Anyone have experience with micro 4/3rds format cameras?

Olympus is due to launch some new stuff on January 29th. First and foremost a cheaper OM-D is on the way, pictures of the E-M10:

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Olympus OMD E-M10
- 16MP sensor (same as E-M5 and with no PDAF)
- True Pic VII processor (same as E-M1)
- Very small body
- integrated flash
- 3 axis stabilization
- comes with new compact zoom as kit lens
E-M10 size comparison:
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According to rumors it will ship with a new collapsible 14-42mm pancake zoom. That new pancake zoom comes with an interesting lens cap, and looks rather premium, here in silver:

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M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 EZ
- 37mm filter diameter
- Comes in black and silver
- Estimated retail price of around 35,000 yen (250 Euro or around $335)
- Has a lens cap (correction, it?s not built in. You can remove it!)

They will also launch a new 25mm f1.8 prime lens to add to their lineup of fast primes. I know mFT-users have been asking for a more reasonable alternative to the Lumix 25mm f1.4 for a while now, and this is it. It's more or less the same size as the 45mm f1.8. Here is how it fits in:
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M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 25mm F1.8
- 46mm filter diameter
- Minimum focusing distance is 0.25m
- Comes in black and silver
- Estimated retail price of around 35,000 yen (250 Euro or around $335)

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BCL-0980
- Fish-eye lens of 9mm f/8.0
- Minimum focusing distance 0.2m

Rumor is that this will replace the E-M5 in the OM-D range and is meant to differentiate the E-M1 from the rest of the range. The E-M5 will remain in the range for as long as the stock lasts. The E-M10 has no accessory port above the view finder, but it has a built in flash, it is also supposed to feature a simplified version of Olympus' image stabilization system. It will most likely ship with the new collapsible 14-42mm zoom, but there is also a possibility that it will ship with the 25/1.8 normal lens, just like the good old days... There are no words about wether or not the E-M10 is weather sealed like the E-M5 and the E-M1, I hope it will be as that would enforce the impression of OM-Ds being very solid cameras that can take a beating. I sincerely hope Olympus will price this aggressively, they need to...

Edit: All of it is now official. Also to all E-M5 owners out there, firmware version 2.0 is out, you can now have a base ISO 100, and select a smaller spot AF area, still no focus peaking though...
 
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Olympus OM-D E-M10 body going for sale for only $700

http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/29/olympus-om-d-e-m10-mirrorless-camera/

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Olympus has just made an offer that may be too good to refuse for those who couldn't afford the $1,000-plus OM-D EM-1 or EM-5 mirrorless cameras. It just launched the much more compact, but equally good-looking OM-D EM-10 Micro Four Thirds model for $700 (body only) or $800 with a 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens. For that, you'll get many of the features from the higher-end cameras: the EM-5's 16-megapixel sensor with the TruePic VII image processor from the EM-1, 25,600 max ISO, built in WiFi, a 1.44-megapixel electronic viewfinder from the EM-5 and 8fps high-speed sequential shooting with 81-point AF (or 3.5fps with continuous autofocus). Unlike the EM-5 or EM-1, there's only 3-axis image stabilization instead of 5-axis, and the body also lacks the weather sealing of its pricier siblings. To go with the new camera, Olympus also announced another 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 power zoom lens that shrinks to nearly pancake proportions for $350, and a lightweight 25mm f/1.8 lens for $400. If less weight, less money and only slightly fewer features are sounding good, it'll arrive by the end of February -- check the source for more.

Update: The article originally said the OM-D EM-10 had the EM-1's sensor with no optical low-pass filter. In fact, it has the EM-5's sensor and the image processor from the EM-1. The post has been updated to reflect that.
 
Looks like this will be a very good entry level camera to the OM-D lineup. It's a bit expensive early on, but the price will come down eventually. Shame that it isn't weather sealed, but at least it has a proper metal body. Early tests of the E-M10 and 25/1.8 indicates that they perform very well, it's basically the same as the E-M5, only cheaper, but with a simpler IS and faster operation, focus peaking, all in a smaller package. The 25/1.8 looks good as well, they have finally started supplying them with lens hoods now.

More product shots...
 
Looks like this will be a very good entry level camera to the OM-D lineup. It's a bit expensive early on, but the price will come down eventually. Shame that it isn't weather sealed, but at least it has a proper metal body. Early tests of the E-M10 and 25/1.8 indicates that they perform very well, it's basically the same as the E-M5, only cheaper, but with a simpler IS and faster operation, focus peaking, all in a smaller package. The 25/1.8 looks good as well, they have finally started supplying them with lens hoods now.

More product shots...

About the lack of weather sealing, the price reduction has to come somewhere and the market this unit is targeted towards, I know those type of photographers and they usually dont shoot in extreme moisture or dusty environmental conditions anyway, so it won't be too much an issue.
 
About the lack of weather sealing, the price reduction has to come somewhere and the market this unit is targeted towards, I know those type of photographers and they usually dont shoot in extreme moisture or dusty environmental conditions anyway, so it won't be too much an issue.
Probably won't be an issue as, yes, most of the customers are mostly "nice weather photographers", although I have really appreciated the E-M5's weather sealing on my holidays, it got completely drenched in Copenhagen once, it's had beer spilled over it several times at parties etc... Basically, my E-M5 is pretty much dinged, chipped and scratched up, the flash hotshoe is nice for opening beer bottles, for instance... :p

Here's a short test of the E-M10 and 14-42mm pancake, and the new 25/1.8. I'm fairly sure I will end up with a 25mm f1.8 at one point.
 
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i am now definitely set on getting the e-m10... just has to be available somewhere first, which is driving me insane. i check price comparison sites daily to see whether any shop even lists a date rather than "preorder now", but the most detail i could get is march :mad: can't. wait. any. longer. hngnn
 
i am now definitely set on getting the e-m10... just has to be available somewhere first, which is driving me insane. i check price comparison sites daily to see whether any shop even lists a date rather than "preorder now", but the most detail i could get is march :mad: can't. wait. any. longer. hngnn

Can you save money buying a used EM-5 instead? You get the benefit of the 5 axis image stabilization versus the 3 axis stabilization of the EM-10
 
i don't think i'd be able to save a considerable amount, wouldn't really be worth it. about IS, the reviews i've read aren't really sure about how much better the 5axis is compared to the 3axis. the sealed body would be an additional perk i guess, but that's nothing that's bothered me really before. next, i rather like the new pancake style kit lens and getting that in a kit with the e-m10 would save me much more money than getting an e-m5 + that lens.

oh well, tl;dr: e-m10 kit it has to be :D i'll somehow survive the wait. amazon UK lists 7th march as delivery date, so it's not too far off.
 
i am now definitely set on getting the e-m10... just has to be available somewhere first, which is driving me insane. i check price comparison sites daily to see whether any shop even lists a date rather than "preorder now", but the most detail i could get is march :mad: can't. wait. any. longer. hngnn

I have been eyeing the usual sellers pretty closely as well. But with the recent drops in prices for the d3200 and alpha58 which are now almost half of what this is (? 360 vs. ? 660) I have a hard time justifying getting it even though it is so much sexier.
 
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I see Olympus will have an E-M10 and new stuff (14-42 EZ, 25/1.8 and 9/8) demo at my local photo store on thursday, I'll go there, fiddle with it, and tell you what it's like... :)
 
ossum, thank you :)

also: damn, i'll want it even more then, i just know it!
Yes, I have to say it was a nice experience. Thoughts, well, here we go:

E-M10
To sum up I think it is an excellent entry level camera to the OM-D range. The camera body feels less premium or hewn-out-of-solid-rock than the E-M5, but much more than a similar level DSLR, it doesn't feel as plasticky as a D5200 or 700D. It looses the E-M5's weather sealing and 5-axis IS, but gains more in return. You get focus peaking, which is nice with older manual focus lenses. You get WiFi, which is fun to play with, you can connect it to your phone and post pictures on the go. The 3-axis IS is almost as good as the 5-axis in the E-M5, the latter may just be better at macro work. The weather sealing is not an issue, unless you like playing in very bad weather or you're just clumsy and tends to spill things over it. As for the controls, there are some differences to the E-M5, it has less mushy buttons and the dials are moved slightly. A friend of mine who never came to therms with the E-M5's dials liked it very much. It's also very quick in operation and there are many very useful features built into it: Color Creator, Live Time, Art Filters, Picture Story etc... lets you do things out in the field, meaning less time spent in front of the computer. Still, you can use raw to get the most out of the files.

25mm f1.8
In terms of handling it is pretty much like the 45/1.8. Image quality looks very good from what I could see. AF is super fast and very silent (on all of the OM-D cameras I tried it on), it will also find focus in stupidly dark places. It's also coming in at a very reasonable price, It will definitely end up in my collection. Sadly, the pre-production sample Olympus Norway had with them had some firmware issues, so I was asked not to post the pictures online.

14-42mm f3.5-5.6 EZ (pancake-zoom)
Nice and compact zoom lens, pretty much like the other 14-42s, nothing that will set your world on fire. Although, I didn't like it. The electronic zooming (unlike Olympus' other EZ lens, the 12-50mm there was no manual override mode) was very slow, in fact annoyingly slow.

Hope this was helpful... :)
 
damn, i always imagined the new kit lens would have a manual mode for zoom :X oh well, i think i can live with that, since it's so nice and small... if i can't, i'll have to think about something else, no biggie :D
thanks for the quick review!
 
damn, i always imagined the new kit lens would have a manual mode for zoom :X oh well, i think i can live with that, since it's so nice and small... if i can't, i'll have to think about something else, no biggie :D
thanks for the quick review!
Nope, the 12-50/3.5-6.3 has a manual zoom mode, you just pull the zoom ring back. It also has a useful macro mode. No space for that on the super-slim 14-42 EZ. You can probably pick up a used 12-50 rather cheap, or you can get the fantastic new 25/1.8 prime. I think they will also sell the E-M10 with the old 14-42 kit, which is collapsible and small with manual zoom, but not as compact as the new EZ-version. That said, whether or not the zoom action is slow depends on what you come from, if you are used to compact cameras with electronic zoom it will be very much like that, if you come from a different system-camera with turn-on-your-own-zoom action, then it will be slow...
 
Nope, the 12-50/3.5-6.3 has a manual zoom mode, you just pull the zoom ring back. It also has a useful macro mode. No space for that on the super-slim 14-42 EZ. You can probably pick up a used 12-50 rather cheap, or you can get the fantastic new 25/1.8 prime. I think they will also sell the E-M10 with the old 14-42 kit, which is collapsible and small with manual zoom, but not as compact as the new EZ-version. That said, whether or not the zoom action is slow depends on what you come from, if you are used to compact cameras with electronic zoom it will be very much like that, if you come from a different system-camera with turn-on-your-own-zoom action, then it will be slow...

that's the way i understood your post, and i do like the 12-50 somehow... (although i can't precisely tell you why). the question is whether i could get one for a reasonable amount of money (comparable to the cost difference between body and kit e-m10), which i doubt. the 25/1.8 is not really an option for me, since i have the panasonic 20/1.7 lying around and i can't quite justify the expense for so similar a lens :D
oh well, i'll do some browsing around...

edit: here we go, 12-50 it seems can be had for 200? or less, which would make that quite a lovely idea actually. thanks for that :)
edit2: on the "old" 14-42 - i know that one from my e-pl1, and i hate it, simply for the fact that it feels extremely cheap.
 
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that's the way i understood your post, and i do like the 12-50 somehow... (although i can't precisely tell you why). the question is whether i could get one for a reasonable amount of money (comparable to the cost difference between body and kit e-m10), which i doubt. the 25/1.8 is not really an option for me, since i have the panasonic 20/1.7 lying around and i can't quite justify the expense for so similar a lens :D
oh well, i'll do some browsing around...

edit: here we go, 12-50 it seems can be had for 200? or less, which would make that quite a lovely idea actually. thanks for that :)
edit2: on the "old" 14-42 - i know that one from my e-pl1, and i hate it, simply for the fact that it feels extremely cheap.
Ah, you have the 20/1.7, never mind about the 25/1.8 then. I sold mine, as I found the AF to be frustratingly slow at times. I have the 25/0.95, with no AF :p

There is the "old" 14-42, and the "older" 14-42, the one that came with the E-PL1 was the older, and it is slow focusing and has a cheap feel, the former is much better. :) That said, I'd go with the 12-50. If you want the camera to be pocketable, you just click on the 20/1.7.

Edit: ePHOTOzine seems to be impressed by the E-M10.
 
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Is there any prime in the 17-25mm range on the market that is worth upgrading to from the original 20/1.7? It's the first non-kit lens I bought and it still is my most frequently-used lens.
 
Is there any prime in the 17-25mm range on the market that is worth upgrading to from the original 20/1.7?
Still a damn good lens, liked mine a lot, but I sold it as I was getting increasingly frustrated about the lousy AF-performance. In terms of upgrades, depending on what you are looking for there are some alternatives:

Panasonic-Leica 25mm f1.4 Summilux
Gives you the narrower 50mm ("nifty-fifty") view rather than the 40mm ("shorty-forty") of the 20/1.7. It also gives you an additional half stop of light, being f1.4 rather than 1.7. The AF performance of the 25/1.4 is significantly better than the 20/1.7, especially on Olympus bodies where the latter tends to hunt a bit. The 25/1.4 is also much better built than the old 20/1.7, the new one is better in that regard. On the other hand it is not as compact, and thus makes the camera "un-pocketable". A gripless E-M5 will fit into most large jacket or coat pockets with the 20/1.7 attached. the 25/1.4 is also significantly more expensive than the 20/1.7. Image quality of the 25/1.4 is also slightly better across the frame than the 20/1.7.

Olympus 17mm f1.8
Gives you a moderate wide angle field of view, close to a 35mm. The difference between f1.7 and f1.8 is negligible. The big one is AF-perfomance, where the 17/1.8 is in a different league, locks straight on, almost instantaneous. Build quality is much better, it also has the manual focus snap-ring. It is less compact than the 20/1,7 though, so the camera will not be pocketable. It is more expensive than the 20/1.8, but not much. In therms of image quality they are fairly even, with the 20/1.7 being sharper in the middle and the 17/1.8 being better across the whole frame. Some has whined a lot about this lens, tests shows it's pretty much on par with the 20/1.7, actual pictures I have seen seems to indicate that this delivers very good stuff.

Voigtl?nder 25mm f0.95
Built like an armored submarine, and silly bright it lets you take a picture without flash in places you simply wouldn't get a picture earlier. No AF though, so you need to be on top of your MF-game, also focus peaking of the E-M1, E-M10 and GX-7 helps a lot here, making this fairly easy to use still. Image quality is a bit soft in the corners at f0.95, but excellent already at f1.2. Rather expensive lens though, but worth it if you get a good offer like I did for mine.

Olympus 25mm f1.8
See what I wrote above about this lens. Haven't tested it properly yet, according to early tests it is almost everything the PanaLeica 25/1.4 is, just not as bright, but at almost half the price. From my little experience with it the AF-performance was excellent.

Wouldn't bother much about the Olympus 17mm f2.8. The Sigma 19mm f2.8 is largely unknown to me, never tried it...
 
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here's a comparison between the panasonic and olympus 25mm lenses by robin wong (who works for olympus, so be mindful of that): http://robinwong.blogspot.it/2014/02/olympus-mzuiko-25mm-f18-lens-review.html

his summary (maybe proving an olympus bias on his part):
1) The Olympus lens is slightly wider in field of view than the Panasonic lens
2) The Olympus lens is *possibly 1/3 EV brighter than Panasonic lens (not conclusive, based on just quick observation on EXIF data)
3) There is not much difference in shallow depth of field rendering between F1.8 and F1.4 lenses (if point number 2 is true, the gap is bridged due to either the Olympus lens being 1/3 EV brighter than F1.8 or the Panasonic lens being 1/3 EV darker than F1.4. This is just my observation, not a conclusive statement)
4) Although Olympus magnification factor is 0.12x and Panasonic magnification factor is 0.11x, I find the close up shooting capability of Olympus lens to be significantly better than the Panasonic lens.
5) Panasonic lens has poorer CA control (especially shooting wide open) and corner sharpness than Olympus lens.
6) General sharpness between both lenses are almost identical
 
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