Some more bits before the news gets official at 5am London time:
– The E-M1 has adaptive sharpening optimization (works for every Olympus MFT and FT lens)
– Continuous AF is better than in any other MFT camera and matches the best DSLR performance
– EVF automatically adjusts the brightness
– The E-M1 is more weathersealed than the [shoplink 17163 ebay]Olympus E-5[/shoplink]
– 12-40mm PRO lens has better performance than the 12-60mm FT lens.
– Olympus will offer a PRO Service package for E-M1 owners (for example access to a hotline number)
First image samples by Ming Thein on Flicr (part one and part two).
74 Responses
– Continuous AF is better than in any other MFT camera and matches the best DSLR performance
Very nice!
– 12-40mm PRO lens has better performance than the 12-60mm FT lens.
That is unbelievable but I would absolutely love it!
“Continuous AF is better than in any other MFT camera and matches the best DSLR performance” If this is true it will be a big step up in performance over the E-M5. It’s the only thing that bugs me on the E-M5.
Is the 12-60mm FT lens a great lens??? ….I am not familiar with FT lenses….
http://dslr-check.info/2012/0202a.jpg see this
it is superb.
It’s the fastest auto focusing Four-Thirds lens, but it has rather big distortion at 12mm. If they’d tried to correct for that, it would have been huge.
Small Cam big picture has a hands on http://www.smallcamerabigpicture.com/om-d_e-m1/
-Continuous autofocus that matches DSLRs? Great!
-Better weathersealing than E-M5. Awesome!
Alas, it comes down to video specs… Is it really that hard for Olympus to add different frame rates and increase the bitrate as opposed to implement and improve seemingly more difficult features? This camera would be on “buy list” for sure if not for the lack of concern to video.
Yeah the video is rather bad. 60p and 48mb would be great!
Seriously, whoever did the cost/benefit analysis on adding basic video features dun goofed.
I say “basic” video features, meaning 1080p/50&60, 1080p/24&25 and other modes that we’re accustomed to seeing on cheap pocket cameras and most TELEPHONES in this, Anno Domini 2013. Those really are the _least_ you can do right now — a forward-thinking company would be looking at adding basic 4k video just to keep your product relevant for a few additional months.
That said, wow, they really did knock it out of the park on this one in every other way. From the leaks so far, it sounds like one hell of a camera.
1080p@30, 24 and 25 fps would be fine. Of course nobody would complain about doihble frane rates, but that would be a bonus.
However, claiming that 4K would be needed to stay relevant?? Hardly. 4K is very taxing to postprocess these days, it will need quite a while until this becomes a useable feature.
…Better weathersealing than the E-5, not the E-M5! (see headline data above from Admin). Therefore, improved upon an already excellent weathersealed/splashproof E5 body!
That seems inconsistent with the new text saying “drip-proof” instead of “splash-proof”.
Maybe that means that the E-5 wasn’t as good as the E-1.
if the performance of the 12-40 lens is indeed better than the 12-60 (which i used to own and loved), then i’ll be the first to order it. but i’m a bit dubious…still, if the lens is anywhere near the hype, i think i’ll pick one up.
Take my cash!
No, take mine first!
I’d rather have the camera first. 😉
> – Olympus will offer a PRO Service package for E-M1 owners (for example access to a hotline number)
oh, dear – how about 24-48 hours service turnaround and loaners ? no, we shall be glad that hood now is included ! and hotline w/ clueless drones.
A bit cynical, don’t you think? The hotline is one example of the pro service. It obviously will include more features.
Well, that all does sound great if true. The 12-60 is a pretty darn good lens and to better that in a smaller size would be quite nice. Now if they claimed it was better then the 14-35mm F2, I would have found it hard to believe.
There is so much contention about what constitutes “acceptable continuos focus” that I’ll reserve my judgement there pending actual testing. But any improvement is good and if it is in the “general” DSLR range that will be great.
Sharpening optimization leaves a lot to interpretation. Want more details and specifics but sounds like it could be a bonus.
Better weather sealed then the E-5 (not the E-M5) is quite a statement. In fact the weather resistance of the original E series approaches the legendary. (I owned an E-3 and it was amazing in that aspect) Olympus used words like Splash resistant (implying an IP 3-4 rating) as well as dustproof. That is some pretty serious claims. If the EM-1 matches that, it will be worth every penny they are asking for as we are then looking at a very high level of weather resistance that goes beyond most other Pro level cameras. (I don’t see how they can do it in that small of a package, but I’m willing to be surprised).
Addition of a “Pro” service plan also indicates their target market, but keep in mind that “Pro Service plans” are almost always extra cost, not included, but provide special benefits to working pros such as priority repair, loaners, etc.
Now to be realistic, these are all still rumors but in a few hours we will know so much more. This is bad, real bad, I’m starting to feel like a little kid on Christmas morning. Haven’t been this excited about a camera in years. Okay, time to take a break and settle myself down to prepare for reality. He he.
Agree!! Anymore weatherproof than E-x series will make it waterproof. E-3 and E-5 can withstand a second dip ind the water without having any water leaking in.
It’ll be interesting to see the build quality of E-M1
I wonder how extensive is the Olympus Professional Service compare to NPS/CPS?
Uh-Oh! Starting to sound pretty killer….
This situation is going to create many more of us….Olympus Fantards….is there another company that makes MFT cameras??? 🙂
THis is sounding better and better all the time! 🙂
Olympus are pioneers in weather sealing technology with their tough range of cameras which led the way for others to follow.
They’ve been practicing at producing high grade weather sealing with their dslr range from the the e1 to e3 and e5 and now they must have spent the last couple of years miniaturising that to a scaled down baby e5 type tank.
Well done Olympus. A lot of people were hasty in their comments about the em1 and hopefuly now that’s all out of the way we all anticipate the true nature this beast to become clear in previews that’ll pop up very soon at dpr and other bloggers like Robin wong etc…
The em5 was a breakthrough, the gh3 solified thain m43, the em1 hopefuly raises the bar to truly Pro grade and the em7 should be a freak little peice of tech.
And don’t forget the GX7. Well done, Oly. Well done, Pany.
Continuous AF is better than in any other MFT camera and matches the best DSLR performance
Ok, let’s talk about that “best DSLR performance”……Best Oly or best CaNikon?….If it’s Oly looks like we never gonna be “High-FPS-Sports-Shooters”….Ok, maybe they suppose we’re using the 8mm FE…;)
Yup, the C-AF claim is pretty bold. To be honest, I’ll be surprised if it matches the D7000 or 60D level. I highly doubt it’ll give the D300/7D a run for the money (AF-wise – the EM-5’s sensor was already better than both). But it’ll be interesting to see.
Added: however, with the Olympus-pro support it seems that Olympus is starting to get serious, so this is a good thing. Let’s also see the Panny 150 f/2.8. If they get all this out working decently they will have entered new territory.
I’m guessing 1Dx owners aren’t worrying yet, plus that will AF at 12fps and the E-M1 won’t AF at 10fps.
Sounds pretty darn good. Just keeping my fingers crossed for a FULL AF package that fully supports 43rds lenses. If it has it, I will buy it, if not, I will keep using my EM5 and E-3.
Very exciting, I wonder if we can adjust the sharpening for each lens in camera? Man this menu system will be epic.
…and it’s able to leap tall buildings in a single bound…
Admin, what are your sources for this stuff? I’ll wait for a real review, thanks just the same.
This is going to be amazing, if it pans out.
A little story with regard to the weather sealing on the E-M5 (so, not quite as good as the E-5). We took a family vacation to Hawaii last autumn, and after a little beach time, we stopped at one of the outdoor shower stands that are often provided on the public beaches. Since my E-M5 had been subject to some sea spray, I thought I’d take Oly up on their weather sealing promises, and washed it off in the (very public) outdoor shower, along with my feet.
Some DSLR owners were walking by — I thought their eyes were going to pop out of their sockets! Oh, and nearly a year later, my E-M5 is still working just fine.
Bottom line — if the E-M1 has even better sealing, it’ll be ready for about anything.
wow ,.if the continues AF is up to par with best D-SLR ,.thats is really huge leap,. if olympus could make 300 F2.8 m43 version,.with dwarf size and weight A’la m43 system, i can see that in the future M43 it will offer a better option for shooting wild life because the advantage of crop sensor.
I have no doubt ,about Olympus weather sealed,.and is even more exciting when they said,.it’s better than E-5
Having the E-P5 with the VF4 for a month had made me forget about the E-M5,.its so much better view, resolution and magnification than OMD E-M5.,.and now they put that on a E-M1,.wow awesome,.,.i believe even the Screen its really HUGE,.
12-40 is better performance than 12-60,.that is a great news, because i heard that ,.the 12-60 has optically better than Panasonic 12-35 F2.8 . but my question is ,.is the 12-40 have a macro capability,.[closed focus]
“is the 12-40 have a macro capability,.[closed focus]”
Kinda.
It focuses at a minimum 20cm throughout the zoom range, so it would be a semi-macro lens.
Check out Ming Thein’s EM1 photos. Admin added the links above. Lots of real world and more camera image shots.
First image samples by Ming Thein on Flicr (part one and part two).
The HIGH ISO noise comparison in the flikr is wrong. From the file names should be left EM-1 and right EM-5.
drooling…..:O
opppss…..left EM-5 and RIGHT EM-1…..but still drooling…..oh….and THAT AWB!
guys from the new updated rumors [FT5] above,is it worth it to justify the price,..?
I certainly would think so!
Raw File 14bit…
Having Ming Thein’s photos as image samples is… well… like Van Gogh posting Crayola image samples. Or Frank Lloyd Wright showing us what craft sticks can do. Ming Thein’s images will make you wanna covet any equipment that passes through his hands, and is the living proof that the gear does not the image make.
The review its just came out,..
http://blog.mingthein.com/2013/09/10/olympus-om-d-e-m1-review-1/
Damn,..the link is broken,.I don’t know why?
Yey,..The Link is back,..here,.
http://blog.mingthein.com/2013/09/10/olympus-om-d-e-m1-review-1/
“Continuous AF is better than in any other MFT camera and matches the best DSLR performance”
No, at just 6.5 fps it does not.
That’s 6.5 fps with *exposure* locked, not AF. If I’m correct, it should do 10fps with full-time AF. Which obviously doesn’t make it a 1DX, but certainly better than any APS-C camera or anything under a D4/1DX *IF* it works as well as Olympus claims.
Also, FPS does not completely correlate to C-AF performance.
Well, exposure locked is fine, as long as it does 10 fps with C+AF+tracking in low-lit gyms. You cannot rely on autoexposure at 1/1000s and faster anyway in artificial lighting, light at each shot depends on what part of 60Hz phase it gets, and aperture (at wide open) and shutter speed are locked anyway and ISO so high you could as well adjust brightness in post.
Woops, I made a mistake, I meant to say it’s 10fps with exposure locked, or 6.5 fps without exposure locked. So it should AF fine at 10fps, unless the source made a mistake. But yes, as you mentioned you pretty much need to lock exposure anyway because I’m fairly certain the camera will do crazy things with indoor gym lighting and auto exposure.
You are not reading that right ? They mean time to lock in a target , no ? Not frame rate.
This is actually the first revolutionary things I have heard about this camera. Continuous AF that matches the ‘BEST’ DSLR cameras is quite a statement, and one that needs to be demonstrated to be believed. The last bastion of DSLR arguments has been breached with this ability if truth.
when can we expect to seea black and silver version. half my lenses are silver!
and when will someone hack it for us, to get better video!
Ming Thein is one of the most boring ass photographers ever.
The pictures are kind of boring as you suggested, though perfectly exposed. May be he wanted to test the meter of the E-M1, shooting at green is like point at a grey card.
in the ming thein ISO comparison the em5 looks MUCH better. did he make a mistake labeling them??
As noted above, he did.
In another 90 minutes, Olympus is gonna announce their most talk about MFT mirrorless OM-D E-M1 camera. I understand that Olympus NEW employee, Robin Wong is going to REVIEW this new offer; do you think he is able to give a UNBIAS and SUBJECTIVE review of their new product?
I see purple fringing on the em5 files! so much for the perfect lens!!
look at the lettering and the edge of the paper on the left. also the keys. green fringe and purple fringe!!!
Baaaaaackpedal fanboys!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mingthein/9669823208/sizes/o/in/set-72157635374194450/
Your comment could be interesting if you spent more time working on argumentation than on childish attacks :/ I think constructive critizism is better than denigrating all the time.
So, do you mean that with the new 12-40/2.8 quality isn’t perfect on the EM-5? That’s probable. Maybe we need a firmware update for the EM-5 to fully support this new lens?
Admin ,.guys ,.First review of OLYMPUS E-M1 by Ming Thein here;
http://blog.mingthein.com/2013/09/10/olympus-om-d-e-m1-review-1/
and some interesting comment concerning the IQ of E-M1,;
Good news: this camera produces the best SOOC JPEGs I’ve ever seen; the output is very similar to the E-P5 (which you’ll recall I was very impressed with), but with the added flexibility of the color creator to shift WB and saturation (or apply virtual filters to your B&Ws). Sharpening is sensitive and not overdone; detail is crisp and the microcontrast characteristics of the lens are preserved well. The sensor’s overall tonal response seem quite similar to the E-M5; however there’s about a stop more dynamic range in the shadows, and noise seems better controlled – somewhere between half a stop to a stop. I’d say ISO 3200 still delivers good quality, and ISO 6400 is usable – this with JPEG noise reduction off. More importantly though, there’s little chroma noise and almost no odd hue shifts in the shadows at higher sensitivities caused by amplifying different color channels unequally. Color has always been Olympus’ strong trait; no exception here. Auto white balance is better than ever; it seems to have a slightly wider operating range specifically lower down in the Kelvin scale, making it able to better accommodate incandescent sources. The majority of the JPEGs in this review are straight out of camera; there are a few examples where I’ve processed a color file to compare against a SOOC B&W, and I think you’ll probably agree that the results are actually surprisingly close.
these are not reviews these are infomercials
It will be even nice if all this great features in a EM5 body . I”ll not hestiate to have one besides the GX7 .
The only thing that has not been leaked, but is of MAJOR importance to pros, is … will the E-M1 accept the 1.4x and 2x tele-converters? For reasons unknown to me, the E-M5 will not. And, I use my 1.4x a lot! Everything, absolultely everything else (especially a raw buffer of 51 shots! See mingthein.com,) looks to be just what a pro (or at least, this pro)needs!
Now, how fast can I get one, with the 12~40/2.8 and the 75/1.8?
E-M1 rules all.
That is perfection!
Well done Olympus!
If video is not important to this camera, why does it have a microphone input jack?
http://www.dpreview.com/previews/olympus-om-d-e-m1/4
“The E-M1 becomes the first Olympus Micro Four Thirds camera to have a built-in microphone socket, so there’s no need to use the SEMA-1 accessory mic port.”
Better than the 12-60 !!!!! It will outresolves the sensor ! 😀
“Better” can refer to many things! I’m sure the 12-40 has “better” AF compared to the 12-60. The 12-40 also looks like it’s better built, it has a “better” close-up capability, and at 40 mm it’s quite a bit faster than the 12-60. As for image quality, I would expect the newer design to be capable of even better performance than the 12-60, although the improvement may come in the form of software correction. So yes, I’m pretty sure the 12-40 will be “better” than the 12-60 – at least from 12-40 mm. Beyond 40 mm, the 12-60 wins! 😉
Why no kit w/12-40 in US? A later release makes no sense when the lens is currently available. This forces those who pre order (in good faith to help launch the camera) to pay a few hundred dollars more when it should be the other way around. Those who have pre-ordered should get the better deal. Please 43Rumors, can you shed some light on this?
It’s the new business model. Those who buy the camera early will also be willing to pay more for the lens later.