OLYMPUS OM-D E-M1 Mark II Camera Body Only, (Black)

I'm an Oly E-M10 Mk I shooter, so this is a huge upgrade. These are only preliminary impressions, which I'll edit as time goes by with longer term tests. Currently testing some of the more vaunted features with my 12-40 F/2.8 Pro lens while waiting on the 12-100 to be in stock somewhere. I'm writing from a perspective of a somewhat experienced photographer. Not a master by any means, but I shoot in manual, raw, and do a lot of OCF work, mostly portraits. It may also amuse you to read my older camera reviews and see my, er, growth (?) as a photographer over the years. :) Onto the review!The exterior is very solid. The grip is much, much improved. There's no gap between my fingers and the grip like there was with the M10, and I know with the M1-I. Everything feels more solid too. I know it's weather sealed, and have seen many reviews and videos of early, promo shooters in Iceland, dropping their body & lens in freezing water with no ill effects. The M10 always felt a bit flimsy to me, and in fact have had some parts come off/fall apart (eye piece, hot shoe plate). All the flaps for the battery, SD Cards (2! Thank you, Olympus!), USB 3 (and type C), mic & headphone (again, thank you , Olympus!) jacks have a good feel to them, as is the fully articulated (3rd thanks!) LCD screen. Only potential downside is if you have the mic and/or headphones plugged in, you won't be able to flip the screen over for selfie-mode on the fly.Fair IQ tests will have to wait, since I don't have a raw converter yet (still on LR 5.7, LR CC has early support, no lens correction as of this writing). DxO Mark had some tests done, and it looks like a tiny increase in high ISO quality over the M1-I, nothing huge, but going from 16 MP to 20 MP will net you a bit more resolution. Maybe a bit more noise if you pixel peep, but if you compare, say, an 8x10 to 8x10, you'll find a better overall image. But I'm not too worried about high ISO shoots, because...The stability is a giant leap over my M10, since it only had 3-axis IBIS. I can't say for sure how much better the M1-II is over the M1-I, but I did some 1 sec hand held exposures at 12mm no problem. (Edit: I've now pulled off an 8 sec (!!!) hand-held shot with my 25mm 1.8, while leaning against a doorframe). I've seen on YouTube a 10sec(!) and a 20sec(!!) hand held exposures with just the body braced against a wall. That latter was paired with the 12-100mm F/4, which gives you an extra stop of stability, but even with a "mere" 5.5 stops of stability, you should be able to get a 12mm, 1 sec exposure for still scenes just by following the reciprocal rule. That is frankly mind blowing. So maybe if you're shooting action in low light, you'll miss having a FF camera, but for still scenes or even portraits, I don't think you'll have issues with image quality.The menu system is, well, it's Olympus. If you're used to previous Oly models, you'll be able to figure things out. The controls are fairly instinctive (again, for Oly shooters) and very customizable--far more than the M10. Some people complain about the mode dial lock, but I absolutely love it, since I rarely take it out of M, but sometimes I'll brush the dial by accident and then wonder why I can't set my shutter or aperture properly. I do have to get used to the power switch being in a new location. New battery is huge. Should last most people a day easily.I got a spare anyway.I'll next update this review when I get a fully supported raw converter, and also when I can pair it with the 12-100mm for the added stability, especially for video shooting, but I'm expecting very good things. There's also a ton of action photography features I need to test, including the ludicrous 60 FPS shooting and the Pro Capture mode where it starts buffering when you press the shutter 1/2 way down. I'm planning on an ice skating shoot in late January (2017), so stay tuned. For now, my initial findings are:Pros:Solid, weather sealed exteriorRidiculous stability, makes up for the need for high ISO shooting for many situationsDual SD slotsVideo-friendliness: 4K, mic & headphone jacks, fully articulating LCDTons of excellent Olympus glass with which to pair, and now some combined lens stability too, Really looking forward to testing the 12-100mm F/4 and the 25mm F/1.2 (no lens stability though).18 FPS with C-AF, 60(!) w/S-AF, all in raw.Bigger, better battery. Faster charging too.Cons:Price. Only you can determine if this camera is "worth it". To me, yes, absolutely. but $2K USD is a lot of money.For this price, you may honestly expect better high ISO performance.Base ISO is 200. There's extended, but I really wanted a 100 or even 64 base ISO.Only 1 SD slot is UHS-II.Kinda bad placement for the mic/headphone jacks for the articulating LCD.Can't reuse old battery.Other:This is probably THE flagship micro 4/3 camera body, with maybe an edge for video to the Panasonic GH series, but for stills, or even combining stills & video, the M1-II is the new king. Whether M4/3 works for you is a different story, and way too long to write about here.

With a background in professional photography, I have a more pragmatic and moderate approach to photography than most in this tech crazed age we live in. Cameras are tools, and a tool requires skill to use the benefits of said tool. Today’s technological advancements in camera gear is so far past what many of us grew up with in the film days, that it is hard to imagine how simple it was to make an image compared to current times. The plethora of parameters, options, customizing and configuring even basic digital point and shoots to mirror less cameras means there can be steep learning curve to squeeze the best out of many of these imaging machines. I have used many excellent cameras that in stock trim were terrible despite great reviews and high praise from experts...learning your camera is imperative.With that intro said, this OMD is a tour de force of an imaging tool. Astounding in features, configurability and performance. To say I’m pleased with it is an extreme understatement. I’ve spent the last 8 years shooting with the E-3 and 2nd to top tier Zuiko zoom glass and never felt the camera held me back much. Graduating to the OMD EM-1 mk2, the quality of my images is much greater and the flexibility to adapt and configure the camera setting to suit yours needs is far better and more in-depth. I’m still learning the envelope of its behaviors in various realms of my primary shooting, mainly environmental abstract and landscape imagery. The sheer ability to tweak and shape and mold the camera to my desires or needs is breathtaking. And it is the single most powerful aspect of this camera....and it’s greatest downfall. It’s complicted menu’s are deep and often confusing until you spend time learning the nomenclature and what the parameters can do.Technically speaking the bump from 10 to 20mp images was a huge leap for my photo’s. Plenty to work with, even in cropping ability there is more than enough. Dynamic range is vastly better than the e-3, which was like slide film of yore, yields more organic images, even the home cooked HDR can be amazing. With that said, critical judgement of exposure was necessary to eke out the range of tones and hues of high contrast scenes in all seasons. The OMD has the ability to take so much more range that I find no troubles getting great exposures, but I also find myself not allowing the camera to get more out of my scenes I’m shooting, such is the depth of its performance. Now, is this as good as APSC, perhaps; ow about full frame of medium format? We all know that answer, but the tech is so good anymore that the scenes we view our images on and the printers that we may print on can’t handle that dynamic range nor color gamut cameras are capable of capturing so there isn’t much point in measurebating the superiority of these cameras. Indeed, this is the golden age of photographic equipment. Suffice to say, this camera is not holding my imaging back in the least. PERIOD. Nor should it hold you back.This camera is small, almost too small. I dont have large hands but while the camera has heft and good balance with many lenses I have put on its face, I do sometimes struggle with comfortable holding in many situations. I’m a big fan of vertical grips for this reason on these smaller cameras. Yes, this does make the camera as a whole bigger, but that also gains comfort, stability and balance and that translates to steady images and shooting ease. If there is one thing I miss is a top mounted display, like on the Panasonic G9 or my old E-3. Not a deal breaker, but it is nice to have. The shooting via the rear lcd or EVF is great and while there are technically better cameras out there in this regard, ie. resolution and clarity, I don’t feel let down either. I love the touch screen focusing and I like the feel of the buttons. Usesing gloves to find and operate the vast buttons is simply a joy. I appreciate the level of thought and engineering in button placement and how the camera feels as you view potential images in the EVF and work the controls to get the image just so before a press of the shutter button....and all by feel! Many cameras are superb imagers but lack this critical tactile aspect that you are left wanting.Focus is swift and accurate, sure footed and discerning. Not perfect mind you, it cant read my mind but it has a high hit ratio and focus is typically right on. The 3rd major update really opens up this camera to nearly the ;ever of the mkiii and EM-1X. There is a lot of sophistication to the algorithms in side and the tweaking that can be done to fine tune is maddening. Much like Nikon focusing tech, you need to dig in and learn how to tweak this camera to make it work best for you and your success in grabbing shots depends on this and can be oftentimes frustrating. But in that frustration comes the power, if you can Be patient.One quick work about build quality. You will NEVER feel let down by this camera. It is solid. It’s light by virtue of its size but has heft and weight like a proper tool should. Switches have a smooth throw but require at the right amount of effort to work. Buttons have a very tactile feeling...no accidental triggering of external modes on this camera. Just like my brick of a camera E-3, this camera is very weather indifferent. Go and use it, don’t. Mind the elements. Shy of full underwater use, this camera will not hold you back. It is awesomely realizable. I regularly rinse of my camera in the sink, not full immersion, and not in full pressure stream and I have never had an issue. Weatherproof is not an exaggeration in my experience. I shoot in heavy moisture and rain in the warm seasons and in sub zero in the cold seasons. The only issue, common to all cameras I have used, battery life substantially drops in the cold.I find the battery life to be pretty good, but down quite a bit from my E-3, but I feel like the full electronic nature of this camera is the sole reason for the shorter battery life. I’m still getting a feel for this aspect but it certainly isn’t DSLR level battery life. The HLD-9 grip will solve that issue and I imagine the second battery will make for easy all day affairs.Another standout feature of this camera is the IBIS! Legendary and very remarkable! And high use of it depletes the battery significantly in the field. But let me be clear, it rocks the casbah when you can’t use a tripod and need to get the shot hand held. I try to use a tripod as much as possible, but often cant get the shot with one and this camera loves to get me sharp images that are clearly in tripod territory. Wonderful for low level, on your stomach in the mud kinda stuff. That said, I try to not lean on it too much because its addicting and makes me soppy in form, but damn its so easy, fun and smooth!HDR tech is great nad while it is fun and can result in outstanding images, it can be a challenge to ecke out the proper tones and contrast balance, so post processing is a must. But there have been plenty occasions were a light touch of HDR made the image possible. Another amazing tech, that was overblown, but very useful and excellent is the claimed 50MP hi-res mode. While it is not that high, closer to 36ish in my opinion, it really is good and noticeable in static shots. Given this is first generation implementation, I am not sure how much is hardware versus software based. Meaning it is very unclear if future updates will ever improve the performance. That said, it works, its good and if you have need, its another tool in the tool box.The last remaining thing I feel inclined to mention are the mean menus architecture. Why so damn complicated Olympus?! That complaint aside, the vast menu gives us great power in configuring nearly every button or switch and adjust parameters to hearts content. The super control panel is awesome and most of the important and high use parameters are accessible in there. Kudo’s for its inclusion!There is much more I can wax poetic about his amazing camera. This is already far longer than I anticipated but I hope you get a feel for my thoughts on this fine lil camera. Please don’t let specs dictate your next camera purchase, you gotta test drive and if you’ve got some experience and skill, meaning you aren’t a rank noobie, this is an excellent option to try out. It’s not the best, nor fastest nor the highest ISO rig out there, but to my mind, its not meant to be. It’s a fine tool meant to extend the level of a photographers imaging capabilities and vision with Goldilocks size and weight. It’ll grow with your abilities and help you grow your skills as well. There isn’t a problem with finding great native mft mount lenses, and the small form factor of many of them means having your camera with you always ready to go. And you ought not get tired of lugging around gear on extended photographic forays.Bravo Olympus!Update: 1 year later, still loving this camera. New news....Olympus is folding up its camera division. Sad times, but I think the gear is still amazing and if you are still looking for an amazing camera, don’t pass up the deals coming on this camera. So many good lenses for micro 4/3rds and Olympus quality is tops. I’m on th shunt for a mkiii and maybe an EM-1X that will flood the market soon.