Small Warning about Olympus USA Re E-PM2 date/time issue

[Benzy]

I recently purchased a heavily discounted E-PM2 from Newegg and low an behold the date and time are wiped every time the battery is removed to be recharged. The internal battery/capacitor must be shot. Not the end of the world but unacceptable for a brand new camera.

My beef is with Olympus USA customer service. The immediate response from the tech agent was that this is completely normal. I told him that no camera I have owned in over 15 years had this defect. My Panasonics have no issue in this respect, nor does my friend who owns an E-M5.

"Yup, completely normal".

It took some pressing, quite a bit back and forth and me mentioning that the manual states that if the battery is removed for 24 h+ the date and time may be erased. I was put on hold, and then the agent returned and said that yes, this should not be happening and I should return the camera to Newegg (who has been fantastic, btw).

Just a warning, and a supposition here but there's a chance the heavily discounted E-PM2s may have a high occurrence of this issue and Olympus's line is to tell owners to live with it.

 

[ean10775]

Some of the refurbished E-PM1s exhibit the same issue from what I understand.


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[drd1135]

Yep. Sadly, it probably is "normal" in the sense that it happens quite a lot. It shouldn't of course.

 

[Jonathan F/2]

Bad QC on the part of Olympus. The date/time issue has been a major annoyance for awhile now.

 

[Ellsass]

Fingers crossed, it only happened the first two times I swapped the battery on mine. The worst part is that it doesn't tell you that it reset the time (or I don't remember seeing a prompt) resulting in a bunch of pictures dated 2011-12-31 00-00-00 when you copy them to your computer

 

[Ellsass]

Did you buy it from Newegg via Ebay, or from Newegg directly? Did they offer you a full refund or just an exchange?

 

[Art]

I got a brand new E-PM2 when it was first released. 2 years and thousands of pictures taken, never had date/time issue. Maybe it only happens to refurbished units?

 

[Benzy]

I got a brand new E-PM2 when it was first released. 2 years and thousands of pictures taken, never had date/time issue. Maybe it only happens to refurbished units?

I hope that's the case, a replacement is on it's way. This is supposed to be a brand new unit. More concerned with Olys response than the fact that one may have gotten through.

 

[yakky]

It seems to be a somewhat common occurrence across the brand not just sale cameras. It is not normal.

 

[drd1135]

My refurb epm1 never got better, but my refurb ep5 took two changes to come back to life.

 

[cuffs]

My E-PM2 did this the very first time I took the battery out to charge but hasn't done it since.

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[piggsy]

My E-PM2 did this the very first time I took the battery out to charge but hasn't done it since.

Same here.

 

[Evan614]

perhaps the battery is charging the internal one and that is why when you first get it is a problem.
not sure - just a guess, but newegg is top notch seller. I am sure they would be happy to work things out with you.

Personally I never use the time date stamp function (on screen) but I suppose it would be nice to go back several years and to see what date you took it.

 

[Benzy]

My E-PM2 did this the very first time I took the battery out to charge but hasn't done it since.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Was thinking the same when it first happened. But a fully charged battery was left in the camera over a weekend, and even then the date and time were wiped in an instant.

 

[Ross the fiddler]

perhaps the battery is charging the internal one and that is why when you first get it is a problem.
not sure - just a guess, but newegg is top notch seller. I am sure they would be happy to work things out with you.

Personally I never use the time date stamp function (on screen) but I suppose it would be nice to go back several years and to see what date you took it.

It's not about the Time & Date Stamp but what's recorded in the EXIF for each file that matters. I find it annoying when I hadn't updated the time from Daylight Saving Time to Normal time using different cameras & the time doesn't correlate between them. When files are viewed in order of time & date it becomes important.

 

[Ross the fiddler]

Was thinking the same when it first happened. But a fully charged battery was left in the camera over a weekend, and even then the date and time were wiped in an instant.

The internal battery is usually of the main pc board & is normally a lithium battery (which wouldn't be rechargeable).

 

[wilson]

The internal battery is usually of the main pc board & is normally a lithium battery (which wouldn't be rechargeable).

Sometimes capacitors are used these days to power the real time clock when the device is off.
But it's improbable in a camera since supercaps aren't all that compact.

I also got one of those deeply discounted E-PM2's from newegg through ebay.

When I first charged the battery and put it in and set the clock, the next time I turned off the camera, it forgot the date/time. I don't remember exactly how many more times it happened, but it happened a few more times. Since then it's been solid... I suppose something needs to charge up if the camera is left power-less for too long.

 

[Ramsey]

had the same issue with E-PM1, fortunately i had a warranty. They replaced the internal memory (from what i understand). The internal memory should hold at least a day without a battery inside, and even if turned of for many many days. So yeah, not normal.

Don't be mad at Olympus, it's just a ignorant/new employee.

 

[Robert Watcher]

Not just refurbished cameras. 2 years ago I purchased a new E-PL3 and immediately headed off to Nicaragua for 7 months. What became a major irritation was when I would be shooting with 2 cameras and forgot to check and set the time/date on the E-PL3 (I removed and recharged the batteries each day) and so I couldn't sync the dates to put images in correct order. But icing on the cake is the way that such an oversight of not checking and setting the date on my part (which happened enough times) - - - totally messed up my Lightroom Cataloguing, with the hundreds of shots I took each day, all be organized by date. When I returned to Canada, Olympus Canada fixed it before the year warranty was up - although I had to pay shipping fees and wait for a month and a half for use of the camera again.

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[yakky]

For those complaining about irreparable damage to their catalogs, two commands using exiftool will fix date stamps fairly easily.