Olympus OM E-M5

[ajohnw]

My new camera arrived the other day. It's scarcely bigger than the Pen E-P3 and has far more options buried in it's menu's. One strange aspect is the 12-50mm lens that comes with it. It's 80mm long but the length doesn't change when it's zoomed. In m 4/3 terms It looks like it should have a much longer focal length. The zoom is electronic via a twist ring in the place the usual zoom ring would be. There is an extra function button added to the lens and also a macro button that appear to change how the AF works and also reduces the minimum focus distance. Max mag is 0.36x. Going on quick textile shots it looks to be rather sharp in macro mode. It's gone some what Panasonic as there can be CA problems in certain situations. Resolution however is good through out the range.

The finish of the camera is reminiscent of earlier metal bodied slr cameras that were made black at extra cost by applying paint that wore of rather rapidly. I understand it has a titanium body and hope that the black aspect lasts. They also produce a silver / black variant but unfortunately I couldn't get one at the right price.

Not had much chance to do anything other that brows through the endless menu settings. These did cause me some concern as functionally the camera seemed to be really different to a Pen. Browsing through the web I found this page which has been a great help. It's interesting to note that the default set up is dslr like - a really strange thing to do in my opinion. Things like touch screen directing focus and then shooting are useful at times as are live view settings. The camera can still be used in a normal dslr fashion anyway when some of the features are enabled.

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/911...e-olympus-e-m5

People who wouldn't dream of buying one might find this an interesting read. I'm rather happy about some of the features I have gained that I didn't know I would get. My main beef with the Pen was lack of image stability for manual focusing and to a much lesser extent certain reservations about the sensor. The IS is fixed on the OM and it uses a Sony sensor. They have switched to Sony sensors on some of the cameras as have Nikon. Not sure what make of sensor the E-P3 used but it's possible to cope via taking a little more care with exposures. That aspect can probably be improved via one of the various camera tone curves anyway. One of the problems with the entire range at the more serious end is that it can take many hundreds of shots to fully get to grips them. Not helped by the fact that the cameras ship without full manuals. Printed ones have to be bought. As usual the manuals are a mixed blessing anyway really.

John
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[pnodrog]

Sounds interesting - maybe they plan to release a 24-80mm lens and cannot be bothered to design a new lens barrel. I hope you show us some photographs taken with it and a report on how much you like using it.

[Karl]

I have just bought one with the 12 - 50mm lens and the 60mm macro lens to replace my Canon G12 for my underwater photography and I love this little camera and so far I can not fault it.

Will be using the 60mm macro lens for my underwater photography and the 12 - 50mm for topside stuff when I take it on a diving trip.

Have just bought the book by David Busch to learn more about it and hopefully will explain the camera better.

Karl

[ajohnw]

I'm fairly sure I will be happy using it. It's my 3rd m 4/3 camera in an unusually short period of time for me note my canons! I started with the E-PL1 but purely compact type controls can be a bit irritating especially with a view finder on so bought the E-P3. I had been thinking about upgrading one of the Canons but went this way instead. Basically because I went down the Pen route to reduce the size of the gear that can need to be carried around at times. I've bought several lenses. The line up is likely to be Olympus 12-50mm, Olympus Pen 40-150mm and a Panasonic 100-300mm. Plus the macro lens and a manual Pentax 100mm macro lens when needed. I also bought the Panasonic 45-200mm lens but feel that was a mistake. On the Pen's I would be happy with the standard 14-42mm and the Panasonic 100-300mm and nothing to cover the missing focal lengths. The E-EM5 is likely to be used mostly that way too but as I have the 40-150 and it takes up very little space I may as well use it.

It seems I'm likely to get the macro lens for Xmas. I suspect that the size of the 12-50mm may be down to what they loosely call water proofing. It also contains a fair amount of glass. The fixed length aspect probably has something to do with it as well. That probably makes "water proofing" easier. Only F6.3 at 50mm however but that's down to the F3.5 at 12mm. It would have to be a rather large diameter lens to do any better.

I would suggest you read the content of the link Karl and try the set up they suggest for a while at least. I didn't notice the small button on the side of the viewfinder but was a lot happier when I did. The shooting settings they suggest are likely to be a good starting point as well. I believe it also has tone curves. I have stayed away from those so far on the Pens.

John
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