Monday, April 30, 2012

OM-D still sucks for video

I bought my first m43 camera, Olympus EPL1, because I always dreamed about a camera that does both photos and video well. Olympus was bragging about PEN's HD video capability and posted a youtube claiming it was shot with a PEN. However, I could never make video out of my PEN to look like that, not even close. After struggled for months, I gave up and bought a GF2. Panasonic never bragged about its video, but it is years ahead of Olympus.

One big reason for m43 is they have much better potential than DSLR for video. If Olympus really wants success on m43, it must make video function practically usable for consumers. The biggest problem is auto focus hunting, and the latest OM-D still sucks on this regard, as bad as the EPL1.

OM-D does have one problem fixed: now the in-body image stabilization works for video and works extremely well. Before it worked for photos only and software stabilization (garbage) was used for video.

Buy Panasonic, not Olympus, even if your focus is more on photos than video. Olympus seems to have one-stop better high ISO, but that's fake, because what Olympus says 6400 or 3200 is actually 3200 or 1600. Olympus does produce better JPEGs, but GF3 and later have improved on that and you can always do RAW to get the best photos (see my GF2 article).

And if you want good video, many Panasonic cameras including GF2 and GF3 are hackable and the result is simply incredible, check my patch and samples.

Olympus is hopeless. When you search on your ideal camera, don't go to the depreview m43 forum which is dominated by Olympus fans.

Check the following video from my hacked GF2. Although I used C-AF and zoomed in and out, you won't notice any hunting. The image quality is not so great though because I used 30 mbps instead of 45 and I re-compressed it to 8 mbps before uploading to youtube.



After watching this video, you can get a good idea about what you can expect if you use a GF2 to shoot sports video for your kids. If you use an Olympus camera including the latest OM-D, you can only dream to catch something like this. Note the girl passing by; if it was an Olympus, she would have triggered immediately a horrible AF hunting.
Posted by at

4 comments:

  1. mywenMay 3, 2012 at 6:07 PM

    Hi fitwxc:i hope to find more your words,offer a hint?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sean ChenMay 8, 2012 at 4:16 PM

      As always, we are talking about cameras for consumers not pros. I'd never buy the OM-D at the listed price unless it drops down soon like EP1. For a $1300 camera that cannot produce better video than a $300, I don't think it is wise for any home user to buy it.

      From all the video I've seen so far, OM-D does AF hunting way too much to look acceptable. The only video that match a hacked GF2 is the ones done with manual focus. For home users, who can or is willing to do MF?

      Check the following video from my hacked GF2. Although I used C-AF and zoomed in and out, you won't notice any hunting. The image quality is not so great though because I used 30 mbps instead of 45 mbps and I re-compressed it to 8 mbps before uploading to youtube.

      http://youtu.be/Gi0IBEb6ONg

      After watching this video, you can get a good idea about what you can expect if you use a GF2 to shoot sports video for your kids. If you use an Olympus camera including the latest OM-D, you can only dream to catch something like this.

      Delete
  2. top erection pillsNovember 24, 2020 at 5:04 PM

    Good answer back in return of this question with firm arguments and telling everything regarding that.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ed treatment tabletsNovember 24, 2020 at 5:06 PM

    This website was... how do you say it? Relevant!! Finally I've found something that helped me. Kudos!

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)