Bob Goldberg

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That's impressive. That's the steadiest shot (straight out of the camera) at 600mm I've seen yet. So, was this Mode 1 or Mode 2? What lens were you using? Was this downscaled to standard def from 1080p?

Do you think that you could do this type of stabilization in post with lens OIS on a Panasonic body (to mimic Oly's digital stabilization) while having the same or better IQ than the Oly. Or is it impossible to do this at all with lens OIS and PP?

I have the 45-175, and I would call its power OIS near rock steady at 350mm (but not as steady as yours at 600mm).

noa,

​There are a few major issues with Robin Wong's test. First and foremost is that when he's taking the video of the camera with the E-M5 II and the E-M1, there are different focal points for both videos. With the E-M5 II, more of the camera is in focus than with the E-M1. More specifically, the back of the camera on the video taken with the E-M1 is substantially more out of focus than on the E-M5 II shot, making the whole image appear less sharp. There may be some small parts of the E-M1 shot that are in perfect focus, but generally, when you're doing a sharpness and fine detail comparison, you don't want so much of your shot to be out of focus. And, if you're comparing two cameras and you want to shoot this way, you have to be meticulous to a fault and make sure the focus is identical between the two.

That's why you should generally be shooting further away (possibly at infinity focus).

Another thing that you want to do is make sure that the subject you're shooting has sufficient fine detail to properly differentiate between two cameras. I don't believe he achieved that either.

Regardless, I agree with Mr. Reid that the quality this camera produces is unacceptable by 2015 standards. And, to me, this would be true even if it were exactly on par with the E-M1. Olympus has played up the video quality so heavily, handed out free samples to numerous film makers so they could create their master works (and give them advertising in the process), and made numerous (superficial) spec upgrades to their cameras, all implying that this camera was a serious video tool. When you do that and you get peoples' hopes up that this is going to be competitive with Panasonic, you had better deliver the goods IMO. So, I don't think his response was unexpected. It was the exact same response I had, and I didn't even have reason to believe that it was worse than the E-M1 (or that the crop was increased), since I don't own any OM-D.

And, another thing, having 77MBps and all-I (and time code), etc. is all code for many of us that a certain kind of video quality is going to be delivered. There has simply never been a camera with this type of bitrate, all-I, and this much hype that has had such poor video quality. Panasonic, Sony, Samsung, etc. would never release a camera with this bitrate, with this type of low compression, and this much hype, and not deliver the goods. It's a complete blunder on their part IMO.

Finally, I believe Andrew has stated that he couldn't eliminate  the crop when turning off the stabilizer (and that the crop was substantially greater than the prior model). And, anyway, turning off the stabilizer would completely negate the major benefit of this camera (possibly the only benefit). I'm pretty sure in past Olympus cameras, turning off the stabilizer eliminated the crop. For reference, I believe this camera has two stabilization modes. Mode 1 is IBIS + digital, which needs to have a crop. Mode 2 is IBIS only (I believe), which doesn't need a crop. I don't know if it's cropped anyway because I haven't tried the camera. And then, obviously, you can turn off all stabilization, which also doesn't need a crop.

I would imagine that if the crop is on all the time, even without digital stabilization, this could probably be remedied by a firmware upgrade.

Hi Andrew,

I'm a regular member of DPReview and I was actually responsible for a couple threads talking about the E-M5 II video, generally in an unfavorable light. I'm not sure if you've had a chance to read them. One of them was in response to your first impressions.

I generally agree with your comments about the E-M5 II video being disappointing, but, in all fairness, I did want to make sure to ask you to clarify your comments regarding the video being worse than the E-M1, both in regard to sharpness/fine detail and moire. There was a lot of concern about this specific portion of your impressions on DPReview, and I was hoping you could provide some evidence in this regard (i.e. a comparison between these two cameras), possibly in your more comprehensive review later.

I don't think many people are questioning that the E-M5 II isn't up to GH3 standards (or Panasonic standards in general for video), but they are questioning that the E-M5 II isn't up to E-M1 standards.

Thanks