E-M1X Button Layout

e-m1x buttons

After spending some time adjusting myself, I have settled on a new button layout for my preferences and shooting style.  I thought I would share in case it gives some insight, or some help to your decisions in setting up the camera.

Top Exp button: Magnify
ISO Button: ISO
Rec Button: HDR
Fn Button: Peaking
Fn Lever: Focus style swap (s-AF on one, C-AF+tr 9-point on the other)
Joystick: selects points, center push is FP-Home
D-Pad: OFF
AEL Button: Focus
Shutter Button: Exposure Only
WB: White Balance
Body Up: Custom WB
Body Down: Depth of Field Preview (or I might make this FP-Home like I use on my E-M1.2,  just to retain muscle memory)
Lens Button: IS Mode
OK Button: SCP
Card Button: Does Nothing.  Olympus.  It does nothing.  Can we please change this to SOMETHING.

All of these are exactly the same in both orientations for me.

 

Share
February 28, 2019

7 responses on "E-M1X Button Layout"

  1. I disagree that the card button does nothing. I use UHS-II 300 Mb/s 128 GB cards, and I have two shoots, endpoint at charity bike-a-thons, where I will be in an overflow condition and will go through five cards. As soon as I fill up slot 1 (my default) and the overflow goes to slot 2, as time permits I make slot 2 the default. This wil ensure slot 2 is used even after I get a chance to put a fresh SDXC card in slot 1. I bounce back and fourth on that. I had to do that when I was shooting with my D500 last year where I had only 3 XQD cards but six SDXC cards on my Nikon D500. On one shoot last year I filled up 2.5 XQD and two SDXC, with a SDXC in reserve. I like to have my cards filled up before going o the overfill slot.

    One thing I do want Olympus to do is to make available is spare battery sleds. Battery management on the E-M1 Mk II with grip is superior on a busy shoot. I’ve got two shoots that I’m so busy that when I end up going to the camera battery I can pull the grip battery out and can continue shooting until there’s enough break in the action to replace the grip battery. I don’t have that luxury with the E-M1X. It will make life easier just to pull the battery sled out and slap a preloaded battery sled in versus fumbling around pulling battery sled out, replace batteries, put battery sled back in.

    What you don’t realize is I try to get a picture of every rider crossing the finish line. This is especially true on the cancer rides, as I lost my mother, father and brother to cancer and my two sisters are breast cancer survivors. survivors. The pictures of the riders are my way of saying thank you to the riders for raising money for the cause. These events are pro bono, all charity work.

    One thing you should bring up is Olympus brilliant idea putting a heat sink into the E-M1X body. I had an E-M1 MK II overheat and shut down on me two years ago on one of the bike-a-thons after shooting 3500 shots in 90 minutes, forcing me to switch to the backup E-M1 Mk II for the last 45 minutes until I broke off to shoot the Survivor ceremonies. . Lost some valuable shooting time as I had to swap lenses out on backup camera. Last year knowing I was going to be responsible for the entire finish line activities of 5.5 hours and not wanting a repeat I used a a Nikon D500 and shot 14,993 shots in 5.5 hours with no problems. I actually prefer mirrorless for most of my shoots because of the WYSIWYG, so I’m using my E-M1X and hope it doesn’t overheat under heavy load. I will have the D500 in my bag for backup, but lets home that doesn’t happen.

    • Brian, I am very glad you shared. This is excellent. And a perfect example that was very outside of my scope. Thank you. I would hope it is understood my writing reflects me, but I should be more direct about how I state my opinions reflecting my style of shooting. Which is very different than your typical photographer. Actually, that is what I love about this site, my correspondence with so many people that are so different than myself is great. You make an excellent point about why that card button works well. And like you, I realize there are others in some unique scenarios that the speed and efficiency of swapping cards with that button will be invaluable. In my scenario I am generally tethered to a laptop running both cards in redundancy, files going to the laptop and backing up to an external as computer redundancy. In this scenario, the card button is basically disabled on my camera. I think it would be great for Olympus to allow us to at least re-assign it if we don’t need it to handle card functions. I think that was my main point. Certainly, it is useful if you need to manage cards.

      I checked Olympus webstore and they don’t have additional battery sleds available. I am going to give them a call on Monday and see if it is possible to order these. Or at least through Pro Advantage. It makes sense they would offer them. It would have been ever better if you could charge both batteries in the sled outside of the camera. I’ll follow back up with what they say about sourcing these. That would be great to have them ready to go.

      I too have lost someone to cancer. The work you do is definitely appreciated and commendable. I think a lot of people should use their talents for service.

      Olympus’ main goal with the E-M1X was dependability where it counts in a variety of extreme scenarios. Heat is one of the issues they have been pretty forward about. I am hoping this lives up to its claims. Moving data quickly and efficiently without the heat seems to be the goal with this heat pipe design. One of their engineers actually talked to me about this a little bit at the launch event, beyond “it dissapates heat much better” …i don’t know if I could speak any more details accurately without making things up. In fact, it’s funny that a lot of other brands have serious issues with overheating, especially with video. I find that is one area that has always served me well with the Olympus cameras. Hopefully this E-M1X takes this even further.

      Thanks again for responding with your experience. It really adds benefit for all of us. I will follow back up after I speak to Olympus about the battery sled.

  2. My camera dealer, Allen Photo in Levittown PA, is also looking into getting extra battery sleds, as I was the second customer to inquire about this. I really don’t need to have the capability of charging the sleds outside the camera as I have two Watson’s duo chargers. I have a total of twelve (12) BLH-1 batteries for two E-M1 Mk II, one with grip, and now one E-M1X.

    I shoot four bike-a-thons a year, two for ACS and two for MS. I like bike-a-thons because I participated in ten two day 194 mile ride called the Pan Mass Challenge to benefit the Jimmy Fund of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. The riders know better to give me BS about how hard it is for them to do a 65 or 100 mile bicycle ride when I have ten under my belt, plus fifteen 26.2 or 13.1 marathon walks for the same charity. One gets a lot of respect from the riders when they hear about my past. I’ve been a charity event and grammar school event and sports photographer since 2006, shooting for American Cancer Society, MS, March of Dimes, Autism Speaks, National PTSD Foundation, a local Special Olympics, and a father and daughter Girl Scout Dance, all at no cost to the charity. I started with Canon, switched to Nikon, now using Olympus for most of my shoots, using the Nikon for early morning 5Ks in December, school plays and Church events, plus the Girl Scout Dance. I’m going to bookmark your site, and I’ll post results of this year’s ACS Philly Bike-a-thon to see if the E-M1X can handle the load without overheating, and the MS City to Shore (Cherry Hill NJ to Ocean City NJ and back (two day event) to see if the E-M1X is responsive enough to handle the load on day two.

  3. Battery tray update. Word from Olympus America at the moment is that the part is not available for individual resale. It is a repair item, and the camera would need to go in for service and have the part ordered. However, this has been generating a lot of requests apparently. It will come under consideration. Hopefully they will offer them for sale in some way. It would be excellent to have a second at least on location with two spare batteries ready. Especially since it slides out…what it you drop it or it gets destroyed somehow. Needing to send the camera for service for a removable part seems silly and overkill.We are only one week into the new camera…so still plenty to be seen.

  4. Bummer. This puts me in a situation where I’m going to have to tell the client on my biggest shoot of the year that there’s a small chance that I won’t be able to get every bicycle rider picture crossing the finish line. I’m going to look at alternatives. Assuming the weather holds, either use an external battery pack, or switch to one of two backup cameras (E-M1 Mk II or D500) until I can replace the batteries on the 1X. Makes you wonder how wide a net Olympus had in picking third party testers of this camera. This is a shame that Olympus, in my particular situation on this particular shoot, made a camera less capable to maintain continuous battery power wise than their E-M1.2. At least with the E-M1.2 with grip I can still continue to shoot on camera battery while I replace the grip battery. Something I’m just going to have to deal with.

    • I think the strongest option you have at the moment is to use a power bank as a back up. I would order a long USB cable and tether it from your bag or belt back for instance up through your shirt and right sleeve and to the camera. That way there is little chance of it snagging or getting caught anywhere. Ide leave enough on the outside for comfort and then gaffers tape it inside your sleeve so it stays put. When the batteries start giving out, switch to the power bank and keep on going. If you have anyone by your side, you could have them swap the batteries for fresh ones while you run from the power bank too. These aren’t the cleanest and most efficient options… but they are functional. Another option…don’t know how close you are to AC or DC power source (im assuming not at all) …but you could use a power adapter. I have a Paul Buff Vagabond mini battery. I can plug my camera into that via AC adapter and power the camera for quite some time.

      I’m sure Olympus is going to come up with an option soon. This seems like an oversight as to the importance of it. I suspect we will get resale on the battery trays.

Leave a Reply to Brian Richards Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Copyright © 2018 Unlocking Olympus. All Rights Reserved.