In a comment to “3744 – The Organic Emerging From The Liquid”, Joe Jarosak said, he’s
contemplating upgrading from E-M1 to the MkII but balking at the price. Curious as to the sensor upgrade.
Well, so am I. We’ll find out soon 🙂
While writing this, I am on the train. I’ve bought the MkII, an EP-13 eyepiece (the deep one) and a spare battery an hour ago. What I found while the train was not yet moving, was that, using the 17/1.8, I could hold an image at 1.6 seconds. Then the train started moving and I couldn’t get any spectacular results. I’ll try again at the next station 🙂
I have no idea how good the sensor is, but I wouldn’t expect noticeably better performance than on the PEN-F. But then, let’s see. I’ll try to make a few images under identical conditions tonight, and this should clarify things.
OK, we’ve just held in a station and I could take an image at 2s and two images at 3.2s. All sharp - and that’s not yet the crazy mode of the stabilized 12-100/4. It’s just a normal, non-stabilized lens. Cool.
By the way, no chance to do that while the train moves, but for wide lenses and dim churches I see great opportunities. I’ll try the 75/1.8 at the next station and see how slow I can get.
Yes, it keeps impressing! I’ve made an image at 1/10s and it’s razor-sharp. One more at 1/4s is still sharp, but as it’s textile, it’s a little bit hard to judge. 1/8s while the train was already moving was probably luck.
One stop later: 75/1.8 at 1/2.5s, twice at 1/3s, once at 1/4s, all of that series completely sharp.
On the MkI I could repeatably hold the 75/1.8 at 1/30s, but I have one image taken at 1/25s in last year’s Lightroom catalog. Slower might be possible, but 1/10s never was. I’m pretty sure about that. Next stop: 12mm 🙂
Bad news! I can’t hold 4s. Two seconds were OK, 3.2s sometimes, and more I didn’t get time to try. This is not better than with the 17mm, but it may well be that 4s are more a restriction of myself than of the camera. In any case it seems incredibly long.
Let’s be conservative. I think it is safe to say that the MkII has more than one stop advantage in image stabilization. How big is it really? My first tests are of course pretty unscientific, especially because I don’t have the MkI to compare with, but it certainly feels like 2, maybe even 2.5 stops. That’s pretty much consistent across focal lengths as well.
OK, here we are. So far a damn fine camera for my needs.