Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mk.II - A Completely Unscientific Review

Gist

I’ve been spending a lot of time (and some money) on photography this year (read more about it), and I’ve been EDC-ing this Olympus mirrorless from 2015, with extremely pleasant results. So, I thought I’d write its praises in this unscientific, purely vibes-based review of my experience with it thus far

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What Makes a Good Camera?

Honestly, I’m too much of a novice to answer this, but in my limited time exploring the art of photography, what’s mattered most to me is usability and features; So let’s go through them and discuss what about the E-M10 Mk.II makes it so good in my eyes.

Usability

Most of a camera’s worth is in the pictures you can get out of it, but the next most important thing is how you go about getting those photos. The Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mk.II makes it incredibly easy to get good photos, thanks to a combination of several key factors.

• Small and light: This camera uses a micro four-thirds sensor, which is a whole topic to get into by itself, but one great thing about it is that it’s very small, and very light. This helps the entire camera be perfectly pocketable to the point where I’ve gone on multi-day trips with it hanging on my shoulder the entire time, without once feeling the weight of it. A camera that’s always on you is easy to capture key moments with.
• Dials for days: As I’m sure you can see from the images, this thing’s got a lot of dials. To me, this is important. Touch controls are unreliable, and often unintuitive. The availability of 2 command dials, 3 function buttons, a D-pad and more mean that I can dial in my settings on the fly without having to navigate through menus on the touchscreen display, and this makes taking photos super easy. There’s probably more to say, but these are the main usability-related features that have made it super easy and comfortable for me to get into this hobby.

Features

Now, I get that there’s a huge fan community over things like Fujifilm’s film simulations, but let me assure you that the OM Systems or Olympus cameras are no lightweights in this regard. I don’t even use the entire suite of software and hardware features it has to offer but here’s the ones I do use regularly:

• Custom ‘My Sets’: While it’s no film-sim recipe, you can dial-in a surprising amount of settings and styles using Olympus’s “Super Control Panel” in up to 4 custom ‘My Sets’, which you can then assign to different positions on the Mode dial. I’ve actually been experimenting with some film simulation myself using this feature, with quite good results.
• 5-axis IBIS: IBIS stands for In-Body Image Stabilization, which is some crazy technology that makes microadjustments to the sensor’s position and orientation in realtime to counteract camera shake from your hands and the shutter. The E-M10 mark 2 has 5 axes of stabilization, at just around $350? That’s quite insane honestly, and it helps get sharp, clear photos almost all the time.
• Great Hardware: While more of a build-quality thing than a strict ‘feature’, the top-notch quality of the hardware such as the dials, lenses, screen and EVF (electronic viewfinder) are also a huge bargain at this price point.

Specs aren’t everything

Okay, so the features are great, but it’s true that specs aren’t everything. But for anyone well-versed in cameras, you can probably tell from this camera’s spec sheet that it is not a flagship, far from it. In fact it’s closer to a budget offering from Olympus (Now known as OM Systems). I did also mention at the top that this is a very vibes-based review, so what about this camera has made me so happy to own it, apart from the features?

To put it plainly, it is fun to take photos with this thing. The super tactile and solid command dials are like mini fidget toys, the classic look gives it aesthetic value, both as an accessory and in the act of shooting photos out in public, the photos come out amazing - with great color science in the RAWs, and superb quality on the JPEGs. I developed a sudden passion for photography before I bought this camera, but this thing has only bolstered it. Apart from the lack of 4K video recording, I truly find nothing lacking here.

Now, I know this has been a super brief and vague review where I’ve glossed over most of the technical details, but I don’t intend to be a tech reviewer. Let this post serve purely to convey my love for this camera to you, and maybe it’ll spark your curiosity in the brand or even this particular model, and see where that takes you! I’ll end this here though, along with some of my favorite photos with this camera in the first quarter of 2025. Enjoy!

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