This week saw the release of the highly anticipated Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II, and it has been applauded for being one of the best mirrorless cameras for photography to date by industry standards. But in its video stabilization, they just might have gone and revolutionized handheld shooting for videographers.
Whilst in-roads were made into image stabilization at Olympus with the OM-D E-M5 Mark II, max bit rate was never high enough to satisfy professional videographers. But at 237 Mbps, the E-M1 Mark II catches up to the mirrorless video king, the Panasonic GH4. And let’s not forget about HDMI output, folks.
Now onto the image stabilization itself. Olympus have nailed the combination of using their industry leading 5-axis image stabilization technology along with electronic stabilization to produce a result which has never been seen before in a consumer mirrorless camera.
Brushless gimbals and handheld stabilization systems have seen a huge growth in the last three years, so a huge amount of credit should go to Olympus for acting on this demand with technology that reduces the size of your kit needed for certain shots. Let’s be clear, it’s not going to replace your tripod or gimbal for accurate panning or movement, but it will create so much more usable footage than you will ever have expected to get from handheld shooting. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you only have room for one camera in your kit that requires professional levels of photography and video, the E-M1 Mark II is a serious player.
Video enthusiasts and professionals will likely await the release of the Panasonic GH5 before committing almost $2,000 to a new A-camera because of their reputation in this field, but Olympus have thrown a spanner in the works in a field for which they have not ever been on the radar with mind blowing in-camera 4K video stabilization.
That's pretty impressive
God i love a good Game Changer
What's up with the jerkiness in the panning clips at the beginning of the first video? (didn't watch the second yet) Is it because I'm watching it in 4K but not on a 4K screen? I tried two different computers, one of which is brand new and EASILY capable of handling 4K clips, but the monitor isn't 4K
I saw it too, and I was watching it at 4k on a 4k monitor, it was really odd, made me go kind of cross-eyed.
Yeah, exactly! It confused my eyes. If that's representative of the video obtained when panning then panning shouldn't be done with it. I'm guessing it was the ibis trying to correct for something
I've been an Olympus user since the EM5 was released...this game changer business is getting played-out.
BUT, the EM1 and every model released afterwards is absolutely amazing, even for video. Nice to have 4K at a more robust bitrate...for those who like to grade but in truth most anything produced these days is slated for 1080p regardless of what naysayers chat about.
I have a true 4K computer monitor and TV. Most people are still using the 1080P standard which will be around for years to come.
The real benefit of 4K and above is the ability to do a variety of things:
-stabilise
-crop
-aggressively grade
...without the footage falling apart.
The image quality is pretty much the same...as it was from the EM5 to EM1 to EM5 MKII etc...which is to say, good enough for anything most people are likely to use it for.
Stabilization is one thing, but check the sharpness of both videos and you'll see that Panasonic is much sharper and clearer than Olympus. And I think that will count more at the end.
Author doesn't mention there are only two lenses currently that can utilise all three of the stabilisation features and both are f4 which makes the camera not ideal for tight, low light scenarios where you have to hide the background.
im going to hold out for the GH5....
I love the new emerging technologies that these camera manufacturers are bringing to the table. Very cool