is the E-M1 mark III better than the OM-1 ???

faunagraphy wrote:

tomrandall86 wrote:

faunagraphy wrote:

Paisley Park wrote:

I've been using both for a while now and I can confirm:

- E-M1 III has a more comfortable grip and better dials

Better dials, yes. Can't tell the difference on the grip ergonomics.

- better C-AF on the E-M1 III. I'm not joking.

No it is not. Even Four Thirds lenses focus almost as fast as native lenses with the OM-1.

Caveat - when I was getting used to the OM-1 I did miss some bird shots in thick foliage because Bird AI would focus on a twig. So my E-M1ii was working better. That problem was solved by assigning one button on the OM-1 to turn Subject Detect on/off.

Even the camera conspiracy guy found the E-M1 III had better AF

That's not saying much.

- Better menus on the E-M1 III. Yes, the older Olympus menus was linear with less sub menus. The new OM-1 menus has too many sub menus

- better HHHRS quality on the E-M1 III. Yes to me the HHHRS used to be better

- design: this one doesn't really matter but the E-M1 III is a better looking camera, it has sharp edges and looks retro. The OM-1 is round and looks a bit like Canon

- E-M1 III is silent. OM-1 has a faint hissing sound while on.

Not mine but I'm sure there's copy variation there.

With some thoughts, buying an E-M1 III or E-M1X at the current low prices might be better than buying an OM-1 .

If you do not shoot wildlife, you probably do not need the OM-1. If you shoot wildlife esp. birds, there's nothing that equals it except for the Z9, A1, R3 etc.

What about image quality and processing power? The speed of computationals like High Res / HHHR, new sensor giving a little bit better image quality. Coming from an E-M1 mark II, surely those things would be good to upgrade to if not a wildlife shooter?

Like you, I own the E-M1ii. I skipped the Mark iii and X because they did not offer a substantial improvement for my needs (I strongly considered getting the X for Bird AI but decided against it after I saw that it was not that effective - unlike the OM-1).

However since acquiring the OM-1 I've been able to play around with features that are missing from the E-M1ii.

Here's a photo I shot recently. It's a mediocre photo and I do not claim to be any good at shooting anything other than wildlife but I was playing around with the Live ND feature - so keep in mind that I had zero experience with using it (hadn't even read the manual).

Furthermore, this was taken from a moving ferry, and the cruise ship itself was moving. Despite that, in this one frame (out of two) the cruise ship turned out to be reasonably sharp. I was trying to show movement with a slow shutter speed + ND 64 and I think it did a fine job.

It doesn't take long to process the image either. I watched a video comparing processing times for OM-1 vs E-M1iii and the Mark iii takes around 3x longer if I remember correctly - 12 sec instead of 4-5 on the OM-1. Numbers aside, it is definitely more usable.

So to answer your question, yes it will open up new ways of shooting even if you do not shoot wildlife, but I cannot say how much of a difference it will make because I rarely shoot anything other than animals.

Nice! So how are you finding the image quality of things you regularly shoot compared to your old EM-1 mk II? I know it's not vastly improved, but some minor things are meant to be a little better aren't they.