OMG! It’s the New Olympus OM-D

Take a long lingering look at the new Olympus OM-D EM10, Mark II because this camera is drop-dead gorgeous. However, its beauty is more than just skin deep; it’s blessed with substance to match its good looks. This latest addition to the line up of quality products from Olympus packs in class leading technology that gives everyone from the novice to the expert a significant edge in producing better pictures.

Let’s peek inside this little black box with a photo trip to Vietnam with yours truly.

For me, two features really stood out head and shoulders. The first is the 5-axis in-body image stabilization that is built into the EM10, Mark II. This feature reduces the likelihood of blurred unusable photos in two very common scenarios – low light and shooting from a moving platform such as a car or train. Olympus purports up to a 4-stop improvement, meaning you are able to use shutter speeds up to four times slower than is otherwise necessary to prevent blurred photographs. In the case of low light conditions, you would now be able to open your shutter longer, letting in more light and thus capturing a nicely lit and sharp photo. Just remember to tell your subject to stay still.

Likewise, you would now be able to produce crisp and sharp images from a moving vehicle at shutter speeds slower than normally required. What this basically allows you, is to create prefect pictures more often with minimal fuss and technical knowledge.

The other feature that blew my mind is the exceptionally fast and accurate auto-focus. The EM10 Mark II is capable of establishing a focus lock in a split second even in low light, enabling me to react quicker to the split second golden moments that wait for no one. These combine to make the perfect tool for capturing the most fleeting of life’s precious moments, that would otherwise be lost forever.

The inclusion of a new 40-megapixel High-Resolution Shot mode is an extra bonus and shows the company’s dedication to innovation. This mode is designed for use on a tripod, which uses the camera’s sensor-shift capability to capture eight half-pixel shifted images and combines them into a single shot.

Videography enthusiasts will be pleased to note that Olympus has made a host of serious improvements. An All-I codec and a 77Mbps maximum bitrate for 1080/30p really ups Olympus’ game in this area. The 4 key time-code options (drop/non-drop and record run/free run) will come in handy for those attempting shoots with multiple cameras and need to synchronise the footage. Olympus also touts the camera as optimized for handheld shooting, since it incorporates the 5-axis image stabilization.

The electronic viewfinder, comprising 236K – dot OLEDs, comes in useful with composition as it automatically illuminates any scene to an appropriate level of brightness and is magnified approximately 0.62 times. The articulating live view also helps immensely with composition.

As a photographer, the EVF and LCD are important as it accurately displays accurately how my photograph will look; with a high quality display, I feel more inspired to continue a photoshoot when I see my shots reproduced in all its glory.

The Olympus OM-D EM10, Mark II also comes with a ton of in-camera adjustments so that you can create your own look without tedious post processing. To do this, there are 14 art filters, as well as in-camera colour and contrast adjustment options which allows you to recreate the image profiles of other famous cameras. The Wi-fi is also a real boon in this day of Instagram and social media sharing.

My biggest regret is that the Olympus isn’t weatherproof, especially given that mirrorless cameras lend its heritage to street photography and gritty field journalism. I also found that although ISO is marketed for a range of 100 – 250,000, the results are best if kept under 6,400. This is relatively low but necessary when considering that Olympus sports a micro 4/3 sensor that will produce a fair bit of noise on higher ISO settings.

For those looking to edit videos from the camera, the camera films in MOV files which, unfortunately is not the easiest to edit on premiere pro. Ergonomics is generally good, with all major buttons on the right side. However, I found the large shutter adjustment wheel easy to accidentally turn when holding single-handed, which I did when chasing down a subject and running and gunning so to speak.

All in all, a very strong performer. The Olympus OM-D EM10, Mark II is a competent jack of all trades and is a perfect companion for the novice as well as traveller who doesn’t want to lug around a ton of gear. For professional photographers, it is also no slouch and is the perfect side arm when discretion is warranted in such scenarios like street photography where the ability to move around surreptitiously is necessary.

The Single Lens Kit (M. Zuiko 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 EZ Pancake lens) retails at S$1,148 while the Double Lens Kit (M. Zuiko 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 EZ Pancake lens and M. Zuiko 40-150mm F4.0-5.6R lens) retails at S$1,348.

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