OM SYSTEM Olympus OM-1 Mark II Micro Four Thirds System Camera M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-40mm F2.8 PRO II Lens kit Weather Sealed Design, (US Manufacturer Warranty)

I purchased the OM SYSTEM Olympus OM-1 Mark II after years of shooting with larger full-frame systems, and I’m genuinely impressed. The size and weight are perfect — compact enough to carry all day without fatigue, but still solid and well-built. It fits easily in a small backpack or sling bag, which makes it ideal for hiking, travel, and street photography. Despite its portability, the image quality is excellent. The newly improved processing engine and sensor deliver sharp, detailed photos with great color rendition and dynamic range. Low-light performance is noticeably better than the previous generation, and the autofocus is fast and reliable, even for wildlife and moving subjects. One of the biggest advantages of this system is the lenses. The OM System / Olympus MFT lens lineup is exceptional — lightweight, high-quality optics with professional sharpness. You can create a full kit covering everything from wide landscapes to telephoto wildlife without carrying heavy gear. Overall, the OM-1 Mark II is a powerful, compact, and beautifully designed camera that delivers professional results. A perfect balance of portability and performance. Highly recommended.

I was using full frame systems but I was tired of lugging the heavy gear around so I started looking into Micro 4:3. I bought this initially for macro work (Its amazing for that) but I also decided to give it a try for wildlife photography. I love the OM Systems line, I sold my other gear and it is my go to setup now. It takes amazing shots, has lots of bells and whistles (Pro capture for the win) and is very light and portable. When combined with the Panasonic Leica 100-400 or the OM Systems 50-200mm pro lens, its incredible how sharp and fast it is. I can't recommend this enough if you are looking for great gear at a fairly reasonable entry price when compared to full frame prices. I have made several local photographers converts and they love it as much as I do. I added some sample shots I took with it using either of the lenses mentioned in my review

As most reviewers have noted, Amazon does not ship the spare battery noted in the product description, and they have apparently since deleted that offer from the product description. Too bad they ripped off multiple buyers first. There are numerous professional reviews of this camera on line by people far more experienced and knowledgeable than I, and you should read them if you truly need to know more about what this camera can do. Currently all I am doing is photographing fast pitch softball, and this review will almost exclusively focus on that. I also do occasional wildlife and landscape photography and camera features such as pro capture, focus stacking, and exposure bracketing can be immensely valuable in those settings. I have used those features on Olympus (predecessor to OM) cameras, but have not yet used them on this camera. Pros. I have been blown away by my ability to use high ISO with very little noise. In my previous camera (Olympus M1X) my default ISO was 800 and I would never go above ISO 1250 because of very significant picture degradation. I shot my first game with Auto ISO just to see what the camera would do. It sometimes used ISO higher than 10,000 and I never observed any significant noise. I still find this unbelievable. A player's face is a small part of most softball pictures, but it is also a vital part, and automatic ISO did periodically produce a mild over exposure of players with fair skin and a mild underexposure for players with dark skin. It is adjusting for brightness on uniforms, infield, etc., not just on the players' faces. This is a minor inconvenience and requires some post camera editing, but Auto ISO saved many more pictures than it lost. When I am focused on a batter in shadows and the runner on 1B tries to steal 2B in bright sunlight, it is not possible for me to manually change my exposure settings in time to take a series of pictures. Auto ISO does it for me effortlessly, and makes fewer mistakes than I make when adjusting the camera manually. The auto focus system is vastly superior to my previous M1X, but still occasionally loses focus for no known reason. If your target is not moving too wildly this camera has a number of tracking systems which will follow your target for you. However I frequently make wild swings between targets (I'm basically trying to follow the player closest to the ball) and camera tracking does not seem useful to me. I have a love/hate relationship with the speed of picture taking. I prefer to use a Mechanical Shutter so I can hear exactly when my camera begins and stops taking pictures. My old M1X and this camera both advertise that they take 10 pictures per second (frames per second or FPS) when using the mechanical shutter. However the 10 fps on my M1X appear to be slightly faster than the 10 fps on the OM Mark II as I got fewer pictures of the bat actually meeting the ball with the Mark II. I switched to the electronic (or silent) shutter at its lowest speed of 20 fps and effortlessly obtained pictures of the bat meeting the ball. However 20 fps also means that when I finish shooting a game I have approximately 3,500 pictures to sort through instead of the approximately 2,000 I used to get. Yes I get pictures I would have missed using the manual shutter, but I also get too many pictures I would have missed with the manual shutter. Cons. The camera is complicated and requires me to learn a number of new tricks even though I was previously using an Olympus camera. This also means it has lots of cool features, but I'm too old to enjoy learning new tricks. The camera accepts two memory cards, but after I filled up one card yesterday it would not automatically switch to the second card until I manually removed the first card. There is undoubtedly a simple way to get the camera to switch, but I have not yet learned it. This camera only accepts one battery (it is designed to be light weight) so I have had to go back to carrying an extra battery in my pocket. I really liked that my M1X accepted two batteries.

I shot Nikon D500 for many years. When it came time to switch to mirrorless, I balanced quality, functionality, cost, portability and lens options. I hoped the OM System overall was the best fit for me. My main focus is wildlife and travel photography. Now a few years later, I couldn't me happier. The OM-1 MKII is an amazing piece of technology. I love that I can carry this camera anywhere and in any weather with ease. Light and water resistant (rain forest) is crucial. The pre-capture mode allows the ability to capture birds in flight like never before. The computational functions available with this camera are outstanding. Of course the most important feature of all is the ability to grab focus quickly and keep the focus stuck on the subject. I continue to be amazed on how easily this camera finds a bird in a tangle of branches and focuses on it. Is micro four thirds an issue? NO!!! Not at all. With long lenses that you can hand hold with ease that can get you up to 1200mm focal distance, severe cropping is less of an issue. Noise is very manageable at high ISO as well.

The first OM-1 Mark II kit that Amazon sent was used--and I specifically made sure that Amazon was the seller, thinking doing so would avoid problems. Waited almost two weeks for it to arrive. The used OM-1 Mark II kit was returned and a new one ordered and received. The OM-1 Mark II is an outstanding camera with exceptional image quality using the 12-40mm f/2.8 Pro II. Have been using a 61MP FF with GM II glass for years, shooting mostly exterior architecture. The image quality of the OM-1 Mark II's hand held high resolution is exquisite for this--and the OM camera is dramatically lighter and smaller. It's a keeper!