Additional Notes on Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark ii for Night Street Photography

12mm f/2.0; ISO 3200; 1/15th second; panorama from two frames.
A lot of detail has been pushed here, and the grain shows.  More fastidious processing could reduce that for printing.

I've had very little time to get out with the E-M5 Mark ii, but did carry it along for some nighttime walks around my part of the city.  So far, the results have all been positive.  I'd have to characterize it as "sufficient," which is just fine.

ISO 3200, 75mm (150mm equivalent), f/1.8, 1/15th second.
Four tries were required to get a steady shot, but this is pretty impressive for 1/15th second at that magnification.

I've spent a great deal of time doing night street photography with the Nikon D700 and D600, and I've used three general types of lenses:  flexible zooms that are relatively light and compact (70-300VR, 28-300VR); pro zooms that are superb, but heavy (70-200/2.8 VR ii, 70-200/4 <- my all-time favorite lens on any camera); and the amazing Nikon f/1.8 primes, which are both light/compact and have superb optical quality (but no VR).

ISO 3200; 12mm; f/2.8; 1/40th second.
The white balance and colors had to be pushed significantly to produce the perceived colors in real life.  There was plenty of color latitude in the RAW file to avoid any odd artifacts, and noise was readily controllable without losing too much detail.

The zooms offer great flexibility and VR, which is at least partially very valuable for night shooting.  But, they are all heavy and awkward to take on trips and lug around, and they are just plain socially unacceptable for a lot of evening events if other people are along.  Also, the consumer-type zooms always compromise image quality, and I'm constantly disappointed when I can't take advantage of an amazing scene or light.  The very best overall compromise is the amazing 70-200/4, but f/4 still leaves me at ISO 3200+ much of the time unless I'm looking to blur subject motion (generally not my style).

ISO 3200; 12mm, f/4.5; 1/20th second.
The dynamic range was ridiculous, but as metered, the highlights were recoverable, and the shadows could be brought up enough to make a pleasing rendition.

The only physically satisfying package is the f/1.8 primes, and they are optically fantastic. But, with no VR, I find that I'm realistically sitting at ISO 6400 much of the time, and at ISO 6400, the dynamic range of even the best FX sensors is greatly reduced (you lose a stop of DR for every stop in ISO above ISO 400 on the D600, for example, so almost 4 stops down at ISO 6400).

Nikon D600; ISO 6400; 85mm, f/2.8; 1/40th second.
For comparison, this is a typical night shot with the D600.  Because of the lack of VR on the beautiful 85/1.8G prime, and in order to avoid subject motion, the shutter speed is moderately high, yet still pushing my handheld limit, dictating ISO 6400.  Even on the full-frame D600, the dynamic range is suffering badly, and the post processing was very tough on this one.

Note that carrying a tripod is mostly too restrictive to take out every evening.  I do carry a good travel tripod (1542T), but I would mostly use that for very intentional and planned cityscapes or shooting from a hotel, etc.  If you have a tripod, basically every camera is good for night shooting.  :)

Nikon D600; 85mm, f/8; 15 seconds.
This is a typical long exposure night shot on tripod, which could be taken with almost any camera with manual controls.  I'm not worried about this use case.  :)

The dynamics are quite different with the E-M5 ii m43 and my Olympus f/1.8 primes.  IBIS opens the door to much longer handheld exposures when I'm willing to include subject motion blur (or there is nothing moving).  f/1.8 is pretty bright, exceeded only by heroically expensive (and mostly huge) lenses that are brighter, and I can even get 75mm (150mm equivalent) at f/1.8 in a tiny package! Yes, I'm still sitting at ISO 3200 (the threshold I've currently adopted), but the (reduced) DR feels about as restrictive as the D700 (not quite as good as the D600), so it is manageable -- not great; not horrible.

ISO 3200; 75mm; f/1.8; 1/50th second.
IBIS made a handheld shot that I would never try at this magnification on my D600.  The 75/1.8 allowed for a DoF that almost disappeared the chainlink fence in the foreground.

Handling and auto-focus are a pleasant surprise. The EVF is much better at night than an optical viewfinder, and AF, well, just works. Any AF system is going to have problems in the dark, but the E-M5 ii seems at least as good as my DSLRs. Manual override with focus peaking works great in low light since visibility of the EVF is so great.

ISO 1000; 12mm; f/3.5; 1/40th second.
The wide DR was recoverable nicely with basic Lightroom sliders.

For post-processing, the Olympus files feel pretty good.  Up to ISO 3200, the shadows are fairly clean, and I can pull out enough micro-contrast.  Generally, metering seems to protect the highlights well; perhaps with practice, I can ETTR a bit more.  Frankly, I have not been obsessing over histograms at capture time.  Metering on the D600 was a delight, and it seems just as good on the E-M5 ii.  Color looks good and is easy to grade (better than with Nikon NEFs when using Adobe ACR or LR, but Adobe always does relatively poorly with Nikon RAW files since they don't cooperate).