Olympus has launched the much-awaited telephoto zoom lens, the 150-400mm f4.5 Pro. The lens was first announced in January 2019. The same time when E-M1X was launched. Then of course it was a product development announcement. Now the lens reality and first real-life test have been done. The lens is available in January 2021.
Jari Peltomäki tells us about the lens
I have not had a chance to test it yet. It has been mainly tested by bird photographers here in the Nordic. I did have a chance to talk to a Finnish award-winning bird and nature photographer Olympus Visionary Jari Peltomäki. He has been testing the lens a few days. In the video, he also tells us what he had to with the production of the lens.
New Firmware
Four Olympus OM-D bodies got a new firmware. The new firmware includes Bird recognition to E-M1X and ProResRAW-video for E-M1X and E-M1 MKIII.
Both of these new features are very interesting and make both bodies even better than they are now.
Subject recognition in E-M1X
Olympus E-M1X has subject recognition AF. It “knows” what motorsports, trains, and airplanes look like. Now the Ai-driven algorithm has been improved to include also birds. This one I had the chance to test. In the video below I give a sneak peek of the feature. A full video about it coming up next Friday.
ProResRAW gives better video quality
ProResRAW is compared to H.264 that Olympus camera records internally the same as the difference between shooting raw vs. jpg. That is the simple and quick answer to what raw video is. ProResRAW is compatible with Atomos Ninja V only. An external recorder is needed if you want to shoot raw-video.
I have a blog post about ProResRAW. There is some more info about that. There will also be a dedicated video about ProresRAW on my channel.