Upgrade Oly EM1iii to OM-1ii or Panasonic G9ii

James Stirling · Apr 17, 2024

gary0319 said:
James Stirling said:

gary0319 said:

James Stirling said:

gary0319 said:

Or….. perhaps there are now 45 people that will resist the urge to banter about this 2 stop goofiness, either for, or against.

Click to expand...

No I would suspect that a lot of them are the very folk who claimed miracles there has not been a 2 stop "jump" in the entirety of m43 history Just as Ricks posts stating absolutely inaccurate conclusions will get plenty of yay OM/Olympus fan support, facts be damned

As I pointed out the "goofiness " of still claiming it is perpetuating a lie based on misinformation from OM ambassadors ,OM technical experts and the slides from OM 's own websites . Always funny when the rush here is to defend the person making a stupid fact free claim, though sadly way too common

Reality

Not 2 stops

not even 1 stop

Fraction of a stop , "huge jump " I think not

gary0319 said:

I hadn’t checked back, but that 45 likes is surprising, thanks for pointing it out.

Click to expand...

There are a lot of OM/olympus defenders of the faith not really a surprise

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Actually Jim, I think there is currently way more forum space dedicated to bashing the 2 stop fallacy, then there is supporting it. I hope this has finally run its course and can be relegated to the annuls of bad press.

Click to expand...

Gary , you popped into this thread to basically criticise me for pulling up someone who made the 2 stop fallacy . The fact that folk still claim it and promote it to potential buyers is the issue not hurting the feelings of folk gullible enough to believe impossible jumps in image quality. Maybe you could aim some of your angst about the 2 stop fallacy at those promoting it

Click to expand...

Fair enough, and I do post the exact same excerpt from the press release whenever they show up. Skeeterbytes is stating his own experience and since I haven't done the same testing or examples, I cannot fault him.

Gary, still defending the OM fans no matter what

There are no shortage of unbiased controlled raw test images that absolutely prove that the OM-1 is nowhere near two stops better .

Your message seems to be a bit contradictory on one hand you are rightly pointing out that in normal shooting there is obviously not a 2 stop advantage and folk should not dare talk about it. Whilst on the other you are defending someone who is claiming that there is . Running with the hare and hunting with the hounds ?

I am not so happy with misinformation being promoted. If you bought an OM-1 expecting a 2 stop advantage that is being claimed you would be in for a lot of disappointment.

There has not been a 2 stop jump in high ISO in a generation within any sensor size , in fact you would struggle to find an honest 1 stop "jump" from generation to generation . Assuming comparing the best of each generation.

gary0319 said:
My personal experience is that I get at least 2 stops advantage when shooting night street scenes with HHHR.

Which is about what is expected through I tend to use the tripod mode the odd time I want that. No one is contesting the benefit of pixel shift shooting in the situations where it is usable

--
Jim Stirling:
“It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of truth.” Locke
Feel free to tinker with any photos I post

offtheback · Apr 17, 2024

Subtitle for this thread-"NITPICKING"

James Stirling · Apr 17, 2024

offtheback said:
Subtitle for this thread-"NITPICKING"

#FACT CHECKING

I concede I may have gone a bit too far

--
Jim Stirling:
“It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of truth.” Locke
Feel free to tinker with any photos I post

VinceC · Apr 18, 2024

Thanks for the feedback. My apologies about my error with my Oly 45mm - it is the lowly f1.8 (but a cracking lens nevertheless).

Yesterday I had a good play with a G9ii at my local WEX store in Leeds. It was unfortunatley tethered to a security device, which hampered the "feel" of it, but they did let me take some test shots and try my Oly 40-150 f4 on it, which performed fine. My observations were:

It's bigger than the OM1ii, but felt good in the hand. It was well balanced with a 12-60 Pana-Leica and my Oly 40-150 f4. It felt sturdy.

It's complicated!! But well laid out physically and in the menu, and quite intuitive.

The joystick was great - much more tactile and easy to use than on my EM1iii. The viewfinder was great - MUCH better than my EM1iii and without the pincushion of the original G9.

I took some shots at ISO 6400 and 12800. With only Lightroom processinf it was slighly noisier than my EM1iii at ISO 6400. But the noise was different, much more like film grain. At both ISOs it cleaned up very well with DXO Deep Prime, ISO 12800 looked as good as ISO 6400 on my EM1iii, so - to me - a stop advantage. Low ISO noise at least matched the Oly.

It is nearly £600 (GBP) ckeaper than the OM1ii (unless I go grey with HDew) and WEX also ofered me a good deal, so I'm tempted. With some caveats:

Living with the short battery life (and I need to add in the cost of more extra battries).

I believe I will lose the use of my dinky little, and very handy, Oly FL-LM3 Flash - is there a way round this - does the G9ii hot shoe have the fourth power contact?

Rafael Rivera · Apr 18, 2024

I'm thoroughly enjoying my G9II- took it with me to an IBU World Cup Biathlon event and took some wonderful photos of the athletes with the Panasonic 100-300mm II. While I was there, I was one of the professional photographers had a G9II also! To be fair, everyone else had a FF camera- primarily Canons. It's a fabulous camera and the best MFT camera I've ever owned- going back to the GH2/3, EM1, EM5, EM10, EM5 III, GM5, and GX8.

I have no issue with the battery. It helps that I have the nearly identical S5II which uses the identical battery pack, so I have an extra. Also I purchased Wasabi batteries since I've had nothing but good luck with them- inexpensive, work well. The days I was in Soldier Hollow for the biathlon events, I never went through more than one battery- but I did shut the camera off when I wasn't using it.

I may be mistaken, but I believe that little flash should work with the G9II. I could have sworn that I put on the small flash that came with my EM5 III and it fired. That said, if you like I can test it on Sunday when work lets up, and let you know.

Skeeterbytes · Apr 18, 2024

VinceC said:
Thanks for the feedback. My apologies about my error with my Oly 45mm - it is the lowly f1.8 (but a cracking lens nevertheless).

Yesterday I had a good play with a G9ii at my local WEX store in Leeds. It was unfortunatley tethered to a security device, which hampered the "feel" of it, but they did let me take some test shots and try my Oly 40-150 f4 on it, which performed fine. My observations were:

It's bigger than the OM1ii, but felt good in the hand. It was well balanced with a 12-60 Pana-Leica and my Oly 40-150 f4. It felt sturdy.

It's complicated!! But well laid out physically and in the menu, and quite intuitive.

The joystick was great - much more tactile and easy to use than on my EM1iii. The viewfinder was great - MUCH better than my EM1iii and without the pincushion of the original G9.

I took some shots at ISO 6400 and 12800. With only Lightroom processinf it was slighly noisier than my EM1iii at ISO 6400. But the noise was different, much more like film grain. At both ISOs it cleaned up very well with DXO Deep Prime, ISO 12800 looked as good as ISO 6400 on my EM1iii, so - to me - a stop advantage. Low ISO noise at least matched the Oly.

It is nearly £600 (GBP) ckeaper than the OM1ii (unless I go grey with HDew) and WEX also ofered me a good deal, so I'm tempted. With some caveats:

Living with the short battery life (and I need to add in the cost of more extra battries).

I believe I will lose the use of my dinky little, and very handy, Oly FL-LM3 Flash - is there a way round this - does the G9ii hot shoe have the fourth power contact?

Sounds promising. Can't directly link to the image, but the top view in the camera overview gallery shows that extra contact, so a "maybe" on powering the LM3.

Loading…

www.dpreview.com

Good luck!

Rick

whumber · Apr 18, 2024

gary0319 said:
James Stirling said:

Skeeterbytes said:

Whatever else, I'm one of evidently very few who routinely shoot the two cameras as a pair, sometimes in dire light. This is where that mythical two stops becomes very real as I can keep shooting a 2.8 zoom on one while swapping in a 1.2 or 1.8 prime on the other. Wouldn't do so if the files were not usable.

Truly game-changing.

Click to expand...

sure everyone else is wrong including OM systems who eventually explained that the two stops thing was only possible with multi shot pixel shift shooting

Click to expand...

Actually that piece you highlighted was from OMDS original press release Feb 15, 2022. I suspect it was only some poor-reading fan boy that went off the rails with the 2 stops news…. that wasn’t. And then the OMDS detractors, went ballistic without ever checking for the source of the fake news. Sounds like our current political situation here in the US.

Press Release

That said, I can comfortably shoot my OM-1/II at much higher ISO than I could with my E-M1 III that preceded it. Two stops with out HHHR might be a stretch, but definitely a big jump.

You keep saying this but that's not at all what happened. The OM system ambassadors went around stating that the image sensor was resulting in a two stop improvement. It was even in the official marketing slides they distributed. Please stop trying to rewrite history just to help OM save face.

Watch the video here and tell me they were talking about hires stacked images in reference to that noise improvement.

VinceC · Apr 18, 2024

Hi Rafael

That would be great to know! It's for time with grandkids etc.

Rafael Rivera · Apr 18, 2024

VinceC said:
Hi Rafael

That would be great to know! It's for time with grandkids etc.

--
Best wishes
Vince C

Works! The connection has four pins. Put the flash that came with the EM5 III onto the G9 II, and took this photo with it and the Sigma 56mm f/1.4. Flash fired. Not an artistic shot, but it worked.

VinceC · Apr 18, 2024

Many thanks! That is good news. I was also interested in your comments on the 100-300 lens, I feel I have never got the best from it on the M1iii, and I don’t want to have a larger lens.

Much appreciated!

tomhongkong · Apr 19, 2024

whumber said:
gary0319 said:

James Stirling said:

Skeeterbytes said:

Whatever else, I'm one of evidently very few who routinely shoot the two cameras as a pair, sometimes in dire light. This is where that mythical two stops becomes very real as I can keep shooting a 2.8 zoom on one while swapping in a 1.2 or 1.8 prime on the other. Wouldn't do so if the files were not usable.

Truly game-changing.

Click to expand...

sure everyone else is wrong including OM systems who eventually explained that the two stops thing was only possible with multi shot pixel shift shooting

Click to expand...

Actually that piece you highlighted was from OMDS original press release Feb 15, 2022. I suspect it was only some poor-reading fan boy that went off the rails with the 2 stops news…. that wasn’t. And then the OMDS detractors, went ballistic without ever checking for the source of the fake news. Sounds like our current political situation here in the US.

Press Release

That said, I can comfortably shoot my OM-1/II at much higher ISO than I could with my E-M1 III that preceded it. Two stops with out HHHR might be a stretch, but definitely a big jump.

Click to expand...

You keep saying this but that's not at all what happened. The OM system ambassadors went around stating that the image sensor was resulting in a two stop improvement. It was even in the official marketing slides they distributed. Please stop trying to rewrite history just to help OM save face.

Watch the video here and tell me they were talking about hires stacked images in reference to that noise improvement.

I think everyone (or almost everyone) agrees that OMSystems were wrong with their advertising. Can we please move an and allow discussion of the real performance of the OM-1 vs the EM1iii.

Like Skeeter and some other posters, I feel comfortable using the OM-1 at higher iso than before. Everyone has his/her own tolerance for noise. I would definitely have maxxed out at 6400 on EM, and now use 8000, with occasional forays to 12800 (but do lose detail at the higher level)

So there is an improvement but probably around 1/2 stop

I bought after all the noise about the misleading claim of 2 stops, and did not expect it, but am happy with the improvement I got there is. (of course more would be better....)

I am not sure how that compares with the G9ii but don't expect much difference in sensitivity. There are other factors, though, which make the OM-1 more suitable for MY use. (Read Lothar Katz's excellent series comparing the two) If I shot video I am sure I would have a different opinion.

tom

Skeeterbytes · Apr 19, 2024

tomhongkong said:
whumber said:

gary0319 said:

James Stirling said:

Skeeterbytes said:

Whatever else, I'm one of evidently very few who routinely shoot the two cameras as a pair, sometimes in dire light. This is where that mythical two stops becomes very real as I can keep shooting a 2.8 zoom on one while swapping in a 1.2 or 1.8 prime on the other. Wouldn't do so if the files were not usable.

Truly game-changing.

Click to expand...

sure everyone else is wrong including OM systems who eventually explained that the two stops thing was only possible with multi shot pixel shift shooting

Click to expand...

Actually that piece you highlighted was from OMDS original press release Feb 15, 2022. I suspect it was only some poor-reading fan boy that went off the rails with the 2 stops news…. that wasn’t. And then the OMDS detractors, went ballistic without ever checking for the source of the fake news. Sounds like our current political situation here in the US.

Press Release

That said, I can comfortably shoot my OM-1/II at much higher ISO than I could with my E-M1 III that preceded it. Two stops with out HHHR might be a stretch, but definitely a big jump.

Click to expand...

You keep saying this but that's not at all what happened. The OM system ambassadors went around stating that the image sensor was resulting in a two stop improvement. It was even in the official marketing slides they distributed. Please stop trying to rewrite history just to help OM save face.

Watch the video here and tell me they were talking about hires stacked images in reference to that noise improvement.

Click to expand...

I think everyone (or almost everyone) agrees that OMSystems were wrong with their advertising. Can we please move an and allow discussion of the real performance of the OM-1 vs the EM1iii.

Like Skeeter and some other posters, I feel comfortable using the OM-1 at higher iso than before. Everyone has his/her own tolerance for noise. I would definitely have maxxed out at 6400 on EM, and now use 8000, with occasional forays to 12800 (but do lose detail at the higher level)

So there is an improvement but probably around 1/2 stop

I bought after all the noise about the misleading claim of 2 stops, and did not expect it, but am happy with the improvement I got there is. (of course more would be better....)

I am not sure how that compares with the G9ii but don't expect much difference in sensitivity. There are other factors, though, which make the OM-1 more suitable for MY use. (Read Lothar Katz's excellent series comparing the two) If I shot video I am sure I would have a different opinion.

tom

The camera functions in lower light than its predecessors. Push it and see.

It's the difference between getting the shot and not getting the shot-- which is the only "sin" in photography. What one does with the images afterwards is up to them.

Rick

whumber · Apr 19, 2024

Skeeterbytes said:
The camera functions in lower light than its predecessors. Push it and see.

It's the difference between getting the shot and not getting the shot-- which is the only "sin" in photography. What one does with the images afterwards is up to them.

Rick

My experience is that C-AF is definitely much better in low light with the OM-1 compared to the E-M1ii/iii/X. On that I would definitely agree.

AURA PA · Apr 19, 2024

whumber said:
Watch the video here and tell me they were talking about hires stacked images in reference to that noise improvement.

The video you link to literally refers to high-res, just like the press release does.

whumber · Apr 19, 2024

AURA PA said:
whumber said:

Watch the video here and tell me they were talking about hires stacked images in reference to that noise improvement.

Click to expand...

The video you link to literally refers to high-res, just like the press release does.

So are you trying to say that they're suggesting hi-res mode there offers blazing fast performance? You're stretching sooo hard here to pretend that OM marketing didn't straight up lie. They're very clearly not talking about hi-res stacking mode in this section.

Rafael Rivera · Apr 19, 2024

VinceC said:
Many thanks! That is good news. I was also interested in your comments on the 100-300 lens, I feel I have never got the best from it on the M1iii, and I don’t want to have a larger lens.

Much appreciated!

You're most welcome Vince!

I've got v2 of the lens, so not sure if you've got that one or the v1. I may be mistaken, but optically they should be similar, with v2 having better OIS (that is dual IS compatible), faster AF motors, and weather resistance. My research on the lens was that you had to stop it down 1 stop or so to get the sharpest output from the lens.

That said, I didn't do that when I was at the World Cup races that weekend. I think I just set the camera on P mode since I just wanted to enjoy the moment. I'm not in awe of movie stars, politicians, and most athletes, but I was starstruck by these international biathletes- amazing what they can do. So I just wanted to capture their experience as they prepared and raced that weekend.

I didn't process these images at all, and I made absolutely no attempt at capturing cool, artsy shots! But the lens + G9II combo worked VERY well for me. Focus was fast, accurate. Subject detection and AF worked very well. Sharpness was more than acceptable to me, with nice colors on the SOOC JPG's. I shot Raw+JPG, but for what I needed these photos for, I was happy with the JPG's- maybe I'll post-process the Raws one day. Here's the link to that set:

Loading…

www.dpreview.com

Hope this helps.

CBR1100XX · Apr 19, 2024

I'd say that the G9 II would be my choice. I liked its' AF more in my time with it and the OM-1 but both of those are relatively brief. I can say that the OM-1 still has issues with generic AF tracking AKA not a subject detection mode (did the mkII fix those?) which can be an issue if say you have musicians or performers in costume (not sure if you meant this by gigs but that's a big chunk of my work). And while the G9II isn't on Z8 levels it's a lot closer and seemed to be more than good enough to be usable for work.

I'm sticking with the E-M1 II for now since buying 2 G9 IIs is a decent chunk of cash at current prices. But when they go down then it'll become a viable option for me and I'll rent one. So I'd do that and rent an extra battery just to be sure and see how much you can get out of one for your average gig.

Tom Caldwell · Apr 19, 2024

The G9II does have the four-button contacts but the even more dinky little ex-GM5 flash does not work with it. It does work on a few other bodies with four-button contacts including rather remarkably - the S1 camera body. Therefore perhaps specifically disabled rather than enabled by default.

Rafael Rivera · Apr 19, 2024

Tom Caldwell said:
The G9II does have the four-button contacts but the even more dinky little ex-GM5 flash does not work with it. It does work on a few other bodies with four-button contacts including rather remarkably - the S1 camera body. Therefore perhaps specifically disabled rather than enabled by default.

Weird that the EM5 III flash would work on the G9II and Panasonic's own GM5 flash wouldn't!

gary0319 · Apr 19, 2024

whumber said:
AURA PA said:

whumber said:

Watch the video here and tell me they were talking about hires stacked images in reference to that noise improvement.

Click to expand...

The video you link to literally refers to high-res, just like the press release does.

Click to expand...

So are you trying to say that they're suggesting hi-res mode there offers blazing fast performance? You're stretching sooo hard here to pretend that OM marketing didn't straight up lie. They're very clearly not talking about hi-res stacking mode in this section.

I’m going to say right off that you are right…. this slide is certainly misleading at best, and if not an outright lie, an example of some very poor editing by the marketing/ promotions people. I find it interesting that from my experience with the OM-1 ( and now the Mark 2) there is only one scenario where I get both 2 steps better noise performance and noticeably a 3 times faster processing…. Hand Held Hi Rez. The HHHR in-camera processing with my E-M1 III took over 15 seconds and the OM-1 takes about 5 seconds.

So, your point is spot on, but I don’t think I’m being disingenuous by also pointing to the more accurate statement in the press release. I’ll be sure to include the fact of the misleading promotional material in any future posting of the press release, and I hope you would do likewise.

Regards

Gary

Upgrade Oly EM1iii to OM-1ii or Panasonic G9ii

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