It’s been a mild winter in Chicago so far but was cloudy most of January, so was waiting for clear day to try out E-M1 ii. The first clear night turned out to be a cold night with the temperature in the low 20F’s (-7C) and the windchill is supposed to be in low single digits (-15C). But felt much cooler near the lake out in the open.

This has been one of the problem with the tiny m4/3 camera so far. Can’t operate them properly  with out taking the gloves off, can’t stay out for even few minutes with out gloves. Still,  I did use E-M5 in -35C, (yes minus thirty five degree celsius ) in Lapland of Sweden.   It took long time to fell my fingers though, I think the images where worth it.

But E-M1 Mark ii is different, I was out there for nearly two hours and had no problem in using the camera. Used different settings along the way, and happy to say I can use almost all of the settings  with out a need to take the gloves off.

Took some time to figure out the exact position of Info. Menu, Plan and Fn2 button. I was recording video, or going to play, delete, or changing focus point few times. But after using little while, my fingers went to the right button in right place.

After two hours in the freezing cold, realized I was not dressed in the single digit windchill for than two hours, so went packing.

First the Basics

1. Changing the modes

No problem, the button is big and easy to rotate. Gives the feedback in the display. Only issue is that the feedback is little slow, learned to wait a second before jumping between modes.

2. Changing Exposure, Shutter and Compensation

Nicely laid out, depending the mode, it’s the compensation or the actual value.

3. ISO / White Balance

No need to go to menu, press the Fn2 button and change the value. Or flip the Fn lever and the dials do tit.

4. Focus Point/ Focus Area/ Focus type

Pretty much can do it even with the eyes closed. One button to change the type, four navigation button to navigate

5. Multiple shot, Timer function

Just one button, the display shows the mode need to be chosen.

6. Metering mode

Press and rotate for highlight, center weighted, shadow , matrix metering  ( I don’t think Olympus calls it that way, it works the same).

7. One touch white balance

This is the only button I had little problem with, when the gloves are on.

8. Display level gauge, histogram and framing guides

Just switch info. button to have clean image or all the settings displayed

9. Preview

One of the best, retains the previous setting, can easily magnify 14x, rotate to different shots, watch exif info.

10. Change between Handheld and Tripod

Done.. with the help of C1 button.

Here are the images I took along the way.. Nice progression of day light, to golden hour to blue hour.