Olympus OMD-EM5 Mark II In Depth Discussion 

+Mazen Hawwa Thanks Mazen. We will try that! - jw

+Reinhard Becker thanks for those tips. We'll have to try the DOF preview thing! - jw

I own a Sony A7, currently thinking of switching to Olympus. Do u find yourself missing the depth of field from full frame camera?

Maggie Bear yeah I would say that is the one thing I do occasionally want from the em5ii which is now my personal camera of choice. You can get shallow depth of field. But it is a little harder with a normal lens for instance. With portrait focal lengths you will be ok. Just at a 35mm or 50mm equivalent it's harder. There is the Olympus 25 1.2 which you can check out our review on though.

TheCameraProject she didnt ask you .....

+bajigurwedangronde It tooks us a while to figure out that there is a mode in the EM5II that can do that. Thanks to commenters here for helping us figuring it out.

Daniel Haschar we are still trying to get our hands on it! But hopefully soon

+Lyndon Smith Good point about studio shooting and modeling lights. I also like to shoot pretty wide open too, especially on that camera / m4/3. That said, I would think someone who mainly does landscape work might welcome the opportunity to see live DOF preview because they want everything sharp in focus. -josh

It would be fairly good for vlogging. You can flip the screen around so that you can see yourself. The autofocus in video is decent, but not amazing. The battery life is decent, certainly not like that of a DSLR, but you can get third party batteries very cheaply. I think it's a decent video camera in general and should fit the needs of someone doing online content.

+Zorel1 It all depends on what you want in a camera? Touchscreen? Video? Shallowest depth of field? Smallest sized body? Best grip? For me personally, I bought an EM-5II... so that was my choice. But there are tons of factors. What do you you shoot? What do you value in a camera? -Josh

+palletjack612 I agree!

More Alison-time!

+Nopefully Interesting, glad to hear it. I'd love to test out the GX8 and see how they implement it. -Josh

+TheCameraProject actually the gx7 gh series and the gx8 allow a constant real exposure update that shows the dof and shutter effect constantly. Its called live exposure oreview i believe. the gx7 for some reason (a glitch) stops updating the effect after shutter speed hits 1/1000

i responded on the other video.

+Leif Sikorski Thanks. Can't believe I missed that as I did check the manual for a lot of my other questions on the camera. -JW

TheCameraProject If I wouldn't have known that this function exists from an earlier E-M1 firmware changelog I wouldn't have found it either. The advantage of pdf manuals is that we can search through it, but because Olympus decided to use an icon instead of just calling it "dof" the search function was useless.

+Leif Sikorski Interesting, maybe that was why I couldn't find it! Thanks again and to the other people who pointed this out. There may be an E-M5II in my future! I wish they could fix that pesky minimum shutter speed in auto-iso thing though. -JW

+TheCameraProject A better Auto ISO customization would be great.

+andrei put i don't have the camera but i think it's the heart and diamond symbol in the Super Control Panel.

+Conrad Smart very cool. i do own one now, but haven't tested with the ninja blade yet. What do you think about stabilization on vs off for video? - josh

+TheCameraProject personally if I do have it on I would just have the sensor stability on as I find with the digital stability on it can tend to look warped. I would definitely recommend the Ninja Blade with it as you get the Pro res. oh and a quick tip if you do use the blade. once connected to blade and your all set up and ready to record, to get rid of the display outputting from the camera into the Ninja Blade just hold down the "info" for a few seconds. took me a few hours to figure that out lol. I will be putting up a video later with the combination of both and could post link on here once up if you would like to see how they work together.

+TheCameraProject personally if I do have it on I would just have the sensor stability on as I find with the digital stability on it can tend to look warped. I would definitely recommend the Ninja Blade with it as you get the Pro res. oh and a quick tip if you do use the blade. once connected to blade and your all set up and ready to record, to get rid of the display outputting from the camera into the Ninja Blade just hold down the "info" for a few seconds. took me a few hours to figure that out lol. I will be putting up a video later with the combination of both and could post link on here once up if you would like to see how they work together.

+TheCameraProject personally if I do have it on I would just have the sensor stability on as I find with the digital stability on it can tend to look warped. I would definitely recommend the Ninja Blade with it as you get the Pro res. oh and a quick tip if you do use the blade. once connected to blade and your all set up and ready to record, to get rid of the display outputting from the camera into the Ninja Blade just hold down the "info" for a few seconds. took me a few hours to figure that out lol. I will be putting up a video later with the combination of both and could post link on here once up if you would like to see how they work together.

+TheCameraProject personally if I do have it on I would just have the sensor stability on as I find with the digital stability on it can tend to look warped. I would definitely recommend the Ninja Blade with it as you get the Pro res. oh and a quick tip if you do use the blade. once connected to blade and your all set up and ready to record, to get rid of the display outputting from the camera into the Ninja Blade just hold down the "info" for a few seconds. took me a few hours to figure that out lol. I will be putting up a video later with the combination of both and could post link on here once up if you would like to see how they work together.

+Ganec100 we did try hitting the shutter right before and still, it was slow to wake up. The camera had the latest firmware at the time of review, we did check. - jw

yeah, i think what you are hearing is stabilization, but focus noise also depends on the lens itself. You will get different results depending on what lens. You can try turning off image stabilization to see if it gets quieter so at least you know where the noise is coming from.

+Ninja Monkey yeah, that is disappointing.

+Hans Lewinnek We are trying to get our hands on that one soon! Stay tuned and subscribe to make sure you don't miss that. -JW

I believe for this video it was Jay on a GH2. Alison on a 5DMII. Josh on the EM5II. That said, both Jay and Alison were in rooms with more natural light, which explains the more pleasing color pallette. As for the saturation, the EM5II, now has a flat color mode which would certainly cut back on any over saturation.

TheCameraProject Thanks for the swift reply! Much appreciated. BTW - Alison is a great addition to this channel. Josh and her have a great dynamic. Is Jay still involved? Thanks again

Thanks! Jay moved out to Denver, but still helps on the beer and a shot episodes. He'll also be in an upcoming episode!

In the custom menu (gear icon), go to menu K Utility. Then go to Quick Sleep Mode. Set it to off.

Thanks guys I was only 12 mins into the video any you solved my problem - you guys rock.

awesome man! glad we could help!

+noeggi fuji gives you live DOF but only at the half press of the shutter button. I do think that is a nice compromise though. Perhaps the best of both worlds. Shallow DOF for best focusing and allowing light into the camera, and DOF preview on half shutter press. -JW

m43 does. Almost all m43 cams do. They need to disable live view boost on the em5 mark II. Live exposure preview first appeared in m43 on the gh1 i believe

+TheCameraProject or you can just have it like the sony a7 series and have the option of having it always on, or left off until you push a button. there is no benefit or logic to simply restricting it to one method, as it simply gives the user less control over how they shoot, which is pretty dumb for such a camera with so many manual controls for everything else.

+Edward Cavendish Alison did most of the edit on this one! Glad you like it.

if you compare it to a dslr sure. but compared to other mirrorless cameras, its not amazing, but its respectable. a battery should last you a casual day out shooting on a trip, but not a day at a photo shoot in studio. i recommend having a couple of backup batteries just in case, but that said, i've never used more than 2 in a day.

+edshotsdotcodotuk true, good point. but of course that would be an extra step to get it out of the camera.

yeah, it would be nice, but we tested the pen-f and really the extra resolution doesn't do that much in practice. It's nice to have for subtle cropping differences, but not hugely significant.

+si curt good tip. and yeah, i actually wound up buying the 14-150 as a travel walk around, but recently did purchase the 12-40 as well and just have to hold it that way.

Yup, we didn't realize that at the time. If you search the camera's manual for it, you won't find anything, because they put it under a symbol instead of actually writing out searchable words, depth of field preview. Our mistake.

The menu is quite though and I don't know why but camera manuals are quite bad in general. I always have to search for tutorials for a lot of stuff... I have a panasonic G7 and an omd em10 and the Panasonic's menu is more intuitive. Nice channel and videos by the way, keep the good work!

+Cristiano Baruffaldi But maybe I need to wait for the E-M1 mark ii.Why do you say that is my camera? -Josh

+Josh Because it has many of the features that you didn't find in the E-M5II. For me this could be the right M43 camera for you!

+Cristiano Baruffaldi interest, which ones?

Integrated grip, so you don't lose the access to the battery, better balancing using pro lenses and a dedicated depth of field button. It is a more "reflex" mirrorless.

+Cristiano Baruffaldi well the em5ii has a DOF preview button too. My point was that there should be a mode where it will automatically show DOF instead of having to hit the button for it. At very least, at a half shutter press as an option. As for the grip, that would be very much appreciated on the EM5ii

+Pandabilt1 It's not that I can't push a DOF preview button, its just that without the mirror I didn't understand the reasoning for it. That said, after spending some more time with the camera, I do realize that it focuses faster especially in low light, when DOF preview is off, because it is using its widest aperture. I also shot with a Nikon for years, and also really love the look and feel of the OMD's. If you watch our first part of this review, you'll see that we really loved the camera. In fact, I liked it so much that shortly after shooting this review, I replaced (or more accurately added to) my Nikon kit with this camera. And with that said, I haven't shot with my Nikon since purchasing the EM5ii. -Josh

No reason for it to be killing you! It's a setting. Go to custom menu/e/iso-auto and change it from p/a/s to ALL.

TheCameraProject i know, but you'll still unable to set exposure compensation in manual mode

Allah Turbo Exposure compensation is for P/Auto mode. In Manual mode YOU control every aspect. For the right exposure to set up you have a light meter on the screen.

+RELATECASTS Interesting. Yeah, that grip is tiny, but the stabilization is one of a kind!

Not sure why you think this would be awful. Sony does this. Fuji also does this with every half press of the shutter button. Olympus as we later found out allows you do this as well as a menu option. It's just a little hard to find. Yes there can be downsides like slower focus in low light but the advantage is knowing the exact Depth of field of your image.

Just to qualify "Not my kind of review" ... I meant the communal type of review where noticing the subject (the item being reviewed) gets more clouded with 3 presenters personalities on board. Other than that - great review and kudos for trying the new format.

+CYPHER MOTE Cypher, if you watch our channel intro, we state that we are NOT pro photographers, in that none of us earn a direct living for photography. That said, all 3 of us went to film school, for motion picture, and have all been paid at one point or another in our lives to do photo shoots, just not our day to day income. In terms of the 40MP mode, we do realize it is meant at still targets, and for studio type subjects, it is effective, but pretty much anything outside the studio, including still landscapes there are some issues. When talking about the moving car shot, jay was exploring creative use of the feature, and found the look to be interesting, which is why he featured it. This actually isn't our full review of the camera, it is our secondary follow-up to our review, so check that out if you have yet to see it. The channel is definitely aimed at advanced amateurs, but I'm sure there are things certain pros might get out of the review. So if you are talking about P&S type features, and mean including a flash on the camera or having a minimum shutter speed setting in auto-iso, yes, perhaps those are not something a pro would use in a studio shoot, but a travel photographer, or street photographer might. It''s all relative to the type of shooting you do, and to the target audience for a camera. A $1200 micro 4/3 camera (now $850), doesn't have the same audience as a Nikon D4s or Canon 1DX. That's not saying a pro can't shoot with this camera, it's just saying that probably isn't the target audience of this camera. Anyway, we do appreciate the feedback and glad you like the format. -Josh

you are correct, but i was saying perhaps i missed it, and also added it to the comments and description once other users pointed it out. as a reviewer sometimes you only get a couple weeks with a camera and because olympus uses an icon in the menu system to represent this instead of words, it was tricky. That said, I've owned this camera for over 3 years now and my questions was more comparing to sony's always on version of this, where by default sony's always show DOF without hitting an extra button.

Stephen Brasure well this was our discussion and not our review. Alison hadn’t had as much time with the camera as jay and I. As for dof preview we acknowledge our Mistake in the description. However it is pretty poor menu when this is only represented with an icon and not with the words depth of field preview. We aren’t prefect but we did loook for a while for that feature and regardless we were saying we like the constant dof preview like in the song system.

+Robert LeBlanc - with Menu\Det.camera.option\Button.dial.lever setting - you can set 2 alternative assignment for the 2 dials and quickly switch them by 'lever' so you CAN HAVE 4 DIALS - Fn/Shuter/ISO/WB

Glinca Vit Would it not have been prudent to set a dial for ISO by default?

+Robert LeBlanc Or you want the ISO dial (see your first comment) or not? - it is your decision. In this camera you have many possible way to do whatever you need. You can set any button for selecting ISO. You can set the ISO to auto mode for every shooting modes or except the manual mode. You can set max/min ISO for auto ISO mode. You can save up to 4 custom settings for all camera options and fast reload them. So what ather you need?

Glinca Vit And yet, again, none of those scenarios are the default setting, which is my point as to Olympus' weak attempt at a modern day OM.

+Robert LeBlanc It only counts if it's the default setting? That's one of the weirdest complaints I've ever heard. It takes all of 5 seconds to set it up however you want.

haha, we are photography enthusiasts. We all have film degrees and work in the tv industry and photography is a very serious hobby for us. we review cameras, do challenges, travel, and have fun.

yes they do, that and live time are both fantastic!

I’m struggling to find ANY YT videos which even mention these features which is part of why I want it