Olympus’ Flagship OM-D E-M1 has been re-launched with enhanced features for professional photography and a new silver coloured option. The Silver Edition will be available from November 2014. Price TBA.
The new silver version of the OM-D E-M1 has silver painted top and bottom chassis plates, with colour-matched buttons and dials.
The second-generation firmware for the flagship E-M1 mirrorless interchangeable lens camera will be available to existing E-M1 owners for self-installation.
More pro features in Version 2 firmware.
Version 2.0 of the E-M1 operating firmware will come pre-installed with all new silver models of the OM-D E-M1 camera, as well as future-production of the black coloured models.
E-M1 camera owners can upgrade their cameras themselves to the new firmware 2.0 specification by downloading and self-installing the new firmware via the Olympus Digital Camera Updater app on their computers (with internet connection).
E-M1 firmware version 2.0 is expected to be available end September 2014.
New features enabled by the firmware upgrade include:
- Tethered shooting for studio photography applications (using new Olympus Capture app)
- Digital perspective control (Keystone Compensation)
- Live Composite
- 2 new Art Filters (Partial Colour & Vintage) with new ‘Shade’ Art Effect
- Improved digital viewfinder display lag in High frame-rate viewing mode (16ms from 26ms)
More details on the upgrade features from the press release are appended below.
Tethered shooting
For professional studio imaging purposes, the upgraded E-M1 will be Olympus’ first OM-D camera that can be tethered to a computer for direct image transfer, remote camera control, and remote live viewing, increasing its mobility and usability.
A new “Olympus Capture” application will be introduced to enable this functionality with Mac OSX and Windows computers.
Side views of the Olympus OM-D EM-1.
New digital perspective feature
A new digital perspective correction feature, “Keystone Compensation”, enables the direct in-camera correction of converging vertical lines as well as perspective-control in architecture, real-estate, studio still-life, and artwork photography.
The in-camera Keystone Compensation feature eliminates the need for expensive shift-lenses and enables easy perspective-corrected photography with any lens for E-M1 users.
Play with light-painting techniques with Live Composite long-exposure shooting
First introduced in the E-M10 model, Olympus’ unique Live Composite long-exposure shooting mode is now available in the E-M1.
Top view of the Olympus OM-D EM-1.
This special shooting mode provides automatic-compositing of a large number of shots (with a user’s pre-determined exposure setting) within a single-image sequence.
This feature empowers the photographer to use light-painting techniques in atypically bright ambient lighting conditions, take fireworks pictures with pleasingly dark backgrounds, capture clear star-trails in night time landscape pictures, and to easily experiment with mixed flash/ambient illumination time-lapsed imaging effects.
Get creative with the addition two new Art Filters
Photography enthusiasts will welcome the addition of two new Art Filters – Partial Colour and Vintage – first introduced with the recently announced PEN E-PL7 camera. The new Partial Colour art filter features an intuitive, on-screen, colour wheel adjustment control with three levels of colour exclusivity.
Like all Olympus Art Filters, these new filter effects can be used for both stills and videos, and can be viewed live through the camera’s electronic viewfinder or rear LCD screen.
Improved viewfinder lag
Firmware 2.0 shortens the viewfinder lag to 16ms in the high display frame rate option setting (from 26ms); improving camera operation for high-speed action and sports photography.