The weekend we got many more E-M5II images and info about the new Olympus E-M5II camera. It should be announced within 10-14 days from now and it’s also time to ask our readers if they like the cam:
[poll id=”267″]
Specs:
Same E-M5 16MP sensor
Update processor (improves slightly the IQ)
No PDAF
New sensor shift shooting that allows to combine 8 pictures in one to create a 40 Megapixel image
Improved 5 axis stabilization
It does have clean hdmi-out
all common frame rates and video optimized af-algorithm.
50Mb/s all 1080p (no 4K recording)
Accessories:
New Battery Grip HLD-8G and HLD-6P
New flash FL-LM3
Waterproof protector for E-M5II
–
found via Digicameinfo, Photorumors. Nikishita.
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FT1=1-20% chance the rumor is correct
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FT4=61-80% chance the rumor is correct
FT5=81-99% chance the rumor is correct
76 Responses
can we expect the 14-150 II to also be weatherproof?
I doubt it. The original isn’t and from the name this seems just a revised version. If it is weather sealed it will be much more expensive.
I would really have liked to see a small integrated flash as in the Em10 so that it can trigger other off-camera flashes. I like the idea of shooting 40MP pictures for product photography but it is probably not useful for landscapes as there are always some elements moving in the frame. Otherwise, I like very much all the function buttons, I hope the viewfinder is as good as the one in the Em1 and I don’t really care about the swivel LCD.
You can use the bundled external flash to trigger those flashes, just like with the E-M5. And don’t say it’s inconvenient, because if you go to the trouble of using off-camera flashes, then putting another flash in the hotshoe isn’t that much work.
Well, it is actually inconvenient 😉
It is just an extra accessory you have to take with you (and not forget as I did several time already) so it would have been nice to have it directly in-camera. If I want to have my em5 mkII and mkI as a backup, I then have to take two cameras + two bundled external flashes as well as my off-camera flashes. It just complicates slightly the process. If it can be done in the Em10, it should have been doable in the em5 mkII even with the 5-axis stabilization.
I suppose a built-in popup flash is harder to combine with weather sealing.
I like the function buttons with the exception of the FN1 button. Sure seems like it’s now in the wrong location for right thumb activation. Otherwise this seems to be a nice Goldilocks in the OMD range.
True, but I think flash photography is a little beyond the m43 target market. If I start lugging flashes and mods, I can as well add a slightly larger camera, which does the job way better.
Idiot….
If you don’t shoot in environmental lighting, then you need flashes. And that means you either shoot corporation portraits, studio portraits or products. Or you do some kind fancy art with lights.
And for that you always need a flash that you can control and move.
Flash photography isn’t beyond at all m4/3 market, you need to buy a Olympus flashes if wanted to get TTL (not really required if you know anything about lighting) or high sync speed (not really required, use ND filters instead, not problem with EVF) and keep small size. Metz has many small flashes that are great too as is. Throw there good RF RC and its done.
Fill Flash!!! Fill Flash!!! Fill Flash!!! Three good reasons for Pop-up flashes. Most of the time when I’m shooting friends and relatives outdoors I use Fill Flash. Usually when I’m shooting paid work outdoors I use Profoto battery packs, but sometimes a Pop-up flash is all I need for a little fill.
The E-M5-2’s closest competitor is the Nikon D810 (36Mp vs 40Mp). The D810 comes with a Pop-up Flash.
Epilepsy!!! Epilepsy!!! Epilepsy!!! I f*ng hate flash going off everywhere. People who know how to use it prefer it off the camera anyways. Need fill flash? find a different angle! If 10% of the photos of my kids would have been with flash, they would have been damaged..
Oh WoW, another effing Strobist. On camera fill is commonly used by Professionals, but not by Hobby-ists 😉 Love the background, but need some fill under the hat brim?? Just use the Pop-up Flash, a lot easier than having an off-camera-flash right over the lens.
So called Obie Lights (on-camera fill) are common on Film Sets. “On the set of The Lodger (1944), Ballard met, and then married actress Merle Oberon (from 1945 until 1949). After she was involved in a near fatal car crash in London, he invented a light which was mounted by the side of the camera, to provide direct light onto a subject’s face, with the aim of reducing blemishes and wrinkles. Named the “Obie”, the device benefited Oberon who had sustained facial scarring in the car accident. The Obie would become widely used in the film industry.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucien_Ballard
So should we give all the poor innocent children with their big deer eyes epilepsy because a few of the few professionals using m43 like to use on camera fill? Or worse, think about the cats.. the cats!!
Maybe it would be best for me to forget buying an E-M5-2, and just buy a Nikon D810 (36Mp) with a built-in flash.
Thats a lot of money and weight for a buildt in flash, but atleast you will have a flash camera that you can go around and flash..
I do wish I knew how to use a flash…
Cheers
Every photographer needs fill flash now and then. I use fill flash on my smartphone, even.
Although I tend to be critical in regard to this camera, I like it very much. Anything about the price yet? 1099€ for the body only?
That would be way too much, unless all accessories are included.
Give us more rumors!
Any hint about AF system?
sadly, no PDAF :/ (as by the latest rumours)
But how about AF points – same as EM5, or EM1? Something different altogether?
I don’t like the looks much but 25p video with IBIS got me interested. I’ve been waiting for it.
Me too!
Nah, I won’t buy a camera with evf, it’s 2015 and only reason would be if I were so ugly that I needed to hide my face behind a camera, and m43 are too small in that case..
Waitng for P6 instead..
You need a selfie cam, E-PL7?
I’m 48 years old, so far I’ve never taken a selfie, thats for kids and gays..
But PL7 seems to be a great camera, great price and format, but to close to my PM.. I think, or hope, that P6 will be good enough to upgrade..
You are still young at 48. As you get older, You will need evf when your eyes get blur focusing with lcd and your hands shake uncontrollably without support.
When that day is here I will buy a M5XIV, if it still has got a evf..
😉
Actually, I would consider a wifi-monokel-evf, that would be so much cooler than a smartphoneapp..
You’re 48 and talk so much nonsense? Oh boy.
No…..No….GF-7…and selfie poll! 🙂
oh..oh….that was supposed to be selfie pole…like the pole to hole the camera up to take your selfies ….
Too late, admin already took you up on it and made a GF7 post will a poll.
Pole to hole the camera… I dont think admin can help you with that 😉
I would have voted, but I miss the value “Don’t know yet”. Scale of the poll is »yes«, »no« or »no«.
You’re either with us, or against us..
will there be focus peaking as well?
I d expect so as both E-M10 and E-M1 sport this feature
And even the Stylus 1 has it now too.
I may like it if 1) the viewfinder has the same resolution as the E-M1 2) there is a microphone input 3) there is a headphone output. No sense in improving video capabilities without (2) and (3). Also curious about the quality of the 40Mb images.
I’m a big fan of the button layout (except the continual lack of a feasible back button for rear-AF). But the camera is overall a disappointment. I don’t need 40MP (unless they defy physics and somehow enable this for all shooting situations). I would like a better sensor with more dynamic range.
Though, I’m more wanting the E-M1 partly for ergonomics… I had hoped this would introduce more so the E-M1 mk2 would be a bigger upgrade… leaving more E-M1s in the used market 🙂
Anyone know the usual availability time after the anoucement date? Im leaving for a trip to asia on april 10. If I preorder when the em5 is anounced, should two months be ok to receive the order?
Maybe, if you’re lucky. Depends where you live.
I would say it’s probably not ready until May or so.
But who knows.
Well hopefully. .. If I remembrer well the em10 was annonced in late january and was in stores for late march. ..
I do like it, but I won’t consider buying one if it doesn’t drive FT lenses by on-sensor PDAF.
Olympus’ camera line-up and naming continues to get even more chaotic, instead of finally becoming somewhat straightened out. An E-M10 that was less expensive than the E-M5, but with a more advanced feature set, just without sealing. An E-M5II that will probably be less expensive than the E-M1, but with a more advanced feature set, except for PDAF and FT compatibility.
I know, if not cannibalizing sales of existing models is the prime objective, then there is at least some reason behind it. But for the potential customer, the decisions become harder and harder (except if for someone like me FT compatibility is mandatory).
Based on body specs (build quality, physical controls and weather sealing) the three models clearly form a three-tiered line-up. The only reason the E-M10 had some more advanced features than the E-M5 was because it was a newer model. Likewise with the E-M5 II versus the E-M1. That’s what happens when you don’t update the entire line-up at the same time.
IMHO, much of the attempt to distinguish “build quality” is based on pure imagination, caused by different looks, but not by physical differences which would actually cause higher production costs (with the exception, of course, of weather sealing).
It is of course true that things like that tend to happen “when you don’t update the entire line-up at the same time”, and in two or three cases it happened in the pre-mirrorless days, too. The E-30 was a significantly better E-3 – except for the viewfinder and the weather sealing. Still, the Four Thirds line-up used to be much more comprehensible and coherent than what Olympus offers today.
Or warranty. Simply having to guarantee a camera to perform under certain circumstances would push the build quality, but also the risk of warranty repairs.
I wouldn’t imagine it would all be left to the imagination.
It won’t. If it had PDAF, it would be an E-M1, not an E-M5. That’s kind of the opposite of chaos.
Then you and I have different definitions for chaos. In mine, regardless of how a camera would be named, a non-chaotic product policy would not include offering a new high-end camera with a new megapixel world record (for system cameras below medium format including every DSLR until now), but without full support for a significant number of the best lenses it has to offer.
It makes a lot more sense once you realize that the megapixels are a gimmick.
Yes, of course. We should all be shooting with 2 MP maximum, Sony’s and Nikon’s 36 MP cameras have no advantage whatsoever in resolving fine detail for large prints and crops, especially not in their effective telephoto reach, and Hasselblad’s 200 MP camera is a gimmick for amateurs who let themselves be wheedled into buying something without any real use.
No, of course not. I don’t think *any* of those things. It’s just that the E-M5II won’t meaningfully out-resolve the E-M5. The file will be 2.5 times bigger, but it won’t contain the detail you would expect from that. You’ll see when it comes out.
Right, we’ll see. It all depends on whether Olympus’ microshift feature is anything like what Hasselblad already has. If it is, it very likely will “meaningfully out-resolve” the E-M5 in that shooting mode. Which probably will, just as the Hasselblad, require a tripod and a static scene, like landscapes, and the best lenses to boot, but if the requirements are met, it will produce 40 MP images which should be very similar in detail resolution to what a Sony A7s or Nikon D800/800E/810 produces.
I like the camera.
I like the HLD-8G.
I love the ability to make hi-rez still images.
I do wish that there was an updated sensor…it is three years later afterall.
…but we do not have to whole story yet …..but I think I will buy the camera.
Need more info.
Is there focus peaking on the feature list?
It’ll be there anyhow.
I’m planning to buy, but I’d like it a lot more if it had a REAL built-in grip like my Nikon F100 film camera, like my Canon DSLRs or my Sony NEX 5n Mirrorless.
Using the Olympus accessory grip is a non-starter. Camera companies are like children, you shouldn’t reward them for bad behavior, can anybody say “$75.00 lens hoods??”
Then you should be buying the E-M1 then. That was specifically made that way to satisfy requests to that effect from feedback on the E-M5.
Ross, does the E-M1 have the 40Mp sensor shift technology ??? I’m buying the E-M5-2 strictly for the 40Mp sensor shift technology. No other reason!
Perhaps you can change ur name to a-hole?
Does anyone have any idea about the EVF on the new camera? I think for me it would have be a significant improvement in EVF to make it worthwhile upgrading from the EM5 – no matter what extra goodies they put on it!
I don’t think the E-M5II is meant to be an upgrade path from the E-M5, just a similar model but with later improvements & additions.
Looks like it has a fully articulated screen (hinge on left of screen) rather than just tilt.
Wonder if the HLD-6P is exactly the same as battery portion/bottom half of E-M5 grip? Mine says it is a HLD-6P. Perhaps can purchase HLD-8G separate and use existing HLD-6P?
Grip on body seems thicker than E-M5… could it be enough to fit 2 cards in there?
There’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s not going to replace my E-M1.
Need to hear more about when the sensor shift mode works (e.g., still subjects only, or moving too) and whether it increases colour accuracy and/or dynamic range as well as pure resolution, but it sounds interesting in theory, IF the lenses are up to that kind of resolution.
A couple of very fast primes would be nice now that pro level bodies have come to m43 – 0.95 aperture 35 and 50mm equivalents to give at least f/2 bokeh.
Shame it doesn’t have PDAF, or weather sealing, though, might wait for an E-M1ii…
Think it about.
If your camera has shutter speed 1/160, then the sensor shift function takes 8×1/160 shots, between there is own time when sensor is moved (very fast, it is IBIS after all). So instead 1/160 shutter speed, you have at least 1/20 shutter speed + the shift time.
The lenses doesn’t need to be up to that resolution, that is the benefit of the sensor shift, you gain higher resolution without making lenses that resolve sensor.
Yes, the lenses do need to be up to that resolution. What the sensor shift is doing is capturing an image with a higher pixel density by moving the sensor around. It doesn’t magically increase the resolution of the projected image at the sensor.
If I were to upgrade from my E-M5 (unlikely for awhile), I dislike having yet another new battery grip (HLD-8 vs. HLD-6). At least in the E-3, E-30, and E-5 cameras, they kept the same grip. I haven’t bought the HLD-6 grip at present, but I’ve been thinking about it for my steampunk cameras. I do have a third party grip (without batteries) that I do like on the E-M5.
I dislike the FL-LM3 as it appears to make it even higher than the FL-LM2 on the E-M5, which makes it harder to just stuff the camera in a bag. I imagine the taller flash is helpful to move the point were red-eye sets in further back, and it might allow for the flash to be used on bigger lenses. I would hope that you don’t need a battery in the FL-LM3, but given it is mounted on the hot-shoe and not on the accessory holder, I don’t think there is a way to power to flash other wise. It is also useful with the current FL-LM2, to be able to switch between flash/no-flash by simply raising the flash and lower it, rather than menu diving.
No accessory port. While the current accessory port is kind of crippled, it does mean you won’t be able to use SEMA-1 (external microphone) or MAL-01 (macro lights) on the E-M5-II (just like on the E-M10). Hopefully there is an audio jack to attach a microphone. And when my EVF went dark shortly after getting the camera (it has been fixed under extended warranty), it was useful to plug in my VF-2 into the accessory port (though it was kind of goofy to mount an external EVF on top of a built-in EVF).
The side mounted LCD panel is good, assuming the LCD can be twisted in multiple orientations. I miss the E-5 LCD panel that could be flipped when the camera was in portrait orientation as opposed to landscape orientation.
I wish Olympus would get over having the strap attachment be a little circle which you then have to add a triangle to attach the strap to. I prefer the style like the E-3/E-620 where you attach the strap directly to the top of the camera. I find it annoying at times when I pick up the camera, my fingers can go over the strap hanger. Also, I’ve had the hanger break in one previous camera.
I prefer having the cable for USB, shutter release, and A/V out on the left side, but it looks like most of Olympus cameras it is on the right side where the grip is. When I am using either shutter release or external A/V setup, I often times do want to pick up the camera and use it hand held for a few shots without removing the cables.
I have no need for increasing the pixel size. In fact, I wish cameras had stopped at 8 or 12MP, and concentrated on improving the low light efficiency instead of adding more and more pixels (which tends to make low light noise worse, which then has to be fixed in post).
The ergonomics look to be a huge, as in life-altering, improvement over the current EM-5. If Oly would only hire a UX designer to fix their menu system, I might actually consider this camera.
Biggest issue is how you access changing the aperature, ISO and shutter speed. It’s stupid.
Stupid?
Front dial or rear deal adjust aperture and shutter.
Flip 2×2 switch and now front and rear dial adjust ISO and White Balance.
Stupid? Sure…. If you are stupid, then everything is stupid for you and nothing can help you.
Perhaps they should subcontract Panasonic to sort their menu out?
That’s one ugly camera.
Still no built-in flash!!
“Same E-M5 sensor”, It means that still using Truepic VI, many people didn’t desire that thing.
Why is Olympus using three year old image sensor technology?
Can’t they implement a new BSI sensor to improve low light performance?