The EM5 and the X100

rbelyell said:
it always makes me smile, and scratch my head, when i read how horribly complicated the x100 is, as if it was a freaking spaceship! its a camera for gods sake, and operating it is not brain surgery! frame, focus, shoot, good god!

and while ive weighed in on the oly being the right pick for the author, lets set the 'degree of difficulty' thing straight: fuji 2 pages of menus, one shooting focused, one setting focused. the oly 5--count 'em--FIVE pages of menus that lack any basic logic at all.

now i have and enjoy both cameras. i have no problem 'working' either. but certainly, judging only on navigability, the oly menu system is the single worse i have ever seen in ten years and a couple dozen digicams.

but please, lets refrain from hyperbole in terms of camera difficulty of operation. remember, frame, focus, shoot--not so hard really.
tony
Click to expand...

The Oly menu system quickly becomes one of the best around once the SCP (Super Control Panel) is activated. Just hit the "OK" button and it brings up every major setting (WB, ISO, format, AF settings, and some others) which can then easily be changed via touch screen or button press. However, I will agree that figuring out how to activate the SCP can be tricky (it's buried in a menu somewhere).
 
rbelyell said:
it always makes me smile, and scratch my head, when i read how horribly complicated the x100 is, as if it was a freaking spaceship! its a camera for gods sake, and operating it is not brain surgery! frame, focus, shoot, good god!

and while ive weighed in on the oly being the right pick for the author, lets set the 'degree of difficulty' thing straight: fuji 2 pages of menus, one shooting focused, one setting focused. the oly 5--count 'em--FIVE pages of menus that lack any basic logic at all.

now i have and enjoy both cameras. i have no problem 'working' either. but certainly, judging only on navigability, the oly menu system is the single worse i have ever seen in ten years and a couple dozen digicams.

but please, lets refrain from hyperbole in terms of camera difficulty of operation. remember, frame, focus, shoot--not so hard really.
tony
Click to expand...

Agreed. What is everyone diving into the menus of the x100 for? It has external controls for everything! I use mine alongside a contax G and use them both exactly the same.
The other thing I agree on is that the olympus m4/3 cameras have the WORST menus in history of digital cameras. The x100 I actually find very simple - leica-ish in its menus.

Aside from that, I'd have the om-d as an only camera but I'd have the x100 as a second camera.
 
gavin its truly the simplest, most fun camera ive used. thats why this 'complicated' nonsense is really starting to tick me off, as it scares people away from a great experience, and thats just wrong.

if you truly cant figure out a camera, dont brag about it!
tony
 
Having had an X100 and recently an OMD user I'm impressed with how much thought has gone in the OMD's controls ... and it's very subtle! For instance the shuttle dial on the X100 is quite hard to control with your fingers ... on the Oly they have shaped the outside buttons so that when you press the OK centre button you don't press them accidentally .. it's minor but it works and I noticed it straight away. The function buttons are similarly shaped to suit their locations. The exposure compensation dial is around the outside of the shutter button and can be operated with the tip of your index (shooting) finger ... on the Fuji it is vulnerable and you'll probably be using your thumb to operate it and it's not instinctive when the camera is up to your eye.

The live screen function is brilliant on the Oly ... a crossover from smart phone technology that really works IMO. The AF kills the X100's and the camera is much easier to focus manually if the situation requires.

As for image quality ... the X100 has it over the Olympus IMO ... but let's face it, all these cameras are more than good enough! Ergonomically the OMD is way ahead and this is where Olympus as a company shines IMO ... the fine tuning that has gone into the controls of this camera to make it operable with normal sized hands is one of the major advantages over the X100.

Thye're both brilliant cameras though!
 
keith i think your points are very good. however, i must say, and this is definitely subjective, but i like the X much better ergonomically than the omd. it feels better in my hand, i like where the vf sits on the cam, i love the ovf, i love the DOF scale in the vf, i love the external controls, and i prefer AFing independently of the shutter button.

the AF ability of the omd leaves almost every cam ive ever used in the dust, so to me this is less a failing of the X than a tremendous attribute of the omd, like the focus/snap lcd. but ive used the X since november and if ive lost a half dozen shots to AF 'issues' thats a lot. i think way too much unfair criticism is leveled at the X AF system that simply is no longer true or is a byproduct of people using the tool incorrectly.
tony
 
I don't think it was hyperbole to say the X100 is a digital camera with far more controls than a Leica M ever had, so I'll stand by what I said. The OM has more menus for sure, but most of them you visit once, set and never have to again. I don't have to venture into the OM-D menus at all. I was trying to point out that I don't think the difference is huge. Both allow you to operate the camera smoothly with external manual controls.

Now that I think back on it, the big pain for me with the X100 was toggling back and forth into macro focusing mode. That really slowed me down...for many shooters that wouldn't be an issue. But I will often try to take in a wider angle scene and then hone in an a detail, toggle toggle.

So anyway, my point was that I didn't think the X100 had it over the OM-D in terms of functional simplicity. It's not just a matter of who has more menus. However: They are both. great. cameras.
 
The X100 arrived with much fanfare and bravado IMO ... there was huge expectations of the camera and it has been chastised for every little short coming, real or imagined!

Not so much with the OMD ... in fact I remember the initial reaction here was a fair amount of skepticism and happily it has over come that and exceeded what most expected from it.
 
nikku said:
Then you're apparently not paying attention. The 25/1.4 PanaLeica Summilux is outstanding. The 14/2.5 Panny is highly underrated. The 20/1.7 Panny is a superb performer at an amazing price point. CV just came out with a native mount 17.5/0.95 manual focus gem. On the shorter end, the 12/2 is, from all accounts, nice, and on the longer end, the 45/1.8 is a stunner. BTW, all of these lenses can be used wide open with little penalty in sharpness, distortion, CA, or even vignetting! Add that to in-body stabilization that is nothing short of a miracle (4 stops easy, 5 if you're good) and files that are nice and clean up to 3200 ISO, and you can shoot in near darkness.

I think that the EM5 represents an excellent value, when you start to add everything together.
Click to expand...

well, notice I said wide-normal. For me manual focus is out, because that's not what I buy autofocus cameras for. I really like wider lenses, so the 24, 28, 35 equivalents are what interest me. But out of those, none have much character.

I actually really want to buy into some m4/3 gear. I like the bodies - there is no problem there. I just don't see a lens I can love. I love the X100 lens. It draws beautifully. I've come close to getting the 14 2.5 several times but the images I see don't do it for me. A certain something is not there.
 
I've had the X100 about a year and just got the E-M5. The X100 has a great viewfinder, nice IQ and is very discrete and compact. However, I missed the option of changing lenses and the E-M5 gives me lots of options there. I generally have found the operation of the E-M5 excellent and the IQ is great. I still prefer a good OVF, but the EVF has it's advantages. The EVF (with magnify mode) and the IBIS make using adapted MF lenses a dream. I only wish it was FF.

I tried the X Pro-1 briefly and it seemed like a bigger X100. The initial indications that adapted lenses didn't seem to work that well with the camera, some indications that the 'fancy' sensor might cause some IQ issues, as well as the price, dropped it from my consideration, for now at least. 😀
 
doug, no reason to toggle to 'macro' mode imo. just manually set the lens to minium focusing distance, magnify the image in the vf, and move the cam to obtain best focus.

vickery, i think the legacy lens IQ ussues with the xpro are limited to RF lenses. slr lenses reportedly work fine.
tony
 
The elephant in the room is that the X100 has been out a while. Firmware has been upgraded a few times and prices have dropped considerably, so I bought one. You can't ignore price in any product comparison.

I might look at the Oly in a year, meantime the X100 is surpassing my expectations of a digital camera (even after all the hype).
 
dreilly said:
In two comparable restaurant shoots, one done with the X100 and one with the OM-D, the OM-D got out of my way A LOT more than the X100. I rarely had to dive into menus on the OM-D and basically only had to change the aperture and sometimes the ISO and advance mode, all very easy on the OM-D.
Click to expand...

What are you diving into the X-100 menus for that is different than the E-M5?
 
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