Considering PEN E-P5

[jarski]

Hello. local electronics store has a rebate of PEN E-P5 until end of this month, and am considering to replace my G1X. nothing else wrong with Canon except the slow focusing that I never really got over with (after almost 2 years).

so the Olympus. it shares the sensor with original E-M5. hows that by todays standards?

my usual shooting process is: lock exposure, lock focus with center focus point, recompose and snap. reckon this is easy with Olympus, as it seems to be very configurable. I shoot often at night, so ISO 6400 would be nice.

perhaps two zoom lenses. wide to normal and another for tele end. don't know the m4/3 lenses that well. ideas?

Wifi ability and mobile app could be a fun to play with, but would be shooting raw and process in Lightroom for my "serious" shots.

After playing with PEN in shop, it looks pretty neat and shutter does not seem too loud. Focus locks in faster and camera seems more responsive then Canon, although am going to miss soundless shutter of G1X. dont need the external viewfinder for PEN, rear LCD is just fine.

what todo? :angel:

 

[anerjee]

I've been using the E-P5 for almost a year now, and its a superb camera. I use it with 2 primes, the Olympus 17mm f/1.8 25mm f/1.8.

Lightroom has good profiles for simulating "Olympus" colors on RAW files. I use them a lot.

I find ISO 6400 quite ok for my use, esp converted to b&w.

Lastly, get the EVF. It is a joy to use and makes manual focus much easier. I use mf even on Olympus lenses, especially for very close distances in low light.

Hello. local electronics store has a rebate of PEN E-P5 until end of this month, and am considering to replace my G1X. nothing else wrong with Canon except the slow focusing that I never really got over with (after almost 2 years).

so the Olympus. it shares the sensor with original E-M5. hows that by todays standards?

my usual shooting process is: lock exposure, lock focus with center focus point, recompose and snap. reckon this is easy with Olympus, as it seems to be very configurable. I shoot often at night, so ISO 6400 would be nice.

perhaps two zoom lenses. wide to normal and another for tele end. don't know the m4/3 lenses that well. ideas?

Wifi ability and mobile app could be a fun to play with, but would be shooting raw and process in Lightroom for my "serious" shots.

After playing with PEN in shop, it looks pretty neat and shutter does not seem too loud. Focus locks in faster and camera seems more responsive then Canon, although am going to miss soundless shutter of G1X. dont need the external viewfinder for PEN, rear LCD is just fine.

what todo? :angel:

 

[jarski]

thx anerjee. offered camera comes with kit lens: 12-42mm. any experiences with this lens, is it a keeper?

VF4 seems to get lots of good comments and reviews. am probably skipping it least in the beginning. am having older dSLR for those camera-in-my-face type of shooting.

750USD for the kit. thats seems pretty good price. Amazon sells body only for 799.

 

[peterm1]

I do not have this particular Olympus but rather still have an E PL2. When I started trying M4/3 cameras I happened upon a Sigma 30mm f2.8 which is very well regarded and I decided to buy it instead of the Olympus 25mm (although I own the 45mm f1.8 Olympus which is superb). It's a bargain and for the price quite well made. But what really stands out is its performance. Here is an image of my mother shot with the Sony NEX version of the lens which I also own (don't ask!) It performs equally impressively on the Olympus. I only mention it as its a lens that is well worth considering if you are upgrading cameras. Its a lens so good I bought 2 of them!

Margot - looking intense by yoyomaoz, on Flickr

 

[jarski]

Thx peterm1 for lens info. Am probably good in the beging with kit zoom. Panaleica 25 could be interesting too. Now, guess only thing that's missing anymore is me to dig out my wallet...

 

[anerjee]

I dont have the lens, but most reviews of it are very positive, e.g. Ming Thein

750USD is a good price. I paid 1000USD for the e-p5 + vf4 + 17mm.

Edit: linked to the wrong lens review, sorry!

thx anerjee. offered camera comes with kit lens: 12-42mm. any experiences with this lens, is it a keeper?

VF4 seems to get lots of good comments and reviews. am probably skipping it least in the beginning. am having older dSLR for those camera-in-my-face type of shooting.

750USD for the kit. thats seems pretty good price. Amazon sells body only for 799.

 

[AlexBG]

I have the 14-42 on an e-p3 and quite like it, used it for a year then checked the data on lightroom and nearly everything I shot was at 14-18mm so got the 17mm pancake so the camera is just pocket-able. Hate the 17mm, images are OK but it never focuses where I want it to. Going to give the sigma 19mm a try. The main lens I use on mine are a summaron 35mm and OM 28mm. The pen system is very good, as soon as a full frame one comes out I'm getting it!

 

[Harryo1962]

I love their gear, but I am concerned about the financial viability of the company in light of their recent events.

 

[traveler_101]

Hello. local electronics store has a rebate of PEN E-P5 until end of this month, and am considering to replace my G1X. nothing else wrong with Canon except the slow focusing that I never really got over with (after almost 2 years).

so the Olympus. it shares the sensor with original E-M5. hows that by todays standards?

my usual shooting process is: lock exposure, lock focus with center focus point, recompose and snap. reckon this is easy with Olympus, as it seems to be very configurable. I shoot often at night, so ISO 6400 would be nice.

perhaps two zoom lenses. wide to normal and another for tele end. don't know the m4/3 lenses that well. ideas?

Wifi ability and mobile app could be a fun to play with, but would be shooting raw and process in Lightroom for my "serious" shots.

After playing with PEN in shop, it looks pretty neat and shutter does not seem too loud. Focus locks in faster and camera seems more responsive then Canon, although am going to miss soundless shutter of G1X. dont need the external viewfinder for PEN, rear LCD is just fine.

what todo? :angel:

There are a number of new high quality zooms out now, not my thing so I haven't paid close attention, but I think the Panasonic 35-100 and the Olympus 12-40, both constant F/2.8, and both are very well respected. Everyone's favourite "cheapie" is the Olympus 40-150. Very good image quality from a typical consumer zoom.

 

[traveler_101]

I love their gear, but I am concerned about the financial viability of the company in light of their recent events.

The company makes its money from its medical department and is doing very well. M43 sales are up and they have narrowed losses in the photographic division. The problem has been a complete collapse of sales at the low end of the camera market. olympus isn't the only form suffering from that problem.

 

[shadowfox]

The company makes its money from its medical department and is doing very well. M43 sales are up and they have narrowed losses in the photographic division. The problem has been a complete collapse of sales at the low end of the camera market. olympus isn't the only form suffering from that problem.

Exactly.

In Asia (not just Japan), increasing number of wedding photographers are trading out their Canons and Nikons to Olympus and Fuji systems because mainly of the size difference.

With their image quality and improved post-processing tools, smaller lenses and cameras wins out in the end when you have a full shooting schedules in multiple locations that lasted through out the day (or days in a lot of cultures).

I personally am disappointed because this means that those of us who are waiting for a full-frame (or bigger) sensor OM-D probably won't see it coming out of Olympus anytime soon.

 

[jarski]

There are a number of new high quality zooms out now, not my thing so I haven't paid close attention, but I think the Panasonic 35-100 and the Olympus 12-40, both constant F/2.8, and both are very well respected. Everyone's favourite "cheapie" is the Olympus 40-150. Very good image quality from a typical consumer zoom.

thx these too were interesting pointers. two quality zoom kit is hard to beat IMO, although understand others prefer primes.

am going to sleep over it, just in case, but this camera is pretty tempting..

 

[traveler_101]

thx these too were interesting pointers. two quality zoom kit is hard to beat IMO, although understand others prefer primes.

am going to sleep over it, just in case, but this camera is pretty tempting..

By the way, if zooms are your thing you might also consider the E-M10 which has a built in electronic viewfinder and is therefore a little more DSLR-like, i.e. viewfinder-centred. If you plan on using a viewfinder most of the time it's nice to have one built into the camera. The E-M10 and E-P5 are similar in size and both have an array of dedicated manual controls; they are similarly priced, I believe. The E-P5 is apparently a beautifully made camera so you might prefer it, but I generally think of the Pens (E-P5, E-PL5 & E-PM2) as cameras that you pair with quick primes and shoot off the cuff, especially by composing on and even shooting from the touch screen. Of course, with the attachable EVF (sometimes packaged with the camera) you can also use the camera in the more conventional way.

 

[mh2000]

About "beautifully made cameras," that can add to the joy of shooting for some people. Since my daughter got the E-PL5 and I've had a chance to play with it some more, I have to say I really appreciate my aging E-P1! Even though nowhere near on par with the E-PL5 technically, the added controls and better feel of the E-P1 make it much more enjoyable to shoot then the E-PL5. Of course, if I was unhappy with photos I was taking with the E-P1 and couldn't afford the E-P5, I'd get one of the lower spec'ed Pens.

Regarding the Sigma 30, yes, very very good little bargain prime! I recently replaced mine with the Oly 25 and have to say, aside from a few photos I've taken at f1.8, the "upgrade" really felt like a non-event photographically. I only really got the 25 because it was offered for the very low price of $280 shipped from Henry's in Canada...

Alex, interesting that your 17 doesn't focus correctly, I have never experienced this problem at all. Other than being *slightly* softer than some of my other lenses, the 17 has proven to be a solid performer for the 4-odd years that I've shot it. From the reviews, the Sigma 19 looks to be quite good. If you can go a little wider, the 14 is a sweet little lens to shoot (some IQ compromises, but if you like pancakes like me, if the FL works, you'll enjoy it!).

The 40-150 is quite a good "cheapie!" I don't shoot long that much so it is nice to have, "just in case."

 

[AlexBG]

I've just got the sigma 19mm, apart from being noisy as it making noise when it focuses and also when the camera is not powered on it seems better than the pancake. Just feels right on the camera and the focus seems better. Not sure what was going on with the 17mm, just didn't work for me and I fell out with it. I prefer the 35mm length to.

I was going to sell the E-p3 and lenses and get a sony rx100ii that would easily fit in the pocket but it ended on £250 on ebay and I didn't want to pay the extra for the sony for no gain.

Jarski did you get it in the end?

 

[arseniii]

I had e-p5 for about 6 months. It's a great camera: compact, well built, fun to use e.t.c. but there is one BIG BUT "IT HAS SHUTTER SHAKE ISSUE" almost all of my photos in the range of 1/60s-1/160s. were blurry because of it.
I heard they did some workaround in the latest firmware but I decided to keep my E-P1 and to sell E-P5 while I can.

 

[jarski]

hi! thanks for new comments. am still on the fence but leaning towards taking the offer (which is still on).

while reading web about PEN, also spotted the shake issue and new firmware. Dpreview claims issue is gone: "At the time of the original review, the E-P5 was prone to shake in images shot around 1/160th seconds. With Firmware 1.4 (launched May 2014), a '0 Sec Anti-Shock' feature has been added that can effectively resolve this problem."

and actual experiences about this?

for now, am planning just to replace the Canon, and use Oly as snappier one body one lens camera. how long I can restrain myself in this remains to be seen

 

[Bingley]

EP5 prices have dropped to $799 for the body alone. Reviews of the EP5 have been very favorable overall. Anyone else tempted?

 

[Range-rover]

That's really good, I have a E-P3 and really like it I use it all the time now
when I go street shooting and leave my Nikon D300 home. you should get
it.

Range

 

[Bingley]

Thanks! I've ordered a black one.