This is a camera that was recently announced by OM Digital Solutions in Asia & Europe. I am in the USA, so after some thought decided to get it from Amazon Japan. Main reason is that this is a camera I said I wish OMDS/Olympus did over 1.5 years ago (!). A "super EPL10 with PenF profiles."
Some thoughts follow -
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Wow that was fast. Shipped through DHL - a German "international shipping UPS" I Guess? I sort of heard of them but you don't see them usually in the USA that often I guess. but they are here.
I will have to take the impressions over time but here's some:
- Setting the Camera to English language- not a problem. First screen is language select and the default was English. Go figure.
- Olympus I.S. iOS iPhone share- sets up the camera with no problem, and I can use the remote, import, turn on/off etc. just like a valid Olympus camera in the USA that has similar abilities.
- Camera is *FAST* saving to a good UHSII memcard- just like EM10 MarkIV is
- This camera runs *circles* around the PenF ability to respond to UI/do AF. Tracking on the PenF is pretty much a joke to a big degree, not so here.
- The camera is not on first pass "that much smaller" of a feel vs EM10 MKIV. IF you. just have an EVF (and I will admit I have been using the EVF a bit more recently on the EM10), this camera is not for you.
- I saw a review complaining the skin tones on LCD were too warm/vivid. I found out the camera by default has the LCD set to "VIVID" color (a few Oly cameras have this feature) - set it to Natural and that does go a long way to alleviate this "issue."
- The camera has the JPEG engine of the PenF from all I can see, but with a few WELCOME tweaks in the UI and usability, namely from what I have seen so far:
1. The UI to select the color or monochrome profile makes vastly more sense than the PenF, it's easy to see what state you are in and what comes next
2. Having the front dial being "Profiles OFF/Profiles ON" makes for a far quicker binary selection than the PenF's "Did I dial a bit too much, am I in monochrome or color?" deal
3. When using the raw in-camera converter, the profiles do change the settings on the shading (shadows, midpoint, highlight) to what you had them set to. This does not happen on the PenF and it's a welcome change.
Note that over the EM10MKIV you can change shading, EV compensation, etc. when developing in-cameras raws- on the EM10IV you only can select "current settings" if you want to change some things.
- The camera seems to use the same exact LCD of the EM10MKIV in its articulation. This is great in that you don't have the EPL9/EPL10 shuffle dance to get to a selfie position. Oddly enough you do have the small "tilt towards you in place" of the Em10MKIV.
On the EM10MKIV this small tilt lock makes sense to get the LCD out of the way of the EVF profusion when looking from the top view down to your waist. ON the EP7 I guess it makes some sense but not as obvious.
- IBIS so far seems ballpark same as EM10MKIV which means pretty great.
- Finally and surprisingly- the JPEG engine has the Super Fine compression exposed from the get go, you don't need to configure it to use it the first time.
=============
Some thoughts follow -
===============
Wow that was fast. Shipped through DHL - a German "international shipping UPS" I Guess? I sort of heard of them but you don't see them usually in the USA that often I guess. but they are here.
I will have to take the impressions over time but here's some:
- Setting the Camera to English language- not a problem. First screen is language select and the default was English. Go figure.
- Olympus I.S. iOS iPhone share- sets up the camera with no problem, and I can use the remote, import, turn on/off etc. just like a valid Olympus camera in the USA that has similar abilities.
- Camera is *FAST* saving to a good UHSII memcard- just like EM10 MarkIV is
- This camera runs *circles* around the PenF ability to respond to UI/do AF. Tracking on the PenF is pretty much a joke to a big degree, not so here.
- The camera is not on first pass "that much smaller" of a feel vs EM10 MKIV. IF you. just have an EVF (and I will admit I have been using the EVF a bit more recently on the EM10), this camera is not for you.
- I saw a review complaining the skin tones on LCD were too warm/vivid. I found out the camera by default has the LCD set to "VIVID" color (a few Oly cameras have this feature) - set it to Natural and that does go a long way to alleviate this "issue."
- The camera has the JPEG engine of the PenF from all I can see, but with a few WELCOME tweaks in the UI and usability, namely from what I have seen so far:
1. The UI to select the color or monochrome profile makes vastly more sense than the PenF, it's easy to see what state you are in and what comes next
2. Having the front dial being "Profiles OFF/Profiles ON" makes for a far quicker binary selection than the PenF's "Did I dial a bit too much, am I in monochrome or color?" deal
3. When using the raw in-camera converter, the profiles do change the settings on the shading (shadows, midpoint, highlight) to what you had them set to. This does not happen on the PenF and it's a welcome change.
Note that over the EM10MKIV you can change shading, EV compensation, etc. when developing in-cameras raws- on the EM10IV you only can select "current settings" if you want to change some things.
- The camera seems to use the same exact LCD of the EM10MKIV in its articulation. This is great in that you don't have the EPL9/EPL10 shuffle dance to get to a selfie position. Oddly enough you do have the small "tilt towards you in place" of the Em10MKIV.
On the EM10MKIV this small tilt lock makes sense to get the LCD out of the way of the EVF profusion when looking from the top view down to your waist. ON the EP7 I guess it makes some sense but not as obvious.
- IBIS so far seems ballpark same as EM10MKIV which means pretty great.
- Finally and surprisingly- the JPEG engine has the Super Fine compression exposed from the get go, you don't need to configure it to use it the first time.
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