Review: The Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II’s adventures with action
The Olympus O-MD E-M1 Mark II is a very different camera, built to excel at fast speeds, where most mirrorless cameras falter. But it also commands a high price, so is the camera worth its premium?
The Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II is something very different. With a rapid-fire frame-rate and advanced AF system, it’s a mirrorless camera optimized for high-speed photography, a situation that most mirrorless cameras fall flat in. It also has in-body optical image stabilization that is so good it’s almost sorcery, and it’s more portable than any DSLR with a matching lens.
It’s also astoundingly expensive. At US$1,999.99, the E-M1 Mark II costs US$600 more than the E-M1, and more than Canon and Nikon’s APS-C action cameras, the 7D Mark II (US$1,799) and D500 (US$1,999.95) respectively.
But the E-M1 Mark II is faster than either of them. In fact, at 18 frames per second (fps) with AF/AE, the Mark II is the third fastest consumer camera in the world, lagging only behind the Nikon 1 J5 (20fps with AF/AE) and Sony RX100 V (24fps with AF/AE), both of which have smaller 1” sensors.
So is the E-M1 Mark II worth paying the premium for?
They should have named this the ‘OM-D E-M1s’ for ‘speed’
The headline characteristic of the E-M1 Mark II is speed — this camera is hypersonic. It shoots 18fps with auto-focus/auto-exposure (AF/AE), 60fps with AF/AE locked. It’s a dramatic leap over the original E-M1 from 2013, which shot at 10fps with AF/AE, and you can thank the new double quad-core TruePic VIII engine for the speed boost.
The TruePic VIII engine is also behind the E-M1 Mark II’s nimbler AF performance. The Mark II comes with Olympus’ ‘Dual Fast AF,’ which combines phase and contrast-detection systems in S-AF mode, and switches exclusively to phase-detection in C-AF mode.
The AF system covers almost the entire frame, with 121 AF points, all cross-type. For reference, the Canon 1D X Mark II maxes out at 61 AF points, with 41 cross-type, and the Nikon D5 has 153 AF points, with 99 cross-type. The only flagship to beat the E-M1 Mark II at this numbers game is the Sony Alpha a99 II, which has an astounding 399 AF points, but only 79 of which are cross-type.
It’s not just the rapid frame rate nor the responsive AF that gives the E-M1 Mark II a lead for speed, it’s that the camera gives you a far better chance at landing the shot with a new Pro Capture Mode.
Pro Capture Mode starts capturing images into the buffer the moment you half-press the shutter, when you fully press the shutter, the camera starts shooting and also saves the preceding 14 images into the SD card. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a camera that pre-shoots a sequence, but it’s a welcome addition for an action camera (and it’s a feature that isn’t available on the 7D Mark II or D500).
Using the OM-D E-M1 Mark II
One of the E-M1 Mark II’s key advantages is that it’s a lot more portable compared to DSLR cameras. For example, a Mark II body, at 574g, combined with an Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 lens (80-300mm equivalent in 35mm) at 880g, weighs about as much as a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens does at 1.49kg — and that’s without a Canon DSLR attached.
The camera feels good in the hands, with a fatter grip than the E-M1. The basic controls fall easily to the hands, and there’s a lot you can customize. The twin control dials control aperture, shutter speed and exposure by default, and can be switched using the 2x2 Dial Control to ISO and white balance settings. The Mode Dial now comes with a lock button, and there are two Function buttons you can set.
Because the rear monitor now fully swings out and around, I could more easily compose from down low on the ground or with the camera held high up. The E-M1’s monitor could only tilt up and down.
The E-M1 Mark II’s screen swivels fully around, the E-M1’s could only tilt up and down.
Now, there were times I actually wished the E-M1 Mark II was bigger. For instance, I shoot with my left eye pressed against the viewfinder, and the rear control dial is near enough that I often find myself jamming my thumb into my right eye. The d-pad is uncomfortably small and stiff, and could have benefitted from being bigger and smoother to tap. I wonder if Olympus could have fit a joystick on the back as well, like Fujifilm did on the X-T2.
The d-pad also doesn’t recognize a continuous press — if you press and hold, for example, when switching AF points, the AF point moves by one place and halts. You have to press once for every spot you want the AF point to move, which takes up far too much time.
Olympus has changed the behavior of the d-pad and AF point selection for the slower. Previously, tapping a direction on the d-pad would automatically switch you from Multi-AF to single-AF point selection, and bringing the single AF point to the edge would switch the camera back to Multi-AF. It was a fast and brilliant way to quickly take over AF points and then go back to automatic.
What it looks like now when you tap the d-pad. Instead of letting you take over AF point selection immediately, the Mark II waits for you to change AF modes using the twin control dials (see the icons on the left, representing what you can change with the dials).
On the E-M1 Mark II, however, tapping the d-pad in Multi-AF mode will only open up AF selection methods, you have to use the twin control dials to choose between AF areas and facial/eye selections. If you, like me, prefer the previous way the d-pad used to work, there’s no way to customize it. It’s a slower way to work because now there’s no quick way to take over AF point selection.
You can still tap the screen to select a subject, but not when your eye is against the viewfinder. Olympus, like Panasonic, lets you use the monitor like a trackpad when you’re using the viewfinder, but I always have to turn this feature off as my nose would inadvertently select AF points by accident.
And because the E-M1 Mark II is so small, I’ve bumped up against and accidentally changed a few controls from time to time. The Mode dial has a new lock button to prevent you from changing modes, but I wished there was a way I could have locked the entire camera down.
You can now lock down the Mode dial with the center lock button, but I wish there was a way to lock down the entire camera as well.
The onscreen menu feels like it could have benefited from a design overhaul. Navigating it is like stumbling through a labyrinth; menus are oddly named and advanced settings are difficult to find. Certain things that should be highlighted aren’t, for example, if you’re in C-AF and switch from Pro Capture L to H, the camera automatically switches to S-AF without telling you, because Pro Capture H doesn’t support C-AF.
On the other hand, the Super Control Panel (SCP) is excellent. Pressing ‘OK’ on the d-pad brings up the SCP, which gives you a quick and easy way to see as well as change common settings.
The Super Control Panel is a brilliant way to quickly access and change important settings.
Battery life is one of the best improvements, and easily the longest I’ve ever gotten from a mirrorless camera. Olympus rates it from 440 to 950 shots, depending on how you use the camera. Battery status is now displayed as a percentage, instead of the outdated three to four bar icon, which is a very useful change.
The E-M1 Mark II has dramatically better life, thanks to a new, chunky BLH-1 battery, with 37% larger capacity than the E-M1’s battery. Unfortunately, that also means it breaks backward compatibility.
A second SD card slot is also proving useful, especially when I shot action and filled the first card quickly. You can set the card behavior to backup or overflow, but you should know that you’ll get slower performance from the second slot, as only the first slot supports high-speed UHS-II SD cards.
Two SD card slots are better than one, even if only one supports UHS-II cards.
f/3.2 at 62mm, 1/2,000 sec, ISO 4,000. Processed in Lightroom.
I visited the Jurong Bird Park one afternoon to capture some birds in flight. I thought it would be a good test of the E-M1 Mark II’s ability to perform at speed, but my results were mixed.
The new Pro Capture Mode is a gift from the gods, especially for a birding newbie like me. I underestimated how difficult it is to capture a flying bird, and these swift creatures always took off faster than I could press the shutter. But thanks to Pro Capture, I had the shots captured prior, giving me images I would have otherwise missed.
I probably hit the shutter on the second-to-last or last frame, but Pro Capture saved the preceding shots for me so I actually had a photo.
Thank you, Pro Capture. f/2.8 at 40mm, 1/2,000 sec, ISO 6400. Processed in Lightroom.
However, I found Pro Capture High Mode, which shoots up to 60fps, unusable as it only works with S-AF. Birds moving through the focal plane would be in focus at the beginning, and then go out of focus as S-AF doesn’t track moving subjects during continuous bursts. Only Pro Capture Low works with C-AF, and though it’s ‘Low’ I found it plenty enough with the ability to shoot at 18fps.
I also discovered that using Pro Capture Mode for an extended period of time does two things to the E-M1 Mark II. One, it brings the camera up to a boil. I received two overheating warnings over the course of an afternoon and had to turn off the camera to let it cool down. Pro Capture Mode also burns battery life faster than usual, and I drained the battery within a few hours of shooting.
When it comes to action cameras, autofocus performance is as important as frame rate. For example, a camera that shoots at 5 frames per second with perfect focus each time is as good as a camera that shoots at 10fps with perfect focus half of the time.
I found the E-M1 Mark II’s AF performance to be inconsistent. It could sometimes track the birds moving through the frame, and it would sometimes miss altogether, with a tendency to back-focus or have the entire image go out of focus entirely. The E-M1 Mark II would sometimes not lock on obvious subjects that were right in front of me and occupying the center of the frame. It even sometimes refused to lock on, even when I positioned a single AF point directly on top of a bright red bird standing among green leaves.
Here’s an example of the E-M1 Mark II’s peculiar AF behavior. At the beginning of this sequence, the AF tracks the hopping bird accurately.
Eight frames later, it begins to lose focus of the eye (the first image in this frame). On the 12th frame, the bird is completely out of focus, and the Mark II keeps hunting for focus. Only on the 34th frame (not shown) does the Mark II manage to focus on the bird again.
This is a relatively static shot, where the E-M1 Mark II failed to focus on an obvious target. It didn’t manage to lock onto the bird as it took flight in the entire 13 frame sequence.
f/4 at 65mm, 1/25 sec, ISO 250. Processed in Lightroom.
Shooting action at night with the E-M1 Mark II
Mirrorless cameras have mostly had terrible autofocusing in low light for moving subjects. I brought the E-M1 Mark II to two night time events, with moving drummers and dancers. While it had a better hit rate than most mirrorless cameras, it still doesn’t match the performance of a DSLR camera. The AF was so inconsistent that I can’t recommend the Mark II for any mission-critical shoots.
The E-M1 Mark II’s AF performance was oddly inconsistent. It would beautifully nail shots like this, of the most prominent face in a sea of moving dancers, all in low light.
And then it would miss AF for a relatively simple composition like this one. The first 16 frames were completely out of focus, and AF only snapped back on the 17th frame. Unfortunately, the first 16 frames were the best ones.
While covering SITEX 2016, the E-M1 Mark II even curiously missed focus for the model below, who was standing relatively still. The Mark II was on C-AF and confirmed focus on her face, as well as another model standing beside her, before I pressed the shutter. If I hadn’t shot more than a single frame, I would have ended up with soft shots.
I experienced the E-M1 Mark II’s inconsistent focusing with both the new 12-100 f/4 lens as well as the 40-150mm f/2.8 Pro lens, shooting on both S-AF (which uses both phase and contrast detection) as well as C-AF (which uses phase detection).
f/18 at 12mm, 0.5 sec, ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom.
JPEGs have gorgeous colors and good noise control
In good light, the E-M1 Mark II’s JPEGs burst with lifelike color, and the 20MP resolution adds more detail than the E-M1’s 16MP sensor. The JPEGs burst with lifelike color with beautiful skin tones. The images can be used out of camera without much post.
f/2.8 at 48mm, 1/2,000 sec, ISO 6,400.
f/1.2 at 25mm, 1/400 sec, ISO 200.
Noise performance is up there with the best of mirrorless cameras. The E-M1 Mark II’s ISO 3,200 setting remains my comfortable maximum, but images for online can definitely handle going up to ISO 6,400. The shot below, at ISO 6,400, still retains detail impressively well, with minimal noise showing. However, pushing and pulling JPEGs upwards of ISO 3,200 will reveal the detail loss in the shadows, and some color splotches which you’ll have to deal with in post.
f/4.5 at 100mm, 1/100 sec, ISO 6,400.
100% crop.
There’s a lot packed into the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II
The Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II is something very different, and in some ways, it outguns not just its mirrorless brethren, but the fastest DSLRs on the market. There’s a lot to like, and in fact, there are so many features we’ve hardly gotten to them all.
The E-M1 Mark II’s most obvious advantage is that it’s smaller and lighter than a DSLR with the same set of lenses. Pack a 1D X with 24-70mm and 70-200mm lens and you’re set for a backbreaking expedition. Pair the E-M1 Mark II with the same focal lengths and you could fit the entire kit into a shoulder bag.
The E-M1 Mark II also has best-of-class 5-axis optical image stabilization (OIS), which performs impossible magic, like getting a sharp image while shooting for a full second, handheld. I’ve found the 5-axis OIS to be most useful when shooting video, it takes away the shakiness that makes most handheld videos look amateurish. Talking about video, the E-M1 Mark II can do some pretty high-end shooting, with a maximum resolution of 4K at 24p with a high bitrate of 237Mbps.
The E-M1 Mark II’s body is also solidly constructed, with weather-sealing to tough out the elements. The swiveling touchscreen rear monitor lets you shoot more angles, and the Super Control Panel gives you quick access to important controls. It’s important to remember that some modern DSLR cameras still lack a touchscreen and the equivalent of an onscreen control panel.
Battery life is impressive, and the longest lasting I’ve ever gotten from a mirrorless camera. That itself is a small miracle worthy of praise.
f/2.8 at 90mm, 1/500 sec, ISO 5,000. Processed in Lightroom.
The E-M1 Mark II’s rapid 18fps with AF/AE shooting speed gives you more chances of nailing the shot than its competitors, and Pro Capture Mode (PCM) is an absolute gift. When there’s no room for excuses, PCM can get you better odds at getting the decisive moment, rather than leaving it to reflexes and chance.
On the other hand, the E-M1 Mark II’s autofocus performance is inconsistent in good light and still falters when it comes to moving subjects in low light. If you have to shoot critical jobs in low-light, I’d still recommend a DSLR, which is bulkier but has tried and true AF performance that does well in most situations. The 20MP sensor provides better detail, and noise control is impressive. Details start to take a hit from ISO 3,200 onwards, but the Mark II controls it well. There’s still an ample amount of detail left at ISO 6,400 and the results look good for online.
If 20MP isn’t enough, the E-M1 Mark II also adds the High Res Shot mode that’s available on the E-M5 Mark II and the Pen-F, but not on the original E-M1. It lands you 50MP JPEGs and 80MP raw files, and in our tests made for remarkably detailed images. However, the camera still needs to be mounted on a tripod for sharp images, and moving elements still appear with ghosting, so it’s best used for still subjects.
f/2.8 at 52mm, 1/250 sec, ISO 4,000.
The E-M1 Mark II’s high US$1,999.99 price for the body alone makes it hard to recommend as a niche action camera, especially when you can get the Canon 7D Mark II or the Nikon D500 with more dependable AF for less. Compared against other mirrorless cameras however, the E-M1 Mark II is one of the best general purpose workhorses you can get.
I recently went for a work trip overseas where I would be shooting mostly in good light, and would have loved to pack the E-M1 Mark II. Unfortunately, it wasn’t available so I brought my full-frame DSLR instead. My DSLR performed admirably, but my pack was so heavy that when I had five hours of free time to roam around, I chose to leave the camera behind rather than bring it along.
If I’d brought the lighter E-M1 Mark II, it could have worked as both my work and leisure camera, for both stills and video. Those are the situations where I can see the Mark II fulfilling a role as a dependable all-rounder that’s more portable than a DSLR.
f/4.5 at 70mm, 1/160 sec, ISO 5,000.
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