The Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera showed up from BHPhoto and I have some Hands-On first impressions that I wanted to share with you all.
First off, the camera build quality and design is freaking awesome and Sony could learn so much! The Rear LCD screen is far superior to the Sony design in my opinion and touch to boot. The manual controls on the top have an excellent feedback and the dampening is perfect. The other buttons are raised up slightly for easy finding on feel alone. More buttons on the front which I have the re-search, but in the middle is the lens re-lease.
From the top you can see the Mode dial is on the left side and is much harder to turn than the control dials which makes perfect sense. It also has a lock in the center to hold it firm in place on whatever mode you are in. Next to that mode dial is the on/off toggle which works as you would expect. Look at all those function buttons! Also note how far the thumb rest protrudes out, making it very effective and functional in combination with the camera thickness and contoured grip on the front. This design as a whole works quite well and yields plenty of support for heavier lenses. I do still prefer the large deep grip that the Sony cameras have, but this does work really well I must say.
Here she is with the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 25mm f/1.8 Lens mounted. The lens is extremely light weight, but is very made! The focus ring feels like perfect butter and the lens coatings are everywhere and visible. The optics look really good on this lens!
And here she is with the M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 75-300mm f/4.8-6.7 II Lens mounted. This lens does not appear to be the same quality as the 25mm lens from the feel of the focus ring at least. It’s much easier to turn and does not have the perfect butter dampening like the 25mm lens. The zoom does feel very smooth though and the lens coatings are visible all over as well.
Be sure to check out the HD video below for a much closer highly detailed look of all this gear!
Hands-On First Look Video
In this video I will give you my hands-on first impressions of the new Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II Mirrorless Camera. I open the box and put my hands on the camera for the first time and give my first impressions on the design and build quality. I then comment on the sensor size and compare it to my full frame Sony Alpha A7r to show how the bodies are somewhat similar.
Next, I open up w/ the M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 75-300mm f/4.8-6.7 II Lens which works out to 150-600mm effective, plus Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 25mm f/1.8 Lens which will give me a 50mm effective focal length equivalent, and then show you those mounted to the OM-D E-M5 Mark II.
My goal here is to compare the Olympus camera system to the Sony camera system in a practical real world way as I always try and do… So lets take a look at the relevant competition starting with Olympus shall we?
Closing Remarks
So far so good with the Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II Mirrorless Camera and lenses.
For the next part in this review series, I will include some hands-on live camera testing in the lab, and I will breakdown the insane menu system/ camera controls in more detail.
Please come alone for the ride as I investigate this new camera system and see how it compares to the killer Sony camera systems we all know and love 😉
Thanks again for checking in and have a great day,
Jay
