye to the viewfinder then you can change settings. If you don't want this behavior then turn EVF Auto Switch to off and the EVF will remain on and you can change settings to your hearts content. Or keep the LCD open (with live view on or off) and you can then change settings to your hearts content whether looking at the EVF or not.
But, the short answer is what imagemaster said... you did not know how to use the camera properly and apparently didn't make much of an effort to do so because you could have gotten help on a forum here or elsewhere in about 5 minutes.
These are awesome Robert! Love the super-clean background. I would recommend that you shoot at f8 as far as possible, especially at 400mm, as this is the sweet spot so you will get better resolution/detail.
MedicineMan404 wrote:
Eastern Meadowlark shot from an insane distance while on a long hike in Florida-
Olympus E-M1MarkII
LEICA DG 100-400/F4.0-6.3
ƒ/6.3 400.0 mm 1/800 400 Flash (off, did not fire)
Thanks Bobby and Robert. Very interesting. Great images Robert!
Looking at the LensTip.com charts the Oly 300/4 Pro with MC-14 @ 1 stop below wide open should be able to deliver even better results, no? Of course, I am assuming no significant copy variation.
mitesh wrote:
C'mon, you're way past the "snap-shooter" level... we'll make a perfectionist and impossible-to-please bird photographer out of you yet, Robert!
Haha! Thanks Mitesh.....just having fun.
My favorite quote of all time -
'You're never too old to have a wonderful childhood!'
Yes, the sweet spot for the 300/4 PRO is 1 stop down from wide open or f5.6 ... with and w/o the MC-14.
k-h.a.w wrote:
Thanks Bobby and Robert. Very interesting. Great images Robert!
Looking at the LensTip.com charts the Oly 300/4 Pro with MC-14 @ 1 stop below wide open should be able to deliver even better results, no? Of course, I am assuming no significant copy variation.
Well, you guys have done and done it now, you pried my wallet open one more time. Amazon has the EM1.2 in stock if anyone is looking, but one less than they had 15 minutes ago...
Got some Sandisk Extreme cards to go with it, but saved a few bucks and got the "only" 90mb/s USH1 cards. Hopefully I don't regret that. I'm hopeful it will serve me well for quite a few years to come.
Kenmore Camera via eBay has them in stock too, and if you wait for the 8x or 10x eBay bucks promos, you will get $100 in eBay bucks which you can use to get an extra battery and an SD card . I got mine from them and received it in two days, shipped clear across the country!
mitesh wrote:
Kenmore Camera via eBay has them in stock too, and if you wait for the 8x or 10x eBay bucks promos, you will get $100 in eBay bucks which you can use to get an extra battery and an SD card . I got mine from them and received it in two days, shipped clear across the country!
How are you getting 8x or 10x eBay bucks promos? I've never received anything kind of promotion like that from eBay.
. If you didn't like the placement for DOf button, you could have assigned to whichever button you preffered. Even the On/OFF switch can be configured as a function button. 
