Ok, so long story short. I have a couple of friends/customers (yes, they can be both) who, after a short but intense search for the right cameras for their wedding business, settled on a pair of EM1 mk2’s with F1.2 primes.
All looked to be going well enough until they came across a purple “quilt pattern” issue in the flared areas of the image. I must admit, it had not crossed my radar (I cannot help but think that if I was shooting/buying for myself, I would have come across it, but being more camera agnostic in a shop environment, it slipped through the masses of data).
A little research yielded little. A little testing even less.
All I can say so far is, I cannot get my EM1 mk2 to show any patterned artefacts in the purple flare areas of the image with either the 25mm f1.8 or the 45mm f1.8. I shot 30 images into the sun through some leaves or the edge of a building, trying to get it to come out. The images do show some purple in the flare areas, but Olympus lenses, especially the f1.8 ones do have a tendency towards purple CA (my 25 especially), so this would be the colour, if any, that would show through.
Obviously more information and more testing are needed. I would have put the problem down to the new F1.2 lenses (maybe a coating issue like the old Nikon 50mm f1.8 blue reflection one, or the unusual element design in those lenses or maybe even the lenses speed). It is likely an issue that post dates the EM1’s release, but one thread had a comment about it showing up on most of the lenses tested.
As modern manufacturers push harder and harder, the simple things seem to be paying the price. If there is an issue I hope Olympus fix it, quickly and efficiently.