Using The OM-D E-M5 II

The first camera that made me feel proud to own was the Canon Pelix QL and that was because of the feeling of quality it had in my hands and how really quiet it was when actually taking the photographs.  The quality of the images using the FL 50mm f/1.4 II lens, especially on Kodachrome 25 Positive Film was absolutely stunning. The Pelix originally came out in March 1966 and I got my copy second hand in 1974. It took nearly 40 years for another camera to affect the way I thought about photography and it was the Nikon Coolpix P600 which I purchased new in 2014. The P600 is an amazing piece of technology that was also capable of producing some excellent photographs. After getting my hands on some DSLR's that gave outstanding image quality and useability I finally got the camera I really wanted, the Olympus OM-D E-M5 and even though I had the E-M10 there was something about the E-M5 that set it above the newer model.  Sadly though the E-M5 was faulty and I wondered at the time if I could get another one at roughly the same price, I shouldn't have worried though as along came an E-M5 Mark II at not too much more than the faulty one.  The Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II is one hell of a camera, it feels great in my hands, solidly built and totally different to the first version in looks and useability.  The articulated screen and the vastly improved Electronic View Finder and in-body stabilisation are like nothing I had experienced before in an electronic camera.

The camera came with 2 batteries and an unopened flash unit that has a rotating and tilting head, it requires no batteries as it gets its power from the camera, which I have now sold the flash on. After charging the batteries and putting my Lumix 14-140mm f4.0-5.8 ASPH OIS lens on it was time to check it out, I turned it on and switched to Aperture Priority mode, set the aperture to f6.3 pointed it out of the front room window and pressed the shutter button.  This is when my heart sank, nothing happened, I checked to see if it was actually on and all of a sudden it fired the shutter, and as I was looking it over it fired the shutter again, so it was set to take a series of shots with a short delay between each one. I let it continue and it took ten shots and after it had finished I entered the cameras menu system, I couldn't change any settings at all that would stop it from repeating the slow ten shot burst so instead of messing about I just reset the camera to factory defaults and it worked fine after that. I then upgraded the firmware from v1.2 to v4.1, wow, it was like the camera became another model. The extra features in the final firmware are astounding, I then took a few more shots, checking to see if everything did what it was meant to.  The only thing I couldn't check was the grip's functionality, the portrait part of the grip from the earlier version is compatible but the landscape part isn't.

It took me a few days to find the landscape section of the grip, everyone was selling the complete grip but nothing else.  I ordered it online and because of the bank holiday, it wouldn't arrive until the middle of the next week. I spent the time waiting setting up the camera to suit the way I shoot and to mimic as much as possible the settings I had on my OM-D E-M10 I which strangely enough didn't take too long.

The HLD-8G grip was delivered on the following Tuesday and the first thing I did was attach it to the E-M5 II and tried it out, boy, was I relieved that it actually worked, I then attached the HLD-6P and that also worked flawlessly.  It's a shame that Olympus didn't make the grips useable independently, the camera with just the portrait grip attached would be a great combination.  

Setting Up The Camera

I've had an Olympus OM-D E-M10 I for a while now and have set it up using the menu system to suit the way I like to take photographs so it wasn't too hard getting to grips with the E-M5 II menu options, quite a few of the functions were located in the same place, so after doing a full reset, which puts most default settings useable, I then set up the camera in the following order.

1. Date and Time.

2. Copyright Information.

3. Format The SD Card.

4. Turn the Custom Menu to ON.

5. Set Image Quality to Large Super Fine + RAW.

6. Set Picture Mode to  Natural and adjust Sharpness to -1, Contrast to 0, and Saturation to +1.

7. Set up Pixel Count of Medium and Small images to 2560 x 1920, 1024 x 768.

8. Turn OFF Sleep Mode.

9. Turn OFF Keep Warm Colours.

10. Set Filename to AUTO.

Other settings I will change as I use the camera.

I then set up the button allocations, I found using the Fn1 button for Back Button Focusing awkward to use so I reassigned it to the front  "Preview" button. The Fn1 button now turns ON and OFF Focus Peaking.

My buttons are assigned as follows:

Fn1: Focus Peaking.

Fn2: Magnify.

Fn3: Manual Focus.

Fn4: Preview.

Movie Record: Turn ON / OFF Digital Teleconverter. 

Lever Function: Mode 6, where position 1 uses the dial shooting modes and 2 to record movies.

I usually leave assigning the 4-way controller as I use the camera.