The Canon EOS M is quickly becoming the laughingstock of the mirrorless party due to its autofocus system, which leaves much to be desired in terms of speed. To show just how sluggish the system really is, Tomek Kulas over at M43.eu did this very simple yet informative “hands-on test” that pits the EOS M against one of its archrivals: the Olympus OM-D EM-5.
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For those of you who are desperate for Olympus to release a focus peaking feature for the OM-D EM-5, did you know that there’s a trick you can use for “ghetto focus peaking”?
A French photographer named Nicolas recently found that the camera’s “Key Line” Art Filter actually works quite well as a focus peaking feature. Simply turn on the filter, set your camera to shoot RAW+JPEG, and focus/shoot away. You can throw away the artsy-filtered JPEG files afterward, but the RAW photographs will be precisely focused thanks to the clever “hack”!
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The Olympus OM-D EM-5 is a powerful little camera, but what owners are using these days many only be a portion of what the camera is fully capable of. 43 Rumors writes that an anonymous hacker is claiming to have hacked the camera using some firmware update trickery. What he or she found was quite interesting: hidden and locked features such as clean HDMI 4:2:2 output and focus peaking!
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Here’s a brilliant spoof advertisement for the Olympus OM-D mirrorless camera, created “for fun with a friend” by YouTube user spoofyoof (either that, or as a sneaky viral video). It features a simple, yet creative, twist.
Some people think you need a big heavyweight camera to take big heavyweight pictures. Well, not anymore. Meet Olympus OM-D. Small camera, big pictures.
Smaller and lighter cameras are something that’s a huge part of the ongoing mirrorless camera movement, so some camera company should definitely take this idea and turn it into an actual commercial.
(via 43 Rumors)
The Olympus OM-D EM-5 generated quite a bit of buzz when it was first announced due to its retro OM-inspired styling, but now reviews of the camera are suggesting that its potential as a camera are on par with its sleek form. DPReview has published a comprehensive review of the camera, giving it glowing marks and calling it the best Micro Four Thirds camera yet:
The E-M5 is, without question, the most accomplished Micro Four Thirds camera we’ve yet seen and, given how well established the system has become, it vies for the title of most capable mirrorless option yet. It’s not entirely without flaws and, predictably, most of those relate to continuous autofocus. But, for the most part, the E-M5 is simply an awful lot of camera in a compact and attractive body. It’s a nice camera to use and the images it takes are just as enjoyable. Without any reservations whatsoever, it deserves our Gold Award.
Looks like Olympus is doing a job good of shaking off its recent financial scandal.
Olympus OM-D E-M5 Review [DPReview]
One of the interesting features in Olympus’ OM-D EM-5 retro-styled camera is the 5-axis image stabilization, which shifts the sensor in 5 different axis directions (existing systems generally use 2) to compensate for camera shake. It’s a feature that caught the eye of Vimeo user Fiatopichan, who suffers from essential tremor (a neurological disorder that causes his hands to shake at about 5-10 Hz). He decided to buy the camera to test out the new system, and reported his findings in the video above. The stabilization is quite impressive.
(via 43 Rumors)
P.S. Here’s a video put out by Olympus that introduces the 5-axis system.
Today Olympus finally announced its OM-series Micro Four Thirds camera, the OM-D E-M5. In chrome and without a battery grip, the camera actually looks a lot better than the leaked images we saw a couple days ago. Styled like an old school SLR, the E-M5 is a 16-megapixel camera with blazing 9fps continuous shooting, RAW capabilities, weatherproofing, 1080i video recording, the “world’s fastest autofocus” on any camera, 5-axis image stabilization, a 3-inch tilting LCD screen, an ISO range of 100-25,600, and a 1.44m dot electronic viewfinder. It’ll be available starting in April — though it’s already available for preorder on Amazon — at a price of $1,000 for the body only, $1100 when bundled with a 14-42mm lens, or $1300 when bundled with a 12-50mm lens.
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Here are the first full photographs of Olympus’ new OM-D series Micro Four Thirds camera, the EM-5 (with an optional battery grip attached). The images were published to Amazon Japan before quickly being taken down. The camera is expected to become official on Wednesday, so we’ll have a full spec list in a couple days.
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New photos have emerged showing the retro OM-styled EM-5 Micro Four Thirds camera that Olympus is planning to unleash on the photo world. It’s the first camera in a new OM-D line, and offers a beautiful old school SLR aesthetic. The image above, which looks like some kind of ad, reads,
A new digital SLR era is about to begin. Digital SLRs, which simply replaced film with an imaging device did not change significantly in terms of size, weight and user interface. The revolutionary, new mirrorless camera, the OM-D, has an exceptionally light and compact body. Its Electronic View Finder enables photographers to check the Art Filter effect, color temperature, and exposure levels in real-time. When shooting, you can instantly “create” a truly unique world and preserve it in exceptional quality. The “world” will be transformed from something you see to something you “take part” in.
The OM-D is a groundbreaking, new digital interchangeable lens camera perfect for people who want to “take part,” “create,” and “share.”
You can see a higher-res version of the ad here.
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Wells Fargo Advisors is becoming a pretty reliable source for news regarding cameras before they’re actually announced. Just weeks after the Fujifilm X-Pro1 and Nikon D4 were announced early by the service, the soon-to-be-announced Olympus OM-D camera is now semi-official as well. The wire confirms that Olympus will be reviving its old OM brand for SLR cameras through a new line of mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras, and that the camera will sell for over ¥100000 (~$1300) in Japan. It also states that the new camera will resemble the Olympus OM-1 film SLR camera — originally launched in 1973 — and be equipped with high-speed autofocus (rumored to be the fastest of all mirrorless cameras) and image stabilization.
(via Wells Fargo Advisors via Photo Rumors)
Update: To clear up any confusion: Wells Fargo Advisors doesn’t write the news, but simply publishes press releases received from a third party. In this case, the press release wasn’t published before it was supposed to — it’s simply a Japanese news source confirming that it had also heard about the new camera and upcoming announcement.
