E-M1 Mark II promises to be stellar!

Photokina 2016 sure had some big announcements.  Olympus had quite a showing this year with three lenses and the E-M1 successor.  It was just a development announcement, and hopefully the camera will be available by early 2017.  You can read the full press release here at DpReview or a myriad of other sites.  I won’t bore you with the entire release here.  Olympus also posted a page highlighting it’s features.  Check that out here.

I do want to run through a bunch of the features and comment on some things.  Olympus seems to not only have listened to what users needed, but gone above and beyond that to really make the E-M1 mark II a distinguished professional camera.  They added functionality features.  No bells and whistles…but honestly stuff that makes the difference when you need to make the shot.  I am very excited to get my hands on the camera.  I know I will have two on order as soon as I can to replace my current E-M1 pair.  So let’s check this out and see why I think this will be THE camera to work with.

20mp sensor.  Not sure if it is the same sensor from the Pen F, but Olympus claims it is definitely improved.  20mp is a really great mp count.  24 is the sweet spot for most print work in my opinion.  Between 20mp standard, and an 80mp hi-res option, this will comfortably handle the majority of resolution needs you may have.  I’m my 16mp E-M1 shots were good enough for magazine spreads and covers…this will be too.

Cross-Points Phase Detect. YES!  I was hoping for this.  Single line phase detect points just don’t cut it.  This means less hunting and quicker more accurate lock in when using the phase detect.  Olympus has apparently added phase detect points all over the sensor and made them all cross points.  Awesome.  Combined with the new focus engine, this should be excellent with 4/3 lenses, and even better with C-AF mode with new latest m4/3 lenses.

Dedicated Autofocus Processing Engine. They added a second processor in the camera just for the focusing.  Now we are getting somewhere.  This should mean faster, more accurate tracking.  I look forward to this new autofocus system.  Combined with the phase points…we might just have a mirrorless camera that has excellent focusing in the dark…we’ll see!  They also designed a new tracking algorithm.

Revised EVF. 120fps refresh and 6ms lag.  That sounds even better than the HPFS mode on the current E-M1.  And that is standard now.  Nice.  I wonder if they still offer a high refresh mode as well still for even smoother viewing…  Basically you may forget your viewfinder is electronic in many situations at this point.  Very nice.

Video– they increased the video codec to 236mb / second and added 4K.  Even if you shoot 1080, the video from this will be so much better to work with.  Especially with the new stabilizer system…

Insane In-Body Stabilization. 5.5 stops?  Really? And 6.5 with their new IS sync lenses.  The 12-100…and maybe the 300 Pro.  We’ll see.  That’s insane.  That means if you are shooting at 200mm view (or a 100mm 4/3 lens) and normally need 1/250 shutter speed to keep hand motion out of the shot… 5.5 stops means handholding at around 1/6th of a second or so.  I almost don’t believe it.  I have been wildly impressed with the current stabilization systems they offer…and I expect this one to be even better.  That really is an insane number though.  It means a 24mm lens (equivalent view) could potentially be handheld at over 1 second.  Just the thought is amazing.  We’ll see!

Dual Card Slots.  I’ve never been one to use dual card slots…but a lot of people do.  It looks like you can split the roles of each card too.  So maybe video to one and stills to another.  I actually like the chance of potentially sending small JPG to one and RAW to the other.  That way I can send quick shots to friends and family while traveling without having to process.  It also means redundancy in the field if you have RAW files go to both.  One card acts as a backup.  I would keep one small card in one slot, and one huge one in the other.  The small cards get backed up each day and left in the hotel while the one big backup keeps recording.  If a card fails, you are safe either way.  Nice.

Camera Speed.  Olympus keeps boasting about how everything is sped up with the new processors.  This includes faster start up, faster image processing, faster review, and HOPEFULLY faster menu response including cancelling out menus to get back to shooting.  Let’s hope!

Bigger battery.  Not only is it 37% larger, it charges twice as fast.  And they finally added a percentage readout for the battery life.  Big improvement.

USB-C port.  Tethered shooters rejoice!  Faster modern connection for file transfer to a computer when shooting live!  They also provide a tether so the cable doesn’t get jerked out!  Well done Olympus!  I tether for almost all my pro shoots…this is great!

AF-Scan.  They made a setting to customize hunting behavior in low contrast!  If you have ever shot concerts or dance in dark smaller venues…this will be a life saver!  If we can limit how far back or forward a lens will hunt… so much quicker to recover from a failed focus!

CUSTOM SETTINGS SAVED!!!!!  You can’t tell im excited for this one can you…We can back up our settings to a computer and reload them onto the camera!  I hope this file is accessible so we can share custom setups!  This will be a huge time saver, especially when shooting with multiple cameras.

Grid Colors.  Yeah this sounds like a silly option…but when you shoot in a dark environment and can’t tell where the edge of your frame is…you will wish you had this!  Excellent idea!  I’ve dealt with this exact scenario too many times.

Body changes. 

It looks like Olympus has tweaked the body a bit.  The AEL button and the toggle switch have been reversed.  This is great.  Now the AEL button will land under the thumb where it belongs.  Using that as a rear focus button will allow a surer grip on the camera.  The Fn1 button can now be used for something else.  It always did make for a slightly less correct hand position when used for focusing.

Scene Mode and Collage/Story mode have been taken off the mode dial and 3 custom settings have been added!  Much better use of the dial!  This will probably streamline setting up the Mysets as well.  (guess I have to update my ebook or write a new one…)

The Menu button moved to the right side to allow for the articulating screen.  No comment yet.

Articulating screen is now fully articulating.  I like the fact that we can reverse it and close the screen into the body.

Electronic connection removed from the flash hump.  The body is now a little sleeker.  Nice optimization.  Did anyone use that port?

Areas of concern.  So there is just one small item that I am curious about.  First is the placement of the right strap lug.  The strap will still hinge sideways on the body, but I hope it doesn’t interfere with the Fn1 button or the dial.  We’ll see.  They made this choice in order to have dual cards slot and not move the lug further forward.  Guess they ran out of options.  Hopefully this wont be an issue.  Then again, I rarely use a strap anyways.

Overall I am very excited about this camera.  The first E-M1 proved to be a tool that was extremely capable of creating images and allowing the photographer to create in new ways.  The E-M1 allows me to make shots I just can’t do with other cameras.  Bottom line.  This successor is going to take that to a new level I believe.  Are these changes worth it?  I feel YES 100%.  This is not just a small evolution of the camera, this is a completely rethought out upgrade.  And not only was it rethought…it seems like someone was actually thinking.  Someone actually used the camera.  All of these changes to me say designed for a photographer by photographers.  The small stuff adds up, and it is features like hunt control, having buttons in the right place, function accessibility, that can make or break a shot in the moment.  There are plenty more additions Olympus made and features that have been added.  I won’t go through all of them.  Again, you can read the specs.  These to me are some major items that make it a worthy successor.  Olympus has a track record of adding some unique features via firmware.  I wonder what they are working on behind the scenes that will get revealed after release as well…

Well done Olympus.  Most exciting product of Photokina for sure.