The relative sizes of the different items that make up my new video setup are all out of whack

"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein) 04/30/2020 at 20:30 • Filed to: None

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I got a new used camera! An Olympus OM-D E-M1 MkII. It’s the old version of Olympus’ current pro model E-M1 MkIII, that came out wayyy back in ye olden days of 2016, but thanks to a firmware update from Olympus at the end of 2019, is now one of the absolute best mirrorless cameras for shooting video. I can nerd out about that later. Combined with other items I already owned, the whole setup is funny looking (at least to this camera nerd).

The E-M1 series has always looked a bit weird to me. They look Olympus’ smaller upper-midrange E-M5 series, but with a giant wart of a grip that is certainly good in the hand and allows the E-M1 to fit a much larger battery, which looks doofily large compared to the rest of the camera .

Here’s the original E-M1 (which has a slightly smaller grip than the later MkII and III) next to the E-M5 II.

Dat battery capacity tho.

The best lens I have for video is my teensy tiny !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which is a wide angle lens for photos, but for video, there’s a vertical crop from the micro four thirds system’s native 4:3 aspect ratio down to 16:9, and then using the best mode of the camera’s built-in stabilizer adds an additional crop. So a wide angle lens ends up not so wide.

Then there’s my cheap-n-cheerful !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! which is hyooooj compar ed to both the camera body and the lens.

Anyway, nerd alert! Here comes a bunch of camera jargon that you can totally disregard unless you’re into that shit.

Olympus has been really excellent at in-body image stabilization for a while now, especially for video. The E-M5 II was the first consumer-grade mirrorless camera whose built-in image stabilization made hand-held footage look like a decent approximation of a steadicam, except without the steadicam rig. The E-M1 II that I now own has an even better stabilizer. The E-M1 III is even better, and the E-M5 III inherited the same setup from the E-M1 II.

What both MkII cameras lacked was decent continuous and tracking autofocus. They were slow to adapt to the subject moving around the scene. But that all changed in December 2019 when Olympus put out a firmware update for the E-M1 II which enabled phase detection autofocus. So instead of a mediocre, hunts-around contrast detect system, it’s an extremely responsive and accurate and grabs focus when something moves or you point it at something new fast. Oh man. Having been used to my old-ass 2012 vintage base model Pen E-PL5's jankity contrast detect system, just playing with the E-M1 II and watching the focus snap dat ass is so satisfying.

T he two biggest things for run & gun make things look actually good video are stabilization & autofocus, which the updated E-M1 II nails. On top of that it’s got a mic input with adjustable gain , headphone output, fully articulated selfie-able touchscreen, plenty of manual controls, high bitrate 4k or 1080p recording, dual SD card slots, and dat thiccboi battery. And that’s just what makes it a good video camera, not even touching on the stills.

I played around shooting some test clips which no way in hell am I putting up here, and man, I was impressed with how easy it was to get nice nice looking footage.

Oh, and you can buy an E-M1 II brand new for $1299. But I got this used, decent shape, fro m a reputable camera shop on ebay for $605! Throw in a Panny 14/2.5 if you don’t have one yet and you can easily slap together the cheapest-ass way to get like pro vlogger level shit capable of being amateur filmmaker if you’re good.

The Snowman > Textured Soy Protein 04/30/2020 at 20:44

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What is the crop factor 2x or higher with the mode you were talking about probably like a 30 mm on full frame? That should be about ideal for video . I have a z6 and just bought the last part of the holy Trinity of lenses but I only do stills. It’s supposed to be a pretty decent video rig though.

wafflesnfalafel > Textured Soy Protein 04/30/2020 at 21:15

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super cool compact rig there

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > Textured Soy Protein 04/30/2020 at 21:18

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Nice! Every now and again I think about updating cameras , but I really don’t do enough photography these days to justify it. A vast majority of my day-to-day picture taking is done like most people, namely on the phone. When I need to actually use a camera I have some older stuff I turn to, including a Canon G10 and a Nikon P7100 (I think that’s the model...), both of which were found at Goodwill for next to nothing. I also have a box packed full of other P&S digital cameras that were bought by the pound that I give away when someone needs a camera for their kid or something like that. In that stash is also a very nice Olympus all-in-one with a serious zoom, and I have no idea why it ended up where it did, but I’m glad it did.

I still have almost all of my SLR stuff from days gone by. For some reason my family has almost always had Olympus equipment, and I’ve just continued with that. There’s an ancient 120-based something with a fold-out lens, and then the SLRs. It all started when I inherited grandpa’s OM-1 and went crazy from there (OM-2S, OM-4, OM-4Ti, OM-10). Tons of flash equipment and a bunch of lenses as well, although the 55mm 1.2 needs a little work as the aperture is slow to open. I did run a photo lab back in the ‘80s, and my days off were spent taking pictures since film and developing were free . Now that I can take as many pictures as I want without film or developing, surprisingly, I don’t.

My first digital camera was a C-2100 Ultra Zoom. I loved that big lens; at the time 10X was amazing, although there were times I wish it had a wider angle instead of so much zoom . I still have it, but needless to say I haven’t used it in a while. A few years ago I did buy a DSLR, a $50 OG Olympus E-1. It’s a nice camera, but for the most part it’s just too big and too much , and I take the aforementioned Canon and Nikon when I need to shoot .

And somewhere I have a really nice Sekonic light meter. Total overkill, and still sells for $300 on the used market. I couldn’t pass it up when I found it at the outlet, and probably spent close to a whole dollar for it.

Textured Soy Protein > The Snowman 04/30/2020 at 22:46

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The m43 crop factor is listed as 2x but it’s 4:3 aspect vs 3:2 for full frame ( and APS-C) . So the 14mm is basically a 28mm for stills, but for video with the max stabilization probably closer to 35 if I were to guess.

Getting nice wide lenses for video for m43 is a little tricky, there’s no relatively cheap ultra wide prime like say the Sony full frame 21mm f/2.8 etc.

I have version II of the 14/2.5 , originally there was an optional screw on front .75x wide angle adapter but it’s long since discontinued. Generally I’m not a fan of such things but the other options are ehh for this purpose vs cost.

The only wider AF prime that’s not a fisheye is the Olympus 12mm f/2. Nice lens but it’s $700 new and not the speediest AF for video. The only compact zoom is the Olympus 9-18 but it’s f/4-5.6. There are some zooms that are only medium chonk but only f/4 and like $700 or something. Faster ones are bigger and $$$.

I tried tracking down a used copy of this adapter but none to be had. I discovered Panasonic made a similar adapter for their LX3 advanced p&s from several years ago, same 46mm rear thread that’ll screw right on to my 14/2.5 and actually it has a larger diameter front element than the one “for” my lens which could mean less vignetting. And since I went down this rabbit hole after already ordering the body, I discovered the same Roberts Camera that I bought the body from had one of the LX3 versions that I snagged for $60. It’s on the way so we’ll see how that gamble works out. I’m hoping it’s better than the generic camera store version of such things.

Textured Soy Protein > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 04/30/2020 at 22:55

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I’ve generally tended not to accumulate gear, instead I’ve bought & sold a lot. I ditched Pentax DSLRs for m43, because while they had in-body stabilization and worked with a huge variety of K-mount lenses, I liked the *idea* of a bunch of cool lenses more than I did lugging them around. And Pentax’s AF really wasn’t up to par of other DSLRs then.

This body is rather bigger than my first m43 which is an Olympus E-PL5, more of a rangefinder looking deal, but still compact. I have a nice small “everything” bag that holds a body, the 14/2.5, Panasonic 25/1.7, and Olympus 40-150/4-5.6 among other assorted crap. And smaller bags if I don’t need everything. Very portable.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > Textured Soy Protein 04/30/2020 at 23:03

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I never seem to get rid of stuff when it still has value, and why I still have all that SLR stuff. I did give away a bunch of cameras when I moved, but those were just of the point and shoot variety.

I keep telling myself that someday I’ll get a display case, like my grandmother’s old china cabinet, and put some of these beautiful relics on display.

The Snowman > Textured Soy Protein 04/30/2020 at 23:06

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That will take you down to 18mm hope it doesn't get all bendy lines with the adapter. But if you're doing blogger things and not broll it should be cool.

Textured Soy Protein > The Snowman 05/01/2020 at 00:09

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Not that crazy wide. 14mm x 0.75 = 10.5mm so like 21mm full frame. Then there’s crop both from chopping the top & bottom off the native 4:3 aspect to get 16:9 video, and the stabilization. M43 autocorrects distortion from lens profiles so it’s starting from little/no distortion, and cropping in a ways from the edges of the sensor.

This is the one designed for both my lens and an old kit zoom, with thread adapters for each:

This is what I got for the LX3 and no adapter ring just a 46mm thread.

It’s maaaybe a slightly wider front element, I dunno, hard to tell and I don’t know the specs. Just winging it lol!