Olympus OM-D E-M5 MkII and E-M10 MkII

It's been a few weeks now and my OM-D E-M5 MkII kit is progressing nicely.

Olympus Zuiko 12-50mm f 3.5/6.3 EZ, Zuiko 40-150mm f4/5.6 R and OM-D E-M5 MkII with Zuiko 45mm f1.8

With the 12-50mm kit lens and the 40-150mm telephoto I've got everything from 24mm to 300mm covered (in traditional 35mm terms). This assumes I'll be taking photos in reasonably good light, since they are both fairly 'slow' lenses - which is where the 45mm f1.8 comes in to play. It does mean that I've got three lenses that covers the 45mm focal length, but they are not all created equal. I plan on putting this to the test soon, with a 45mm shoot-out, to show the differences between them all in terms of sharpness and bokeh.

This will be my kit for a while, with only the HLD-8G to add as a grip in the next few weeks.

The big news from Olympus recently was the inclusion of the OM-D E-M10 MkII to their camera line-up.

It's an incremental update to the original E-M10 rather than a complete upgrade, since the E-M10 hasn't really been around for that long.

Having said that though, the tweaks they have made mean that I see the camera as a much more viable second body to my E-M5 MkII now, since they have mimicked more of that cameras ergonomics. It will be much more seamless to move between both cameras if you have the E-M10 MkII as a backup to the E-M5 MkII - in the same way that the first E-M10 makes more sense as a backup to the original E-M5.

The new OM-D E-M10 MkII also adds 5 axis image stabilisation, uses the same 16MP sensor, and updates the evf to a 2.36 million OLED screen with 100% view. It's now a 'baby' E-M5 MkII without the 40MP feature and weather sealing. Its new party trick is touch AF tracking from the rear lcd screen, which is something that Panasonic has had for a while now, and something I would like to see released in the E-M5 MkII with a firmware update.

So while it might be a relatively minor update, I'm actually quite excited about the OM-D E-M10 MkII. I think it's the perfect back-up body for me, and with it being released at an even cheaper price than the original E-M10, is incredible value! I may have just found the next addition to my kit?