Photography News Issue 63

First look 28

Photography News | Issue 63 | photographynews.co.uk

Using a camera no one is supposed to know about meant I had to be discreet, but I tackled a range of subjects

the minimum safe handholding for a non IS lens of this length is 1/1000sec. A 5EV benefit takes us down to 1/30sec, and yes on a calm day I had a good success rate at that speed, and slightly less so at 1/15sec. Live ND mode lets you creatively explore longer shutter speeds without the need for screw-in ND filters – of course you will need a tripod. This works in manual and shutter-priority AE exposure mode only so you are limited with the longest shutter speed. There are five filter factors you can dial in, from ND2 (1EV) to ND32 (5EV). The effect can be previewed before shooting so you can fine-tune it before taking the shot. It is not extreme ND territory but does mean you can get creative with shutter speeds and wide aperture selective focusing when you’ve left your ND filter set at home.

Using a camera no one is supposed to knowabout meant I had to be discreet (some people weren’t!) but I tackled a range of subjects from garden wildlife, airplanes and general street scenes. Image quality from my pre- production sample was impressive. Having the same fundamental sensor as the E-M1 Mark II meant I had a ballpark idea of image quality which helped. I did do some side- by-side shots with an E-M1 Mark II using identical lenses for my own reference – the true comparison test shots I’ll reserve until production models of the E-M1X are available. Overall, I was very happy with theE-M1X’s performance at ISO800 and even ISO 1600. Beyond that, I’d be more wary as noise is more evident and image detail and colour saturation fall off. Keep to ISO 1600 and below, though, and the E-M1X turns in very high quality images.

Summary

Clearly, we can’t offer a definitive verdict until we try a full production camera, but based on our experiences so far, the E-M1X is a very capable camera with some great features. The AF system is impressive and the trackingmodes dedicated to specific subjects is a great innovation. At the moment, it’s limited to three subjects but the potential to addmore is there. Being able to tailor the 121 AF zones to your needs is also very neat. I found the E-M1X a joy to handle, whether shooting horizontal or upright format pictures, and the considered control layout and decent size buttons help too. The generous handgrip allows a very secure grip to give a stable shooting platform. I think that

is especially true when upright shooting and the bulbous handgrip is really excellent. All this great stuff, though, comes at a price, and we haven’t evenmentioned that yet. The body of the E-M1X is £2799.99 so that is a significant uplift on the current shop price of the E-M1 Mark II with the HLD-9 power grip which is around £1650. But the E-M1X is a completely different proposition, offeringmore features including a more advanced AF system, better continuous shooting and new stuff like Handheld High Res shot mode. We’ll be fully testing the E-M1X very soon and we’ll soon knowwhether the extra investment is worth it.