20 Tips for Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark IV
I have been using the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark IV to shoot video for a while, so I wanted to share some insights about this camera and its features.
1. The camera has a feature to use “single autofocus + manual focus”
- This lets you get focus on your subject quickly using the auto-focus then manually move the focus ring to adjust focus if the subject moves slightly from the initial focus point.
- This avoids the camera focusing on the background if the subject is not kept within the focus point which is a problem that can occur when using continuous auto-focus.
- This mode is also useful if you are doing landscape photography.
[MENU ➡ 🎥 ➡ AF Mode ➡ S-AF+MF]
2. The camera doesn’t allow selection of multiple focus points to make up a larger focus area when using the auto-focus grid but you can use the focus box instead to achieve the same outcome.
[GRID/LEFT ➡ UP/DOWN]
3. The camera has subject tracking but in my experience this is only good for scenes with limited movement and distinguishable subjects. So it is not suitable for fast moving scenes such as recording sports.
- But if you are using it to film yourself vlogging or recording scenes without fast movements and clear subjects then it works really well.
- So you can use subject tracking for simple scenes.
[MENU ➡ 🎥 ➡ AF Mode ➡ C-AF+TR]
4. When recording video with art filters, the camera will drop frames if it cannot keep up with the required processing.
According to Olympus website:
- * Frame rate may drop when using certain art filter
- https://www.olympus.co.uk/site/en/c/cameras/om_d_system_cameras/om_d/e_m10_mark_iv/e_m10_mark_iv_specifications.html
- Olympus doesn’t make it clear which art filters result in dropped frames but to be safe you can set your video footage to a lower resolution and lower frame rate to compensate for this problem.
- Alternatively you can keep the high resolution and frame rate of your video while recording but apply the desired effect in post processing but this requires you to spend more time to achieve the best results.
[MENU ➡ 📷1 ➡ Picture Mode ➡ Key Line (ART 11)]
[OK ➡ FHD 1080p to HD 720p]
[MENU ➡ 🎥 ➡ Video Frame Rate ➡ 24]
[SHORTCUT BUTTON/SUPER CONTROL PANEL ➡ 🎥 4K]
5. When shooting video in high speed mode, the slowest shutter speed will be 1/125 of a second but you can increase the shutter speed to get less motion blur, but that will also result in less light hitting the sensor so you may need to increase the ISO setting or open up the aperture of your lens further.
[SHORTCUT BUTTON/SUPER CONTROL PANEL ➡ 🎥 HS ➡ OK]
[TOUCH SCREEN MENU ➡ SS (shutter speed)]
[TOUCH SCREEN MENU ➡ ISO]
[TOUCH SCREEN MENU ➡ FNo (aperture)]
6. When shooting high speed video, there will be a crop on your footage so if you plan to mix the high speed video footage with footage from normal speed video make sure you use a wider angle lens, a zoom lens, or adjust your distance from the subject being shot in order to preserve the same framing.
[SHORTCUT BUTTON/SUPER CONTROL PANEL ➡ 🎥 HS ➡ OK]
7. Another point about high speed video on this camera is that it does not record the audio, so if you need the audio then you have to record the audio using a separate device.
[SHORTCUT BUTTON/SUPER CONTROL PANEL ➡ 🎥 HS ➡ OK]
[icon on screen -> 🎤🎙Off]
8. The video resolution for high speed recording is 720p but the video footage is not sharp. It looks like the footage has been smudged which I suspect is because the camera is doing line skipping or some other process to get the fast readout times from the sensor which allows recording 120 frames per second. So make sure you shoot in the best conditions with plenty of light and low ISO setting so that you make use of the maximum potential quality 720p that the camera can provide.
- The video quality of 720p resolution is only bad when in high speed video mode. Whereas the 720p resolution for normal speed video is much better.
[SHORTCUT BUTTON/SUPER CONTROL PANEL ➡ 🎥 HS ➡ OK]
[OK ➡ HD HS 120 fps]
[SHORTCUT BUTTON/SUPER CONTROL PANEL ➡ 🎥 ➡ OK]
[OK ➡ HD SF 🎥 30p]
9. If you are mixing high speed video footage with normal speed video footage. It makes the post processing easier if your normal speed video is set to 30 FPS as opposed to 25 FPS or 24 FPS. Because the high speed video is recorded at 120 frames per second and slowed down to 30 frames per second.
[SHORTCUT BUTTON/SUPER CONTROL PANEL ➡ 🎥 ➡ OK]
[MENU ➡ 🎥 ➡ Video Frame Rate ➡ 30]
10. If you use digital stabilization, the footage will be cropped. So keep that in mind when framing your scene while using digital stabilization. Please note the option for digital stabilization is not available in the menu when shooting High Speed video (although digital stablizition might always be enabled for high speed video without user control as the footage is always cropped which is a potential indicator to this).
[MENU ➡ 🎥 ➡ 🎥 Image Stabilizer ➡ M-IS 1️⃣ ]
11. The camera can shoot video at 24 frames per second, and the camera has a 1/48 shutter speed so if you are shooting at 24 FPS, make sure you select the 1/48 shutter speed to follow the 180 degree rule.
- The camera doesn’t have a shutter speed for 1/120, so if you are recording video at 60 FPS, then you must choose between using 1/125 or 1/100 shutter speed.
- The camera does have 1/48, 1/50, 1/60, and 1/100 shutter speeds so following 180 degree rule is possible for all other frame rates.
[MENU ➡ 🎥 ➡ Video Frame Rate ➡ 24]
[TOUCH SCREEN MENU ➡ SS (shutter speed) 48] or use back dial to change shutter speed
[MENU ➡ 🎥 ➡ Video Frame Rate ➡ 30]
[OK ➡ FHD SF 🎥 60p]
[TOUCH SCREEN MENU ➡ SS (shutter speed) 125, 250] or use back dial to change shutter speed
12. The camera doesn’t shoot DCI cinema 4K. So if this is something that you are looking for then you have no choice but adjust the resolution in post processing or upgrade to the Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III.
[SHORTCUT BUTTON/SUPER CONTROL PANEL ➡ 🎥, 🎥 4K ➡ OK]
[OK ➡ 4K 🎥 24p]
13. The camera performs badly in low light scenarios when shooting video, the ISO only goes up to 6,400 as opposed to ISO 25,600 which is available for taking still pictures. So if you need to shoot in dark conditions consider slowing down the frame rate as well as the shutter speed to somewhat compensate for the low light conditions. Also, shooting in higher resolution such as 4K can help improve the quality.
[ISO/UP ➡ 6400]
[SHORTCUT BUTTON/SUPER CONTROL PANEL ➡ 🎥 4K ➡ OK]
- If you need to shoot video at high frame rates such as 50 FPS or 60 FPS, consider not following the 180 degree rule to get more light to the sensor. For example you can record 60 FPS footage with a shutter speed of 1/100 instead of 1/125. This will give the video more motion blur but makes it possible to shoot video in darker conditions while keeping the same frame rate.
[OK ➡ FHD SF 🎥 60p]
[TOUCH SCREEN MENU ➡ SS (shutter speed) 100 or 80] or use back dial to change shutter speed
- You can also always adjust the aperture if it suits your video. So if you reduce the F-stop number, more light will reach the sensor but the depth of field will become shallower. So depending on the subject that you are filming this might be a viable option.
[TOUCH SCREEN MENU ➡ FNo (aperture)] or use front dial to change aperture F-stop number
14. If you are recording video for online distribution and viewing it is worth considering whether or not to lean towards more motion blur with slower shutter speeds when using higher frame rates, as there is a high chance that the video will be viewed at lower frame rates such as 25 or 30 frames per second, instead of the frame rate which was used when shooting the video such as 50 or 60 frames per second.
[e.g. YouTube video settings for lower resolutions, have lower frame rates]
[OK ➡ FHD SF 🎥 60p]
[TOUCH SCREEN MENU ➡ SS (shutter speed) 100 or 80] or use back dial to change shutter speed
15. The camera settings such as ISO, Aperture and shutter speed can be controlled with the touch screen as well as with buttons and dials. Using the touch screen reduces handling noise and camera shake if you are operating the camera while filming. This is something which is not available on some cameras that are substantially more expensive such as the Sony A7S III.
[TOUCH SCREEN MENU ➡ SS, FNo, ISO]
16. I think it is worth mentioning that camera settings are shared between picture mode and video mode. So if you change the ISO in picture mode the same setting will be present in video mode.
- If you switch between picture mode and movie mode frequently then this is something that you should pay attention to.
- Depending on how the camera is used, it might be preferred for the picture mode and the video mode to share settings or not but on some cameras such as the Sony A7S III you can choose which settings are shared and which ones are not. Which gives you full control based on your preference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eSh7kNrORU&t=721s
[TOUCH SCREEN MENU ➡ ISO]
[Mode Dial ➡ 🎥 / M] [see numbers on touch screen]
[TOUCH SCREEN MENU ➡ SS, FNo, ISO]
[Mode Dial ➡ M / 🎥] [see numbers on touch screen]
17. This camera is the only Olympus OM-D camera which has a tilt screen which I find more practical for video recording, as opposed to the flip screens which are found on the other models.
- I think tilt screens are good if you want to film anything apart from yourself whereas flip screens that open to the side might be easier to work with for vloggers who need to sit in front of the camera and record themselves. While accepting the appearance of looking to the side which may result from looking at the flip screen while recording videos.
- Black Magic is well known for creating cinema cameras, and they opted for a tilt screen on their pocket cinema camera because it is expected that the camera will be used to record a subject other than the camera operator.
- https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/products/blackmagicpocketcinemacamera
18. The E-M10 Mark IV video footage can only be recorded with IPB compression encoding. If you want an All-I encoding then you need to upgrade to E-M5 Mark III or one of the higher end OM-D models. So keep this in mind for your post processing workflow.
- Video clips recorded with IPB encoding use less storage and can be written or read from storage faster. So if you are using slow SD cards with this camera IPB compression helps counter the limited speed of the SD card.
- However IPB encoding requires more processing power to encode or decode the video file which might become a bottleneck when editing video files in post processing, if you have a slow computer.
- Whereas All-I encoding uses more storage because the video is not as compressed as the encoded IPB compression. So the ALL-I format requires faster SD cards to write more data to but uses less processing power which means a slower computer can be used to edit the video footage with less lag than the IPB equivalent as long as the slow computer does not have a bottleneck in terms of read or write speed to storage.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_compression_picture_types
[MENU ➡ 🎥 ➡ Video Bit Rate ➡ Super Fine]
19. The camera has a lot of features that can be switched off to extend its battery life, which is worth considering if you don’t want to purchase a spare battery and don’t need to use these features. For example:
- Auto-focus with subject tracking
- Auto Focus Illuminator light
- Wireless connectivity, and
- Image Stabilization
- There are more features which can be switched off to save battery power but these were some of the more power hungry features. Obviously these features are very useful and you cannot switch them off if you benefit from them. But there are scenarios where they are not needed. For example, the auto-focus illuminator light is not needed in daylight or bright conditions, or the image stabilization is not needed when the camera is on a tripod.
[MENU ➡ 🎥 ➡ AF Mode ➡ C-AF+TR] …use touch screen to select desired subject to be tracked.
[MENU ➡ 📷1 ➡ AF Illuminator ➡ Off]
[MENU ➡ 🔧 ➡ Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Settings ➡ Wireless functions ➡ Off]
[MENU ➡ 🎥 ➡ 🎥Image Stabilizer ➡ M-IS Off] (Movie Image Stabilization)
[MENU ➡ 📷2 ➡ 📷Image Stabilizer ➡ S-IS Off] (Still Image Stabilization)
20. The camera has a micro-HDMI port but the output is not clean. If I remember correctly you can switch off all overlays apart from the battery level which means if you did want to use the HDMI output you would have to crop the image to a size where the battery indicator is no longer visible.
[MENU ➡ ⚙ ➡ C2 ➡ HDMI ➡ Output size ➡ 4K]
[MENU ➡ ⚙ ➡ C2 ➡ HDMI ➡ HDMI Control ➡ On]
Please let me know if you have any questions or if you would like me more information about anything related to this camera’s functionality.
