Overly sharpened by what? DPR say these photos are straight out of the camera. "We only post SOOC images for camera galleries..." - Jordan Drake.

They all look good photos to me, but then again, so do all the other photos from any camera shown on here. My only critique of any photo is whether I like it or not.

If you order now you will have the lens in 2023.

Your life expectancy must be quite short--My 150-400mm arrived 7 weeks to the day after I ordered it from Kenmore Camera in the Fall of 2021. Yes, a real-life experience.

Get informed.

Call B&H and you will find they cannot provide delivery information for many products--particularly new products. Items trickle in, sometimes early and many times late and in unpredictable quantities. This is not an "Olympus" problem or a camera problem. How about a car or telescope?

The B&H problem is complicated by the distribution of products. A lot of people think bigger has an advantage. Olympus distributed lenses throughout the network of dealers here and abroad. Everyone got a few and still does. The waiting list at B&H is long. Kenmore went through its list and go to me quickly. Sometimes small has an advantage.

The January 2019 announcement that you refer to related to the development of the lens. In the announcement, Olympus stated that the lens would be released in 2020. The lens was officially announced on November 17, 2020. Deliveries did commence in April 2021.

Not bad given nature of the product coupled with corporate changes and the pandemic.

Hawky:

Well, Olympus has a rep for good jpegs. And better OM lenses (Olympus) have good colour. So not a surprise from 2 perspectives.

what is iq, exactly?

ok, I shall rephrase:
what is IQ(iq), exactly and how do you measure it?

Ok, whatever that is supposed to mean, but glad you understood it now:-)

I really do not understand what you are saying lol:-)

@Michailk
lol. I suspect you have read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance".

@MichailK

"what is iq, exactly?"

In here, it is pixel peeping. You take a 1% of the image total area, you enlarge it (zoom to) it out of proportions like 2-5x of its true final size, and you compare it side by side to a another sample from other file in same way. Key is as well that you need to ignore the artistic side of the photograph (what the photographer was capturing) and focus solely to sensor and lens performances and possible digital image processing by camera manufacturer engineers.

You can be photographing a color passport all day along and have extremely valid arguments which in A vs B combo is being better:

https://youtu.be/VFgkYkcld7w

But does it matter? The final image is in final form equalizing the differences by hiding almost all the differences. And then the person viewing something change everything by their view distance, room lighting, their mood, and opinion of the photo itself.

Technical quality doesn't affect the personal emotional opinions.

Gotcha!! Thanks!! Love the pic otherwise though! :)

I really do not think that phones will even replace small cameras.

I agree with Jer81. I have jumped from Canon 40D to E-M1 and, despite the shortcomings of M43, love it much more.

My trusty E-PL1 hung around my neck while I rode my bike, hiked, and walked all over France and into Italy. I still look at the photos I took because they're priceless. And still plenty legitimate from a technical perspective.

Same here DGrinb. I switched to m43 (GM5, then Pen F and GX9) from D800e. Yes, m43 cameras lose hands down in image quality (it produces beautiful A1-size prints though), but I take much better pictures with them because of their portability and discreetness.

Exactly, i would pick the om1 over a crappy d200 (in comparison ok) any day. period.

Good to know that you are happy with the D200 but how is this relevant to people that like the size , weight, focus speed of the OM1 ?

That's what i do not understand!

Curious what you think would have been so much better about these photos if they were shot in full frame?

Simple; better IQ, deeper colours, better dynamic range and more detail in combination with a lot less noise.

I think you're seeing what your brain prepared you too see. Without knowing the brand and exif data, I highly doubt you would lament the lack of "color depth", for example.

I could see a phone approaching this IQ if the scene is fairly static and all you care about are wides shots with the main camera module... But at any other FL it's not really close imo.

No, given the available light, the results would not have been much better in IQ, unless you give them a shallower depth of field. But then you would have a shallower depth of field. Not really the same pictures anymore and not necessarily an improvement.
But at least you have the choice.

There will always be IL Cameras, Just not as many as currently. Many people, including the younger generation, do not like using a phone as a camera, especially professionals. It's the ergonomics, they're terrible. I don't take photos with my phone, and I don't answer calls on my MILC! Try hooking up wireless Strobes and Tilt & Shift lenses, and bellows, To a Phone, Foregetaboutit!

Some people do use all of it, as everything has it's pros/cons and it's place. I enjoy using my phone (Pixel), and my M4/3 bodies (GX850 & E-M5 III), and my A7R IV, all for different reasons.

I do think dedicated ILCs will continue to revert to more of a specialty tool since phones are now everyone's default, but at the same time the latter do raise the general interest in photography higher than ever and that feeds back into ILCs to an extent. If there's something that'll turn off younger generations on ILCs it'd be some of the constant & pointless bickering anywhere they're discussed. :|

"Try hooking up wireless Strobes and Tilt & Shift lenses, and bellows, To a Phone, Foregetaboutit!"

Precisely. Not even mentioning telephoto shots.

(Of course, as an "Instamatic" I love my phone.)

Yeah teles is really one area where I don't see computational tricks making as big a leap for IQ... Even with short teles the longer module on a phone is usually way slower than the main/fast one and computational bokeh effects aren't as convincing as the real thing (least not to the same degree that stacking and other techniques can bridge the gap).

Nothing wrong w/shooting wide with a phone & tele w/an ILC tho... ;) Less lens swapping!

What's the rule? Do not feed trolls.

"they won't make it to another decade."
I heard this about m43 a decade ago, actually ;-)

Oliver - I think you never got it why Olympus got rid of its camera division.
Its. Not because it was making them an great income. Instead Olympus camera division lost 2.5 Billion dollars over the last 10 years and gave another 500 million to JIP to try and save MFT. This was a clear move out of desperation. Not a gift.

If you think OMD will pull it off then they have to come up with more innovative cameras and not just rebrand them to then inteoduce them as ‘new’. That certainly won’t save them… But we will see on the long term if you got it it right… i would congratulate them for doing so, but instead, you’d better be prepared for the worst.

You may want to look up where some of that "lost" money went to. It had nothing to do with cameras. Not that they would definately have made money otherwise but we will never know.

In terms of AF, I find the XT5 and OM1 comparable. Both lock on pretty quick. I think the XT5 though locks on MUCH further away whereas the OM1 they have to be maybe 5-10 ft away if I recall my experience.
For Airshows, it's hard to say I think. I feel that the OM1 may edge the XT5 because the AI-AF seems much better on there for birding than the XT5, which I think will apply to planes as well (XT5 isn't a slouch though). Then there's the lens selection. Very comparable in size but not equivalent per se. The XF100-400 (150-600eqv) is smaller than the MZuiko100-400 (200-800eqv). Sure not totally equivalent, but the XT5 does have 40mp, and you can essentially crop in half to get 300-1200mm eqv but still have 20mp photo; but, you'd lose that burst power.
The above and a more photo centric tilt screen, and a more retro styling (ppl don't mind the XT5 on the street as much as the OM1 honestly), I went with the XT5. I kept my em5iii for my 1.2 glass though that I love using time to time.

That is a 16mp camera. So not really. But yes you can still take great photos with one. Heck even a 20 year old E1 will take good ones.

This is not a majority opinion, but I've long felt Olympus, and now OM Digital Systems, have grown weaker with their in-camera JPEG engine.

There's no denying with each sensor generation, IQ improves across the board. This can clearly be seen in RAW files. But whatever JPEG engine they have in their cameras, they grow increasingly unable to take maximum advantage of what the sensor delivers.

In other words, if you take their old DSLRs from over a decade ago which were stuck at 10-12MP. With all their limitations, low dynamic range or high noise levels, the cameras were still able to churn out-of-camera JPEGs that squeezed every bit of useful data. Making RAW post-processing unnecessary in all but the most extreme scenarios.

Well, 16mp vs 20mp is only a 25% increase, which is not small but not very noticeable imo.

Well, yes, except when you use something like the special computational funktions like liveND, focus stacking or want/need the better AF-performance.
For static scenes where you do not use the highres mode, the results are virtually the same. I can not distinguish the images from my E-M5, E-M1 and E-M1 II.

People focus on noise, but I find the differences between sensor sizes are more related to colors and overall coarseness.

Between 1 inch and m43, colors might seem similar but I find the coarseness very obvious. And it's something difficult to get rid of in post, at least with my humble post-processing skills.

Agree. And I find the new sensor on the OM-1 does noticably better with colors at higher ISOs.

@Jamajuel
I totally get the use case for a nature photographer who wants extreme telephoto in a small package and is less concerned about IQ.
If you compare M4/3 images to the latest Fujifilm cameras, you will see quite a difference in IQ with APS-C now. I think the problem is there are no heavy hitters working on M4/3 sensors right now and it shows.

Might well be but both the Fuji XH2S or Canon R7 have other compromises too, anything from rolling shutter to worse IBIS or worse AF or shittier worse lenses or only significantly more expensive and heavier lenses.

It’s good to have options and the OM-1 can be a very good one.

I also use FF and APSC never quite appeals to me. Not as good as FF, not as light, compact and high quality bodies like M43…