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<\/a>Construction and Handling<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Before we get started, I wanted to include a little note: I never had a chance to review the original E-M10, so you’ll notice that most of my comparisons tend to be in comparison to the original E-M5. The main reason for this is that the E-M10 II replaced my own personal E-M5 for my main Micro 4\/3 body, and is therefore my primary frame of reference for this model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The OM-D E-M10 Mark II fits in beautifully with the rest of the OM-D cameras with its excellent combination of retro styling with modern controls. It’s a very attractive camera and is available in both black and silver. Both finishes are quite striking, with the silver showing more retro charm and the black looking sleek and serious. The camera isn’t quite as robustly built as the tank-like E-M5 Mark II and lacks the weather-sealing of the two higher-end cameras in the OM-D series, but the E-M10 Mark II still feels like a very well put together camera with excellent finish and quality. The body is a mix of polycarbonate and metal, with a metal internal frame covered by body of mixed materials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The main skin of the camera is high-quality polycarbonate covered in a hard rubber textured grip material. The top and bottom plates of the camera are metal and are painted with a flat paint on all surfaces except the very top, which has a brushed metal look. The lighter-weight metal and plastic mix makes the E-M10 II a notably lighter camera than the E-M5 II, but construction tolerances are no less precise. The camera is finished beautifully and the body has no flex at any point. The rear screen tilt mechanism is very robust and the pop-up flash is likewise sturdy. Only two parts of the camera belie the lower cost of the E-M10 II. First, the battery\/SD card door is plastic and feels a bit flimsy. Second, the port access cover, which is located on the right side of the camera, is rubber and flexible. It’s not poorly made, and stays securely in-place during use, but when accessing the ports, the cover gets in the way a bit and makes it awkward to attach the USB cable to the camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The E-M10 Mark II’s biggest external upgrade is to handling and ergonomics. Again, I didn’t handle the original E-M10, but the dial and button configuration was nearly identical to the E-M5, with which I have logged over three years of use. Like the E-M5 II, the E-M10 II moves the twin control dials from the original versions such that they are in the same position as those on the E-M1. This is a huge improvement, as both the front and rear dials fall naturally under your index finger and thumb, respectively. The E-M10 II’s subtle front grip is also changed from the vertical ridge on the original E-M10 to the slanted ridge first seen on the E-M5 II. This change makes a huge difference in comfort, and when using smaller lenses, the grip feels very natural and comfortable. The E-M10 Mark II doesn’t feature the small notch at the top that the E-M5 II has, and for that I’m grateful. That notch cramped my fingers when using the E-M5 II, but the E-M10 II’s grip feels great to me. The rear thumb grip is also well molded and provides for secure grip on the rear of the camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The E-M10 Mark II is a small camera, but with the excellent control placement and decent grip, it handles beautifully. If you only use small lenses, the standard grip will work just fine. If you’re going to be using larger lenses regularly, you have large hands, or you simply prefer the handling of a larger grip, the $60 Olympus ECG-3 adds additional depth to the grip and height to the camera. The ECG-3 feels very comfortable in the hand and adds extra control, especially with large lenses. It also features a neat latch that detaches most of the grip to make accessing the battery and card door extremely fast and easy. This is a nice feature, but it also introduces a small amount of flex in the grip if your hand puts pressure on the top of the grip. With or without the ECG-3, Olympus paid attention to how people use their cameras and did a great job with the ergonomics of the E-M10 II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the best things about the E-M10 II when compared to many other entry-level cameras, and frankly almost all mirrorless cameras, is the quality of the two control dials. First, it’s great that Olympus has decided to keep twin dials on their entry-level OM-D, as most companies cut out the rear dial when trying to cut cost. Second, the dials are impeccable in action and quality. The large and chunky dials are made of knurled metal and they move with a very satisfying click. The control dials along with the mode dial (now relocated from the left side to the right) are among the best feeling dials I’ve used on any camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The power switch, which has moved to the top left of the camera, is a 90 degree switch that also is exceptionally satisfying to turn, with an almost spring-loaded feel that is both easy to operate and extremely difficult to knock accidentally. However, there are two small issues with the power switch. While I like that the switch also activates the pop-up flash when turning it past 90 degrees, the proximity of the switch to the flash hump causes your fingers to get in the way a bit, as you’ll inevitably brush your hand with the flash as it opens. Second, the Fn3 button often gets accidentally activated when operating the power switch, so I wouldn’t assign a function to that button that would be difficult to notice and problematic should you accidentally activate it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In all, I’m very impressed with the construction, ergonomics and handling of the E-M10 II. While the camera isn’t quite as robustly built as the E-M5 II, it’s still a very well made camera that feels great in the hand. I’m so pleased that Olympus didn’t skimp at all on the feel of operation as well. It’s a very satisfying camera to operate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As I described in the section above, the controls for the E-M10 II are based around a twin-dial system, and Olympus has made sure to allow for plenty of customizability. While the E-M10 Mark II has fewer direct controls than the E-M5 Mark II, it adds additional customization vs. the original E-M10 or something like the original E-M5. The two control dials change their function based on the shooting mode, but operate like most any other twin-dial system. In aperture priority, one dial controls aperture while the other controls exposure compensation. The same is true for shutter priority and shutter speed control. In manual mode, one dial controls aperture and the other controls shutter speed. As is the case with essentially every control on the E-M10 II, the choice of which dial controls which parameter can be changed to your preference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The top of the camera features the two control dials, the PASM mode dial, two programmable function buttons, the movie record button (which can also be programmed as an additional function button) and the power switch. The Fn2 button and movie record button located on the right side of the top plate are both easy to access with your index finger and the Fn3 button next to the power switch is also easy to access, though easy to accidentally press while using power switch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The E-M10 Mark II lacks the 2×2 switch found on both the E-M5 Mark II and the E-M1. This switch allows those models to switch the function of the two dials to control white balance and ISO and I found it to be a great feature. Thankfully, Olympus still keeps this functionality on the E-M10 II despite the loss of the switch itself by allowing the switching of the dial functions to be assigned to one of the programmable function buttons. I have chosen to assign this to Fn1, located on the thumb rest, which can be easily accessed with a shift of your thumb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rear of the camera will be familiar to current OM-D users, as the four-way control pad found on the back is identical to the one on the E-M5 Mark II and is flanked by the menu, info, trash and play buttons. The four-way buttons can be configured for direct access to focus point selection or can function as additional programmable function buttons. The degree of customizability with the E-M10 Mark II is remarkable. Olympus has always allowed for extreme levels of customization, but it’s nice to see that they don’t handicap the E-M10 II in any way compared to the higher models in the OM-D range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The degree to which you can customize the camera to your shooting preferences is a double-edged sword. It’s great to have the expanded capability to set things how you like, though it comes at the expense of added complexity, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the menu system. While the menus will be familiar to any recent Olympus shooter, it doesn’t stop them from being extremely complex. Things are organized well, but it can be challenging to find the setting you’re looking for simply due to the sheer number of options available. In more cases than not, though, the extra flexibility is excellent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the separate settings for Live View Boost for each shooting mode to preferences on button and dial operation or the operation of the viewfinder and screen, if you have a preference for how the camera should operate, chances are there’s a setting to make it happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to the regular menu system, the center button on the rear of the camera accesses the Super Control Panel, which provides a quick look at all the major shooting parameters from the stabilization settings to RAW\/JPEG settings, to drive mode, metering and focus mode. It’s quick and easy to navigate, and an excellent way to make quick settings changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, the camera has a capacitive touch screen that allows for further control while shooting, which we’ll talk about in detail next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The E-M10 Mark II features an improved electronic viewfinder (EVF) over the original E-M10 and the E-M5. It’s grown in size, with a 0.62x magnification (up from 0.58x), and features a higher resolution 2.36 million dot panel. The result is a good-sized view that is extremely clear and crisp. The EVF is roughly the same size as the one in the Fuji X-T10, and it performs just as well as that excellent finder. Contrast is rich and details are clear. In decent light, it has excellent refresh rates, and it maintains low noise even in dim light. However, there is some notable lag in lower light, which is especially noticeable when panning the camera. Still, it’s a clear improvement over the earlier E-M10 and the original E-M5, even if it doesn’t quite measure up to the large EVFs in the E-M1 and E-M5 Mark II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rear screen is a 3″ 1 million dot OLED display that is crisp, clear and has excellent color and good viewing angles. The screen can tilt up for low to the ground shooting or down at a 45 degree angle to enable easier shooting overhead, but lacks the fully articulated capabilities of the E-M5 Mark II’s screen. The screen, like all OM-D models, is a capacitive touch screen that utilizes touch for focus point positioning, swiping through images on review, selection of settings in the super control panel and more. It’s very responsive and it’s a great help to have on a camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The biggest new feature on the E-M10 Mark II with regards to the touch screen is the addition of Touchpad AF positioning. Olympus actually calls this feature “AF targeting pad”, but I feel silly even saying that. Panasonic has had this feature on a few cameras, but the E-M10 II is the first Olympus body to gain the capability. The feature works by allowing you to utilize the touch screen while using the EVF by treating it as a trackpad. Place your thumb anywhere on the screen while using the EVF and simply slide it in any direction to move the AF point like you would move a mouse cursor on a trackpad. It is a very convenient way to keep the viewfinder to your eye and still quickly change AF point position. After a while it becomes second nature to operate, though it can be a bit touchy while you’re getting used to it. After using this feature on the E-M10 Mark II I fear I’m going to miss it on all my other cameras.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like the E-M5 Mark II, the E-M10 Mark II features a contrast-detect only focus system. This will limit the accuracy of continuous focus capabilities, but Olympus has been perfecting their contrast-detect system for years, and it’s among the fastest autofocus systems around when it comes to single-shot shooting. In almost any light, focus is very quick, locking on nearly instantly when shooting with a fast focusing lens. In very dark conditions, the system can get confused in some cases, but overall, I found it to focus well in almost every situation. Accuracy is excellent as well, with precise placement of focus right where you ask for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In continuous focus mode, the system does a fairly respectable job overall, considering it’s a contrast-detection only system. The camera can keep up with slower moving subjects or more lateral movements quite well, though it pales in predictive capabilities to mirrorless cameras that have on-sensor phase detection AF. The E-M10 II does well enough for casual shooting, though you’ll get a few out of focus frames in each burst. I certainly would want something like the E-M1 if I were using a Micro 4\/3 camera for sports work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Olympus has had a very good face-detect system for a while now, and the face and eye detection on the E-M10 Mark II is excellent. Focus is quick and accurate and I found the camera was able to lock right onto the eyes in the vast majority of situations. It also does a much better job than my Sony and Fuji cameras at locating faces that are in profile or looking down. Those situations cause other cameras to struggle in many cases, while the Olympus still locates and locks on with ease. The feature has definitely progressed beyond the gimmick stage and is a genuinely useful feature in many situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The E-M10 Mark II has an improved frame rate compared to the original E-M10, and can shoot continuously at 8.5 frames per second. Buffer size is quite good for a mid-range camera, as over 40 JPEGs and nearly 20 RAW files can be captured in a single burst. If you switch the camera to the electronic shutter, the E-M10 II can shoot at up to 11 frames per second, but this is of much more limited use as the electronic shutter, even at high shutter speeds, suffers from a slow readout that will cause warping of the subject if it’s in motion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking of that electronic shutter, it’s a new feature on the E-M10 series, and allows the camera to shoot at shutter speeds of up to 1\/16,000 second. While this won’t come in handy for action shooting, it’s very useful in eliminating vibration from the shutter, allowing for completely silent operation of the camera and shooting in very bright conditions with fast lenses without an ND filter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The E-M10 Mark II, like its predecessor, features a built-in pop-up flash instead of the clip-on flashes that the E-M5 and E-M1 series employ. The flash is accessed by rotating the power switch upwards. The built-in flash is small and has all the benefits and pitfalls of any other pop-up flash. For most shooting, the direct light is unflattering and limited in use, but the flash can be used well for fill-in flash outdoors in the shade and it works quite well for macro work as well. The E-M10 II’s low overall power will also limit its usefulness for any subject beyond a few feet. Despite the limitations, it’s a nice feature to have in a camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like all Olympus Micro 4\/3 bodies, the E-M10 Mark II features in-body image stabilization (IBIS). The original E-M10 included a somewhat diluted version of Olympus’ IBIS, stabilizing only 3 axes of motion instead of the 5-axis stabilization featured on the other OM-D cameras. The E-M10 Mark II, however, loses this restriction and inherits the same excellent 5-axis stabilization as the E-M1. In my experience, the IBIS system is generally useful for allowing an extra four stops of handholding at slower shutter speeds. With wider angle lenses, I’ve even been able to get sharp shots as slow as 1\/2 second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the downside of the E-M1’s stabilizer is also here, and that’s shutter shock at shutter speeds between 1\/60 and 1\/200s. It’s far less of a problem on the E-M10 Mark II, however, as this body includes a fully electronic shutter that also can be utilized as a first-curtain electronic shutter to help eliminate shutter shock. Electronic first curtain is enabled by turning on ‘anti-shock’ with a 0 second delay. Of course, turning on silent mode with full electronic shutter will eliminate it completely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like all recent mirrorless cameras, the OM-D E-M10 Mark II features built-in Wi-Fi capabilities to allow for image transfer, remote control and geotagging of images. On a personal note, the inclusion of Wi-Fi was the primary driver for replacing my venerable E-M5 with the E-M10 Mark II. As I review the three major mirrorless systems, I have cameras for all three systems, and the E-M5 was the only one of my current bodies that didn’t have Wi-Fi. As I have come to rely on Wi-Fi for on-the-go image sharing, I always missed having the ability to transfer images when shooting with my E-M5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyway, back to the E-M10 Mark II, which has the same Wi-Fi features as the E-M5 Mark II. Let’s start with image transfer: The E-M10 Mark II has the ability to transfer JPEG images, either singularly or in bulk, to a mobile device, simply by connecting the camera to your phone or tablet and booting up the Olympus Image Share app. The camera can connect to your phone in a few different ways, but the easiest is via scanning a QR code displayed on the rear of the camera, which will then pass the WiFi network credentials to your phone or tablet. Once connected, you can browse the contents of the camera and pick which images you’d like to transfer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are primarily a RAW shooter, Olympus also has you covered, as the E-M10 Mark II includes a rather full-featured, if somewhat confusing to operate, RAW converter. Simply select your image and choose RAW Data Edit. At this point, you can make adjustments to exposure, highlight and shadow tone, color, tone curve, art filters, etc, and create a JPEG image from those settings. Then you can transfer your developed JPEGs to your mobile device for sharing. One downside to the Olympus RAW converter is that after creation of the JPEG, the image review starts at the created JPEG, so if you’re converting multiple files from earlier in a shoot, you’ll spend quite a bit of time scrolling through images as you make your way back to the images you’d like to convert. Fuji had this same issue a while back, but changed this behavior last year via firmware update.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The E-M10 Mark II can also utilize remote capture via Wi-Fi, with full live view and the ability to change camera settings remotely. The remote capture works well, but occasionally I experienced a long delay after tripping the shutter before the camera was ready to shoot again. This delay was sporadic, as most of the time the camera was ready for another shot almost instantly. When shooting remotely, the camera will transfer the completed image to your phone automatically, which is a nice touch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The E-M10 II can also utilize geotagging by utilizing the GPS feature of a smartphone, which then syncs the data to your images, if you enjoy keeping location data in your images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A brand new feature that debuts on the E-M10 Mark II (but has also been added to the E-M1 and E-M5 Mark II via firmware update) is focus bracketing. This is a genius solution for macro photographers who utilize focus stacking, though it can be used for focus stacking in other instances as well. For those who don’t know about focus stacking, it’s a process of taking many images, focused at different points in an image, and combining the in-focus parts into a single image. This is exceptionally useful for macro shooting due to the extremely shallow depth of field that occurs when shooting macro. When you want to get a lot of a macro subject in focus, often the solution is to stop down to very small apertures. This does get more of the subject in focus, but often it still isn’t enough, and you also incur significant loss of sharpness due to diffraction softening at very small apertures. The solution? Shoot many images at an optimal aperture and stack them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the past, a photographer has had to manually move the focus point bit by bit to create a good focus stack. Given the very small movements required and the sheer number of images for a quality macro focus stack, this can be very time consuming and is prone to error if you overshoot focus on a few images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The E-M10 Mark II automates that process completely. You simply select focus bracketing, select a degree of movement (lower numbers move the point less than higher numbers) and select the number of exposures. You then focus at the closest point that you want in focus, click the shutter, and the camera takes a series of images moved precisely in exact increments, covering the number of shots you wish to shoot. A few things of note. First, this process uses the electronic shutter, I’d imagine to avoid shutter vibration and save actuations on the mechanism, as you can blow through over a hundred frames in a single stack. This is great, though be careful if shooting under fluorescent lighting at certain shutter speeds, as banding can be induced due to the flicker of the lights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The shot below is at around 1:2 magnification with the Olympus 60mm f\/2.8 macro. For optimal sharpness, I wanted to use an aperture of f\/4. Because of the deep depth of field required, f\/4 isn’t an optimal aperture for getting the entire flower in focus. Below is what one frame at f\/4 looks like for this image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Using the Focus Bracketing feature, however, I was able to take 130 images with very small focus changes to get the entire flower in focus with optimal sharpness. I stacked the images using Helicon Focus, and the result of the stack is shown below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The result is an extremely detailed look with depth of field from front to back. The best part? It took less than 30 seconds to take all 130 images with perfect focus movement. This is an exceptional feature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The E-M10 Mark II continues the tradition of Olympus cameras with a “Live Bulb” mode. Live Time mode is essentially the same thing, but is triggered differently, allowing you to start a bulb exposure with one press of the shutter and stop exposure with a second press. In both cases, the E-M10 Mark II allows you to watch the exposure develop on the rear LCD as it’s being made. This is a wonderful feature for very long exposures, as often multi-minute exposures can be difficult to properly meter. Stop that 10 minute exposure too early or too late and you’ve just wasted a lot of time. With the live bulb and live time features, you can watch the exposure on the rear and simply choose to stop the exposure when it looks how you want it to look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A third addition to these features includes Live Composite. This lets you composite long exposures to capture motion or developing lights without overexposing the overall image. This works by allowing you to set an exposure time, and then continuous exposures of that length are made and composited in-camera. If you’ve ever taken star trails or combined multiple shots of fireworks or the like, you know that stacking multiple images of a shorter duration delivers cleaner images and makes shooting with a bright foreground much easier. Because this is a live composite, you can see the exposure develop just like you can with the bulb features before. While these features do drain battery due to the always on rear screen, these features make shooting long exposures quite a joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The E-M10 II does a nice job with dynamic range, which can capture the vast majority of details in even harsh daylight scenes. Despite the age of the sensor and the smaller 4\/3 sensor, the E-M10 Mark II shows dynamic range abilities beyond what most would expect from the smaller sensor. While dynamic range isn’t quite as good as from the latest APS-C and full-frame mirrorless cameras, it isn’t far behind, and should satisfy most shooters in almost any lighting condition. The Olympus RAW files have always been calibrated to provide quite a lot of highlight headroom, so you’ll find when dealing with RAW images that you’ll have more room to pull highlights than you will to significantly push shadows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Color is excellent as always. Olympus has always had great color and nothing has changed with the E-M10 Mark II. Colors are rich and vibrant while maintaining good balance and avoiding oversaturation. This is especially present in Olympus’ excellent JPEG engine, which I’ll delve into a bit more later on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The E-M10 Mark II maintains the same 16 megapixel resolution as every Olympus Micro 4\/3 camera in the past three years, and it continues to pull plenty of fine detail out of the excellent Micro 4\/3 lenses. The sensor does not have an anti-aliasing filter, which adds just a bit of extra crispness to the images over something like the E-M5. The level of detail present will produce excellent images up to 24″ wide and good 30″ prints, which should be enough to satisfy most photographers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The E-M10 Mark II has similar noise performance to the other 16 megapixel Olympus bodies, with almost identical performance to the E-M5 Mark II and even the original E-M5, though in my real-world shooting it seemed that base ISO noise was slightly improved in blue sky areas. While the noise performance isn’t as good as modern cameras with larger sensors, the deficit isn’t as large as some might imagine. I feel comfortable shooting with the E-M10 Mark II to ISO 1600 for almost any shooting situation, and even ISOs up to 6400 are eminently usable, as the images retain good color and a fair amount of detail. Going beyond this may work OK for some smaller web reductions or black and white prints, but I think most people will find the highest ISOs a bit too noisy. The great one thing that helps the E-M10 Mark II work quite well in dimmer light is the excellent IBIS, which often means that you can shoot at an ISO several stops lower than cameras that don’t utilize stabilization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Olympus has always been known for excellent JPEG quality, and that tradition continues with the E-M10 Mark II. Color and clarity are excellent at low ISO, with very low compression and excellent processing that yields images that require minimal work. The variety of Art filters and tone curve presets (plus the ability to modify those presets) gives the shooter an array of options to produce images to their taste straight out of camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The default noise reduction at higher ISOs yields images that are very clean, but a bit too much smoothing is present for my taste, as valuable detail is lost at high ISO with default settings. Olympus gives you the ability to reduce or turn off JPEG noise reduction, though, and lower settings produce more natural results at high ISO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am not a videographer, but the video options on the E-M10 Mark II will be welcome for most casual video shooters, with a 77Mbps bit rate and the ability to shoot in 1080p at 60, 30 or 24 frames per second. Video shot at 60 frames per second can be slowed to 24fps for some mild slow motion capabilities. Quality is rather good, though the lack of a microphone input means that the camera is not going to be the right choice for those who shoot video professionally. The lack of 4K recording is a mild disappointment, but not unexpected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The E-M10 II does have the ability to output a low frame rate 4K video using the built-in intervalometer. You can shoot time-lapse photos that the camera will then assemble into a high-quality 4K video clip, though at a very slow frame rate of just 5 frames per second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The built-in image stabilization makes shooting video a steady affair, smoothing out the jerky motion that often accompanies hand-held video shooting. One big downside for me is the inability to use auto ISO in video mode, which is great for keeping full control of aperture while keeping your shutter speed at double the frame rate. Note that Auto ISO can be selected in video mode, but the chosen ISO is locked once recording starts, and ISO will not fluctuate on the fly to keep proper exposure when lighting conditions change during recording.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The E-M10 Mark II seems to be a bit of an overlooked camera in the Micro 4\/3 world. There’s its big brother, the E-M5 Mark II, that is making waves with its robust body and 40 megapixel sensor shift mode. The new Panasonic GX8 (which I hope to review soon), improves on the already outstanding GX7, and forgotten by many is this ‘entry level’ OM-D. After shooting with the E-M10 II for the past several weeks, I think that overlooking this camera is a mistake. This camera represents an excellent value in the Micro 4\/3 world, with nearly every major feature of the E-M5 Mark II at a significantly lower price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The E-M10 II lacks the E-M5 II’s high res mode, has a smaller EVF and lacks weather sealing. However, aside from those major points, it is almost identical. The original E-M10 was also a great value, but Olympus did cut some key things to differentiate the camera. This time around, it seems they cut almost nothing. The E-M10 Mark II feels like a complete camera, with outstanding in-body image stabilization, robust construction, outstanding haptics and ergonomics and an exceptionally long feature set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The new focus bracketing feature is a major boon to macro photographers, the Wi-Fi capabilities are the same as on the top-tier Olympus cameras and the addition of touchpad AF selection when using the EVF is outstanding. Really, the only major negative for stills shooters is the lack of any major upgrade in the sensor. The 3.5 year old 16 megapixel sensor still produces excellent images, but I’d have to imagine this will be the last Olympus body to utilize this technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In all, the E-M10 Mark II is a great upgrade for those using the original E-M5 and is worth a long hard look for those considering the E-M5 Mark II. If you rely on action shooting and need solid continuous autofocus, the E-M1 or one of the more recent Panasonic bodies should garner your attention, but for all other shooters, the E-M10 Mark II represents the best value in the Olympus lineup. It’s an excellent camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Click on an image to enlarge<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n Olympus has had great success with their now firmly fleshed out OM-D camera line, and today’s review looks at the latest revision to the ‘entry-level’ OM-D, the OM-D E-M10 Mark II. I put entry-level in quotes because while the E-M10 Mark II sits at the bottom of the lineup of OM-D cameras in price, it’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11,10,29,8],"class_list":["post-5908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-m43","tag-micro-43","tag-olympus","tag-review"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/em10II1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p28RGq-1xi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5908"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12675,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5908\/revisions\/12675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admiringlight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a><\/a>Operation and Controls<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>Continue: Viewfinder, Screen and Performance<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Viewfinder and Rear Screen<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Autofocus and Performance<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a>Flash<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Continue: Key Features<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Like most Olympus cameras, the E-M10 Mark II is crammed full of features. I could spend 10,000 words going through all of them, so I’ll simply touch on some of the most important features and a few unique ones as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn-Body Image Stabilization<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Wi-Fi<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Focus Bracketing<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a>Live Bulb, Live Time and Live Composite<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Continue: Image Quality<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
The sensor in the E-M10 Mark II is the same 16 megapixel 4\/3 sized sensor as the one in the E-M5 Mark II. This sensor is a minor evolution of the sensor that debuted in the original E-M5 way back in 2012. It was a big step up in image quality at the time, but I have to say: I didn’t expect almost the same sensor to still be around in new cameras in late 2015. Still, it’s a quality imaging device, so let’s get into specifics.<\/p>\n\n\n\nDynamic Range and Color<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Detail and Noise<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>JPEG Quality<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Video<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Continue: Conclusion and Image Samples<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Conclusion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Pros<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\n
Cons<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\n
Image Samples<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>If you liked this review, check out my other reviews in the Review Index<\/a><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"