humzai
Mu-43 Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2012
- Messages
- 410
I have been using the E-M5 since last summer, I got it a few weeks after the release. A few really long and irritating weeks, see E-m5 shipping status thread. I posted a thread with some first impressions of the E-M1 and that whole thing was written in a very goofy style. I thought a more serious thread might be of some use, if not I will still enjoy writing about the camera.
If you have any questions or would like me to try something feel free to do so.
If you want to read my earlier impressions they are over here.
The ergonomics are very improved and might be the biggest reason along with the pdaf to buy this thing. I am loving the mode switch and I haven't even messed around with it much. Once I get the settings customized I am sure I'll love it even more. The 4 way button is much nicer and those two new function buttons are located right where they should be. It is certainly an iterative improvement but it is one of the best iterations of anything I have ever seen. Olympus spent there time thinking things through and it seems much of those niggling faults have been alleviated.
I need to spend more time with the wifi app but I get the feeling that it is going to be an irreplaceable tool in your box. I felt the lack of articulating display when I hopped the panny m4/3s fence but the app makes up for it. I might not end up using it much but just having the ability will be useful situationally. I hope that they add some way to manage settings on the app. It could be fantastic to have a profile management tool built into it.
I finally tried the tracking focus and 4/3 lens focus out and I am sold. The tracking focus works pretty good I just took one sequence of photos of my daughter with them so I can't say much about it, yet.
I was pleasantly surprised and ecstatic at the performance of my 50-200mm non swd lens. It isn't anything like using the 12-50mm m4/3 lens with its instant locks but it is very much improved and very usable. Weeee the promise land is here! at least the promised land of shg and hg 4/3 glass. Granted at this point there are only say 3 lenses I would love to own from the 4/3 stable the 300mm 2.8, the 150mm 2 and the 90-250mm. That is in order of desirability. While I would like the two f2 zooms I doubt I'd appreciate lugging them around and the pro m4/3 lenses are the ones that have my eye. I also don't really feel the need for any 4/3 lens purchases atm maybe I'll own the prime teles most likely the 150mm but it's not likely at this point.
Give me a prime 150mm f2 with that Panasonic zoom teleextender (they patented one a year or two ago) and I'll just say shut up and take my money.
I bought the 50-200m swd soon after I got my ep-1 and it mostly languished because of the slow focus, I mean the ep-1 was pretty bad even when using m4/3 lens, it was terrifying with the 50-200mm. I guess despite the failing of the system I decided to go all in. I still have some of my old Pentax lenses (da 40mm limited and the 10-17mm fisheye, i really need to get rid of them. When I got my gh1 it didn't really improve my poor 50-200s situation probably worsened it. That go kinda fixed last year with my e-m5 but not really. That has all changed for the better with the e-m1 it works perhaps not as fast as the fastest but more than usable and I don't think I'll be using my 100-300mm panny much anymore. I guess it's bitter sweet in one regard, but hey my 50-200mm is still a lot of fun.
The evf is a beauty to behold and I had kinda forgotten about it when I started messing with the e-m1. I was pleasantly blown away when I put my eye to it and realized how damn big and beautiful it is. The e-m1 might not seem to be a big upgrade because there are many seemingly small improvements but the evf alone is worth the cost to upgrade. The mode lever adds the frosting on top and the rest is just pure pleasure.
I realize I am gushing but I can't really help it. Yes there are things that are a let down and mainly that is the mysets. I love mysets! The problem is that yes you can replace modes on the dial with a myset but and the but is really damn big is that it's still a pain in the ass to deal with them. The distressing thing is that it would require just a few minor things to elevate the mysets to far beyond greatness. Really simple things, stuff like being able to name them so you don't forget which myset does what. A way to manage them off camera, hey the wifi and Olympus share app there seems to be something there. Yes! Allow us to setup mysets along with the rest of the camera on our phones or tablets. Being able to manage, share and save them would be soo beneficial. It would increase interest in them because there are soo many things one could do but it's too hard to experiment with them atm or at least too time and brain consuming. Rant off, I'll start another thread for that.
I spent some more time with Olympus wifi app. I tried it with my Asus Transformer last night and while it is cool the smartphone app is much more useful to me. Unless one really needs the larger screen stick with your smartphone. It just made me feel too disconnected, yeah the size makes it harder to use but using it with a smartphone is much more intuitive. It was way too unwieldy. Perhaps I might use it in a pseudo tethering manner when shooting with a tripod but not likely. I can see the use and the point but it's not for me. I would love it if I could use it to setup the camera but perhaps that comes later.
With a smartphone the use is again situational but much much more easy to find yourself in that situation. Need a remote shutter release, I got you! You need to take a selfie from above and want to actually compose, I got you. Don't want to get on your knees, I got you baby. It is such a useful extension of the camera I can't really see how anyone would think that it was feature creep or hard to fathom the point.
If you have any questions or would like me to try something feel free to do so.
If you want to read my earlier impressions they are over here.
The ergonomics are very improved and might be the biggest reason along with the pdaf to buy this thing. I am loving the mode switch and I haven't even messed around with it much. Once I get the settings customized I am sure I'll love it even more. The 4 way button is much nicer and those two new function buttons are located right where they should be. It is certainly an iterative improvement but it is one of the best iterations of anything I have ever seen. Olympus spent there time thinking things through and it seems much of those niggling faults have been alleviated.
I need to spend more time with the wifi app but I get the feeling that it is going to be an irreplaceable tool in your box. I felt the lack of articulating display when I hopped the panny m4/3s fence but the app makes up for it. I might not end up using it much but just having the ability will be useful situationally. I hope that they add some way to manage settings on the app. It could be fantastic to have a profile management tool built into it.
I finally tried the tracking focus and 4/3 lens focus out and I am sold. The tracking focus works pretty good I just took one sequence of photos of my daughter with them so I can't say much about it, yet.
I was pleasantly surprised and ecstatic at the performance of my 50-200mm non swd lens. It isn't anything like using the 12-50mm m4/3 lens with its instant locks but it is very much improved and very usable. Weeee the promise land is here! at least the promised land of shg and hg 4/3 glass. Granted at this point there are only say 3 lenses I would love to own from the 4/3 stable the 300mm 2.8, the 150mm 2 and the 90-250mm. That is in order of desirability. While I would like the two f2 zooms I doubt I'd appreciate lugging them around and the pro m4/3 lenses are the ones that have my eye. I also don't really feel the need for any 4/3 lens purchases atm maybe I'll own the prime teles most likely the 150mm but it's not likely at this point.
Give me a prime 150mm f2 with that Panasonic zoom teleextender (they patented one a year or two ago) and I'll just say shut up and take my money.
I bought the 50-200m swd soon after I got my ep-1 and it mostly languished because of the slow focus, I mean the ep-1 was pretty bad even when using m4/3 lens, it was terrifying with the 50-200mm. I guess despite the failing of the system I decided to go all in. I still have some of my old Pentax lenses (da 40mm limited and the 10-17mm fisheye, i really need to get rid of them. When I got my gh1 it didn't really improve my poor 50-200s situation probably worsened it. That go kinda fixed last year with my e-m5 but not really. That has all changed for the better with the e-m1 it works perhaps not as fast as the fastest but more than usable and I don't think I'll be using my 100-300mm panny much anymore. I guess it's bitter sweet in one regard, but hey my 50-200mm is still a lot of fun.
The evf is a beauty to behold and I had kinda forgotten about it when I started messing with the e-m1. I was pleasantly blown away when I put my eye to it and realized how damn big and beautiful it is. The e-m1 might not seem to be a big upgrade because there are many seemingly small improvements but the evf alone is worth the cost to upgrade. The mode lever adds the frosting on top and the rest is just pure pleasure.
I realize I am gushing but I can't really help it. Yes there are things that are a let down and mainly that is the mysets. I love mysets! The problem is that yes you can replace modes on the dial with a myset but and the but is really damn big is that it's still a pain in the ass to deal with them. The distressing thing is that it would require just a few minor things to elevate the mysets to far beyond greatness. Really simple things, stuff like being able to name them so you don't forget which myset does what. A way to manage them off camera, hey the wifi and Olympus share app there seems to be something there. Yes! Allow us to setup mysets along with the rest of the camera on our phones or tablets. Being able to manage, share and save them would be soo beneficial. It would increase interest in them because there are soo many things one could do but it's too hard to experiment with them atm or at least too time and brain consuming. Rant off, I'll start another thread for that.
I spent some more time with Olympus wifi app. I tried it with my Asus Transformer last night and while it is cool the smartphone app is much more useful to me. Unless one really needs the larger screen stick with your smartphone. It just made me feel too disconnected, yeah the size makes it harder to use but using it with a smartphone is much more intuitive. It was way too unwieldy. Perhaps I might use it in a pseudo tethering manner when shooting with a tripod but not likely. I can see the use and the point but it's not for me. I would love it if I could use it to setup the camera but perhaps that comes later.
With a smartphone the use is again situational but much much more easy to find yourself in that situation. Need a remote shutter release, I got you! You need to take a selfie from above and want to actually compose, I got you. Don't want to get on your knees, I got you baby. It is such a useful extension of the camera I can't really see how anyone would think that it was feature creep or hard to fathom the point.
figure a good subject for many to have in one spot 
