H
Henry Richardson
Guest
I have had my E-M1 II with the latest 3.5 firmware since October 2021 and have enjoyed using it. First some background: When it comes to m4/3 I also own the Olympus PEN-F, E-M10 II, E-M10, E-M5, Panasonic GX7 II, G3, about a dozen m4/3 lenses, and a flash. I started with m4/3 in April 2012 so have extensive experience with it. Before that I used Canon, Sony, and Konica Minolta DSLRs. Also, of course, various non-ILC digital cameras since January 2000 and also many years of film SLRs and other film cameras before switching completely to digital in 2002. I will just provide some info about things I have discovered. I am not interested in repeating just a bunch of stuff that you can easily read in reviews all over the internet. Most of what I will write are things I never saw in any reviews. Also, just some of my impressions and things I like and dislike.
Just a heads up reminder for people: Most of the reviews of this camera you read or watch on youtube were done with firmware 1.0 or some version not long afterwards. There have been many new firmware versions since the camera came out in 2016 that added features, improved performance in several ways, and fixed bugs. You can see what changed in the many firmware versions here:
https://www.olympus-europa.com/site/en/c/cameras_support/downloads/e_m1_mark_ii_downloads.html
I like that the IBIS is even better than the already great IBIS in my other Olympus bodies. I also like that the electronic shutter read out time is 1/60 second rather than the 1/20 second on my PEN-F and E-M10 II. Less chance of rolling shutter effects. 1/60 second actually was the common X-sync speed for 35mm SLRs with horizontal focal plane shutters in the 1960s and early 1970s. Later vertical traveling Copal focal plane shutters became common and the X-sync changed to 1/125 second.
I also like that with Auto ISO and the electronic shutter I can set the minimum shutter speed in the menu, like the PEN-F can. My E-M10 II cannot do that, but does have an old kludge that allows you to do it for the mechanical shutter (same for the E-M10 and E-M5).
The E-M1 II only has 3 Custom modes on the mode dial, but my PEN-F has 4. My E-M10 II and E-M10 have 4 MySets that can be set to the mode dial so this is basically the same as the newer name where Olympus calls them Custom modes. I certainly can get by with 3, but 4 was just right for me when I am traveling. It is strange that the flagship E-M1 II was downgraded in this regard compared to my other Olympus bodies.
The menu has more items than my other Olympus bodies. Mostly because there are many more items related to AF. The E-M1 II has both PDAF and CDAF so performs much better using C-AF than my other bodies. I never use C-AF though so I don't care about this. It also gives good AF with old 4/3 DSLR lenses with the Olympus adapter.
I set mine up so that when the rear lever is set to 1 then I get the default behavior where pressing the shutter button also performs AF. When it is set to 2 though I have mine set to use back-button AF using the button inside the lever control. In addition, what that means is that switching to 2 means I also instantly switch to MF with focus peaking. Although I mostly use 1 it is very nice to sometimes very easily be able to change to 2.
I discovered something in my E-M1 II that I really like. If you go into the cog menu -> D2 -> Default Settings and then select Equally Value then when you hit the playback button to review a photo and want to zoom in using the rear control wheel then just one click of the wheel will immediately zoom into 1:1 to make it easy to check focus. I can turn more and zoom in more, of course. On the rear display at the bottom there is a small icon that tells you 1:1. I could do this years ago with my Sony A700, but couldn't with my Canon 60D and 30D so I would have to do multiple zooms to get to 1:1. My PEN-F, E-M10 II, E-M10, E-M5, and GX7 II can't seem to do that either so I have to zoom in several times to get to 1:1. Then press OK to go back to the full photo view. Yeah, I know, Equally Value is another lame Olympus name in the menu.
The shutter button is very sensitive. More so than any other camera I have owned, but after awhile I have become accustomed to it. It is easy to accidentally take a photo when you are just trying to half-press to AF, but that happens less now than it did in the first few weeks I had the camera. Recently I wore some thin gloves on a cold day though and got some accidental shots. I have worn these same thin gloves and used my other cameras and never had any accidental shots.
I think the E-M1 II body style and ergonomics are mostly excellent. I have smaller bodies that I like to use, but when I am using this somewhat bigger/heavier body I have found myself thinking that it could use an additional 5-10mm in height. I have medium size hands and my little finger barely fits on the grip. There just seems to be a need for a few more millimeter. I would not want to add weight, but I am thinking about getting one of those leather half-cases because they have a 5-6mm base that screws into the tripod mount. I have one for my PEN-F and it is very light, but adds a little to the height and in the case of the PEN-F it also provides a bit more grip to the front.
Now the biggie. There is a problem with the E-M1 II EVF firmware that doesn't exist in any of my other Olympus bodies. The problem with the E-M1 II is not the EVF hardware (which is quite good), it is a bug/deficiency in the firmware that doesn't exist in the PEN-F (OLED), E-M10 II (OLED), E-M10 (TFT LCD), etc. Since the last firmware is 3.5 and the E-M1 II is no longer a current flagship model it is very unlikely that OMDS will fix this bug. Specifically the Auto Luminance setting is broken in this model. I dug into the problem and wrote about it in detail in the following 3 posts. You need to read them to understand what is wrong with the E-M1 II firmware and what the ramifications are:
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65667502
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65721962
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65730373
I would give the E-M1 II 4.5 stars, but to me this EVF problem is serious so for that reason I give it 2.5 stars. :-( It pains me to do so, but the EVF is vital and Olympus screwed up here. Yet they got it right in their other, earlier, and contemporary models that were less expensive. It is unforgivable in their flagship model to screw this simple thing up and then not fix it in later firmware versions. For the last 5 years I have seen many posts from people expressing disappointment in the E-M1 II EVF, but no one investigated and went into detail like I did about what was wrong and narrowed it down like I did. Certainly the EVF is still very usable and the camera has many other great things going for it, but that just makes this Olympus blunder even more annoying.
The E-M1 II is as good or better in almost every way compared to my other Olympus bodies. It is a pleasure to use except for the poor EVF. If you can live with an EVF that is in some real day-to-day usage ways that is not as good as the E-M10 II, etc. EVFs and you don't mind or want a bigger/heavier/weather-sealed body then this is a good one to get.
--
Henry Richardson
http://www.bakubo.com
Just a heads up reminder for people: Most of the reviews of this camera you read or watch on youtube were done with firmware 1.0 or some version not long afterwards. There have been many new firmware versions since the camera came out in 2016 that added features, improved performance in several ways, and fixed bugs. You can see what changed in the many firmware versions here:
https://www.olympus-europa.com/site/en/c/cameras_support/downloads/e_m1_mark_ii_downloads.html
I like that the IBIS is even better than the already great IBIS in my other Olympus bodies. I also like that the electronic shutter read out time is 1/60 second rather than the 1/20 second on my PEN-F and E-M10 II. Less chance of rolling shutter effects. 1/60 second actually was the common X-sync speed for 35mm SLRs with horizontal focal plane shutters in the 1960s and early 1970s. Later vertical traveling Copal focal plane shutters became common and the X-sync changed to 1/125 second.
I also like that with Auto ISO and the electronic shutter I can set the minimum shutter speed in the menu, like the PEN-F can. My E-M10 II cannot do that, but does have an old kludge that allows you to do it for the mechanical shutter (same for the E-M10 and E-M5).
The E-M1 II only has 3 Custom modes on the mode dial, but my PEN-F has 4. My E-M10 II and E-M10 have 4 MySets that can be set to the mode dial so this is basically the same as the newer name where Olympus calls them Custom modes. I certainly can get by with 3, but 4 was just right for me when I am traveling. It is strange that the flagship E-M1 II was downgraded in this regard compared to my other Olympus bodies.
The menu has more items than my other Olympus bodies. Mostly because there are many more items related to AF. The E-M1 II has both PDAF and CDAF so performs much better using C-AF than my other bodies. I never use C-AF though so I don't care about this. It also gives good AF with old 4/3 DSLR lenses with the Olympus adapter.
I set mine up so that when the rear lever is set to 1 then I get the default behavior where pressing the shutter button also performs AF. When it is set to 2 though I have mine set to use back-button AF using the button inside the lever control. In addition, what that means is that switching to 2 means I also instantly switch to MF with focus peaking. Although I mostly use 1 it is very nice to sometimes very easily be able to change to 2.
I discovered something in my E-M1 II that I really like. If you go into the cog menu -> D2 -> Default Settings and then select Equally Value then when you hit the playback button to review a photo and want to zoom in using the rear control wheel then just one click of the wheel will immediately zoom into 1:1 to make it easy to check focus. I can turn more and zoom in more, of course. On the rear display at the bottom there is a small icon that tells you 1:1. I could do this years ago with my Sony A700, but couldn't with my Canon 60D and 30D so I would have to do multiple zooms to get to 1:1. My PEN-F, E-M10 II, E-M10, E-M5, and GX7 II can't seem to do that either so I have to zoom in several times to get to 1:1. Then press OK to go back to the full photo view. Yeah, I know, Equally Value is another lame Olympus name in the menu.
The shutter button is very sensitive. More so than any other camera I have owned, but after awhile I have become accustomed to it. It is easy to accidentally take a photo when you are just trying to half-press to AF, but that happens less now than it did in the first few weeks I had the camera. Recently I wore some thin gloves on a cold day though and got some accidental shots. I have worn these same thin gloves and used my other cameras and never had any accidental shots.
I think the E-M1 II body style and ergonomics are mostly excellent. I have smaller bodies that I like to use, but when I am using this somewhat bigger/heavier body I have found myself thinking that it could use an additional 5-10mm in height. I have medium size hands and my little finger barely fits on the grip. There just seems to be a need for a few more millimeter. I would not want to add weight, but I am thinking about getting one of those leather half-cases because they have a 5-6mm base that screws into the tripod mount. I have one for my PEN-F and it is very light, but adds a little to the height and in the case of the PEN-F it also provides a bit more grip to the front.
Now the biggie. There is a problem with the E-M1 II EVF firmware that doesn't exist in any of my other Olympus bodies. The problem with the E-M1 II is not the EVF hardware (which is quite good), it is a bug/deficiency in the firmware that doesn't exist in the PEN-F (OLED), E-M10 II (OLED), E-M10 (TFT LCD), etc. Since the last firmware is 3.5 and the E-M1 II is no longer a current flagship model it is very unlikely that OMDS will fix this bug. Specifically the Auto Luminance setting is broken in this model. I dug into the problem and wrote about it in detail in the following 3 posts. You need to read them to understand what is wrong with the E-M1 II firmware and what the ramifications are:
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65667502
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65721962
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65730373
I would give the E-M1 II 4.5 stars, but to me this EVF problem is serious so for that reason I give it 2.5 stars. :-( It pains me to do so, but the EVF is vital and Olympus screwed up here. Yet they got it right in their other, earlier, and contemporary models that were less expensive. It is unforgivable in their flagship model to screw this simple thing up and then not fix it in later firmware versions. For the last 5 years I have seen many posts from people expressing disappointment in the E-M1 II EVF, but no one investigated and went into detail like I did about what was wrong and narrowed it down like I did. Certainly the EVF is still very usable and the camera has many other great things going for it, but that just makes this Olympus blunder even more annoying.
The E-M1 II is as good or better in almost every way compared to my other Olympus bodies. It is a pleasure to use except for the poor EVF. If you can live with an EVF that is in some real day-to-day usage ways that is not as good as the E-M10 II, etc. EVFs and you don't mind or want a bigger/heavier/weather-sealed body then this is a good one to get.
--
Henry Richardson
http://www.bakubo.com
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