If the Em1mk2 can do tennis even high iso then the EM1X ..... (img heavy)

[AussiePhil]

will have no issues either... All images from the 2017 AusOpen all shoot with the EM1mk2 and usually the 40-150Pro

First up some high iso images, i'd say these would be fine for social media or newsprint though the colour balance from the poor lighting still needs a tweak i notice
This was an epic match on the most distant outside court with no pro in sight, Istaman in the glasses went on the win and then defeat Novak one the next round on centre court.
ISO 10,000

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P1170178 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
ISO6400

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P1170032 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
ISO6400

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002886-P1170026 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
ISO5000

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002887-P1170038 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
the end of a sprint from the back of the court i tracked without issue with CAF-TR
ISO6400

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002895-P1170121 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
ISO6400

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003468-P1179857 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
ISO500 and he's in the air

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003483-P1179906 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

 

[AussiePhil]

Spent most of my days in Hisense arena and not close to the action

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003849-P1183388 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
however the 2x crop factor helped usually

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003023-P1174539 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
the Kia signage was a magnet for the AF on the mk2
I'm not going to clain all a razor sharp though

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002827-P1163132 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
the mk2 AF had a high magnetic attraction to any high contrast signage, something i've notive the EM1X does not do

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002830-P1163135 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr
Back to in focus

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003296-P1177370 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

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003979-P1195043 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

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004189-P1196901 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

Back to Istaman now on centre court, i got lucky in getting free tickets for that evenings match

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004313-P1198003 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

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004224-P1197122 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

It was HOT

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002684-P1161301 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

 

[AussiePhil]

A view from where i was sitting on centre court

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004296-P1197958 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

an example of "the moment" in my opinion considering distance it's not to bad

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004254-P1197407 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

The EM1mk2 also had a nasty habit of snapping to focus on the ball ... again something the EM1X doesn't do

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005556-P1208641 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

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005591-P1209161 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

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005620-P1209426 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

Time for a rest

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005686-P1209948 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

Fairly even split in the pro pit

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005701-P1200003 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

 

[AussiePhil]

A few critically timed ones i don't recall if pro-captured or not, most likely was as i'd had the camera about 4 weeks at this point

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005837-P1200950 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

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005448-P1201741 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

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005473-P1202050 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

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005527-P1202614 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

 

[AussiePhil]

Back closer to home - here's a few of the world fastest serve record holder Sam Groth
Rolling shutter effects are minimal imo

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P1100139-000093 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

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P1100022-000005 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

I perfect example that show 1/4000 is NOT fast enough to stop motion blur when the ball leaves the racket, it's not rolling shutter

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P1100076-000009 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

Another Moment

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P1100256-000049 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

I've posted this before, it's a deliberate 60fps pro capture attempt to get the ball at the net

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P1081159 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

 

[AussiePhil]

Getting the ball on or in the strings does not need Pro-capture it needs good knowledge and experience in tennis and your camera plus at least a little luck

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000186-P1120552v2 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

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000160-P1120049v2 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

Not sure if this is motion blur or just lack of DOF

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020768-_3251962 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

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023767-_3227800 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

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024002-_3239008 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

 

[ijm5012]

I mean, I'm not surprised to see that DPR didn't quite know what they're doing regarding the E-M1 X.

They had similar comments about the AF of the Nikon Z6, but once people actually got their hands on the camera and figured out how to configure the AF settings properly, we managed to get excellent results. There are many instances of people successfully shooting professional sports with the Z cameras, and going "WTF was DPR talking about, the AF is perfectly fine".

Personally, I think DPR has been caught up in the craze to be first to get an article out there, which in turn compromises the results of thecomparison because they didn't take the time to set the camera up properly. Meanwhile, the reviews from people who take a few weeks to shoot with the camera and learn it inside and out tend to paint a much better picture of the camera's capabilities. I never base my buying decisions on what DPR has to say, as there are far more reputable sources out there online IMO.

 

[AussiePhil]

I respectively claim enough knowledge and experience to call out the efforts in the DPR story to be lacking....

 

[Brian Beezley]

Phil, about the elongated ball: a tennis site says first-serve speed for the average tennis pro is 184.1 km/h. That's about a half inch of travel in 1/4000 sec. The ball looks more elongated than that. Do you think there's any chance it goes from compressed to elongated before relaxing back to spherical? Maybe your camera is giving a more realistic image of it than you think.

Notice the sweat droplets in the air near the hand in that shot!

Brian

 

[AussiePhil]

Phil, about the elongated ball: a tennis site says first-serve speed for the average tennis pro is 184.1 km/h. That's about a half inch of travel in 1/4000 sec. The ball looks more elongated than that. Do you think there's any chance it goes from compressed to elongated before relaxing back to spherical? Maybe your camera is giving a more realistic image of it than you think.

Notice the sweat droplets in the air near the hand in that shot!

Brian

That’s the average speed as measured at some point after the ball has left the racket, the actual racket head speed to top male pro’s is at least that meaning the ball speed directly from the strings should be even higher. In all the photo’s I’ve got I can see the compression in the strings but never really seen any elongation but that may be masked by motion blur.
For a horizontally shoot image the ball alone does not cover enough pixel rows to really show rolling shutter effect.... however on a vertical image with the sensor being read effective left to right then just maybe it is blur and rolling shutter but really it’s,minimal imo

 

[AussiePhil]

Phil, about the elongated ball: a tennis site says first-serve speed for the average tennis pro is 184.1 km/h. That's about a half inch of travel in 1/4000 sec. The ball looks more elongated than that. Do you think there's any chance it goes from compressed to elongated before relaxing back to spherical? Maybe your camera is giving a more realistic image of it than you think.

Notice the sweat droplets in the air near the hand in that shot!

Brian

Brian, sorry for the double reply but looking really close at the image the ball is still compressed in the strings so,it’s,likely we are seeing the compressed shape at an angle along with the blur due to the racket head speed... Sam was serving around 215kph plus that day

 

[Brian Beezley]

I didn't notice the angle. I bet you're right on all counts, Phil.

I don't think ball artifacts hurt the image. They just emphasize the ball speed.

Brian

Edit - Not much elongation:

 

[AussiePhil]

I didn't notice the angle. I bet you're right on all counts, Phil.

I don't think ball artifacts hurt the image. They just emphasize the ball speed.

Brian

Edit - Not much elongation:

Nice finds
I wonder if they are attributed to Sam Groth as that is up near his record speeds
Aligns with the photo’s though... that definately for me puts the nail in the coffin for it being any form of rolling shutter

 

[ac12]

Your comment about the AF wanting to focus on the KIA signs, is similar to the trouble I had with the Nikon 3D AF. It would grab focus on the lines on the court, not the player. Lost too many shots, so I went back to single point AF, where I control what the camera focuses on.

 

[whumber]

I perfect example that show 1/4000 is NOT fast enough to stop motion blur when the ball leaves the racket, it's not rolling shutter
View attachment 738785 P1100076-000009 by Phil Gartner, on Flickr

This is both, there definitely motion blur but also very clear rolling shutter artifacts. Tennis balls don't really get shear deformation like that.

EDIT: I'm less sure now after watching a bunch of high speed video, it appears there can be some instantaneous shear deformation shortly after impact as the pressure waves bounce back and forth within the ball. I haven't seen anything as severe as the image above but I guess it's possible. It would be better to see an image taken from the side farther from the impact point to determine the effect of rolling shutter vs actual physical deformations.

 

[Reflector]

I mean, I'm not surprised to see that DPR didn't quite know what they're doing regarding the E-M1 X.

They had similar comments about the AF of the Nikon Z6, but once people actually got their hands on the camera and figured out how to configure the AF settings properly, we managed to get excellent results. There are many instances of people successfully shooting professional sports with the Z cameras, and going "WTF was DPR talking about, the AF is perfectly fine".

Personally, I think DPR has been caught up in the craze to be first to get an article out there, which in turn compromises the results of thecomparison because they didn't take the time to set the camera up properly. Meanwhile, the reviews from people who take a few weeks to shoot with the camera and learn it inside and out tend to paint a much better picture of the camera's capabilities. I never base my buying decisions on what DPR has to say, as there are far more reputable sources out there online IMO.

DPR knows controversy makes clicks and they like to stoop down to the level of the gutter comments over at rumor websites, their forums are a great example of this and the generally poor job they do in reviews these days is very much tied to that.

I do miss the old DPR of the early 2000s but that's a site that'll never come back now that Amazon owns it.

 

[SLOtographer]

You might all know this already... Kelley L Cox is an Olympus Visionary and pro sports photographer. She'd a good example of a pro who can shoot pro sports with Olympus gear. Visionary: Kelley Cox | Olympus

 

[AussiePhil]

This is both, there definitely motion blur but also very clear rolling shutter artifacts. Tennis balls don't really get shear deformation like that.

EDIT: I'm less sure now after watching a bunch of high speed video, it appears there can be some instantaneous shear deformation shortly after impact as the pressure waves bounce back and forth within the ball. I haven't seen anything as severe as the image above but I guess it's possible. It would be better to see an image taken from the side farther from the impact point to determine the effect of rolling shutter vs actual physical deformations.

The collective we are so keen to blame any sort of weird shape on e-shutter artifacts that sometimes like this we miss that it could just be real.
Tennis balls get highly deformed as you can see in many of my shots as well as the high speed video evidence.
that particular serve by Sam seems to be a slice kicker with the ball still in the strings and getting some additional deformation from the slice action imparting a anti clockwise rotation. Now add in speed related motion blur
Eshutter would be reading the pixel rows left to right as it’s a vertical orientated image at around 240 rows per millisecond this could have added some horizontal elongation and i’d Have to pull the original to measure the percentage/pixels the ball covers..
Really for these small artifacts that likely enhance the shot with the appearance of motion without an obvious oval soccer ball to 99.99% of viewers it makes the discussion mute...

I really replied to answer or question from DPR about having a burst sequence of the ball being tracked.
The answer is unlikely as they ended up getting culled, I may have individual shoots out of the sequences though if you would accept my word that they were part of a sequence.

 

[AussiePhil]

You might all know this already... Kelley L Cox is an Olympus Visionary and pro sports photographer. She'd a good example of a pro who can shoot pro sports with Olympus gear. Visionary: Kelley Cox | Olympus

Personally I knew of Kelley and appreciate the info for everyone

The purpose of this thread was to show what the EM1Mk2 could do and offer up some evidence that with all my comments across forums on the article that I had the credentials/knowledge to do so.
I was asked to put up or shut up so I put up. Said requestor went strangely silent after that.

The EM1X is a more confidence inspiring camera with better performance that with the built like a tank quality that is in line with the 5D/1Dx series offers m43 users wanting to shoot either full professional or semi pro the “look” that puts them into the circle.
The “look” whilst not required from an image IQ perspective can provide a confidence boost.
Over above the look the overall ergonomics to existing working pros that may look to supplement with or shift to Oly is critical and Oly have got it right.

The D3/4/5, 1Dx are rightly at the top of the heap in they fields and the fact that Olympus with the EM1X and Sony with the A9 have come to play in the same league and can play on the same field says a lot about both newcomers. Neither of e newcomers will appear in bulk any time soon but having the option of a genuine pro level body for your preferred camera brand offers choice.
The Olympus 150-400Pro will change the game for many as will the Sony 400F2.8

choice is good, no longer are we locked into a two camera choice on the sidelines of a pro sporting event

 

[Bytesmiths]

Fairly even split in the pro pit

I like the old guy on the right, squinting at his LCD like he had never heard of "mirrorless."

I rarely use my LCD, because I'm in the half of my life when I pay for the perfect vision I had in the other half of my life. (Luckily, I have a spouse who spent half her life with glasses. Now, I call her my "splinter puller." )