OM System OM-1 Evaluation | Pictures Weblog

Introduction

Ease of Use

The OM System OM-1 appears to be like an awfully lot like its 3-year-old predecessor, the Olympus EM-1 Mark III, with many of the enhancements being made to the within of the digital camera quite than to the skin.

The OM-1 weighs in at 511g physique solely and measures 138.8 x 91.6 x72.7mm, a complete 7g heavier and ever so barely greater than the earlier mannequin. You’ll be able to’t use the identical vertical grip on each fashions, although, with the HLD-9 being outmoded by the brand new HLD-10.

Similar to the unique E-M1, which was launched approach again in 2103, this new digital camera additionally boasts a tricky dust-, drip- and freeze-proof magnesium alloy physique, but it surely’s now even more durable because it’s rated within the extra stringent IP53 dustproof and splashproof safety class, which implies that it’s protected in opposition to spraying water when tilted as much as a 60-degree angle.

When used along with a equally weatherproof lens, the OM-1 ought to face up to most issues that you just care to throw at it.

The OM System OM-1 is now outfitted with unbiased AEL and AF-ON buttons, which is admittedly the one notable exterior distinction between it and the Olympus EM-1 III.

In any other case, the 2 cameras are just about nigh-on an identical by way of their management structure.

The Olympus E-M1 III has a generously sized hand-grip which makes it straightforward to get a agency maintain on the digital camera with three fingers while working the shutter button together with your proper forefinger.

The hand grip and certainly many of the entrance of the digital camera is roofed in a leatherette-like textured materials. There are two buttons subsequent to the left of lens mount. By default these controls are assigned to one-touch white stability and depth-of-field preview however, like virtually every little thing else on the OM-1, they are often reprogrammed to carry out completely different duties should you so want.

The OM-1 has an improved digital viewfinder and vari-angle LCD display mixture. The brand new OM-1 carries over the 1.65x magnification of the E-M1X however considerably will increase the decision to a formidable 5,760K-dots. It additionally makes use of OLED quite than LCD expertise. And whereas the older E-M1X and E-M1 III each have a 1,040K-dot decision LCD screens, the brand new O-M1 has a barely higher 1,620K-dot display.

On the highest of the digital camera, to the left of the viewfinder housing (when seen from above and behind) there’s a cluster of controls comprised of two raised buttons and an influence swap. Every of the 2 buttons gives entry to 2 units of settings.

Press the primary one and you may alter the digital camera’s drive modes and flash settings with the rear and entrance management dials, respectively. Hit the second and you may cycle by the varied focus and metering modes provided by the digital camera. The location of the on/off swap implies that you’ll want to use your left hand to activate the digital camera.

Shifting over to the opposite facet of the viewfinder hump, we discover a conventional capturing mode dial with a useful locking pin within the center. On the OM-1 the mode dial locks with one press of the locking pin and unlocks with a second press, which is a intelligent concept.

The dial itself affords the standard P, A, S and M modes, plus a Bulb and devoted Film mode and separate positions for 4 separate Customized modes for fast entry of customized settings banks, or Mysets in Olympus parlance.

The OM System OM1 inherits the nonetheless revolutionary 2×2 Twin Management system from its predecessors. That is comprised of two top-mounted management dials and a perform lever on the rear that’s fairly straightforward to succeed in together with your proper thumb.

The perform lever has two settings. Within the first place, transferring the management dial on the entrance of the digital camera adjusts the aperture whereas the dial on the again adjusts the shutter pace. On the second setting, the dials change the ISO worth and white stability respectively.

You too can configure the swap’s operation too – for instance, you’ll be able to flip it right into a useful AF/MF toggle if that makes extra sense to you.

The remaining controls on the digital camera’s prime plate embody the already talked about shutter launch button, plus a devoted Film Report button and an Publicity Compensation button.

There is a useful ISO button on the rear proper shoulder and in addition a small however tactile multi-selector joystick that makes it straight-forward to shortly transfer the AF level utilizing your right-hand thumb while holding the digital camera as much as your eye.

The rear of the digital camera is dominated by a big, vari-angle rear touchscreen which might be tilted to the facet and rotated to the entrance for simpler selfies. This LCD panel has a better decision, 1,620K dots, than its predecessor, and capacitive touchscreen expertise.

The Information, Menu, Playback and Delete buttons have all been carried over from the earlier mannequin in precisely the identical places. The Menu button is situated over to the far-left of the viewfinder alongside the Show button.

The OM1 has a a lot improved menu display configuration that has been utterly redesigned to make it simpler to seek out the specified capabilities, and make altering settings simpler for first-time customers. It even tells you why some menu objects are greyed-out and unavailable!

On the precise is a separate AEL button encircled by the afore-mentioned perform lever, with the brand new AF On button alongside it, which is the primary ergonomic change when in comparison with the EM-1 III.

The OM-1 makes do and not using a built-in pop-up flash, and sadly not comes bundled with the tiny FL-LM3 flash unit which clips into the exterior flash hotshoe.

You’ll be able to nonetheless use extra highly effective system flashes with the OM1, such because the highly effective FL-900R, the FL-36R, the FL-600R or the FL-50R, however these are in fact bought individually.

The OM System OM-1 makes use of a brand new BLX-1 battery which is completely different to the BLH-1 used within the earlier E-M1 III digital camera, so you’ll be able to’t keep it up utilizing your entire outdated batteries should you improve. This gives as much as 520 nonetheless photos or 160 minutes of video, a rise of 25% in comparison with the E-M1 III.

The OM1 additionally gives the flexibility to cost it on the go by way of the USB port and in addition energy it utilizing an exterior energy financial institution, two options that we’re seeing increasingly more of on current cameras.

Word that there isn’t any exterior battery charger included within the field, so the one approach to cost it’s by way of USB with the battery within the digital camera, except you buy the optionally available OM System BCX-1 Battery Charger which might cost two batteries directly.

There may be sufficient room for twin reminiscence card slots on the OM-1, and fortunately each of them now help the quickest UHS-II normal, which ought to assist the digital camera sustain with all these high-speed bursts.

The OM System OM-1 is supplied with a model new picture sensor which focuses on out and out pace.

It continues to supply precisely the identical 20-megapixel decision because the EM-1 Mark III, which can doubtless disappoint these in search of a rise in decision, particularly as Panasonic have lately made the leap to 25 megapixels of their GH6 mannequin.

The primary improve is the sensor expertise that the OM1 makes use of. With a stacked, BackSide Illuminated (BSI) sensor at its coronary heart, the OM-1 can shoot way more shortly than its predecessor, which was itself no slouch, while additionally providing better dynamic vary and improved noise efficiency.

That is the primary ever Micro 4 Thirds digital camera to make use of a Stacked BSI sensor, a design that a number of full-frame cameras additionally use, notably the Canon EOS R3 and Nikon Z9 and Sony Alpha A1.

The native ISO vary of each the E-M1X and E-M1 III was 200 to 25,600, which could possibly be expanded all the way down to ISO 64. The native ISO vary of the brand new OM-1 is 200 to 102,400, which might be expanded all the way down to ISO 80, so it has a barely increased base sensitivity than the older fashions however considerably affords two stops extra on the excessive finish.

The OM1 has a model new picture processor, dubbed TruePic X, which in addition to enabling important enhancements to the digital camera’s pace, additionally enhances its AI computational options. This new digital camera can now acknowledge formulation automobiles, bikes, airplanes, helicopters, trains, and birds, in addition to animals (canine and cats).

Along with with the ability to recognise and monitor a wider vary of topics, the OM1 has a drastically enhanced AF system which OM System have dubbed as Cross Quad Pixel AF.

The brand new sensor has a quad-division picture diode configuration which permits for on-chip Part Detection AF in each vertical and horizontal instructions. This gives a whopping 1053 all-cross-type factors that cowl 100% of the body and is able to working all the way down to -8EV low mild at F1.2, with the flexibility to select from all factors to setup your individual customized AF layouts.

The brand new system is claimed to be 2x extra correct and 3x quicker than the one on the E-M1 III.

The Olympus E-M1 III might shoot a formidable 18 full-resolution frames per second with steady autofocus/autoexposure when utilizing the digital shutter, or 50fps with AF/AE locked to the primary body of the sequence.

The brand new OM System OM-1 takes issues to a different degree totally, offering 50fps blackout free steady capturing with full AF/AE monitoring at full decision, and as much as 120fps with the AF/AE locked on the first body, making it one of many quickest, if not the quickest, cameras in the marketplace.

Word that these spectacular speeds are solely achievable when utilizing the digital shutter. If you wish to use the mechanical shutter, you are extra restricted to a nonetheless very speedy 18fps, which is barely quicker than the EM-1 III’s 15fps.

Moreover, the OM1 has an improved Silent mode, wherein it makes use of an digital shutter able to high-speed steady capturing at as much as 20fps with full AF/AE monitoring, though there’s some blackout between frames.

The shutter life is rated at 400,000 actuations, precisely the identical because the earlier mannequin. Word that that is for mechanical actuations, not digital, so should you shoot at 50fps when utilizing the digital shutter, it will not really have an effect on the shutter depend.

The OM System OM-1’s additional improved 5-axis in-body picture stabiliser works in tandem with the in-lens stabilisation system included into sure lenses to supply a claimed 8-stop benefit when capturing hand-held, surpassing most different cameras that we have ever examined, together with the earlier Mark III mannequin.

The vast majority of 4 Thirds lenses do not characteristic sync IS, however the OM-1 nonetheless makes use of its in-body stabilization to supply a whopping 7.0 stops of compensation, nonetheless surpassing most different cameras.

It will probably additionally use its glorious 5-axis sensor-shift picture stabiliser while capturing video, which interprets into surprisingly clean hand-held footage, even when utilizing a medium telephoto lens.

The OM1 is markedly higher than its predecessor by way of video efficiency. It will probably now file video at C4K/60p high quality, in contrast with C4K/24p on the older E-M1 III and E-M1X fashions, while Full HD now goes as much as 240fps (up from 120fps).

The OM-1 lastly additionally helps H.265 (10bit) in addition to the H.264 (8bit) normal that the E-M1X and E-M1 III supported, in addition to RAW knowledge output as much as 12 bit 4:4:4 to exterior gadgets and a brand new HLG (Hybrid Log Gamma) mode.

Guide publicity might be enabled for movies, though you do must rotate the mode dial to the Film place to reap the benefits of this. You can begin filming in virtually another capturing mode too, however in that case, movies will all the time be recorded with auto publicity.

The OM-1 affords the flat OM-Log profile for extra versatile color grading in post-production and enhancing. It additionally has a devoted 3.5mm mic jack on the physique for higher sound recording in addition to a headphone jack for monitoring the audio.

The intelligent Excessive Res Shot capturing mode has been retained, with the OM-1 able to capturing 50 megapixel photos within the Handheld Excessive-Res Shot mode and 80 megapixels within the Tripod Excessive Res Shot mode. It is now quicker than the earlier mannequin, although, taking about 5 seconds to merge the pictures, and noise has been decreased by roughly 2 stops.

One other intelligent characteristic that may also be employed handheld is Reside ND, which makes use of an analogous technique of merging a number of exposures collectively, however this time to seize photos utilizing a slower shutter pace in daylight.

Historically you’d want to suit a glass ND filter in entrance of the lens to attain this impact, however right here it is so simple as deciding on the Reside ND possibility and selecting from the 6 ranges on supply, operating from ND2 (1 step) to ND64 (6 steps), which is 1 cease higher than the E-M1 III.

It is not fairly as highly effective as becoming one thing like a Lee Large Stopper 10-step filter, however with the ability to obtain for much longer exposures just by selecting a menu possibility while hand-holding the digital camera and even previewing the impact within the viewfinder or LCD display earlier than seize is extraordinarily liberating.

Word that it would not work with flash, although, so you may nonetheless want a glass ND filter to overpower the solar when capturing outside.

As its title suggests, the Starry Sky mode helps to keep away from errors which might be generally made when manually specializing in the night time sky, with the OM-1 utilizing luminance data gathered by the sensor as a substitute of counting on its section detection or distinction AF techniques to attain correct focus.

Utilizing this mode, you’ll be able to even dispense with a tripod altogether if you want, with focusing sensitivity all the way down to -3.5 EV, whereas the brand new night time view mode makes it doable to view topics even in darkish environments.

The OM-1 continues to make use of the identical very efficient supersonic wave filter for mud discount as employed on the E-M1 III, which vibrates at a pace of greater than 30,000 instances per second to immediately take away filth and mud from the picture sensor.

Picture High quality

The entire pattern photos on this evaluate have been taken utilizing the 20M Superfine JPEG picture measurement possibility, which produces a median picture measurement of round 12Mb.

The GH6 is the primary OM System Micro 4 Thirds digital camera to push previous the 20 megapixel barrier, utilising a model new 25.2-megapixel Reside MOS Sensor with no low-pass filter.

The OM System OM-1 produced photos of excellent high quality throughout the evaluate interval. It produces noise-free photos at ISO 100 to 1600, with restricted noise beginning to seem at ISO 3200. ISO 6400 and 12800 exhibit fairly seen noise and lack of nice element, whereas the quickest setting of 25600 appears to be like significantly better on paper than in actuality.

The assorted Picture Types and Filters can help you shortly and simply customise the look of the digital camera’s JPEG and Uncooked photos earlier than you’re taking them. The night time {photograph} was glorious, with the utmost shutter pace of 60 seconds and Bulb mode of as much as half-hour permitting you to seize loads of mild.

The Excessive Decision Mode efficiently creates a lot bigger 50 or 100 megapixel photos and might be employed when the digital camera is mounted on a tripod and in addition hand-held. It is nonetheless greatest reserved to be used with non-moving topics.

Noise

There are 12 completely different ISO settings obtainable on the OM System OM-1 which you’ll choose at any time if the digital camera is in one of many artistic capturing modes. Listed below are some 100% crops which present the noise ranges for every ISO setting for each JPEG and RAW codecs.

JPEG	RAW
ISO 80 (100% Crop)	ISO 80 (100% Crop)
ISO 100 (100% Crop)	ISO 100 (100% Crop)
ISO 200 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 400 (100% Crop)
ISO 800 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 1600 (100% Crop)
ISO 3200 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)
ISO 6400 (100% Crop)	ISO 6400 (100% Crop)
ISO 12800 (100% Crop)	ISO 12800 (100% Crop)
ISO 25600 (100% Crop)	ISO 25600 (100% Crop)
ISO 51200 (100% Crop)	ISO 51200 (100% Crop)
ISO 102400 (100% Crop)	ISO 102400 (100% Crop)

File High quality

The file high quality settings obtainable on the OM System OM-1 embody Regular, Advantageous and Superfine for JPEGs, and you can even shoot in Olympus’s proprietary ORF uncooked file format.

Superfine (12.6Mb) (100% Crop)	Advantageous (7.7Mb) (100% Crop)
Regular (4.9Mb) (100% Crop)	RAW (17.9Mb) (100% Crop)

Excessive Decision Shot

The OM System OM-1 can create an 80, 50 or 25 megapixel JPEG or RAW file within the Excessive Decision Shot mode, achieved by shifting the sensor in half-pixel steps and capturing eight photos over a interval of 1 second.

There’s additionally a handheld 50 or 25 megapixel Excessive Decision Shot mode, so do not must mount the digital camera on a tripod or different steady floor to acquire sharp outcomes.

Off (100% Crop)	On/Tripod/80M (100% Crop)
On/Handheld/50M (100% Crop)

HDR

Off

HDR1

HDR2

A number of Publicity

Off

Image Modes

Olympus’ Image Modes are primarily pre-set combos of saturation, distinction and sharpness, aside from the i-Improve mode that goals to optimise every picture individually. You’ll be able to tailor every Image Mode to your wants.

i-Improve	Vivid
Pure	Muted
Portrait	Monochrome

Artwork Filters

The Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III affords 16 ‘artwork filters’, which let you shortly apply a creative impact to a photograph earlier than taking it.

Evening

The OM System OM-1 affords publicity instances so long as 60 seconds in a metered publicity or as much as half-hour in bulb mode, which is good news for anybody significantly considering night time images.

Reside Bulb mode means that you can view the development of publicity throughout a bulb publicity in real-time and a dwell view histogram exhibits how the publicity is built-up throughout all factors of the picture.

Pattern Photos

This can be a collection of pattern photos from the OM System OM-1 digital camera, which have been all taken utilizing the 20 megapixel Superfine JPEG setting. The thumbnails beneath hyperlink to the full-sized variations, which haven’t been altered in any approach.

Pattern RAW Photos

The OM System OM-1 allows customers to seize RAW and JPEG format information. We have supplied some OM System RAW (ORF) samples so that you can obtain (thumbnail photos proven beneath are usually not 100% consultant).

Pattern Motion pictures & Video

Product Photos

Conclusion

Many impartial observers and devoted Olympus followers alike might properly have questioned simply what the brand new OM Digital Options firm can be able to delivering when Olympus bought their digital camera division in late-2020.

Effectively, marvel no extra, as the brand new OM-1 is the very best digital camera that OM Digital Options or certainly Olympus have ever produced, marrying the pace of the E-M1X with the confirmed dealing with of the E-M1 III. If this can be a signal of issues to return, then Olympus followers actually haven’t any want to fret.

While outwardly the OM1 appears to be an identical to the EM1 Mark III, providing only a few enhancements together with the a lot improved viewfinder and LCD display and the welcome AF-On button, inside there are a complete raft of enhancements that focus primarily on one factor – pace.

It might not supply any extra decision than the earlier mannequin, with the brand new proprietor of Olympus cameras resolutely sticking to twenty megapixels, however because of the brand new stacked picture sensor and quicker processor, the brand new OM-1 can shoot much more frames per second, detect much more topics and give attention to them extra shortly and reliably, and course of photos quicker than ever earlier than.

The video specs and all-round efficiency have additionally seen a great addition, and the already class-leading picture stabilisation and weather-proofing are even higher than earlier than.

The brand new OM Digital Options have seemingly addressed virtually each criticism that was levelled at each the E-M1 III and E-M1X, with the notable exception of the variety of megapixels, however that is one thing that we might fortunately settle for given all the opposite enhancements which have been made.

They do come at a literal worth although – £1999 / $2199 body-only within the UK and US makes the OM-1 £200 / $400 dearer than the earlier E-M1 Mark III mannequin was at launch.

OK, so rather a lot has been occurring within the three years for the reason that E-M1 III was launched, besides and even with all of its many enhancements, the brand new OM-1 is undoubtedly costly for a Micro 4 Thirds digital camera.

It actually faces some very stiff competitors at this price-point, most notably from the full-frame Sony Alpha A7 IV, the APS-C sensor Fujifilm X-T4, and the MFT Panasonic Lumix GH6, to not point out the likes of the Canon EOS R6 and the Nikon Z6 II.

General, although, should you can look past the sensor measurement, the OM System OM-1 is one hell of a digital camera, one that can actually please present Olympus house owners and which additionally deserves to increase the system’s attraction.

Primary Rivals

Listed beneath are a few of the rivals of the OM System OM-1.

Evaluation Roundup

Evaluations of the OM System OM-1 from across the net.

Specs

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