20 things I hate about Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark IV

Instead of purchasing the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark IV, there are a number of reasons why you might want to buy one of the higher end Olympus cameras such as:

• The E-M5 Mark III,
• The E-M1 Mark III, or
• The E-M1X

1. The camera is currently not supported for use with the Olympus webcam software, so you won’t be able to use the camera as a webcam.
2. It doesn’t have Phase Detect autofocus which means it is going to be slower to lock focus in comparison to the higher end models. Having said that, its contrast detect autofocus is the best that I have come across and works well when shooting video.
3. The camera doesn’t have a microphone jack, so you cannot connect an external microphone to it but it has an onboard stereo microphone.
4. Audio is recorded in stereo mode at 16bit, bit-depth and 48kHz, sampling rate which is not bad but a higher audio quality of 24bit at 96kHz would have been preferred which is available on the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III.
5. Camera eyelets make noise which is captured in videos. They can be removed but the part that they connect to protrude, which makes it slightly more difficult to fit into your pockets or a small place.
6. When using manual video mode, Auto-ISO can not be used. So if you set the aperture, shutter speed and frame rates the camera cannot automatically adjust ISO to get the right exposure.
   [ISO ➡ 200–6,400]
   You can switch to one of automatic modes for video such as Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority, or Program Auto and that will let the camera adjust exposure automatically but it is not clear whether the camera uses ISO to adjust exposure or if it also changes Aperture and Shutter Speed which could impact how the video footage looks.
   [OK ➡ P | A | S | M]
7. Extended ISO settings cannot be used when in video mode, and the menu option is disabled. So the ISO range in video is strictly between 200 and 6,400.
   [MENU ➡ ⚙ ➡ D1 ➡ ISO-Auto Set]
8. Settings are shared between video mode and photo mode. So if you set the aperture or shutter speed while in video mode, and switch to still picture mode, those values will be used.
9. The video settings are scattered in different menus: MENU button, OK button, Super Control Panel which can be accessed using the shortcut button.
10. In movie mode the focus points can be either a single small focus point or the entire focus grid whereas in picture mode you also have the option to select 9 joint focus points to make up a mid-size focus area. Although the option to select a medium size focus box is available for continuous focus using the touch panel but this is not part of the grid focus points.

1. When using continuous focus in movie mode, the size of the autofocus point cannot be changed, whereas in picture mode you can change the size using the on-screen slider.
2. It doesn’t have custom settings on the mode dial.
3. It doesn’t have weather sealing which the higher end models such as the E-M5 and E-M1 have.
4. In the first version of this camera, you could change the settings for the number of frames taken at each of the sequential shooting drive modes. That option no longer exists in the Mark IV, so there is less room for customization.
5. It doesn’t have pro-capture mode which exists in higher end Olympus cameras. In cameras that support pro-capture; the camera starts shooting from the moment the shutter button is halfway down, and captures up to 35 frames prior to the moment the button is pressed down fully. If you press the shutter button fully down, those 35 frames will be saved to the memory card otherwise they will be discarded. So the pro-capture feature lets you go back in time, to get the exact shot you want out of 35 frames which were taken in the one second leading up to the shutter button being fully pressed.
6. The camera doesn’t have a high resolution mode which is available in the higher end models. High resolution mode allows the camera sensor to shift in different directions and take multiple pictures and combine them into a single high resolution picture with substantially higher quality. This mode is useful for product photography or photographing still subjects.
7. The exposure bracketing feature on this camera is limited to either 3 or 5 frames and there is no option to select how many stops of light those frames should differ, whereas on the first version of this camera, not only could you go up 7 frames but also the exposure could be customized at 1/3 stops.
   [Mode dial ➡ AP ➡ AE BKT ➡ ISO-Auto Set]
   [Play button ➡ Info ➡ images]
8. The SD card slot is in the battery compartment and slightly difficult to access but considering the small size of this camera I don’t think it could have been fitted anywhere else. You can also transfer files by connecting a USB cable but since the camera supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, wireless transfer is the easiest option to transfer files.
9. When recording video, the camera splits up the video if the file-size goes over 4GB. So once you transfer the 4GB files to your computer, you have to stitch them together to get the full video in one file. This is particularly annoying if you want to upload your videos directly to online video platforms without having to do post processing work on your computer. With the high resolution that this camera provides as well as the high frame rate, the 4GB limit will be reached easily. For example when I shoot video in 1080p at 60 frames per second with the superfine video bitrate compression, the 4GB limit is reached after around 10 minutes and 40 seconds.
10. The maximum length of video that the camera can record in one continuous shoot is 29 minutes. This is an artificial limit put in place to comply with an EU law which meant cameras that could record videos longer than 30 minutes would be classified differently under EU import tax regulations and therefore would need to pay a higher import duty fee which would mean a more expensive camera for consumers. This regulation has been abolished but camera makers are still abiding by this old regulation, even though it is no longer necessary.

Olympus OM-D E-M10 IV vs E-M5 III & E-M5 II

Olympus OM-D E-M10 IV vs E-M5 III & E-M5 II