Olympus / OM System Art Filters - A Review of ART 13 I (Vintage I)
I’ve owned my Olympus e-m1 mark ii for well over a year now and I can honestly say it is one of my favorite cameras. I consider the e-m1 mark ii to be one of the best value cameras of 2021-2024. It isn’t going to amaze anyone with its spec sheet, but it is genuinely one of the best all around performers on the market at a budget price. The micro four thirds system isn’t innovating as quickly these days, but the Olympus e-m1 mark ii shows just how ahead of the game mft (micro four thirds) was back in the mid 2010s.
When I first purchased the Olympus e-m1 mark ii, I read about a feature called ART Filters. Olympus was evidently so serious about this feature they dedicated a space to it on the mode dial. However, most of the comments I read about the feature suggested it was something of a gimmick. After receiving the camera, I quickly scrolled through the plethora of art filters and concluded something similar. They looked bad, cheap, like presets applied at 200% strength. They were overwhelming and frankly, ugly.
One of my major disappointments when digging around through the menus was the lack of ability to customize the art filters in any way. There was no way to tone them down to make them more palatable or change the color balance. It didn’t take long for me to turn the mode dial away from the “ART” setting and never look back.
Fast forward 18 months and I’ve returned to the ART setting, wondering if it can still be salvaged. I’ve learned a little bit about JPEG color adjustment from my work with my Ricoh GR III, and I’m curious to see if similar techniques can make the ugly-duckling art filters of Olympus transform into a semi-beautiful JPEG swan.
This article is the first of a series of tests of the Olympus e-m1 art filters. The first few articles will be a test of the art filters as designed by the manufacturer, followed by a few articles of me trying to produce some usable film simulations.
The first art filter I employed was the ART 13 I (Vintage I). I picked it because it was one of the least offensive to my eye. I took my e-m1 mark ii on a walk in Bizerte, Tunisia and grabbed some shots at the outdoor market. All of these photographs were taken using the Panasonic Lumix 14mm f/2.5.
After returning home, I uploaded my samples into Lightroom, and I have to admit, I was a little bit surprised. I like the photos more than I thought I would. The colors are bold, but not the over-saturated disaster I feared. Maybe there is hope for our JPEG swan after all.
I hope you enjoy these sample shots. The colors in these images were not edited. These are straight-out-of-camera in all their Olympus art filter glory.
