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Olympus E-M5 II, camera topic
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  • I took delivery of one of these today; I like the body, but am unsure how to set the highest quality 720p/30 I want for my work. We shoot 720p/30 because Vimeo on Demand is the delivery vehicle for our programs, and 30fps renders motion well, and 720p is adequate quality for this purpose, and saves computing time and drive space.

    The back story is that we shoot three G6 bodies (AVCHD, 720p/30, [but really 29.97]; unlimited recording time) and I want to set the Mk II to intercut with the G6s without conforming frame size. I can see how to select the frame rate on the various options, but not the frame size. Or is the Motion JPEG setting the only choice for 720p/30?

    Selecting this option gives:

    Video Tracks: Motion JPEG OpenDML, 1280 × 720, 30 fps, 31.19 Mbps (a higher bit rate than the G6 bodies give at 720p/30; low light video looks very nice)

    Audio Tracks: 16-bit Little Endian stereo, 48 kHz, 1.54 Mbps

    The .avi files are easy and fast to convert with MPEG Streamclip (and I can change the frame rate to 29.97 at the same time), but is there a better way?

  • @Kit_L : Having a higher bitrate doesn't necessarily mean better quality. MotionJPEG encodes every frame as an indepenndent JPEG image, without benefitting from temporal redundancy. H264 is highly efficient at compressing consecutive frames, plus it's idependent encoding algorithm is already close to twice as effective (for the same bitrate) as JPEG.

    The only big advantage of MotionJPEG is encoding/decoding complexity.

  • @duartix: thanks for that info. Considering the Motion JPEG 720p/30 setting from this perspective suggests that the Oly's bitrate is almost three times the Panasonic AVCHD settings for the same frame size/rate (from memory, the Pannys have a bitrate of 11-13Mbps).

    Let me put the question another way: is there an AVCHD setting on the Oly that can be used at 720p/30? I only see these options for 1080p.

  • image

    The Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II takes the best from the Olympus OM-D E-M5, E-M10, and E-M1, improves them in some areas, as well as adding impressive and innovative new features, giving a digital camera well beyond what is expected at this price point. However, what good is having an all-singing, all-dancing camera, without the lenses to back it up? Thankfully, this is one area where the Micro Four Thirds system really shines, with a large range of lenses already available from Olympus, Panasonic, Sigma and others, along with an ever increasing range of new lenses being released and planned for the future.

    800 x 599 - 111K
  • @Kit_L: according to this link, you can record 720p30 in MOV (MPEG-4AVC/v which is more efficient than MotionJPEG).

    Note: as a compression scheme, All-I is conceptually the same as MotionJPEG (no temporal redundancy is used to improve efficiency as all frames are encoded independently, thus encoding/decoding complexity is far smaller) but, even though MPEG-4 AVC isn't as advanced as h.264, it's still more efficient than JPEG.

    If I had to recommend you one recording mode I would allways record in 1080p30 and downsize later for post. I would use (IPB) 52Mbps as it's more efficient than All-I and the little time you waste downsizing for 720p is clearly worth the upgrade in IQ.

  • @ duartix: thanks; very helpful.

  • I did a rather disappointing quick test of my hacked GH2 (Sanity) vs the EM5 mkii you might want to check out. Both cameras same exposure at ISO 800. The GH2 was set Smooth -2 across the board. The Olympus was set to Natural -2 to contrast and saturation +1 to sharpness.

  • @Scot if IS is off while on the slider how come it seems cropped ?

  • Because the crop is there IBIS on or off. I'll take the trade off when I need IBIS but when I need the field of view please give me the option.

  • I figured something out today. If you want to change shutter or f stop in manual mode there is the touch screen approach which is annoying. That being said you can while using the viewfinder or screen press the OK button which will bring up the same side menu as the touch screen and than the dial is activated. Was very happy to figure that out it was one of my big gripes. Would rather the option to leave it active all the time but at least this is less cumbersome than the touch screen IMO.

  • @Scot 'Because the crop is there IBIS on or off' that doesnt sound right it should be 2x, flat

  • Here is a music video shot entirely with the E-M5ii handheld

    and BTS

  • @sidecar I agree but the crop appears to always be there. Brawley made a comment in his blog that implied the crop changes. I've asked him to comment on that in another forum we'll see what he says. I found my way around the f stop changes if there is a way to get normal crop without IBIS I'll be fairly happy.

  • I've done another test and have come to a conclusion I think. I think the EM5 mk ii settings in the camera are just a beginning and it shows it stuff when tweaked in grading. The odd thing was I did my test and on looking what came out of the camera I considered the GH2 the winner. When I was editing I could see the side by side the EM5 looked better than it was showing. So I tried to simply grade them to make them more similar. After my grade I liked the EM5 better go figure. I think it comes down to a flatter file on the EM5 where the GH2 has more contrast. This all kinds of makes sense because sometimes what came out of the EM5 looked great to me and sometimes not! Same with other peoples videos.

    As far as the settings on the EM5 mk ii I was using natural -2 contrast +1 sharpness and -1 saturation. As for the GH2 smooth -2 all except saturation -1. Side note the EM5 files was 2,382,642 KB to the GH2 878,028 KB. Both were auto WB and constant focus. Both were set to 1/50th and auto exposure Iso was set to 200 on GH2 and the Em5 did what it thought best so no clue probably 200. I ran them side by side the GH2 using the 14-140 and the Olympus the 12-40 which does give the EM5 a little help. I should also add I zoomed out to about 50 vs the EM5 40 to make up for the crop factor.

    The very basic grade was for the EM5 -10 satuation -20 brightness 4 contrast WB and a slight hue adj. The GH2 was saturation 5 brightness 19 contrast 7 WB and a slight hue adj. I'm sure someone better versed in grading could get better on both cameras. For me it was to see if they were in the neighborhood and after some tweaking I now do not share Mr Goldbergs opinion at least as far as the GH2 goes. It's by no means perfect and I have big gripes manual control, moire, and crop that being said it is a great stills camera and not to embarrassing as a video camera I now discovered so it works for me I think?? A firmware update with a few tweaks could put it over the top.

  • Thx Scot! I like GH2 better - even though way worse lens was used there's more detail on the GH2. Also, I don't like how Oly treats the edges of dense subjects - it seems like digital sharpening is added thus almost haloing the edges. How much can you dial it down? Does it impact the image at all?

  • @brudney I didn't say which was which ; ) just kidding the EM5 is on the left and the GH2 is on the right. I've had that lens on both and in video stopped down not as much difference as you might think. Side by side in the editor the EM5 seemed to have the better frames probably due to the Iframes. As far as dialing down you can go -2 to contrast, saturation, and sharpening there is also a gradient setting. I do know what your saying about the halos just not bothering me as much. I figure since it seems like you need to post process I'll probably turn them all to -2 and work from there. I'll post out of the camera version here so you can see what I mean you will also see how flat the image is with that tree trunk in the shade it's basically black on the GH2 but you can easily see the detail on the EM5. The EM5 has that wonderfull IBIS and after having a few of my old manual lenses on it I don't want to give up without a fight. As to the quality I'm sure as the real pros add there work flows it might find it's place.

  • @Scot yeah, Oly is flatter than Panny, though I'm sure you can easily lift blacks without any noise on the GH2 to get the same look. Damn, that halo is really distracting, even on crappy youtube. But I gues the IBIS is well worth it:) Any chance for a side by side comparison with humans in frame? :) THX!