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[OM] OM-5D II mini review

Subject: [OM] OM-5D II mini review
From: "C.H.Ling" <ch_photo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 00:46:54 +0800
As promised, here is a OM-5D II mini review. Sorry, I have only wrote what
concerned me most but if you have any questions just let me know.

* Handling

I will not talk too much here, it is very personal and not my prime concern,
of course I like the E-1 much more, at least it is lighter. To use the
camera with heavier lenses has to be more careful about horizontal, I had
some pictures that are counter-clockwise rotated, may need to consider the
vertical grip.

* Vibration

The mirror vibration of the camera is quite strong, to make use of the high
resolution you need a heavier lens for the long shoot and hold the camera
firm even with a wide angle lens.  My Tamron 70-300 is a good example, the
lens affected by the vibration so strong that I can never get a sharp image
at 1/60s handheld even sit while I can do with the OM 50-250 at 1/30s
occasionally. Of course you can use mirror lock up or live view to reduce
the vibration to almost nothing.

* Manual focusing

With standard screen, it is good for lenses of F3.5 or slower. I have
changed the screen to A900 type M (manual focus), the precision is very high
with all lenses, even the 21/2 focus very well but the problem is a darker
viewfinder and vignetting with some wide angles. The Canon EG-S which
designed for MF is not available here yet, it should solve the vignetting
problem but don't know how well it focus.

BTW, my camera came with MF system shifted, I have to modify the focusing
screen spacer to get an accurate focusing.

* Exposure

The exposure accuracy is not very stable with stop down, it varies from lens
to lens. Anyway, I use RAW so it is not much a problem for me. I have also
enabled the highlight warning to avoid over exposure.

* Dust

I have been using the E-1 for four years, dust was never a problem. For the
5D II, I got a few pieces of dust just after used for one day. The big ones
has been blew away, for the one that only visible at F16 I just ignored
them.

* Pixel resolution

Very fine, similar to the 40D I had, better than the E-3. I have the feeling
that some of my OM lenses (at least the 24/2) resolve more than 21MP, could
benefit from a sensor of 40MP or more. At such high resolution, the safety
shutter has to be increased.

* High ISO performance

- without NR

Excellent, ISO3200 is very good, around 1 stop better than my 40D and there
is no hot pixels. At ISO6400 there are a few hot pixels and my camera shown
a faint horizontal line of a few pixel wide running a little more than half
of the frame. Here is a sample at ISO2000 DPP +1.67 stops, equ. ISO6400, OM
50-250mm:

http://www.accura.com.hk/temp/IMG_2729.JPG (9.5MB!)

- with Canon DPP NR

At a NR setting of 12/12 (Luminance/Chrominance) the above problem is
'almost' solved unless you know the line was there before, the image is very
clean with the expenses of resolution. Same image as above with NR:

http://www.accura.com.hk/temp/IMG_2729_CNR.JPG (4.1MB)

Actually, I prefer to use NeatImage, which clean the image with little loss
in details.

http://www.accura.com.hk/temp/IMG_2729_Neat.jpg (6.9MB)

* Color

I can only say the color accuracy of the camera is very high, same also
reported by Pop Photo. But as I have mentioned before I prefer the Olympus
color more.

C.H.Ling

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