The other big change is the addition of a flip-down screen, rather than an articulating display as before. That should make it better for selfie shooters and vloggers, though not quite as good as the E-M5 III, which has a fully articulating flip-out display.

Otherwise, the E-M10 IV is much the same as the last model, which isn’t a bad thing in many ways. It’s still a great-looking camera, and one of the cheapest models with five-axis in-body stabilization. It also lets you shoot 4K video at up to 30 fps and 1080p at 60 fps, but unfortunately, there’s no microphone or headphone socket for video. It has a 2.36 million-dot OLED EVF, a single UHS-II card slots and a decent 360 shot battery life. And, while it still lacks a USB-C port, it finally lets you charge the battery through the micro-USB port.

With all that, the E-M10 IV is barely keeping up with the competition, including Sony’s A6100 and the Canon EOS M50. However, much like with the flagship E-M1 III, it’s not a huge jump over the last model, and the competition is improving at a faster speed — all while the camera market continues to nosedive. The Olympus O-MD E-M10 goes on pre-order today for $700 (body only, silver or black), or $800 with an M.Zuiko Digital ED 14-42mm F/3.5-5.6 EZ lens. Shipping starts on September 25th, 2020.

Olympus

It’s unclear how this might affect owners of Olympus mirrorless cameras like the flagship O-MD E-M1 Mark III. JIP plans to streamline the business as it did with VAIO to make it “more compact, efficient and agile,” according to Olympus. It will also sell the existing models and develop new ones, so it would presumably support current camera owners. Beyond that, we don’t know what JIP plans to do with Olympus, and it didn’t exactly bring Sony’s former VAIO division to greatness.

Olympus has implemented measures to cope with the extremely severe digital camera market, due to, amongst others, rapid market shrink caused by the evolution of smartphones; Olympus has improved the cost structure by restructuring the manufacturing bases and focusing on high-value-added interchangeable lenses, aiming to rectify the earning structure to those that may continue generating profit even as sales dwindles. Despite all such efforts, Olympus’s Imaging business recorded operating losses for 3 consecutive fiscal years up to the term ended in March 2020.

Last year, Olympus CEO Yasuo Takeuchi let slip that a sale of its consumer camera division wasn’t out of the question. However, the company took pains to walk that comment back, and marketing and sales VP Akihiko Murata also told Engadget that “we want to say to our users, ‘Please count on us.’”

After reviewing the O-MD E-M1 III earlier this year, I was struck by the company’s lack of innovation on its flagship camera compared to other manufacturers. It’s normally an ominous sign for a company when it stops developing new product tech.

The sale of Olympus also has implications for the camera world at large. Olympus and Panasonic are the only companies supporting the Micro Four Thirds format, a segment playing third-fiddle to APS-C and full-frame systems. Those larger sensors are better in low light and produce soft “bokeh” backgrounds, helping camera manufacturers like Sony distinguish its products from increasingly excellent smartphone cameras.

Olympus still relies exclusively on Micro Four Thirds for its interchangeable lens cameras. However, Panasonic now has its own lineup of full-frame mirrorless cameras that have attracted a lot of attention, particularly in the video market. That gives it other options depending on what happens to Olympus, so we’ll be keeping a close on both companies over the next few months. Following due diligence, the sale will conclude by September 3rd, 2020, Olympus said.

If you’re eager to jump into the world of mirrorless photography but have shied away due to the prices, Adorama might have the deal you need. It’s offering the Olympus O-MD E-M10 Mark II Micro Four Thirds mirrorless camera, complete with an M.Zuiko Digital ED 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 II R lens for just $299, less than half the regular price.

While it’s not the latest E-M10 model (that would be the Mark III), it was pretty advanced for its time and offers features still not available on cameras twice that price. That includes a 16-megapixel sensor, tilting display, 2.36-million-dot electronic viewfinder, 8.5 fps shooting speeds and most importantly, five-axis in-body stabilization. The latter feature helps you take pictures in low light without blur, and while it can also be found on other cameras including the E-M10 Mark III, that camera costs over twice as much.

I’ve tested a lot of mirrorless cameras and I’ve never found one that handles as well as the GH5s for video. It’s loaded with manual controls that make it easy to adjust important settings like ISO, white balance, shutter speed and aperture.

The flip-around screen is indispensable as I need to be able to see myself when doing standup or using the camera. For other types of shots, the 3,680K dot OLED makes it easy to film in bright sunlight. It’s relatively lightweight and easy to lug around, battery life is good and it has two dual UHS-II card slots, making it possible to shoot all day without changing memory cards.

Furthermore, you can set the camera to use shutter angle rather than shutter speed, which is important for videography. That’s because video looks more pleasing if the shutter speed is a multiple of the frame rate, i.e. 1/50th of a second when shooting at 25 fps. By setting the shutter angle to 180 degrees, that’s exactly what I get, regardless of the frame rate selected.

On the audio side, you can adjust the microphone socket to line (high) or mic (low) levels and power smallish lavalier-type mics. Using a relatively cheap wireless Rode lav mic and Rode shotgun mic, I’m able to record good-sounding audio without any assistance.

For standup, I use a smartphone and Panasonic’s camera app to remotely adjust settings, check the image and start and stop recording. The camera app takes a long time to connect to the camera, but it works well otherwise.

On a typical shoot, I’ll usually set the GH5s up on a fluid-head tripod and film the review camera, with the autofocus set and locked. Then I’ll film myself using the camera with the autofocus enabled in single point, continuous mode. For standups, I use the face-detection autofocus.

There’s no doubt that contrast-detect autofocus isn’t as good for video as the phase-detect systems in Canon or Sony cameras. There’s always a slight wobble as it overshoots focus then comes back, because that’s how contrast-detect AF works. When I first started using the camera, I (and our video production team) noticed this problem in a couple of early videos.

However, I’ve got to hand it to Panasonic for improving the autofocus system on the GH5s, via firmware updates, shortly after I acquired it. For the type of shooting I do, the autofocus now works fine and rarely misses focus. For instance, when I film myself handling a camera up fairly close to the lens, it tracks focus well when I’m moving it toward the camera or flipping it around. (It might not fare as well for less predictable run-and-gun shooting, so I’d recommend doing a thorough test before buying one.)

But what about the lack of stabilization for handheld shooting, you might ask? After all, the GH5 does have excellent in-body stabilization and the GH5s has none.

First of all, this isn’t too big an issue for me because I rarely shoot handheld. However, when I do (usually with an assistant operating the camera) I simply use one of Panasonic’s many stabilized lenses. My go-to lens is the very versatile 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 lens which has excellent stabilization (plus great optics and very good macro capabilities, by the way). For stationary hand-held shooting, or with very smooth camera moves, that works just fine.

When it comes to photography, there’s little doubt that the GH5 and any other higher-resolution camera, particularly one with in-body stabilization, would be a better choice. Still, the GH5s is actually better for the dimly-lit trade shows or indoor hands-on sessions where I often need to film. I just have to be more careful about framing, knowing that I don’t have a lot of extra resolution to crop.

Also, I have to admit that I sometimes cheat on photos by just extracting them from the 4K video. This is only possible because the video is so outstandingly sharp and color-accurate.

Finally, once I’m ready to edit a video, the footage is easy to handle in post. If I’m planning to use Adobe Premiere Pro CC, I do have to convert the 10-bit 4K footage to a more easily editable format like Cineform or ProRes. However, with DaVinci Resolve 16 — which makes better use of my NVIDIA GTX 1070 GPU — I can edit the footage directly with no transcoding.

The 10-bit 4:2:2 video is easy to adjust, whether I use a log profile or not. I rarely see banding or other nasty artifacts in case I need to push the footage.

So in conclusion, yes, I’m definitely happy with the GH5s and don’t regret my decision to get one. It was a good camera when it entered the market and Panasonic has made it better over time.The only other camera I would think about replacing it with is Panasonic’s full-frame S1H, which is in many ways a full-frame version of the GH5s. However, that camera costs over twice as much and the lenses are also very expensive. Until something comparable comes along, the $1,800 GH5s is perfect for my needs, and that’s what counts the most.

The best feature of this camera is the five-axis in-body stabilization system. It now delivers seven stops of shake reduction, or 7.5 with an IS lens — more than any other camera out there by a full stop. That delivers some nice benefits for both photography and video, as you’ll soon see.

More remarkably, Olympus has fitted that stabilizer into a very small camera. Rather than compromising weight and ergonomics, the E-M1 Mark III delivers on both. It not only handles great, but it’s very petite and light, too, weighing a mere 504 grams (1.1 pound). That’s about half the weight of Panasonic’s slightly more expensive full-frame S1, for example.

That small size is possible because of the Micro Four Thirds sensor, which takes up less space inside the body. However, a smaller sensor also means it’s theoretically not as good in low-light as APS-C or full-frame cameras.

Despite that, Olympus sees the sensor as a huge advantage for wildlife or action photographers. With a 600mm f/4 full-frame equivalent lens, the E-M1 Mark III weighs 1,900 grams or 4.2 pounds — less than half that of a full-frame DSLR with the same lens. That’s significant, especially if you’re traipsing into the jungle in 95-degree F temperatures, like I am in Costa Rica.

At the same time, the deep, well-contoured grip makes it comfortable and reassuring to hold. On top of that, it has a classically good-looking body that’s extremely rugged and delivers “dustproof, splashproof and freezeproof performance,” according to Olympus. While I haven’t encountered any rain or freezing conditions in Costa Rica, I can confirm that it hasn’t overheated or fogged up in the humidity.

Then again, that was true before. The Mark III’s body is largely unchanged since the last model, with some exceptions when it comes to the button and dial layout. Namely, the E-M1 III has a joystick. That lets you change the focus point, mostly, though you can also use it to control the menu and other functions: shooting modes, front and rear shutter-speed and aperture settings, autofocus, ISO and exposure compensation.

If you need to hunt for other features, Olympus’ menu system is notoriously illogical and a pain to use. However, pressing the OK button opens the “super control,” or quick menu. That gives you instant access to common settings like face priority autofocus, video resolution and white balance. Olympus also lets you add functions to the fast-access star menu simply by bringing up the function in the menu and hitting the record button.

Otherwise, things are much as they were before. It still has microphone and headphone ports for video, a USB-C port and dual card slots (the top one supporting UHS-II cards) and a fully articulating display that’s great for vlogging. You can also use the 1,720 mAh BLH-1 battery from the last camera, which is rated for 420 shots on a charge. As usual, in reality, I found I could get a lot more than that.

Unfortunately, the E-M1 Mark III also carries over the same 2.36-million dot LED EVF as before. Most other cameras in this price range have 3.69 million dot OLED EVFs, and the difference in resolution is very noticeable, which is a shame. It does have the benefit of blackout-free shooting in silent mode, but the low resolution is not what I expected to find on a $1,800 camera.

Performance

The E-M1 Mark III’s shooting performance is incredible on paper, at 18 fps in electronic shutter mode with continuous autofocus enabled (15 fps with the mechanical shutter) and 60 fps in electronic mode with the AF locked. In mechanical shutter mode (which eliminates rolling shutter), that’s a significant jump over the last model, which could only handle 10 fps with continuous AF. It can also capture a very respectable 101 RAW frames in 15 fps shooting mode before the buffer fills.

Since it packs the same sensor, it has the same autofocus specs, too. As before, you get 121 hybrid contrast- and phase-detect points, but everything works faster now thanks to the new TruePic IX processor. Plus, you can now shift the autofocus region around using the new joystick while shooting. Oh, and it has more custom AF modes, including face/eye detection and object tracking for different types of shooting.

Like the larger E-M1X, it has face- and eye-detection autofocus, but it’s not quite as fast as on Sony’s cameras. And while the object tracking works very well, it lacks the plane, train and car detection functions available on the E-M1X.

However, the E-M1 III does have a feature that the E-M1X lacks: Starry Sky autofocus. This feature is long overdue on full cameras — smartphone makers have been dabbling in astrophotography for some time. Focus can be a real challenge for this type of shooting and is usually done manually, but this feature completely automates it. During my limited tests (in poor star-gazing weather), I found it worked well, nailing autofocus even on a single star.

The E-M1 III’s forte is action and wildlife photography, so how does it work for that? While it does shoot quickly, I found that, in the real world, it can’t quite keep up with rivals or even its own burst speeds. While shooting surfers, fast-moving birds and a person walking toward the camera at a brisk speed, it occasionally failed to lock focus quickly enough. The result was the odd blurred shot. By comparison, Sony’s cheaper A6600 (which also has a larger sensor) rarely failed to nail focus.

On the other hand, a feature called Pro Capture makes it less likely you’ll miss something that happens suddenly. When enabled, it captures up to 35 frames when you half-press the shutter, before you start actually snapping. That way, if you react a fraction too late, you still might nail the shot. Again, this is a feature we’ve seen on smartphones but not many cameras.

As I mentioned, the E-M1 III delivers seven stops of shake reduction, or 7.5 stops with a compatible image-stabilized lens. That gives it a huge advantage over other cameras on handheld shooting. For example, while you can’t crank the ISO up like you can on Canon’s EOS R, you can still shoot handheld in low light just by reducing the shutter speed.

The result was that I was able to shoot wildlife with a very long lens and get sharp photos even at 1/30th of a second. That’s impressive if the subject doesn’t budge, but it won’t help at all for fast moving subjects in a dark jungle, for instance. For that, you’d probably need to spend a lot more on a DSLR with a better low-light-capable sensor and a fast super-telephoto lens.

Image quality