E-M1: ok, mine arrived...

[Godfrey]

The new Olympus E-M1 arrived yesterday. I picked it up on the way to the office and charged the battery there. My first test of it after I got home from the office was to stick a lens on it, and drag it out to the club.

With the Panasonic/Leica Summilux-DG 25mm lens, focusing for still snaps was near instantaneous and quite accurate. Out of 200+ exposures I made, just snapping around like a tourist with an instamatic at a party, only about six were poorly focused.

I left the camera on its defaults, changing only that it would capture JPEG Ln + raw and setting the ISO to 6400 and 12800, and setting it to S-AF+mf so I could play with the manual focus. Here are a few JPEG+raw pairs at what I think is somewhere around EV 0-1 light in club lighting (mostly red and purple gels). (There's also a video at ISO 6400, again made using the camera defaults; the link is right near the bottom of the page below.)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25268645/oly-em1-low-light/index.html

I'm satisfied that the E-M1 has plenty of sensitivity for my needs. It's a very fast and responsive camera in use too. It's a bit small for my hands without the HLD-7 battery grip fitted, I hope that arrives soon, but even so it was comfortable to hold and use, and all the controls work nicely. I had NO trouble focusing manually even without any focusing aids enabled, the electronic viewfinder is terrific. So is the image stabilization, best I've used. I found its defaults good enough for a quick session, I hardly used anything other than the super control panel display and the shutter release.

Today I'll snap about in some more normal lighting and lower ISO settings.

 

[Rriley]

Godfrey wrote:

The new Olympus E-M1 arrived yesterday. I picked it up on the way to the office and charged the battery there. My first test of it after I got home from the office was to stick a lens on it, and drag it out to the club.

With the Panasonic/Leica Summilux-DG 25mm lens, focusing for still snaps was near instantaneous and quite accurate. Out of 200+ exposures I made, just snapping around like a tourist with an instamatic at a party, only about six were poorly focused.

I left the camera on its defaults, changing only that it would capture JPEG Ln + raw and setting the ISO to 6400 and 12800, and setting it to S-AF+mf so I could play with the manual focus. Here are a few JPEG+raw pairs at what I think is somewhere around EV 0-1 light in club lighting (mostly red and purple gels). (There's also a video at ISO 6400, again made using the camera defaults; the link is right near the bottom of the page below.)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25268645/oly-em1-low-light/index.html

focus drifts a lot but the IS seems to work a treat unless you are unusually steady handed

I'm satisfied that the E-M1 has plenty of sensitivity for my needs.

Im not surprised
the quality at ISO speeds available in cameras today would have been difficult to contemplate just five years ago. In the configuration package this camera offers it successfully eliminates several of the old bugbears of older cameras with its generous VF, noise, accurate focus and as I expect DR.

I suspect you will make good use of the VF with your MF lenses

It's a very fast and responsive camera in use too. It's a bit small for my hands without the HLD-7 battery grip fitted, I hope that arrives soon, but even so it was comfortable to hold and use, and all the controls work nicely. I had NO trouble focusing manually even without any focusing aids enabled, the electronic viewfinder is terrific. So is the image stabilization, best I've used. I found its defaults good enough for a quick session, I hardly used anything other than the super control panel display and the shutter release.

Today I'll snap about in some more normal lighting and lower ISO settings.

--
Godfrey
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gdgphoto

 

[Godfrey]

I probably would never do any serious video work with AF... It's just wrong when focus movement is such an important part of the visual syntax.

 

[Rriley]

Godfrey wrote:

I probably would never do any serious video work with AF... It's just wrong when focus movement is such an important part of the visual syntax.

actually with production video, almost nobody uses AF or CAF for focussing
the most difficult commercial environments are focus pulls and/or camera operator skill

I did learn about the seemingly most difficult major events like broadcast golf, and how they follow the ball. Using the mono EVF the operator selects the red channel so the ball stands out against the background sky. From there its all manual follow focus with enormous zooms and a testament to what skilled humans can achieve.

I dont know but I would guess that shallow DoF for broadcast quality on productions like 'House' are focus pulls in MF, where the actors are required to stay within a range of focus by standing/moving in a planned sequence. and when that hasnt worked they edit or reshoot

I use AF to locate focus, but dont allow the lens to change beyond that but then,
all I do is 'all in focus' and UWA

the bottom line is, when you look closely at the crossovers to state of the art stills and video, all that stuff about VF lag and AF is a lot less of an issue than its made out to be. The problems such as they are still exist, but the solutions are satisfactorily defeated by skilled operators.

--
Godfrey
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gdgphoto

 

[Peter Lacus]

Hey Godfrey, enjoy your new toy!

BTW, are you getting Pentax K-3 as well?

 

[MAubrey]

The guy on the right in the second row looks like a professor I had in university.

 

[vincentnyc]

pardon my ignorance, but are screenshots from a computer's monitor a valid way to compare?

my very limited understanding is that the DPI on computer monitors are very low.

if one were to share the actual image files, even cropped image files, then there wouldn't be two monitor's low DPI working against the image presented to the final viewer.

just wondering.

 

[memo90061]

I think that video actually looks very good, at least for me. I'd like to see more videos. I shoot more pictures than video, but I like having video also. To me Oly video looks good because of IBIS.

 

[Lab D]

Rriley wrote:

Godfrey wrote:

I probably would never do any serious video work with AF... It's just wrong when focus movement is such an important part of the visual syntax.

actually with production video, almost nobody uses AF or CAF for focussing
the most difficult commercial environments are focus pulls and/or camera operator skill

I did learn about the seemingly most difficult major events like broadcast golf, and how they follow the ball. Using the mono EVF the operator selects the red channel so the ball stands out against the background sky. From there its all manual follow focus with enormous zooms and a testament to what skilled humans can achieve.

I dont know but I would guess that shallow DoF for broadcast quality on productions like 'House' are focus pulls in MF, where the actors are required to stay within a range of focus by standing/moving in a planned sequence. and when that hasnt worked they edit or reshoot

I use AF to locate focus, but dont allow the lens to change beyond that but then,
all I do is 'all in focus' and UWA

the bottom line is, when you look closely at the crossovers to state of the art stills and video, all that stuff about VF lag and AF is a lot less of an issue than its made out to be. The problems such as they are still exist, but the solutions are satisfactorily defeated by skilled operators.

 

[Godfrey]

Lab D wrote:

Rriley wrote:

Godfrey wrote:

I probably would never do any serious video work with AF... It's just wrong when focus movement is such an important part of the visual syntax.

actually with production video, almost nobody uses AF or CAF for focussing
the most difficult commercial environments are focus pulls and/or camera operator skill

I did learn about the seemingly most difficult major events like broadcast golf, and how they follow the ball. Using the mono EVF the operator selects the red channel so the ball stands out against the background sky. From there its all manual follow focus with enormous zooms and a testament to what skilled humans can achieve.

I dont know but I would guess that shallow DoF for broadcast quality on productions like 'House' are focus pulls in MF, where the actors are required to stay within a range of focus by standing/moving in a planned sequence. and when that hasnt worked they edit or reshoot

I use AF to locate focus, but dont allow the lens to change beyond that but then,
all I do is 'all in focus' and UWA

the bottom line is, when you look closely at the crossovers to state of the art stills and video, all that stuff about VF lag and AF is a lot less of an issue than its made out to be. The problems such as they are still exist, but the solutions are satisfactorily defeated by skilled operators.

 

[Godfrey]

vincentnyc wrote:

pardon my ignorance, but are screenshots from a computer's monitor a valid way to compare?

my very limited understanding is that the DPI on computer monitors are very low.

if one were to share the actual image files, even cropped image files, then there wouldn't be two monitor's low DPI working against the image presented to the final viewer.

just wondering.

It depends on what you're trying to compare. I assembled a low res reproduction of the whole scene and paired it with a 1:1 pixel clip. The goal was simply to see what the data looks like between the out of camera JPEG defaults and the Lightroom 5.2 default rendering of the .ORF file.

This is as valid a comparison as anything else. It does presume you have a properly calibrated and profiled display system, and are using a browser with good color management and a good image rendering algorithm.

 

[Rick Baumhauer]

Lab D wrote:

Rriley wrote:

Godfrey wrote:

I probably would never do any serious video work with AF... It's just wrong when focus movement is such an important part of the visual syntax.

actually with production video, almost nobody uses AF or CAF for focussing
the most difficult commercial environments are focus pulls and/or camera operator skill

I did learn about the seemingly most difficult major events like broadcast golf, and how they follow the ball. Using the mono EVF the operator selects the red channel so the ball stands out against the background sky. From there its all manual follow focus with enormous zooms and a testament to what skilled humans can achieve.

I dont know but I would guess that shallow DoF for broadcast quality on productions like 'House' are focus pulls in MF, where the actors are required to stay within a range of focus by standing/moving in a planned sequence. and when that hasnt worked they edit or reshoot

I use AF to locate focus, but dont allow the lens to change beyond that but then,
all I do is 'all in focus' and UWA

the bottom line is, when you look closely at the crossovers to state of the art stills and video, all that stuff about VF lag and AF is a lot less of an issue than its made out to be. The problems such as they are still exist, but the solutions are satisfactorily defeated by skilled operators.

 

[Godfrey]

memo90061 wrote:

I think that video actually looks very good, at least for me. I'd like to see more videos. I shoot more pictures than video, but I like having video also. To me Oly video looks good because of IBIS.

I have not yet done much video making, but I was impressed with the quality of the video given the lighting and ISO 6400 setting on the camera. The IBIS is certainly doing a nice job, and the C-AF does a reasonable job of keeping things in focus for casual clips like this.

It's certainly got enough oomph as a video camera for me to have some fun with it.

 

[Hen3ry]

Cheers, geoff

 

[memo90061]

Godfrey wrote:

memo90061 wrote:

I think that video actually looks very good, at least for me. I'd like to see more videos. I shoot more pictures than video, but I like having video also. To me Oly video looks good because of IBIS.

I have not yet done much video making, but I was impressed with the quality of the video given the lighting and ISO 6400 setting on the camera. The IBIS is certainly doing a nice job, and the C-AF does a reasonable job of keeping things in focus for casual clips like this.

It's certainly got enough oomph as a video camera for me to have some fun with it.

 

[Polytropia]

Rriley wrote:

Godfrey wrote:

I probably would never do any serious video work with AF... It's just wrong when focus movement is such an important part of the visual syntax.

actually with production video, almost nobody uses AF or CAF for focussing
the most difficult commercial environments are focus pulls and/or camera operator skill

I did learn about the seemingly most difficult major events like broadcast golf, and how they follow the ball. Using the mono EVF the operator selects the red channel so the ball stands out against the background sky. From there its all manual follow focus with enormous zooms and a testament to what skilled humans can achieve.

I dont know but I would guess that shallow DoF for broadcast quality on productions like 'House' are focus pulls in MF, where the actors are required to stay within a range of focus by standing/moving in a planned sequence. and when that hasnt worked they edit or reshoot

I use AF to locate focus, but dont allow the lens to change beyond that but then,
all I do is 'all in focus' and UWA

the bottom line is, when you look closely at the crossovers to state of the art stills and video, all that stuff about VF lag and AF is a lot less of an issue than its made out to be. The problems such as they are still exist, but the solutions are satisfactorily defeated by skilled operators.