Final OM1 Review by an Astrophotographer 

As an Olympus user, I have been watching your videos for some time and I am always impressed by the wealth of your knowledge and experience. Thank you for sharing.

Probably your best summation ever. I found similar results and have same impressions. I appreciate you going to the trouble to quantify the differences so people like me can know if our impressions are merely subjective or if our results are simply anecdotal. Obviously my impressions and better results have some degree of quantifiable backup thanks to you. And for wildlife I’m also seeing a two stop improvement overall, especially in color accuracy at high iso and in sports where there is less details (no fur or feathers) even up to 25600 is possible with post processing. Below 12800 I really don’t need denoise software beyond Lightroom as long as exposure is in the money and not too much cropping.

I've watched a lot of camera reviews, far too many. Yours is set apart by the depth and the nuances you share; those I don't hear anyone else talk about. Really great work! Thank you for sharing with the community

Love your enthusiasm, talent and dedication to this subject and channel! I'm just getting into Astrophotography and have an EM1X, and am looking forward to exploring with it in the coming years. I don't have the *time* element of the equation right now, so don't want to over-invest, so though the OM1 is tempting, i'll just master what i have first ;).

I´m always very fascinated by your knowledge....even if I don`t really undestand most of it.

The difference between the OM1 and EM1x is actually quite impressive (for astrophotography at least). You can especially see the benefits of the OM1 when you show the two images stretched side by side.

Great footage! Yes, the different in IQ between my OM-1 and EM1.3 is noticeable. I am not into astro but your video are always well worth watch. Happy New Year and all the best for 2023 to you.

very cool video, thanks for making and sharing it. the Pen-F vs mono astro cam comparison sounds like it'll be very interesting.

With regard to battery life - I used to shoot wedding videos and always used a DC coupler. They can be fed by a mains transformer or a usb power bank if you need to be mobile or dont have mains power access. Also because no power is going through a battery it helps a lot with overheating issues. This has worked fine with my previous Panasonic cameras and most recently on my EM5 iii. I stress tested it on the Olympus with a power bank for 6 hours hours of continuous video and stopped the test at that point. The only slight downside is that you lose weather sealing but that's not likely to be an issue for most people...

When I shot my first Ski races as a teenager, my mentor on the mountain, kept all our batteries in our pants. Nikon even had a cable to a battery adapter, so you could locate the battery in a warm place, which turned out to be my crotch, between my thighs. I remember thinking, "so this is what an assistant does!" But, the battery kept power, and my body heat kept the battery warm, despite 5 degree weather outside. 35 years later I had a group of students out on a bitterly cold morning for a shoot for Olympus, and one battery kept dying, so I put the battery in my mouth (it was sealed) till it warmed up and my camera went back to working long enough for the shoot. My students thought I was nuts, but I heard later that they soon started keeping spare batteries in their front pockets to stay warm as per my suggestions. Ah.. the joys of battery technology vs. cold weather! I loved your video, great to see the differences in the sensors. Thorough, succinct, and informative!

Great great great review!!! I agree with photos it is an improvement as you’ve shown! For my uses personally I don’t see that benefit though. Now in terms of video it is both superior and annoyingly limited. While it’s better than the past models it still doesn’t have features from a 5 year old GH5. Also oh man thank you for touching on the eye cup! I’ve broken so many of those and I’ve upgraded both my eye cups OM-1 and E-M1.2 to the bigger 3rd party which is much nice against my eyes when I’m wearing glasses! Thanks for this video! It’s the best real world OM-1 review!

Great Video - although I'm not into astro, your videos have so much good information, must watch definitely

I really appreciate the very very detailed and interesting information. I don't own a camera yet... but almost nobody will tell you in detail what is like to use that camera... so this is really useful for me, just to tell if I would like that camera or not

Great video. Lots of interesting information Ben. Thanks for making this.

Great summation, and yes the OM-1 sensor is better for Astro than the previous sensor in the E-M1 Mark III or E-M1 X.

A review with facts is rare on RU-vid. Very useful. Has your OM1 or your EM1X been astro modified by removing the infra-red filter?

Charging a Li-ion battery if it's below freezing will still cause lithium plating that will permanently degrade its capacity and could eventually cause it to short circuit and explode/start a fire. I wouldn't want a battery to still charge at -20 C, unless that's just the ambient temp and the battery itself is warmer. Bear in mind aftermarket batteries often fake their temperature sensors and will report to the camera that they're a nice healthy temperature at all times, even if they're below freezing.

Please do a system diagram and explaining of your setup - I know you’re an engineer and you are a good one I can see

Might be worth making a cage for the OM1 with a blower to maintain temperature. Or IDK, that Peltier cooler that you were tinkering a few months back might just be the solution; use the waste heat that it pumps out to warm up the exterior and maybe trick the sensor that it's still warm outside? IDK really hahaha. I wish we can slap on that Olympus badge over the OM one; the gravitas of the name is really irreplacable. And what are those adapters between the 1x field flattener and the camera itself? Nice work here, hope the SV550 review comes out soon (well, too late for me hahaha - I got one myself and now just waiting for clear skies and that 1x flattener. I don't trust the 2in nosepiece port to hold up stuff heavier than a diagonal and an eyepiece). Clear skies, clean glass!

Looking forward to your review of the OM-1 Mk II

Thanks... 👌🏻👍🏻👍🏻🙏🏻 👋🏻🙋🏻‍♂️

Thank you sharing this information

Very impressed with the pics you got using the om1

Narrowband Channel..great video! By any chance, are you also a hunter? Cuz i have alot of Kuiu gear as well.

I would be most interested in your future review regarding the Orion camera in this video compared to the same sensor in the Pen F. Would removing the IR filter in a Pen F be a good suggestion? Thanks for your always thorough and complete research, so clearly organized and presented.

Good work!

Sounds like some of Foveon's technology. Then again, a dedicated B&W sensor gets rid of the Bayer sensor array.

Nice one 👍

While I haven't seen what happens in sub freezing temps, I find if you put a fully charged battery(s) in the OM-1 then run continuous power from USB or just a good power bank, it never drains anything from the internal battery(s) so it's not trying to charge it - would that avoid the temp cutoff problem? . And that leads to the idea someone else recently suggested of running a single battery in the HLD-10, leave the body empty for better cooling in warm weather for any kind of shooting, and power from USB for astro. I'm easily seeing the improvements in the OM-1 for astro and wildlife vs the M1X & M1.3.

There are numerous reports of failing dials (back one mostly) on om1

Have you tried an aftermarket battery to see if it will charge in low temperatures. BTW, I found a nice USB charger adapter for my Milwaukee 18v power tools. It gives me a lot of power in a light package.

Can you list the telescopes, adapter to mount the OM-1, etc. that you use with this video? I'm getting an OM-1 soon. Thanks!

Is the camera noise low enough such that we don't need Darks any more, especially if stacking enough Lights (like 100 or more ) ?

Hey Ben, I noticed your images were exposed for 120 seconds. How did you do that. I use the intervalometer and it gives me a max duration of 60 seconds only. I trigger the camera with the oi share app.

Nice hat

Please list a reference to the power charger you reference for the EM1x

I noticed the OM-1 photo has more green tint in the side by side comparison with E-M1x. Is that an accurate representation of the scene, or an unwanted color shift?

Take a shot every time you hear him swallow his spit